Lopez Blogs

I woke up this morning to a musical cavalcade of excellence. Some exciting new previews were in my inbox which I shall natter about shortly. The Abba special edition of Super Trouper arrived along with an opportunity to listen to the Nerina album and a final A-Ha live compilation. all of this is jolly excellent news indeed. But while all of this was happening my eyes and ears were distracted by music from two of my favourite musical groups. I shall discuss forthwith...

THE FEELING ~ SET MY WORLD ON FIRE (VIDEO BREAKDOWN)

• I have written about Set My World On Fire before. And it's very excellent b-side Seven Years. This is all about the video.
• In my experience, The Feeling videos are often very good indeed. Their last effort, Join With Us, was phenom.
• It's nighttime, and The Feeling boys are apparently being driven around. They all seem to be looking up at the sky in wondrous amazement. Perhaps it is because they have obviously picked up a hitch hiker lass who only has a giant glowing orb as luggage!!
• Dan starts singing as he walks through the most gorgeous landscape setting and in fact it is only matched by his adorable floppy hair and the fact that he continues to look very decent indeed at the mo.
• Some other people have joined them. They probably saw them on the side of the road and said Join With Us. Ho ho ho, etc. Anyway, they have bought torches or flashlights as they are known in America. This is wise. I once tripped on an errant tree root once at night and my nose has never been right since.
• The orb is magic! The girl unleashes it and it turns the heavenly dusk into brilliant sunlight. Amazing. This obviously is perfectly timed for the first rousing chorus...
• And it's wonderful. Basically the band are playing on some hills that are reminiscent of Julie Andrews twirling around at the start of The Sound of Music. Lots of loved up couples look very contented and romantic, before some group tomfoolery and fooling around takes place :)
• (In a jape type way not in a dogging sort of way!)
• The orb is bought back down for nighttime and the band carry a canoe. I suspect they will do some canooing.
• They are! Mr Gillespie-Sells rows out orb girl into the middle of the lake and she unleashes her metaphorical goddess all over again (Bonus = there is a lovely pause of Richard at 1m56. Let's just say Sophie is a lucky lucky girl :P)
• And it's sunlight again, lots of lovely mountain shots and people running around. playing tag i think, which is a very underrated game as you become an adult I feel...
• In a more advanced version of tag, you get a brief shot of Richard stealing a table cloth from Dan, who runs after him. Perhaps this is more capture the flag (incidentally, the song still sounds magnificent and the sunny video just makes it more so).
• Middle 8 - it's gone dark again. They should get better batteries for the orb. They are hacking away with scissors at it's casing. Perhaps it is like Lourdes (the place, not Madonna's daughter) where you take a piece of it for healing powers?! Sidebar - wouldn't it be amazing if Madonna's daughter had healing powers?!
• I was wrong - they were making it into a lovely glitterball effect for that divine harmonised end of middle 8 (2m55s)
• For the final chorus, it's let your inhibitions loose as the band lark around and genuinely look like they are having a bostin' time :)
• As well they should - ultimately it's a simple albeit lovely lovely visual representation of an everso charming song. Still smitten.

TAKE THAT - LOVE LOVE (SINGLE REVIEW):


I'm hoping that this new tune (from the upcoming X-Men: First Class movie) is just a brief sojourn from the almost excellent Progress album as I'm not ready for the That to be done with it just yet (I'm ready for Wait, SOS and/or 8 Letters to be singles please). However, if this is a temporary diversion, it's an altogether pleasing treat that actually fits in incredibly well with the sound and feel of the current body of Stuart Price produced work. Let's ignore for now any debate as to whether Robbie should remain in the group and focus on the song. Unlike the soaring Rule The World, this has a harsh, dangerous feel to it - similar in vibe to the song The Visitors by Abba, where you can almost tangibly reach out and touch the urgency and fear within the song. Like Rule The World, however, it's perfect for the movie it's linked to - X-Men has always been about being different, alienation, putting yourself out there and the vibe of this tune matches that very well. It feels like it would fit in beautifully with Doctor Who - The Musical should there ever be one. After the relative (because the album did SO well) underperformance of Kidz and Happy Now, it should propel the That back into the top ten. Sunday will tell...