T2 ft. Michelle - 'Come Over'
Bassline is one of the greatest hybrid musical genres ever created. Fact. It was one of the great tragedies of 2008 that, despite a promising start with having made it to number one in late 2007 and the mindbogglingly awesome 'What's It Gonna Be' by H 'Two' O ft. Platnum hitting the top spot in January, the major public response was "Urgh! It's just music for kids on the bus."
I don't like to break it to everyone but there's a strong possibility that kids on the bus getting really excited about music with their friends may not actually have less valid opinions on the subject than, say, the musical establishment, who were presumably busy backpatting themselves for still being down with the kids enough to listen to white indie bands making the same noise white indie bands made *cough* "back in the day", and probably don't have to get the bus to work in any case.
That over and done with, bassline is amazing for two reasons: house and garage. For anyone who wasn't musically aware in the 90s, these are two brilliant and hilarious genres full of exuberent innovation and a drastic lack of worrying too much about being cool, in retrospect but they were very British, very organic and got you moving.* The great thing about bassline is that, although it still isn't necessarily going to trip the wires of people who think pop music is bad and wrong, it is actually pretty cool.
Especially T2s productions; where 'Heartbroken' was a sinister, high-speed eulogy to a relationship gone properly wrong, a ballad sweetened and made innocent with honeyed vocals and then dropped into a sea of muffled bass and kinetic beats. Second single didn't have anything like the success of Heartbroken, probably due to its more aggressively "underground" sound putting it lower on radio playlists and it's been awhile since we've heard anything else from him in the charts.
This new single, may, hopefully, be enough to claw it back a bit for bassline as a whole; if there was one song I've heard this year that had 'MASSIVE SUMMER ANTHEM' scrawled all over it, it's this after-midnight heatwave of a track. From the balearic-y guitar at the start to the languid bassline and Michelle's seductive, almost lazy vocals, not to mention its really-quite-awesome sci-fi video.
Her voice is breathy and warm enough to make it a definite invite, despite the minor key of the song and there's enough of a beat for it to easily secure club play, but not so much that it wouldn't be OK to listen to in your bedroom or on your iPod, no matter how self-conscious you were. There's even a scantily clad woman in the video and everything.
Seriously, if this doesn't make you think of summer then I'll eat my sun-avoiding gothsocks.
Download: Out now
CD Released: April 13th
³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Music page
(Hazel Robinson)
*And absolutely nothing to do with Jamie Oliver.
Comment number 1.
At 17th Apr 2009, spirit wrote:OH WOW how powerful is this song ?
It will go top 20 ... feel the bass.... ! Will be a dancefloor filler......for sure...
Although the gorgeous, ALL-KNOWING JAMES MASTERTON informs me that WHATS IT GONNA BE only got to NUMBER 2 (stop shouting in my ear JAMES !) and never made the top spot.
Anyway this song has lashings of commercial appeal......
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Comment number 2.
At 17th Apr 2009, RandomEnigma wrote:Wasn't this tune released about 2 months ago?
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Comment number 3.
At 17th Apr 2009, RandomEnigma wrote:Oh plus neither "Heartbroken" or "What's It Gonna Be" hit the top spot, they were both Number 2s! Oh yeah see what I did there!;)
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Comment number 4.
At 17th Apr 2009, Fraser McAlpine - wrote:Well, this is an interesting state of affairs.
You're both quite right, of course. Neither Heartbroken or What's It Gonna Be got to No.1.
BUT this song was released on CD on Monday. It might've been around as a download for a while, mind...
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