Robyn may be a new name on the charts, but in fact she's been a huge pop star in her home country of Sweden for years!
She was discovered at the age of 12 and recorded her first album at 16. It proved to be a huge hit, and some of her songs made the UK top 40. She even became a UNICEF (United Nation's International Children's Fund) ambassador in the late 90's.
Recently she set up her own record label, Konichiwa, and has been writing songs for fellow Swedish artists. One of her songs was covered by UK R'n'B artist Beverley Knight.
With Every Heartbeat, a collaboration with Andreas Kleerup, is her latest single and it shot into our top five on downloads alone!
A song about breaking up with your loved one and the sadness that comes with that, this is a very mellow sounding, subdued pop record. Robyn's voice is incredibly sweet and sugary, and the electronic beats and bleeps recall some of Kylie Minogue's more danceable hits.
Yes, but mostly because of the fact that she repeats the same lyrics over and over and over and over again, than it being a memorable song in general. As with most dance tunes, the song doesn't really go anywhere which is a real shame. It sounds the same all the way through.
It'll be all over the radio for the rest of the summer, no doubt about it.
Their ninth album, Back Home, will probably rocket to No1 when it hits shops on bonfire night.
Video ... shots look slick
Note: we posted this yesterday, but a better video of the same performance has surfaced -- reprise!
We still care about "Young Folks" and everything, but holy shit, this actually happened. As previously reported, rapper Kanye West asked Swedish pop group Peter Bjorn and John to play as his backing band for a performance at Gothenburg, Sweden's Way Out West Festival. They accepted. The other day, worlds finally collided.
The result still sounds like the version on Kanye's mixtape. And the video quality is necessarily poor. Still, the success of "Young Folks" was one of last year's most pleasant surprises. But a celebrity collab like this? Kanye's right: we had no idea.
Such is the case with his most recent output, which finds him stuck in the quicksand of late 1980s dance. A good thing, when the results are this uplifting. The vocal material is far from original, with Siedah Garrett's 1985 hit Do You Want It Right Now, already plundered last decade by the Degrees of Motion for their own uplifting cover, used as the basis here.
Yet Van Helden puts his own spin on it, with hand claps, chunky beats and fizzing synthesizers all pushing the music, while the "I want your soul" couplet is lifed from the centre of Garrett's chorus and repeated to good effect.
It makes this out as a track you'd willingly hit the dancefloor to, leaving your drink on the side - and for a dance music artist, no praise could surely be greater!
At the onset Jack White mixes it up, simultaneously pursuing his usual Zeppelin crunch as well as the more laid back groove of that band’s “Hey Hey What Can I Do?” But Jack’s pedantic lecturing fails to approximate the humid sexuality of the best British rockers gone South. I’m struggling through the usual Dixie touch points to find an appropriate comparison, because I know this reminds me of something specific. I’m genuinely concerned that it might be a half-remembered Black Crowes song still lingering in my skull from a radio transmission I once heard in high school.
Lightly humourous it may be, but Sammy the Salmon surely would sound better if it was contemporaneous with that other salmon, the one the Shamen were asking about.
Sure the Chems' rhythmic sensibilities are there for all to enjoy, and the vocals from the Pharcyde's Fatlip are fun to digest, but this doesn't feel right - surely this fodder is too light for a full-on dance act such as the Chemical Brothers?
Also Check out Kanye West "Young Folks ft. Peter Bjorn&john"
Swedish indie-popsters Peter Bjorn and John re-release 'Young Folks', a whistly, wistful song sure to be loved (or re-loved) by indie fans.
'Young Folks' is a subtle, gentle song, based around a simple yet effective melody. It plods along quite happily, in a pleasant manner which could hardly offend anybody.Unfortunately, I am easily offended. I actually like the song, it's Victoria Bergsman's vocals that I can hardly stand to listen to. All cutesy and little girl-y, they scream 'look at me, I'm so cute and little'. I'm sure this will appeal to the hoards of leggings-clad, fashion-haired, tiny, identikit indie girls, but I'll pass thanks.
You'd be hard-pressed to see Lewis' influence on Are You Trying To Be Lonely though. This sounds first and foremost like a Weller record, albeit one from the good old days of Wild Wood. There's a great brass section, it rolls along beautifully, but it all feels a bit, well, pointless. Weller fans will buy it, everyone else will probably ignore it.
Of far more interest are White's solo efforts on the other tracks on the CD - the hypnotic bounce of Tell Me Once Again You Love Me, which sounds like early Blur, and the retro funk instrumental of The Lazuli Affair. If Lewis had exerted more of his own sound on the lead track, then we could have had a great single on our hands. As it is, one for the Modfather completists, sadly.
FOLLOWING the modest success of their debut single, Heavyweight Champion of the World, Sheffield’s Reverend and the Makers return with their own unique brand of upbeat indie funk.
Frontman Jon McClure’s biting socio-cynicism has helped the Reverends to become one of the most dangerous - and exciting - bands to have grace the conservative commercial charts for some time.
But where the sense of working-class disillusionment and personal regret is ultimately overcome in their debut, Reverend and the Makers’ latest offering, He Said He Loved Me, remains stuck in a self-induced quagmire of domesticity and boredom.
Satire undoubtedly remains the band’s most powerful form of attack, but any lasting message is conclusively lost behind singer Laura Manuel’s crude ‘mockney’ vocal line, and this unfortunately leaves the nasty impression that the Reverends are simply jumping on the Lily Allen/Kate Nash bandwagon.
Such is the case with his most recent output, which finds him stuck in the quicksand of late 1980s dance. A good thing, when the results are this uplifting. The vocal material is far from original, with Siedah Garrett's 1985 hit Do You Want It Right Now, already plundered last decade by the Degrees of Motion for their own uplifting cover, used as the basis here.
Yet Van Helden puts his own spin on it, with hand claps, chunky beats and fizzing synthesizers all pushing the music, while the "I want your soul" couplet is lifed from the centre of Garrett's chorus and repeated to good effect.
It makes this out as a track you'd willingly hit the dancefloor to, leaving your drink on the side - and for a dance music artist, no praise could surely be greater!
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