Thursday, July 21st, 2011

Florrie – I Took a Little Something

Pretty singing drummer alert!…


[Video][Website]
[7.33]

Martin Skidmore: She is the drummer out of Xenomania’s house band, so has been on lots of great records already. This doesn’t disgrace that history: a Eurohousey production with some very nice filtering and a strong beat, and she sings smoothly over it, with a tidy tune and chorus. Maybe it won’t set the world on fire, but it’s pretty good.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Listening to this makes me ask two important questions. One, is this really 2011? Two, why were most of the big filter pop hits sung by men? “Lady (Hear Me Tonight),” “Music Sounds Better With You,” “Out of Touch” or “Call On Me,” for instance. Florrie’s song is a little less simplistic in that she has three distinct melodic bits, but her songcraft fits in with that proud tradition: blissful pop with simple and repetitive but emotionally resonant lyrics and melody. She nicks the “come on” from the genre’s red-headed stepchild (Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s unsung “Music Gets The Best Of Me”), sings with warmth if not volume, tacks on a hypnotic bass-line and comes up with something slight but very special indeed.
[9]

Ian Mathers: Maybe there’s a British idiom that I’m unaware of, but I can’t help hearing “I took a little something to figure it out” as a line about the use of psychotropic substances as a self-help tool, and that’s an awesomely left-field choice of subject matter to what is essentially a big, bright synthpop (or post-disco pop? or house pop? I don’t even know) tune. And what a tune! If Florrie means something more mundane by the title, well, the song doesn’t really need the help; as befits Xenomania’s house drummer, Florrie is well capable of making songs that are both blissful, maximalist pop, and possessing of hidden depths. Like “High and Low” yesterday, “I Took a Little Something” might even qualify as a sad song (that little “I’m dreaming that you’re crawling into bed… we’re happy ever after in my head” is kind of devastating), but it’s pretty much impossible to feel that sad while listening to it, even if you’re in the same situation that Florrie is. Just like the narrator herself, the song is about sorting things out and moving forward, even if it hurts, rather than wallowing in sorrow.
[10]

Michaela Drapes: I’m terribly conflicted over this one. I can’t decide if the off-kilter, slightly hackish production is totally revolutionary, or utterly amateur. I can’t decide the lyrics are too vapid, or secretly very deep. Are Florrie’s model-worthy looks off-putting, or the potential lynchpin of her success? Is she just another Little Boots waiting to crash and burn and slide back into obscurity? Eh, whatever, this makes me want to rollerskate in a flowy outfit near a wind machine. Guess we have a winner, then.
[8]

Brad Shoup: Setting aside the incongruency of a chill Hi-NRG track, Florrie’s vocals aren’t up enough in the mix, forcing me to squint for content that’s a little lacking. I’m sure the remixes will do the trick, but the single itself is an odd little genre exercise.
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: I always enjoy a song that sounds like we’re joining it after it’s already started, and Florrie’s story starts moments after she took a little something. Appropriate for the occasion of taking little somethings, she’s soon joined by great pulsing synth waves and a filter house beat straight outta 2002. It’s not better for the same reason it is as good as it is: without a real chorus, that nagging melody and her airy vocal ache with a suggestion there could be something more, that the good times will be over before they’ve even begun.
[7]

Mallory O’Donnell: A little handbag house (the disaffected-ish vocals, the tinkly main melody) a lot French touch (everything else), this has all the elements of a great disco revival single from an innocuous yet slightly dubious pop artist (see also “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head”). Whether this sort of thing is trendy or not anymore I’ve no idea, but this pleases me exactly as much as it would if it had been released anytime in the past twenty years.
[7]

Alfred Soto: I gotta admit my feet acquired a mind of their own when the bass hit at the 0:39 mark. The elements line up as perfectly as Europe did in the summer of 1914: insistent major chord piano riff, mixing board fading, anonymous Eurotart vocal, vampiric lyric. But half an album of collaborating with the Pet Shop Boys should have taught this Xenomania member how to make blankness suggestive.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: The melody circles just short of overhead, and it’ll soar beyond your eyesight if you blink for a second. It’s deliberate; Florrie smooths over her memories with her silk-infused voice until they look cirrus-brushed, beds and cracks and doubts rendered as one gorgeous, forgettable happy-ever-after. The song won’t linger, but it’s not supposed to. 
[7]

6 Responses to “Florrie – I Took a Little Something”

  1. Maybe there’s a British idiom that I’m unaware of… a line about the use of psychotropic substances as a self-help tool

    Julian Cope to thread!

  2. I can’t hear “take a look/pictures stuck in a book” without wanting to follow it with “a Reading Raiiiiiiiinboooooow.”

  3. @sally Meh, why’d you have to point that out? :P

  4. “this makes me want to rollerskate in a flowy outfit near a wind machine”

    Perfect!

    Clearly I found Florrie’s blankness more suggestive than some people… I still can’t stop listening to this song. I guess I should figure out what filter house is.

    “Julian Cope to thread!”

    Seriously, though! Am I missing something, or is this song about drugs?

  5. Should’ve given this a 7. A car stereo taught me that.

  6. YES, YOU SHOULD HAVE.