The world’s highest-paid DJ rests on his laurels on his latest LP, a collection of predictable club anthems stacked high with the usual array of featured artists.
Calvin Harris/ Motion
Calvin Harris is unstoppable right now. Hot on the heels of being named the world’s highest-paid DJ by Forbes, the Scottish DJ-producer follows up 2012’s 18 Months with another star-studded affair, Motion.
Featuring more than a handful of guest vocalists (Ellie Goulding, Gwen Stefani, John Newman, Haim) and collaborators (Alesso, Firebeatz, Ozcan), Harris’ fourth studio effort has already spawned three No 1 singles even before its release. An impressive feat indeed, but not one that’s entirely unanticipated considering that he’s essentially emulating the successful working template of his last album (which, by the way, generated a total of nine Top 10 singles in the UK).
With Motion, the king of EDM is not looking to change his ways. Here, Harris seems to be adhering firmly to that old adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. The majority of the songs on the album are clearly engineered towards the dancefloors as well as dance festivals. Take, for example, lead single Summer and its all-too-familiar synth lines and lyrics about falling in love in the summer. Subsequent singles like Under Control and Blame find Harris plunging even deeper into the tried-and-tested EDM waters by drafting Hurts’ Theo Hutchcraft and John Newman to assist him on the anthemic choruses.
The record’s real unique selling points, though, lie in the tracks in which top-shelf female pop vocalists are embedded — including Harris’ long-time partner in crime Ellie Goulding (Outside), Gwen Stefani (Together), rising R&B songstress Tinashe (Dollar Signs) and Haim (Pray to God). The most memorable of the lot is the latter where the Californian sisters give it a charming indie-pop flair, plus an instrumental number called Slow Acid (ironically, one of the very few tracks he wrote and produced without help from others). These two effectively provide the record with the much-needed relief from an onslaught of builds, drops and studio-polished synth hooks. It’s a shame there weren’t more like those on offer.
At its core, Motion is a straight-up party album that reaffirms the fact that EDM is still very much alive and well. Harris had made it clear he’s not on a mission to reinvent the wheel — at least not anytime soon. (Why would he when what he’s doing is making him filthy rich?) And perhaps that is OK, too, since he’s keeping his fans happy by giving them exactly what they want to hear and/or dance to. If you’re not into pop-EDM to begin with, however, do yourself a favour and steer well clear of this. n
THE PLAYLIST
Space 360 (featuring Nacca S Natsuka)/ Venue
Sumate “Yaak Lab” Kittanasopa, the man behind Box Records (home to DCNXTR and Cut the Crab), is sharing a new single released on his other label Yaak Records. Venue is a collaborative effort between homegrown talent Space 360, aka Auttaratt “Benz” Photongnoppakun, and Japanese vocalist Nacca S Natsuka. To get the track’s full effect, break out your headphones, close your eyes, and prepare to be transported to a faraway land.
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds/ In the Heat of the Moment
As Liam Gallagher’s musical project Beady Eye came to an end, his big brother has announced a follow-up to Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds’ 2011 self-titled debut album. The new single, In the Heat of the Moment, is said to be inspired by a documentary about an astronaut who described his experience in space as “touching the face of God” (hence the opening line: “They tell me you’ve touched the face of God”). The song may not be one of Noel’s finest, but like fine wine, he sounds better and better with age.
TV On the Radio/ Careful You
Following lead single Happy Idiot, TV On the Radio has shared another cut in the form of a slow burner called Careful You. Lifted off their forthcoming fifth album Seeds, the track finds TVOTR cranking up their synthesisers to give us an ominous electro vibe. Over a burbling bassline, frontman Tunde Adebimpe sings about the relationship that’s stuck in a rut: “Don’t know, should we stay? Should we go?/Should we back it up and turn it around?/Take the good with the bad/Still believe we can make it somehow.”
Tom Odell/ Real Love
English singer-songwriter Tom Odell offers his rendition of John Lennon’s much-revered 1979 classic Real Love to soundtrack John Lewis’ annual Christmas advert for this year. The 23-year-old musician is the latest to join the ranks of artists including Ellie Goulding and Lily Allen tasked with providing the UK department store chain with their cover versions of old hits. Much like Goulding’s take on Elton John’s Your Song and Allen’s on Keane’s Somewhere Only We Know, Odell’s Real Love is a sentimental, stripped-down tribute to the original.
August Alsina (featuring Nicki Minaj)/ No Love
For a relatively new artist like August Alsina, his voice sounds awfully familiar — think somewhere along the lines of young Usher, Mario and Ne-Yo. Teaming up with Nicki Minaj of the recent Anaconda fame, the up-and-coming R&B crooner lists a number of reasons why he’s not a suitable mate on his latest cut, No Love. “Shorty if you looking for somebody tryna settle down/Probably won’t be around, nah baby,” he sings, “Let’s just party till we can’t, ain’t no loving me.” Nicki then offers a counterargument, singing: “You can’t treat me like you treat them/Yes, I am the creme de la creme/Yes, I am from one to 10.” n
