Swedish House Mafia is becoming quite frequent on my blog, I bet it will die down soon enough. They are a band consisting of 3 DJs called Axwell, Steve Angello and Sebastian Ingrosso, they have recently announced that they will split up fairly soon and that they are on their last tour, but I very much doubt this is the last we'll hear of them, they tend to collaborate a lot with one another on their own songs so this is definitely not the end. The vocals are provided by Pharrell, real name Pharrell Williams, people might know him from the band N.E.R.D. but his own name might ring a few bells as he has released a lot of songs and have charted quite high with a lot of them. He is one of these artists you hear of every now and again, he pops up here, there and everywhere, but he isn't instantly recognisable, if that makes sense. He's not right in the spotlight, which is quite admiring to be honest.
"One (Your Name)" was originally just called "One" which was released in Sweden, but Swedish House Mafia decided to link Pharrell's vocals to this song. Pharrell wrote the lyrics of the song, where the members of Swedish House Mafia wrote the song. The vocals were initially for a totally different song, and so Pharrell had already provided the vocals, but I don't think they worked as well as they first thought, and after a few changes they realised it fit better with this song, and it sure does as you can't help but sing-a-long.
This music video is weird, that's the only word I can come up with. I have to admit I've skipped over it on the music channels so many times. I've seen the start and thought it wasn't something I'd be into. I never realised that video was for this song, as you never quite expect the start to mount into this catchy song. I like the references in this video, along with the use of an instrument I've never heard of let alone seen before.
The instrument is an OP-1 created by Teenage Engineering and combines a synthesizer, a sampler and a controller, it was created in Sweden. It kind of reminds me of a very small version of a DJ deck. And they've used it in a similar way, giving the song to a party. I like the eye and how the words of the lyrics appear in it; it kind of reminds me of the Big Brother eye.
There are loads of things going on in the video, and this what you kind of expect, except you don't expect the start at all. I like the ending when someone steals the OP-1... People have said that it resembles David Guetta as apparently his song "50 degrees" has a similar sound. And yeah I agree they do sound very similar, but if you look at music generally every song will sound similar to another song, it's just bound to happen, and this is exactly why law suits appear.
Overall this song is embedded into my head to day, I can't stop typing to the sound and singing the song. The video is different and interesting, there's no performance but there isn't really a narrative, however it's good to watch, it resembles house music, and is much more than what you expect, especially at the very start. If I see it again on the music channels, I will definitely be watching rather than skipping.
Okay so continuing on with my collaboration special, this is the next song, it combines Laidback Luke with Swedish House Mafia. Laidback Luke, real name Lucas Cornelis van Scheppingen, has collaborated a lot with the members of Swedish House Mafia and I'm sure there will be more in the future. This is the third music video I have reviewed from Swedish House Mafia, the first being "Save The World" and the second being "Antidote". The band features 3 DJs who are called Axwell, Sebastian Ingrosso and Steve Angello, they are all from Sweden and have been getting a number of chart hits across the world. However they are about to split up and go their own separate ways, however they are known to collaborate with one another, so their may be future singles they will release together; these are 3 DJs we are never going to get rid of. Deborah Cox provides the vocals for this track, she has released a number of songs getting quite high chart numbers in the USA, however she hasn't impact the UK that well, although people are aware of her name. Will we be seeing more of her? It's doubtful, but we'll have to wait and see.
To be totally honest this doesn't really count as a music video, but it's the closest we're ever going to get to one for this song. The reason being is that there is a lot of talking in this video, making it seem more like a documentary or a interview than anything else. There is various footage shown, possibly from Swedish House Mafia's world wide tours. I used to think it was weird how some people can wear not much during the night time, but since I've been to Turkey I can now relate and totally understand that in various countries around the world, you can have hot nights.
Surprisingly that is all I have to say about this, there's not a lot going on, and there are a few links with the songs such as how they zoomed out of the world, which was quite impressive, giving the effect that they were leaving the world behind. This is a typical House music video, I would've been very surprised if there was a full on narrative. So giving this the benefit of the doubt, this is definitely the rating it deserves.
This is the second music video on my Collaboration Special. Example, real name Elliot Gleave, provides the vocals for this song. It also appears on his album "Playing In The Shadows" therefore making this song his, but why is a Vs. used instead of a Featured? This is one question I am unsure of, but the only thing I can come up with is that Laidback Luke provides the music, therefore he has mixed the track himself. Laidback Luke, real name Lucas Cornelis van Scheppingen, has released a lot of singles most of which are collaborations with various artists. He has released one album thus far, but I bet a second is on it's way soon. This is definitely one artist we are going to hear more and more from.
"Natural Disaster" was written by Example, Laidback Luke and Dipesh Parmar. Again it was expected that the song was written by these two as they are great at what they do. The song charted here, there and everywhere, and it's completely understandable as it is extremely catchy. But it didn't chart that high, which could have been down to the lack of promotion.
