Monday, March 09, 2009

Can I get a minute and a couple seconds of your time?

Darin correction: Darin's official site posted yesterday that "Runaway" is the official new single from the Swedish artist and is being promoted to Swedish radio stations. Despite that, I know stations just got shipped a version of "What If" (listed as an album bonus track despite being on all versions of the album) credited to "Darin featuring Friends" or "Friends featuring Darin" which was made available digitally for purpose today; he filmed video for "What If," too.

I think the situation is what I initially thought it was: "What If" is just to promote an anti-bullying campaign for the organization Friends. "Runaway" is the actual third single from Flashback.

"Runaway" isn't a bad song by any stretch and it would be more than welcome on my American radio any day, but it's very much not in my top tier of songs from the album (if we're talking of things other than club-friendly urban dance tracks, "Road Trip" and "Paradise" are far ahead of it in my eyes). Still, my taste in Darin's music and the Swedish public's taste doesn't seem to line up very often, so I'll be hoping the single and maybe his performance during the interval of Melodifestivalen about a week ago can give the album a bit of a sales boost, something it really needs.

7 comments:

Aaron said...

Interesting choice!

Personally, I would have preferred Strobelight or Road Trip if they were desperate for an R'n'B track, but Runaway works!

Poster Girl said...

I love "Road Trip" so much that just thinking about it gets me all giddy. It's a perfect pop song. "Strobelight" was a big favorite of a lot of Swedish reviewers, so I was surprised they went with "See U In The Club" (which I much prefer) instead of it, if they wanted a dance-friendly second single.

Myfizzypop said...

Interesting pick of single. I was just getting comfortable with What If too. Roadtrip definitely is the strongest track for single contender, so perhaps they are holding that back for single four and a final sales push for the album? Hopefully will not be too late. Strobelight would still be a great single, with hopefully some ace remixes. Perhaps we should just ignore Runaway and pretend Roadtrip is the new single!

Poster Girl said...

Paul, I'll be surprised if further singles, should they even come out, make an impact in Sweden. He is doing/did some promo in France, but nothing substantial has resulted that I know of. I like the pretending plan ;)

AcerBen said...

I'm seriously worried he's gonna get dropped :( The album has tanked.

Dance should have been a single. Was a no brainer to me.

Poster Girl said...

Ben, I'm incredibly worried, too :-/ I've been avoiding saying it out loud, but since you've brought it up...I keep telling myself he'd have to get resigned somewhere, if nothing else at least get some "one-off with option to extend if do well" Melodifestival entry-type deal, but it's nerve-wracking.

Poster Girl said...

As a P.S., it's incredibly frustrating because I listen to his music and think he should be having international success, not struggling to succeed in Sweden.