You're the sun, you're the moon, you're the universe I'm falling into

Oh no...Anthony Callea's newest single, "Addicted To You," debuted at #19 in the charts today. I just don't understand...I'd promised myself I was going to avoid writing about him for a while and hold off on posting more album songs, but I just have to break one of those promises. I'm worried about him, though I know I shouldn't be--his album has sold gold, which, though far behind his debut album (two times platinum), means he's far from a struggling artist. My copy of the "Addicted To You" single hasn't arrived yet, so I can't check the writing credits (which I'm interested to see), but I still want to write about one of the b-sides from it. My thoughts haven't coalesced into something coherent yet, but I'm too eager to share it to wait any longer.

(Note: this song is only going to be up for a few days at most; even though Australia's chart seems to be more a "start at the highest you'll get" sort of chart than the U.S. one, the single is still very new.)

Try (link removed)--things I love about this song:

• the strings
• the backing beat (not the cymbalish thing in the chorus)
• the strings
• the end of the chorus--the beginning is nice, especially because it's not overwhelming you with the guitars (a nice change), though not mind-blowing, but the best part is "I don't have to tryyyy," where the guitars drop out and something about how Anthony's singing that word just works
  
• the piano
• the verses--I love the flow of the words (I might not be fond of all the lyrics themselves--shouldn't it be "putty in your hands," not "water in your hands," if we're talking about being remade? And "you make me weak at the knees/I would do anything for you/you don't have to say please" isn't the strongest of lines, but with the exception of that part, everything--even the water line--just sounds good)
  
• the strings! They're nothing complicated, but they make this song with their punctuation of the verses

Oh, and Anthony's voice is, of course, a given.

Anthony fuses the classical half of the album with the pop-rock half here, something which he does to some degree on other songs, but I think this song is starting to really hint at where he could go in the future--it's a great song as is, but possibly more importantly it hints at an interesting direction he could take, if he pushes a little further (though I still maintain I'm hoping for a "Wanna Be The One"-esque album--bring on the danceable pop!). As much as I enjoy the rock-out songs, not only is it nice to mix it up, the sort of guitars he generally uses can sometimes drown out the orchestral strings. There's a word that perfectly describes the aura of this song, but it's escaping me at the moment; suffice to say that "Try" is catchy, distinctive, and a little bit poignant.

Go support the boy--buy Anthony Callea's single "Addicted To You" here (physical). Please? You'll get this song, the single mix of "Addicted To You," and "Meant For Love," previously only available on Australian iTunes, which is also a good song. Think of it as a dual investment--you're supporting 1.) the prevention of Anthony reverting to Prayer duplication mode, and 2.) someone who, though he needs to get some stuff sorted out, and I wish we could get him to work with some of the great songwriters out there (by "great songwriters" I of course mean the people making brilliant, catchy, fun, uptempo pop which pretty much all seems to come from certain parts of Europe nowadays--can we ship Anthony to Sweden? or to the UK circa 2003?), has a lot of potential...it would be a shame to see him fade away.

Next up: the Swedish dance-pop I mentioned yesterday is definitely coming, but that will be in the middle of the week...I think France will be up next.