The Singles Jukebox

Romanians currently going down a storm in Russia…

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[4.19]

Martin Kavka: For all the energy spent bringing Eastern Europe into NATO, we still get beats that are sub-Paul van Dyk and lyrics that are worse than Andy Bell at his most mystical?
[3]

Spencer Ackerman: It’s like they wrote an advertising jingle. “Beautiful colors inside me/calling out your name” actually cries out for the follow-on “Now Sherwin-Williams has cut prices so low…” Then it gets terrible. “You came down on me like summer love/wearing nothing but your name… painting rainbows on my soul.” Jesus, shut the fuck up and leave me alone.
[3]

John Seroff: Maybe it’s okay to wear nothing but your love when you’re in Ibiza, but on my block that’ll get you a ticket for sure. I’m also pretty sure that painting rainbows on my soul is some sort of a misdemeanor. By the time you get to burning people’s eyes with sunrises, that’s three strikes and I’m gonna have to ask you to gather up all your Axe Bodyspray, Dep and bronzer and leave.
[3]

Tal Rosenberg: Just because English is not his native tongue doesn’t mean I don’t believe he knows more English than “beautiful colors inside me”, “burning like a flame”, and “calling out your name”, none of which will help him with directions, getting a VISA, ordering food at a restaurant, or finding a job. Apparently it helps him write poppy techno singles, and this one starts off OK until the chorus tediously repeats what is clearly not the only English he knows. It is possible, however, that it presents the extent of his ideas.
[3]

Anthony Miccio: Possibly the drowsiest singing I’ve ever heard over a dance beat; shit makes “The Never Ending Story” sound like “I Will Survive”.
[4]

Anthony Easton: Morandi‘s use of colour was distinctive for its sameness, and its lack of tonal variations, moving between various browns, beiges, ochres and other mud tones. That said, his colours had an earthiness, and brought the paintings from basic still lives to a grounded post-minimalism. The sameness of his colours was what made him great. The band could learn something from the painter.
[3]

Kat Stevens: There’s a catchy hook in here, drowning amid the cheap electro twonking, but this song needs to be 2 minutes shorter (or for something other than that hook to happen in those 2 minutes). How about a nice Fatboy Slim stuttering-vocal/extended drumroll breakdown?
[3]

Martin Skidmore: It sounds like a clumsy cut-and-shut job, two different tracks put together without even spray-painting the new vehicle for a touch of plausibility.
[5]

Pete Baran: Somewhere there is a NES videogame forlornly looking for its soundtrack. I am trying to work out if the rest of the track is so inoffensive to make those bits sound as great as they do, or merely sound inoffensive because of it? But any song which is part game soundtrack, part Yazoo is always going to do pretty well with me.
[8]

Chuck Eddy: This seriously approaches the sad sweet rainy-day post-synthpop heartbreak beauty of late ’80s/ early ’90s wimpy boy acts (Noel, Coro, TKA, Cause and Effect, Willie and Gil, Timmy T) doing Latin freestyle (when all the girls were of course freestyle’s actual tough guys). Figures they’re Romanians (with four #1 and three more Top 3 hits there I need to hear now); no way could Brits or Americans pull this off so long after the fact.
[8]

Doug Robertson: There’s a whole rainbow of opportunity out there, but this is just monochrome.
[3]

Iain Mew: I really love the synth sound on this and the way that sounds like the notes are being methodically picked out, held up for inspection and then discarded, never quite satisfied. Could do with even more of that and less “You came down on me like summer rain”, really.
[6]

Additional Scores

Rodney J. Greene: [5]
Ian Mathers: [3]
Michaelangelo Matos: [3]
Alex Ostroff: [4]