Du säger ja, jag säger nej

Charlotte Perrelli's song sounds like "Kempe-schlager and Kylie-pop with a splash of Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' and S Club 7's 'Don't Stop Movin'." I have no idea how one song can sound like all of those things, but doesn't it sound BRILLIANT?! Plus, toss in a "Kalla Nätter" reference and I really don't know how it could get any more amazing-sounding.

Linda, despite falling during rehearsals, has a schlager song that will make a bunch of people religious after "Linda's three minutes of salvation" or cause the entire population of Sweden to become gay. (Also, the comparison to "Grace Kelly" did pop up again, in reference to the verses.)

Daniel has "the year's gay hit" (as well as a classic fifth placer; apparently it's overchoreographed).

Could I get any more excited? I really don't think so. And that's just three of the songs we've got to look forward to in this Saturday's Melodifestival semifinal.

One day, this blog will return to its only-semi-dominated-by-Swedish-music state, but as long as Melodifestivalen keeps going, I'm going to have Swedish music on the brain. Some day I really will finish that Fame Factory special I started, but until then, let's have another song from a Swedish group I love(d): Fame. Jessica Andersson, the female half of Fame, is off doing duets with Nordman now and the male half, Magnus Backlund--well, I've got no idea what he's doing musically, but he is talking to Gylleneskor about this upcoming semifinal.

Gjorda för varandra--I think Fame had some absolutely fantastic tracks. Oddly enough, most of those weren't on their only album (including one of my favorite Melodifestival tracks of this decade, "Vindarna Vänder Oss," their followup entry after winning all of Melodifestivalen with "Give Me Your Love"). "Gjorda för varandra," released as a single in 2005, was one of those. A mix of pop and schlager, it's not a schlager stomper in the sense of being some big uptempo song that you picture lots of big dramatic strutting across the stage to--though you could do that, if you wanted; it's just that it's more on the mid-tempo side. The song lists a bunch of things the (fictional) couple disagree on before concluding in each bridge and chorus that without those differences they wouldn't be attracted to each other and that, in the end, they're a couple, meant for each other (I think). Basically, upbeat catchy Swedish pop that, like many of Fame's songs, comes in right about at three minutes.

To buy Fame's single "Gjorda för varandra," go here (physical) or here (digital).

Next up: part of me wonders if maybe I shouldn't just skip the previews on Friday and hear them for the first time on Saturday--but yeah right, as if I have that much self control, so tomorrow will probably be writings about Melodifestivalen.

She love the fast life

I'm so sorry, but something's come up and I have to run off--I'll be back tomorrow, though, and catch up on everything as well as actually properly post!

Until then, I leave you with the thought that had Ace of Base formed in the U.S. in 2008 they probably would have ended up sounding like this. In other words, we should all be thanking our lucky stars they didn't.

This is how it's gonna look, just like this

Oh Blake. An interview with him by the people from MySpace was posted as a video just recently. You don't hear the questions--they just appear as still screens with text written on them--so for all we know the questions we see aren't the actual questions asked, but the first question really made me laugh:

"'How Many Words' became a hit despite not being considered a single by your label. What were your initial feelings on making 'How Many Words' a single?"

If just barely charting inside the iTunes top 100 for one day when the album was released counts as a hit, then yes, it's been a hit. Otherwise, aren't we getting a bit ahead of ourselves?

In better Blake news, he'll be performing "How Many Words" on Idol on March 6, the day we find out the top 12.

He was on some VH1 show, too (not one of their reality shows), but, um, not really worth most people's time.

(Though it's fantastic that he'll be performing on Idol, I can't help thinking "How Many Words" should be being released to radios now--preferably before now--so that it doesn't have virtually no plays when he goes on and performs it.)

Tie me down, hold me down, come on

Continuing on with the theme established by the last post of supposedly pretty boy popstars who no one besides me cares about, today I bring you another song from former South African Idols contestant Jacques (who seriously needs to get some new promo photos, preferably some that show some awareness of capturing a good face and not just showcasing an exposed chest). After going down the jazz route (well, he released a second album after that, but I've got no idea what it sounded like*; edit: and a third, ditto), Jacques has apparently decided he's hungry for some commercial success. His latest album, The Colour Red, is being referred to as R&B album, but it seems to me that there's a pretty health of dose of electro and electronica (of the poppy sort) on The Colour Red. "Turn Back Time," "Love's Like A Breeze," and "A Kinda Weight" are all examples of the latter, but the song I'm posting today is the former.

