#41 Nikki, "Bring Me Down"

I never break down any longer
I don't know why I can't move on
I really need, I really want you to

Bring me down

Pop-rock straight from the Kelly Clarkson school (well, with maybe just the tiniest twinge of that country-rock-soul genre), "Bring Me Down," a request for the return of a destructive relationship, was a song I initially felt disappointed by--the music of that chorus just felt not fleshed out enough. As the months passed, though, I returned to this first "proper" single from Dutch Idols winner Nikki again and again. It's the experience of singing along to "Bring Me Down" at the top of my lungs that probably really sold me on it.

"Bring Me Down" is a good example of how a good melody can combine with some well executed if not original production to result in something worth keeping; if the melody had been used in a more minimal ballad, I doubt I would have paid proper attention to it--it benefits from all the guitars, percussion, and power pop production done on the track--but many the Kelly Clarkson knockoff song has failed to come up with a melody strong enough to make the song worth our while--just throwing a blowout chorus together with some guitars does not a good song make. Nikki's got the voice and range to pull all of this off, her voice usually fairly clear but with a little darkness in the choruses.

Unfortunately, her debut album was disappointing. When I'm singing along with the closing "bring me down"s of this song, though, I couldn't care less.

Find it on: Naked

Jag är tillbaks?

With credit to PubliSpain, Naked, the debut album of Dutch singer Nikki, whose Kelly Clarkson-ish song "Bring Me Down" is really shaping up to be one of my favorite singles of the year, can be listened to in its entirety here. Good news: another version of "Brief & Beautiful" (though it plays as track 8, not track 9 as labeled)! Just what the world needed.

Surely Markoolio can't be imitating Lady GaGa's "Poker Face" in his new song ("The Markoolio Anthem")? I mean, the turnaround time given when "Poker Face" started taking off in Sweden...they just couldn't have done it quickly enough...could they? But what other (modern, unless we think he's going Boney M.) reason would there be for that very distinctive "ma ma ma ma" after the chorus (not the one near the chorus's beginning)? It's a heck of a coincidence otherwise.

I am beyond thrilled that finally, finally I was able to buy John Barrowman's "What About Us." My love of that song (an ultimate sing-along-in-your-car, clenched-fists sort of melodic power ballad) still remains at unhealthy levels--I'm blaming you, Gary Barlow.

Speaking of Popjustice-featured songs, I also love Britain's Got Talent winner George Sampson's debut single, "Get Up On The Dance Floor." Yes, he won for being a dancer, not any sort of musician, but that hasn't stopped me from playing this song (via its video), basically a mash-up of a bunch of famous dance tracks, multiple times. I will absolutely not back down on my love of this.



Also on the front of tracks that will probably be marketed towards British kids but that I adore, we've also got Same Difference's "We R One." Paul already analyzed the video, so instead I'll just leave it at this: fantastic song and fantastic dance routine for the chorus, especially during the whole "together, together, we're coming undone" second half of the chorus. Just as he did when writing for Marie Serneholt's solo album, Jörgen Elofsson's done a great job of making a song that harks back to '90's pure pop but that's still enjoyable for today. I wish he'd make songs like this--as opposed to the ballads he seems to mainly produce now--more often.

It's so calm and quiet without you

For lack of time, I'll just say that this song, which I've written about several times before, continues to only get better and better with time and is just fantastic to shout along with at the top of your lungs. Fantastic. There are even a few lines I can imagine Kelly singing, much as it is the opposite in sentiment of a song like "Since U Been Gone."

Playing house in the ruins of us

Nikki's power-pop "Bring Me Down" is only growing on me with time, though I think the music video for it does it absolutely no favors--in fact, I think it makes the chorus seem less powerful than it is. Given that I think the lyrics, though not revelatory, are actually getting to an interesting point, something that played up what she's talking about more would have been welcome. I'm kind of surprised an Idols winner didn't get a bigger budget for her first real single.



Moving to Belgium, we've got Reshum and her single "Never Thought," which once again has lyrics interesting enough to be worth listening to. It's a song with a refreshing sound to it as well. Once again, I don't love the video, but it'll do for introducing you to the song.



Tiziano Ferro is back, and that AME he was teasing us with? It stands for "Alla mia età." That's the title of his new single, which you can listen to here. It's also available in Spanish as "A mi edad." I would love it if he'd toss us something edgy like "Stop! Dimentica" somewhere on the upcoming album, of the same title as the single and due out November 7, but I'm going to hold off on writing about this single for now because I think I may want to write about it more in depth later.

Random bits and pieces of Swedish singer news:

• Darin's new single "Breathing Your Love" comes out October 13, but he'll perform it on TV October 11. The album, called Flashback, comes out December 3. No idea who was involved with making it.
• Måns Zelmerlöw has submitted several songs for Melodifestivalen (we don't know what songs have made the cut yet) and has said he's laying low this fall, with an album out this March (conveniently timed to tie in with Melodifestivalen)--I guess he's decided against that October single thing, then, if he's laying low now?
• Måns's girlfriend Marie Serneholt is, however, planning on releasing new music this fall. Måns says it's good. Let's hope. In the meantime, she's appearing in the Swedish version of Stars On Ice.
  

In blog news (and the most exciting news out of all of this post), Mike has returned to Pop Trash Addicts!

For old times' sake

Am I the only one who, every time she hears the beat of the new All-American rejects song, "Gives You Hell," keeps thinking "oh, they've sample Busted's 'Year 3000'!" I mean, I don't really think they have, but that beat is kind of similar to a part of that song. It's kind of an odd song from them, at least as a lead single--that strong guitar part we're used to from them doesn't come in until more than a minute into the song, when we get to the chorus for the first time, and even then, it isn't that guitar-y. I really don't know what to make of it--is it good? Kitschy and disappointing? Different and good? Less different than I think it is? Is the technique that it uses for the last 50 seconds, that whole-crowd-chanting-the-lyrics technique, something that makes the song more powerful, or a desperate attempt to give the song some sort of impact? Should the whole thing have been more musically fleshed-out, or would there then have been nothing special about it? I have no idea. I could be raving about in a week or barely ever listening to it again. "Dirty Little Secret" was just such a perfect adrenaline rush of a song--one of the best of the century so far for me, for sure--that I can't help feeling unenthused about this song so far. It could just be a matter of having to get used to something different than what you were expecting, and the "oooOOOO"s are definitely a good thing.

Dutch Idols winner Nikki's new single (and her first real post-winner's single single), "Bring Me Down" (listen on a MySpace-equivalent), on the other hand, doesn't have any sort of odd quarter-novelty value thing about it; it's fairly straightforward pop-rock. Guitars aren't in short supply here, though they're not overbearing either. Then again, so far I've been raising a similar question about it to one of the ones "Give Me Hell" caused: should it have been more musically fleshed-out? I like the chorus, but it kind of feels like whoever wrote it thought "oh, this might be good" and, instead of polishing it and expanding it, just left it as that basic initial idea. I like "Bring Me Down," though (and I expect it could grow on me), and I'd be posting it instead of the AAR song if I had it, but, as far as I know, it's only for sale on Dutch iTunes so far.

The new All-American Rejects album, When The World Comes Down, doesn't come out until November 18 (tentatively), but you will eventually be able to pre-order it from Amazon (it's not yet listed).