Three to Turn Up and One to Turn Off - No. 35

European pop has made its way across the Atlantic for a half-century, and this edition’s selections offer a nice cross-section of today’s hits from the Old World. All four songs listed below begin with routine material, but while my three recommendations vibrate with unique lyrics, my panned song is a creative dead zone.

Three to Turn Up:

+ Graffiti6 “Free” – Following the heels of One Direction and The Wanted, Graffiti6 is another U.K. pop act reaching the U.S., yet they’re far more inventive than the former two. “Free,” the first single off Colours, is a consistently entertaining track that would be even better if the duo was more focused. With a self-proclaimed mix of pop, psychedelia, R&B and British Northern soul, “Free” is bursting with an overload of ingenuity. Yet if one peels back the excess, there are powerfully raw lyrics about pain and desperation. I am completely in favor of genre bending, but the mixture needs to feel organic and not like channel-surfing. It’s a close call here, but the strong emotional current turns “Free” into a worthwhile listen. Graffiti6 hasn’t scored a homerun, but with so much timid music these days, it’s hard to blast anyone for being overambitious.   

+ David Guetta feat. Sia “Titanium” – French DJ David Guetta is only as good as featured artists, and Sia elevates “Titanium” into one of his best tracks yet. The fourth single from Nothing but the Beat, this is a near polar opposite of the lively “Turn Me On.” Songs about standing strong in the face of pain are standard, but Sia (best known for collaborating on Flo Rida’s “Wild Ones”) sings poignant lyrics with heartfelt conviction. Sung by a lesser voice, a line like “I'm bulletproof, nothing to lose/Fire away, fire away/Ricochet, you take your aim” may sound trite, but the Australian singer invests them with heartbreaking conviction. David Guetta’s collaborative dance albums often seen like a relic from the late 90s/early 00s, but when a song like “Titanium” comes along, you see terrific skills that he should utilize far more often.

+ The Wanted “Chasing The Sun” – Forget One Direction. The Wanted is the U.K. boy band to keep an eye on. “Chasing The Sun,” the second single from their self-titled U.S. EP, is a weirdly haunting song that makes good on the promise shown by “Glad You Came.” The instrumentations are pretty simplistic, but it’s a backdrop for some rather memorable lyrics. While I wouldn’t call “Chasing The Sun” deeply philosophical, lines such as the ones below are deeper than the usual love song.

“When the daylight's fading

We're gonna play in the dark

Till it's golden again

And now it feels so amazing

Can see you coming

And we'll never grow old again

You'll find us chasing the sun.”

Even if it only scratches the surfaces, there’s thought beneath the dance beats, and it puts the PG blandness of One Direction to shame.

One to Turn Off:

+ Calvin Harris “Feel So Close” – While dance acts like Skrillex are reinventing the genre, Calvin Harris lacks ambition to go beyond the obvious. “Feel So Close” starts with ten terrific seconds, and then beats the same lyrics to death for a shade under four minutes. Yes, I know that a lot of dance music, and dubstep in particular, does the same tactic, but it works when the songs feature some form of emotion and/or invention. “Feels So Close,” from the Scottish DJ’s forthcoming album, redefines the word redundancy. There’s a lot of great dance music on today’s scene, and to release something this uninspired is suicidal.

Happy Listening!