Set Me Free--I still can't get over the fact that Mark Beling wrote this--both because 1.) he's Mark Beling, and 2.) a South African writer did this--it just doesn't sound anything like the sort of music we usually get from there. Plus, it really sounds like it would be part of the recycled song circuit, something borrowed from Europe. I wouldn't say this is a "Jacques must release this now so he can have an international hit" type of song, but for a random album track that most people outside of (and probably inside of) South Africa will never hear, it's pretty great, and it could quite easily be picked up as an album track for an artist from another country. Sounding something like what you'd get if you mashed up Phixx and Jamelia's "Beware Of The Dog" but not as fantastic as that might make you expect, "Set Me Free" is an electro-rock pop stomper that would probably need to have the electro and stomp settings notched up before it would qualify as "amazing," but it's still great and catchy, and it does have some fantastic moments in it (the drum part, the opening, and middle 8 being particular highlights--I love how different the middle 8, the "why would you be alone" section, is from the rest of the song; it's like this brief eye of the storm moment, a temporary break from the darkness). Despite all my caveats here, "Set Me Free" is a pretty exciting song, international in sound, cluing me in to a direction I'll be interested to see if Jacques or Mark pursues further as well as being a very enjoyable listen on its own merits.

To buy Jacques's album The Colour Red, go here (physical) or here (digital).

Next up: maybe something Swedish.

*This quotation about said album cracks me up every time: "The album is called Revealed. I named it Revealed ‘cause I’m revealing my happiness and no-care attitude in the album. As I said, it’s more commercial and I am revealing that side of myself. There’s also a pic on the front cover without my shirt." Deep, Jacques. And shocking.

Have you singin' all night night night

OMG, JESSE MCCARTNEY (temporarily) on the front page of PopJustice?!

*dies*

(Sorry, but I had to break out the textspeak for this one.)

And his album is "a mass of electronic urban pop which, at its heights, is the sort of stuff Chris Brown would kill for"? And he's "on the verge of staging the most unexpectedly brilliant pop reinvention in recent memory"?

Best. Day. Ever. No, really!

(All that said, I wonder if his getting a mention there will even further alienate Internet World from him...and it'd be a shame if people ignored his earlier work, since he's got songs with a stronger feel to them. And all this could be snark, who knows.)

Edit: oh, and I wonder if his record company actually meant to make that stream they provided a downloadable and convertable WMA...

Edit again: apparently Jesse (who currently has his hair cut too short) shot the music video for "Leavin'" about a week ago, and it's directed by someone I've actually mentioned on here before, Sanji. Jesse may know him from his "She's No You" video, but he's also given us gems like Blake's "Break Anotha" video. Fantastic.

Since I don't want to bombard people that probably don't care as much as I do with Jesse posts, I'll just keep editing stuff into this one.

You can hear part of what's probably the song "Rock You" playing in this video and this video from a listening party; it does sound very club/urban influenced, which is no surprise, considering it's by Sean Garrett. The sound quality's not that good, though. The album is called Departure and comes out May 20.

Also, continuing the trend from his Right Where You Want Me album cover, the first promotional image for this new album is awful. Even worse than said cover, in fact.

I'm not takin' this whole thing light

What? Huh? How? Where did he...where is it....when did...???

Not that I'm complaining, mind! I'm beyond thrilled--it's easily one of the best singles of the year (and I really mean top echelon, not just a great single) and I was so afraid it would just sink without a trace. But I am so confused...is it just getting a bunch more radio play than I thought? I mean, Jonathan's out of the country right now, so it's not like he's even doing promo tours (at the moment; before's a different story) or something and telling people to buy it!

No more sad goodbyes, close your gloomy eyes

Before we get into the descriptive part of this post, I'd just like to say that this album cover


sums up the entire '80's to me. Well, granted, it's not like I remember much of the '80's, but it captures what I think of when I think of them.

Anyway, some day I will properly investigate the fantastic American and British artists of the '80's...but apparently that day wasn't anytime this past week. What did I end up listening to, for reasons even I don't understand? Old '80's tracks from Swedish singers Pernilla Wahlgren and Lena Philipsson. It's not like I've got that much of either artist's '80's output, but for some reason I've got the urge to investigate. I started with the easiest '80's album to get from Pernilla, her self-titled 1985 debut (though sadly I've got the reissue and not the original with the cover you see above), put out after her performance of "Piccadilly Circus" in Melodifestivalen. The song only took fourth, but it became a (said to be overplayed now) classic. After releasing this album, Pernilla would go on to release several more (I need to track down at least Pure Dynamite and probably Attractive as well) and participated in Melodifestivalen again before taking a break from performing chart music and instead doing things like children's TV and musicals. She came back to Melodifestivalen in 2003 singing the duet "Let Your Spirit Fly" with Jan Johansen. In 2006, she released a new album, and just recently she released a new single, the schlager and probably Melodifestival reject "I min värld."

