A succinct, if dispassionate comment by @QuotableTunes on the latest single by Marshmello, featuring Portugal. The Man. Three and a half million views and nearly eighteen hundred comments on YT can't be wrong, right?
Marshmello makes just one appearance in my music collection, a remix of Avicii's 2016 single Waiting For Love. I haven't played it back and to be honest, I can barely remember the original, let alone the remix.
Portugal. The Man are also poorly represented, with just four songs. But one of those is Feel It Still from 2017, which has the dubious distinction of being the most played song (by some margin) in my playlist, due to Lady K's obsession with it, and insistence that it was played several times every day on the school run, or any other occasion that she was using the Dad Taxi. I don't think I'll ever get that tune out of my head.
Phoenix, their collaborative single, is in no danger of being the earworm that Feel It Still was/is, following the typical blueprint of uplifting circular chords and bouncing beats. Musically, it's in the same wheelhouse as early Empire Of The Sun, specifically Walking On A Dream and We Are The People.
Lyrically, all the expected boxes are ticked, with references to being "forever young", "new life" and a feeling that "something's in the air".
The video is also laden with clichés: two beautiful women on a day out, nick a car, go wild in N.Y., dance on the beach and in the water, run around a lot, return car, buff owner returns and looks bemused.
For all that, it's fun - superficial, but fun - and it's only 2:40 long, so you won't feel like you've wasted a significant amount of your life even if you try and decide that it's not for you.
Now, anyone for Extreme Noise Terror tomorrow?
I'm kidding.
Or am I?
