The Singles Jukebox

And pushing Jazmine Sullivan even further from the top ten, it’s – a Danish person!…

[Video][Myspace]
[7.43] 

Jessica Popper: I have been listening to “Kun For Mig” (which means “Just for Me”) for a few months now, and I never get bored of it. It makes me want to dance as much as it makes me want to cry. There is little information online, but I know she is a female Danish singer, and although this is her debut single, it has been a massive success. If ever there was an example of pop music crossing language barriers, this is it. There is something in this particular combination of music and vocals that conveys every meaning Medina intended, and more.
[9]

Hillary Brown: Whatever interest is here is mostly lent by foreign language.
[5]

Martin Kavka: For non-Danish speakers, this will mostly sound like a substandard song: there’s no move to a major key, no hands-in-the-air moment. But the song is about a woman who’s just left her lover, and attests that the club can heal all of her pain because its “music is only for me” (“er musikken kun for mig“). The melancholy of the backing track thus ironically becomes a sign that she’s placing a bit too much faith in clubland, and that she needs love more than music. While not quite on a par with classic sad-disco anthems, this is far more complex than your usual club track.
[9]

Martin Skidmore: The music is a bit subdued and polite for me, but I quite like her husky, laid-back tones – the smooth, relaxed style almost strikes me as Brazilian. Her voice sounds less suited to the bigger moments, not that any are that huge, because it doesn’t offer any real force. Pleasant but forgettable.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Sonically and lyrically (even lost in translation) this presents the darker flipside to Stardust’s “Music Sounds Better With You” or Madonna’s “Get Together”, where the music is not a catalyst, but a painkiller. The throbs after the second chorus are not strobes of ecstacy, soundtracking eyes meeting on the dancefloor, but hangovers and headaches. It’s polished and slick, sure, but Medina’s vocals are nicely bruised and the melody is exquisitely melancholic. Not just a pop-dance single that taps into the bluer emotional registers; one that does so exclusively.
[9]

Alex Macpherson: A pristine glide with a Booka Shade breakdown, sung with a perfect balance of ice and ache; the song itself is serviceable but slight, the kind of melody which requires some sort of lyrical resonance to really stick. Sadly, I understand no Danish, so I’m probably never going to play this again.
[6]

M. H. Lo: In a just world, this would catch on the way Luomo’s “Tessio” or Trentemoller’s “Moan” did: though trancier than both (and much more maximal as it builds), “Kun for Mig” possesses the heartbreak of the former and the frostiness of the latter, as well as chilling synth washes, a fantastic breakdown, and a flute-y motif that haunts. No doubt its Danish lyric is one impediment to that happening, which would be especially frustrating, because – judging from the video and a rusty translator – the song is not just a tale of romantic betrayal, but one in which our narrator finds her despair either dispelled or disavowed by the very song that is playing in the club. “The beeps fill my universe,” she tells us, “music only for me.” It can, and should, be yours too.
[9]