It's music video, on the other hand, is amazing. I could watch it again and again. Previously when I was watching the music channels I would skip over this music video purely because I didn't think I'd enjoy it, but how wrong was I? It's both a narrative and a performance piece and takes place in a club, therefore showing what type of music it is.
I like the narrative, the teenager/young adult is played by Josh Dickinson, and he plays the character perfectly. I like how they show that music is like a drug, and that especially Laidback Luke's music is extremely addicting. I do feel sorry for him having parents like that, I don't think it's fair, but then again they know he has a "drug" problem but are unsure of how to handle it, especially since at the end all he needs to do is walk into a club and find the "drug" there. I also like how Example is in the audience, it's common in a lot of music videos but it is usually only a scene, whereas this is a main part of the music video and makes this video stand out from the crowd.
Overall, the song is very catchy, but it's accompanying music video is definitely one of the best, I don't think I have seen anything like it, and unusual videos tends to get the highest ratings. I haven't got a bad thing to say about this music video, I could definitely watch it again and again, so it's definitely worthy of this rating.
Calvin Harris is a rare sight on my blog, but so is Example to be honest. However this song has gripped me, and after hearing it a couple of times, I just had to use it for New Release, which has sparked off an idea for a whole new special. Calvin Harris, real name Adam Wiles, has been creating demos since 1999, but came into fame in 2007 with his first album. He came to my attention when "Acceptable In The 80s" started climbing the charts. I have only mentioned him once on this blog, where he collaborated with Rihanna for "We Found Love", I hope there will be more music videos from Calvin Harris hitting my blog soon. Example features on this song, his real name is Elliot Gleave, this is his second time on my blog, but has also been mentioned as co-writer of The Wanted's "Chasing The Sun". I like how most artists are connected one way or another and they tend to go around in circles.
"We'll Be Coming Back" was written by Calvin Harris and Example, which is to be expected since they know what they're doing, and you can kind of tell that they've wrote it themselves. It is currently number 2 on the iTunes chart, and it will definitely chart high this Sunday, but could it inched in front of Wiley featuring Ms D's "Heatwave"? We'll have to wait and see.
This music video is interesting, I don't quite know how else to describe it, I had to watch it twice and then read about the video to finally understand what is going on. This is clearly narrative based which is surprisingly unexpected from these two artists. They are both robbers and they hide their treasure, but a cop has been on their trail since and have found what they've buried, leaving her badge behind.
I feel that there is more emphasis on what cars their driving and their speed racing rather than the story overall, therefore people don't quite see that there is a narrative. This would be usually not so good, but they have used great footage such as showing another car coming up to them in their sunglasses (right at the start), and seeing the cop behind perfectly. A lot of different camera shots are used to display the races and the chasing, which makes this video a little more interesting.
Overall the song is definitely one that grows on people, and before you know it, it's stuck in your head, but the accompanying music video is lacking to some respect. However the main focus of the video is to make Calvin Harris and Example look "cool" (their words not mine), and that is exactly what they manage to do, but there is various ways they could have made this better, especially by showing the story a little bit more.
Alanis Morissette becomes my Sunday Revisit, purely because I don't think I'll have the chance to return to this great artist, I might decide to do "Guardian" soon, maybe around when it is released, which might spawn off another Sunday Revisit... But that is really it to be honest, and she was definitely very popular in the 90's. Miss Moirae was the person who introduced me to this music which is like nothing I've ever come across, I don't think you can write a song anything similar to Alanis Morissette, and there is definitely no point covering her songs, you just can't beat them.
"You Oughta Know" was released in 1995, when CamCam was born! I think this is such a great song, it's more of a break-up song, one of those ones that you can shout your head off to because nothing is your fault and it's always the other person, it sounds much like a punchbag, but you exercise your throat instead of punching something physical. It was written by Alanis Morissette (obviously) and Glen Ballard who wrote most of "Jagged Little Pill" which is the album this single is from, including "Ironic".
I don't know what I feel about this music video, I like it but then I don't, I have a lot of pet-hates with this one. It has both a narrative and a performance piece which tends to do well with my ratings, but it hasn't exactly worked with this one. I like the emotion that you can see in the narrative side of this video, where she is rolling in the sand and lying on the bench, she looks like she's in dispair and has all this energy to give out and only then flat plains to dish it out to.
But really that is all I like about it... I hate all the different camera angles and the different shots, do we really need the telescope shot? And all the others? It's like they were experimenting and thought it made the video look better, and I am aware that it was made in 1995 but I'm sure not all videos from that era is like that...
Overall a great song that definitely lifts your spirits if you're down, it may lift them higher if you're already on cloud nine, I should test that out sometime! The colour is a bit on the off side, however due to the time period I'll allow it and disreguard it. However there could've been much better ideas people could come up with to make this music video top notch, just look at "Ironic" the video is great and it's surprising they managed to come up with that idea during that time period. So taking everything into consideration this is definitely what this video deserves, sorry if others think it deserves more stars.
