Marit Larsen - Don't Save Me
Friday, March 17th 2006
These days, as I keep track of my listening preferences as never before, via iTunes playcounts and submissions to last.fm (formerly Audioscrobbler), it's become apparent that out of all the possible genres of music, pop is the one I love most of all. Oh sure, I've dallied with jazz, swayed to soul and chilled out to reggae but it's always the poppier side of those genres that has tickled me most.
In the past admitting to liking pop music was a rocky road, sneered at by the so-called hip and difficult to defend in the era of production line SAW records. It should be pointed out that I never liked those records then and they don't sound any better now even in the rosy glow of nostalgia (well some do, Mel & Kim's singles still sound quite fine for example). I'm not sure what 'the kids' buy these days but it doesn't seem to be the pop music you'd think they'd like, Rachel Stevens, Annie and Girls Aloud for example, makers of some of the finest pop music over the last few years perform pretty dismally in chart terms. Are the kids buying records at all?
These records almost have built in nostalgia attached mind you - Dee C Lee covers, Adam And The Ants references and misty eyed rememberances of clubbing days past are all reflections of the age of the producers of these records and therefore are likley to appeal to your average over 25 year old rather than your under 10 and your average 25/30 year old probably isn't out buying singles. They may however be the main age group of your music blogger, hence the love for these records in that domain.
Still we're veering off the point of this post, all this preamble is to introduce a new song which is resolutely POP! and which is currently rocking my world. It seems to fit the criteria of several singles that I've loved over the last year (Mark Owen's 'Blame It On The Boogie' and Junior Seniors 'Take My Time' (still not released in the UK!) for example) - I found out about it online but no one in the real world seems to have noticed it. To be fair it's premature to say this about this record, it has after all just been released in Norway and it has yet to be released anywhere else. In addition Stylus reviewers also gave it the highest praise I've seen for any single reviewed there (9.0) and the album just got an A- review too.
As you'll have seen from the post title I'm talking about Marit Larsen's 'Don't Save Me' (follow the link for video and streaming audio). It's upbeat, doesn't outstay it's welcome, features lots of strummed acoustic guitars, a killer chorus, those big piano chords so beloved of ABBA and Steve Nieve on Olivers Army, a proper middle 8 rather than a lazy key change. Handclaps! Hell it's even got a harmonica solo. There's also something about the Scandinavian accent when singing (cf The Cardigans, Annie etc).
I would suggest you check it out at the above link and let me know what you think.
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