Want it taking over me

Oh, so apparently Darin's worked with RedOne on this album. I'd heard that, but forgotten it.

As if you needed further proof, though, "Breathing Your Love" is now out and about (though in radio ripped format, so not full quality), and it's definitely got those RedOne sound effects we're all used to from Lady GaGa (though Darin worked with RedOne before her--"Step Up," anyone?).

I didn't remember hearing that Kat DeLuna (another frequent RedOne collaborator) would be on this song, though. Hmm.

Edit: OK, so it's brilliant, obviously. I think. I don't think Kat adds anything, though (I've got nothing against her--she's had some good or great singles in the past), and I'd kind of like to hear a version without her. Of course, at first I didn't think Therese, much as I adore her, added much to "If Only You," and I couldn't have been more wrong about that.

Oh, and apparently I should have known about the Kat thing because she was seen out and about with Darin filming the music video.

City to city but it all reminds me of you

I wish you all could've seen my expression while I was watching the video below.



It starts off with Darin saying that we're going to see him working on tracks for his new album Flashback. Then we hear him singing a song called "Road Trip" with piano accompaniment. I think at that point I was just kind of...deflated--"oh...I guess that sounds like a pleasant melody, but this is our first taste of the album?"--but you know me, my natural preference isn't for ballads. A few seconds later, though, we switch scenes to Darin sitting in a studio with someone (Dave, who's the track's creator, I think) and hear what must be the real version of the track. It's much more electronic and has a lot more energy to it--I'm sure the look that washed over my face at that point was one of utter relief. That poppy melody we hear in the produced version--I cannot wait to have my hands on that track. Pop heaven. Darin's coming back, and thank goodness.

If you keep listening, you'll get to hear some bits and pieces of other songs, too. One sounds very club-oriented, though I'm not totally sure about it yet (it's like five seconds of a song, so it's not as if these are in any way informed judgments). Most exciting, though? We get to hear a bit of the first single, "Breathing Your Love" (starting at 1:11). Sounds potentially AMAZING--a very lush sort of electronic urban-pop sound. I'm not sure whether the chorus is just good or fantastic (once again, we'll actually need to hear more of the song to know). That intro, though, sounds so, so, so good. We also hear some of "Seasons Fly," a song Darin did, and once again we hear it on piano and then in its actual studio form.

I'll say it again: thank goodness for Darin. I cannot wait for "Breathing Your Love" (buying it the absolutely first moment I can) or the album.

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!

Switch into overdrive

Super-quick post due to some necessary TV viewing tonight. Belgian singer Katerine's turn towards the electronic music side left me completely underwhelmed at first; "Shut Your Mouth" was just so...well, best left in the past. "Ultrasonic," though, is better, even if still not fantastic; it's a little too flat, minimal, even-keel to really ignite any sort of passion about it as a track, I think, but it's still a decent dance-pop track.

Katerine's single "Ultrasonic" as well as the also good single "He's Not Like You" (less frivolous lyrically but possibly prettier musically) can be purchased from all countries' iTunes stores.

Never thought that I'd fall in love love love love

(Note: ZShare is still, baffingly, not letting me upload things; it's only just dawned on me, though, that I can upload songs to Sharebee and then just take the ZShare link from there. A little bit weird, but at least it means the return of ZShare links.)

I have two possibly seemingly contradictory feelings to express:

1.) I am SO OVER songs getting passed around to various artists. Spanish singer Soraya's new album Sin Miedo (featuring a duet with Kate Ryan) is out and about now, and, predictably, the song titled "Love Is All Around" on it is, yes, a cover of the song already done by (deep breath) Agnes, Arashi, Ricki-Lee, Jody Williams, and Andriette. I mean, it's a great song and I understand that this sort of passing songs around allows writers to make more money from it, something increasingly important with illegal downloads being so big, and that for most people (including many of the artists, I'd imagine) this song reuse will never be an issue because they'll never hear more than one version, but I would much rather have songwriters giving us multiple great songs instead of passing the same (admittedly great) one around. That was my reaction to the news that Same Difference's new album will feature a cover of Marie Serneholt's "I Need A House," too. I love that song, but I want new brilliant songs, not reused ones. In better news, as Paul pointed out, you can listen to a clip of Same Difference's pure pop new single "We Are One" at PopJustice.


2.) On the other hand, I am more than happy for "Disturbia" and "Closer" and "Forever" to spawn some knock-offs--a lot more happy to see that around (for now) than more '60's stuff (note: this is NOT me knocking on Alesha's "The Boy Does Nothing," which 1.) we haven't even heard in good quality yet, and 2.) anything with that fantastic a middle 8 is not going to be drawing criticism from me in the near future). With that in mind, Craig David's "Insomnia," taken from his upcoming greatest hits, is pretty enjoyable, better than anything I heard off his last album (and I might even like it more than "Closer," which despite its more electro base it's quite obviously inspired by--and probably isn't as mature as--because of how much quicker the words come). I really adored Craig's earlier work--"Fill Me In" would contend for any list of my favorite songs of all time--and I even really enjoyed "Unbelievable" from mid-to-late career Craig. Everything I heard off his last album, though, just gave off a whiff of...cheapness, something which, with a voice like his, he really should be above; he's better than that. Releasing a song this obviously taking advantage of modern trends doesn't necessarily fulfill that wish, but the song does somehow feel like a step up--a step in the right direction. Keep in touch with those strings, Craig--I missed them.

Craig David's greatest hits isn't yet available for preorder anywhere, but in the meantime you can buy his debut, Born To Do It, here (physical) or here (digital).

It's not hard at all

You thought no record contract would mean we'd be waiting a long time before we'd be hearing Blake Lewis's voice on another music track? Apparently, that's not the case--I give you Darude featuring Blake Lewis, "Selfless."



