Do you need some serious electronic angst in your ultra sweet bubble gum pop music? Perhaps Reidiculous’ remix of “Call Me Maybe” by up and coming Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen is just what you need. Integrating the infectious strings of the original with a gyrating thumping dance beat and stadium elements, Reidiculous serve the track up in an effort to translate it to all those popsters that are filling up your floors hoping to dance to “Starships” and “Part of Me”. Well now they can have this, as well. With the amount of attention “Call Me Maybe” is receiving, make sure to check out Carly’s EP, Curiosity, which has additional tracks that would sound excellent on the dance floor. For now, here’s a little clubby pop to hopefully shake your groove thing to.
Audio only:
Big thanks to Groove Armada for introducing Fenech-Soler to the industry at large. I had never heard of this artist until “Paper Romance” by Groove Armada, and even then I was unaware as to the particulars of this oddly-named entity. Turns out, Fenech-Soler is a four-piece electropop band from the UK and not a single person. Actually, singer Ben Duffy represented the group on Groove Armada’s Black Light album, and there is no reason not to fall in love with this group. Ben Duffy has a great pop-punk voice (think Hellogoodbye, Fallout Boy, etc.) that the group swirls into their emotional electropop to create undeniably catchy songs like “Demons”. The mixes of “Demons” don’t stray far from the uplifting feel of the original, each staying within the style of the mixer. Yuksek’s mix employs a lazy synth and a demanding beat, while Wideboys inject some bass into the track. Drums of Death give what sounds like the most radical mix, frenzied and schizophrenic, while Jokers of the Scene give a deliberate and spacey mix. Plump DJs go all out with a Dutch-inspired mix that sounds excellent. And in a dubstep-lite mix, Alan Wilkis slows the track and throws in some electro quirkiness inbetween sympathetic bouts of emotional guitar. All in all, “Demons” is a track you can take places, and should as Fenech-Soler is a band to watch out for.
Katy Perry follows up the first two massively successful singles from Teenage Dream with this little anthem about being true to yourself and realizing your inner power. If only she didn’t do it with such an embarrassing video. “Firework” is an excellent single, the chorus capturing the very vibe Katy is trying to express. To sing along with this, you have to make yourself known, your voice heard. You cannot whisper along with “Firework”, an aspect of the track the Wideboys definitely took advantage of in their stadium-friendly remix. But the video is a shiny, sparkly mess. Katy basically shoots the aforementioned colorful explosives out of…her bosom? It’s not really clear but it is very awkward. And the inspiration she provides others (including a boy who is tired of his arguing parents, a cancer patient who is bald, a chubby girl embarrassed to dive into a pool of hot people, and a magician who is mugged) lights their chest up with sparklers. Eventually they run around the courtyard in the Parliament building emitting random rockets of light as they run around in what must be some sort of Pagan ritual. Overall, it begs for a purpose that isn’t muddled in special effects, because the point of the video and song is a beautiful one. I miss her whipped cream canisters.
It’s about time that Chris Willis gets top billing as the artist on a record. As the writer and vocal performer on many of David Guetta’s biggest hits, Chris has been performing all over the world. For “Louder,” Chris has combined his gospels influences with electro and a touch of europop (a la Eifel 65) for a hands-in-the-air (literally) club anthem. At my recent club gigs, I’ve noticed how much crowds like being led to put their hands up (whether by Zoe Baldwi or Taio Cruz), so “Louder” will definitely work for a crowd response record. If the original is a bit too commercial for you, one of the plethora of remixes (Lauren Wolf, Mig & Rizzo, Lost Daze, STFU, SillyBoy, Eddie Amador, Ray Roc & Gabe Ramos, Wawa, DJ Kharma vs DJ Monta, Simon De + Steve Forest) is almost guaranteed to be the right flavor. With over a million hits, the video is already massive.
Brand new video for School of Seven Bells’ latest single ‘Windstorm’.
Robert James
In The Prog Zone 