PROPER EDUCATION

Eric Prydz vs Floyd

Now then, if you’re one of my regular readers (you never know, you might even know the other one too), you’ll know that I tend to come down on songs that rehash ancient tunes like a ton of bricks, and there’s a very good reason for that. They’re usually pants. You have a thumping tune that just needs someone to sing over the top, so naturally the best thing to do is to dig up an old record you heard on Horizon Radio that morning, sample about three seconds of it and whack that over the top and hey presto – suddenly your tune is now credited to Superstar DJ vs T’Pau (maybe not an ideal credit if the original record was actually by Starship, but you get the idea). Eric Prydz though, he’s a different kettle of fish altogether. He was the one who made Steve Winwood’s Valerie cool when he rebuilt it from the ground up as Call On Me, and this time round he’s decided to give the 1979 Christmas Number One a refit, namely Pink Floyd’s Another Brick In The Wall (Part II). Call On Me was a fine example of what can happen when the source material is treated with a bit of respect, and this time round, he’s used so much of the original this could’ve been released under Pink Floyd’s name as a remix – and that’s a good thing, it means the spirit of the song is still there. This fully deserves to be huge, and you never know, now the charts have stopped merely flirting with downloads and instead hopped straight into bed with the whole digital music idea, I wouldn’t be surprised if the original makes a re-appearance in the listings either. Now, that will be interesting – the day when someone updates a song so badly, people go out and buy the original instead and that goes and trounces the newer version. It could happen you know – Ronan Keating’s version of Iris got higher than the Goo Goo Dolls’ original, but theirs is the one still selling.

CATCH YOU

Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Blimey, there’s a name from the past. Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you, but you’ve got to admit, her last album bombed almost as badly as Paris Hilton’s and that’s saying something. Still, she’s back to give it another go, and if I’m being honest, I actually quite like this one. Perhaps I’m showing my age a bit, but the opening guitar riff reminded me a little of the opening bars of XTC’s Senses Working Overtime – the tunes are quite different, but that’s how my mind works, get used to it – and from that point on it’s a pop song for grown-ups, ie. the singer didn’t get to do the single thanks to a public vote, it’s not deliberately crafted to please as many people as possible and it hasn’t got a hope in Hell of getting to Number One, it’s just a good song that motors along for just over three minutes and doesn’t outstay its welcome. Can’t really ask for much more than that, so if you’re going to do a comeback single, there are far worse ways to do it than this.

GRACE KELLY

Mika

This is probably going to be massive, and nothing I say is going to stop that. Global armageddon – yes, a review by me – no. Before I heard it, I was told it sounded like the Scissor Sisters mixed with Queen. Now, I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds like Music Hell. To be fair, this errs more on the side of the Scissor Sisters (well, it has to really, vocal harmonies are tricky when there’s only one of you), but he does namecheck Freddie Mercury - at least, I’m assuming he’s the Freddie that’s mentioned, I doubt it’s Southend United’s Freddy Eastwood – and when his voice goes high-pitched, that does my head in. It’s a cheery enough song, but I personally can’t stand it, it’s just this style of music – I just can’t get on with it. You watch though, it’s going to be Number One for weeks on end and that’ll really wind me up.