As you'd guess from that artists list, it's not a Blake song and isn't pop; it's very much on the electronica side of things. Should you for some reason want to buy it (it's apparently for a charity of some sort), iTunes is selling it.

Also, he got a dog.

As I watch my feet take turns hitting the ground

I can't remember whether I've ever mentioned this on the blog or only in comments elsewhere, but I don't like John Mayer's music (no, this isn't going to be about his rising-up-the-charts cover of "Free Fallin'")--blame "Your Body's A Wonderland" and "Daughters" (I'm sure I'm just setting myself up for the day he releases something brilliant and I have to take that back, but those songs really do drive me crazy). In fact, I usually, despite all evidence to the contrary presented here on the blog, think of myself as being pretty leery of male singer-songwriter types (note that the singer-songwriter type is not necessarily the same as someone who writes and sings their own songs; the latter need not necessarily be the former and, to an extent, vice-versa).


All that notwithstanding, I've been hopeful about Jon McLaughlin since back in 2006. His song "Industry" appeared on this blog in its first few months of life and it's a song, in that version, that I'd still stand up for today, one of the songs I'm most glad I've posted (I think the version that eventually went on to appear on his major label debut, Indiana, was inferior--it felt like it had been excessively padded out to create a sound that would cause people to say "oh, he's a great piano-based (serious) singer-songwriter," when in fact it was the greatness, the willingness and knowledge to rise and fall, to let things build and to let them fall out, of the original version that actually proved that point). "Praying To The Wrong God" and, to a little lesser degree, the delicate croony "Beautiful Disaster" from Indiana are great songs as well, and yet somehow I wasn't sold enough to buy the whole album. He was still an artist I continued to have great hope for, though, that one day he'd live up to his promise, and I was really hoping his appearance in the movie Enchanted with the song "So Close" would end up bringing him the level of fame he deserved.



The song won him an Oscar nomination, but despite Jon actually appearing in the movie singing the song, he didn't properly break, at least not at the level I would like.


He's just recently been given a second chance at making it big (or at least the level of big your singer-songwriter can get to), and with some surprising big writers and producers supporting him (as well as with a bit of a restyling--see photo below); the final song in this post was, unexpectedly, produced by Tricky Stewart and The-Dream. On a new record label, Jon's released the single "Beating My Heart" (video here), but once again mainstream success seems to be proving elusive for him. With the album, titled OK Now, set to come out in a few days, I guess all I can do is hope buzz builds after its release or he'll get yet another chance.

Of the songs we've heard from this era, not all work for me, but the ones that do are great. I'm not sure whether it's Jon's voice, whether he's got a better ear for melody, or whether I just bring less prejudices to the table with him, but he manages to win me over where other singer-songwriters don't: on the ballads. "Things That You Say" is a ballad that goes for that not unheard "lie to me, say our relationship is better off than it actually is" angle, but there's something dreamy about enough of the moments here that I buy it, hook, line, and...well, and almost sinker.

"Smack Into You" is, once again, a ballad, but despite my best efforts to resist, that swoony chorus sucked me in. It's a slow-burning song, the very opposite of what the title leads you to expect--well, perhaps not; that title does have a bit of an Adult Contemporary ring to it, doesn't it? And the song is that, but it's no worse off for it. It's an enfolding, enveloping song, and if countless people are robbed of the ability to fall in love to the soundtrack of Jon's warm, intimate-yet-increasingly-flirting-with-epic reassurances and especially that final "ryunnn-ryunnn-ryunnn-ryunnn-ryoo-oo-oo-oo-oun" because "Smack Into You" is relegated to being an iTunes bonus track, I will not be happy. Could a widely watched TV show license it for use in a key scene right now, please?

To preorder Jon McLaughlin's new album, OK Now, due out October 7, go here (physical). To listen to clips of all the songs, go here. I don't know how the album as a whole will be, but we've at least got several gems out of the full lengths songs we've heard so far. He is incorporating bits of '80's influence into his singer-songwriter style here--we'll see how it works out, though I hope it does so.

Next up: maybe that Belgian song.

Take your shoes off

I would have posted today's song earlier if not for the computer drama. Sadly, there's something about it that sounds a little different from the version on the radio, but none of the remixes I've listened to since then have matched up either, leaving the radio edit as the closest I can get.



(The video really is pretty lovely--it's got a pretty cinematographic look to it, especially coming from a Swedish artist [I love Sweden, but a lot of its artists tend to make cheap-looking videos. Watch this one using YouTube's high quality option if you can.)

Strawberry--the debut single from producer Adrian Lux, "Strawberry" features some of Those Dancing Days (and the vocals are theirs). As I mentioned, my memory of the version I heard on the radio doesn't quite line up with this version, thought that could just have been some things being lost due to lower radio quality; the version I thought I remembered hearing but probably didn't really smoothed out some of the electro backing, not taking down the song's tempo at all but giving it a more chilled feeling. Even as is, though, the song, like the video, is still pretty lovely, with the crisp electro-dance raindrops providing a background for the apparently innocently-styled vocal part.

To buy Adrian Lux's new single "Strawberry," go to any iTunes store or here (digital). Since this is a new single and it's easy for anyone to purchase, it'll only be posted for a short time.

Next up: maybe a Belgian artist or another new Swedish song.

You saved me with a sound

Not that I'm obsessive or anything, but you can listen to the studio version of Elin Lanto's "Discotheque" on Catchy Tunes' MySpace. Sadly, it's in low quality, but I would imagine it's better quality than those videos we've heard it from so far. I'm holding off my final verdict until I hear the high quality version.

(Yes, the computer is back...came back without any programs on it, but with all documents saved, thank gooodness.)