Her 1985 album, which has some songs in Swedish and some in English, has some great songs. "Can't Live Without You" is an ode to tracking down the guy who left you, but this is no mournful ballad--it's more of a hunting song set to a revvy mid-tempo beat, which includes lines like the following

I'm walkin on the sidewalks of Santa Fe
I'm lookin' for an old rusted Chevrolet
And now the clue I got is your spice cologne

The opening track, "Svindlande Affärer," which was a single, is great as well (though apparently not on the original edition of the album). I could keep going but, jumping to the point, the song I'm sharing today was never a single, at least to my knowledge, but it's at least as good as the singles from this album.

Don't Run Away From Me Now--I'm pretty sure this song is amazing--no, scratch that, I am sure. Somewhere between mid-tempo and power ballad territory, "Don't Run Away From Me Now" opens up fairly minimally, trying to create a little bit of atmosphere and the feeling that we might just be building into something, before eventually giving us a fantastic punchy (very '80's) chorus that helps the song take on a big (dare I say epic?) feel...well, big at least for this sort of commercial '80's pop. It doesn't really have one vocal hook to key in on (though the backing music is definitely throwing all sorts of hooks at you), but it's still catchy--I've been going around with "Tenderness is hard to find/Don't run away from me now" stuck in my head for days. This isn't '80's electro-pop or anything, just old-fashioned classic '80's pop, complete with big overhead handclap-friendly middle section.

To buy Pernilla Wahlgren's self-titled album, go here (physical).

Next up: maybe Jacques.

You've blinded me, it's all I can see

I've written before, here and elsewhere, about how convoluted the South African pop music scene is. When a pop act there comes out with a new song, you're almost safer betting on it being a cover than being original--surprisingly often, of a song with a Eurovision or national final connection, but in general usually from Europe (usually Sweden).

Take, for example, Jacques's new album, which I finally got today. It contains a cover of a song from mad-in-a-good-way Danish singer Ida Corr's second album Robosoul; it's a retitled version of "I'm Your Lady," here called "I'm Your Baby."

Many other songs on the album have that feel of being recycled to me, and I'm sure I'll be trying to figure it all out for a while. One song I really thought had to be a cover was "Set Me Free." Sounding like a Phixx track or something electro-rock out of the '80's, it was so different from the rest of the album--though great--that I was sure it must have been originally done by someone else. Imagine my surprise, then, when I looked at the credits and saw that it was written by Mark Beling. Mark Beling? Surely not! He's a South African singer known for doing MOR/adult contemporary sort of stuff...including a MOR-ified version of Swedish singer Evan's "The Moment I Miss You," retitled "The Moment." Mark Beling did this?! I'm still not entirely sure I believe no samples, at the least, were involved.

Another good song on the album is "Turn Back Time," which I think started out life as a dance track released under the name of one of its writers, Patric Sarin.

Some of the covers are obvious: track 13 is Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up" and track 4, "Natural Born Hustla" featuring Akon, was originally done by Cyssero, still featuring Akon (correct me if someone did it earlier). The music and Akon's part are the same, with Cyssero's raps being swapped out for Jacques's sung parts. "Shake Shake" sounds like it must be a cover as well, but I've not been able to find proof of that yet.

Anyway, from the moment I first heard a preview clip of it, I was convinced "Love's Like A Breeze" sampled something really famous, something (electronica-ish) I knew and was going to be really embarrassed when someone pointed out to me what it was. Having got the album and being able to look at the liner notes, though, I still can't figure out what that would be. Even knowing that the only people credited as writers are Paul Rein and Graham Stack (both have written a lot of songs; presuming it's the same Graham Stack, he's part of Metro), I still can't figure out what "Love's Like A Breeze" is a cover of or is sampling or reminds me very very much of. I think it's going to drive me insane. Am I already crazy and this really is original and brand new or could someone put me out of my misery and tell me what the snippet below is from/sounds like?

Love's Like A Breeze (Short Clip)

You want it, you'll get it, just keep on working hard

It's out:

Elin's video for "Speak 'n Spell"

In other Swedish news, Jonathan's actually at #25 on the iTunes chart at the moment--"Playing Me" must be getting a lot more radio play on P4 than I thought or something. Oh, an apparently Alexander Schöld made a music video for "Den första svalan."

Edit: I forgot to mention that I think Elin is working with Tony "Natalie"/"S.O.S."/"Love In Stereo" Nilsson, which is very exciting.

Also, I shoud've really actually written something about the video. It's definitey not full-on girl in dance video-type shots, movements, and exposure, but, even better, I'd also say it's not like the video for, say, Elize's "Automatic"--a video with some fantastic popstar moments but that also has some shots that hark back to that dance video sort of stuff. The outfit pictured in the post below works really well (and she looks fantastic in it), as do the military style outfit and the outfit that reminds me of an ANTM photo shoot. Her reinvention is pretty radical, though, and I hope that doesn't automatically throw the public off. I'll see if I can come up with something more coherent to say later. For now, though, basically: well done, Elin.