Call My Name | A Bit Of Pop Music

Cheryl Cole premieres comeback single ‘Crazy Stupid Love’

Things have been rather quiet around Cheryl Cole for a while, but finally she is ready for a big comeback. Earlier this year, she already announced she would make a return in the jury of X Factor UK and now it is clear that she also wants to add a new chapter to her career as a pop star. Her most recent effort was released in spring 2012, when she launched the successful lead single ‘Call My Name’ which preceded the album A Million Lights. Now she is back with ‘Crazy Stupid Love’, the first single of her fourth album that will be released later this year.

When it comes to Cheryl, I tend to have big expectations for her first singles. She did this to herself with the flawless lead single trinity ‘Fight For This Love’, ‘Promise This’ and ‘Call My Name’. Those tracks all had great choruses, interesting productions and a fresh and cool attitude to it. I imagined it would be quite hard for her to keep to this standard and sadly she did not succeed. ‘Crazy Stupid Love’, that features a rap by Tinie Tempah as well, does not really come close to the poptastic quality of the other mentioned lead singles.

This does not mean that ‘Crazy Stupid Love’ is completely awful though. It actually is a quite decent and nice song, but one would expect that little bit more from Cheryl’s comeback single after two years. The verses have a great melody and Cheryl’s voice sounds quite good and when the song builds up to a sort of chorus, all seems to go in the right direction. But then, when you expect an explosion in the production of the track, all you get is a rather flat and uninspired sounding saxophone. This could have been quite a nice moment in the track, but production wise it is executed pretty poorly which drags the whole vibe of the song down. Also, Tinie’s rap is alright, but quite a non-event in the track. It seems like Cheryl and her team were chasing a trend with saxophones and horns in (urban) pop songs, like ‘Talk Dirty’ (Jason Derulo), ‘Problem’ (Ariana Grande) and ‘Thrift Shop’ (Macklemore & Ryan Lewis).

Based on the lyrics and melody, Cheryl’s track could become a big hit as well, but because of the poor production, I do not think this will set the charts on fire internationally. Still, a hit in the UK should not be a problem at all. It is good to have the pop star in Cheryl Cole back and let’s hope her album will have something more to offer than this slightly disappointing comeback single.

Tove Styrke returns to pop with edgy new single

Now that the amazing Tove Lo is getting international recognition for her track ‘Habits’ and its remix, one would almost forget that Sweden has another poptastic Tove to offer; Tove Styrke! This young Swedish pop star rose to fame when she particpated in the Swedish version of Pop Idol in 2009. She finished in third position and focused on electro pop after the competition. She released her self titled debut album in 2010 and had hits with singles like ‘White Light Moment’ and ‘Call My Name’. Her best tracks, ‘High and Low’ and ‘Beating On A Better Drum’ are electro pop with huge soaring choruses at its best. After a few years, she is back with a new single with a rather long title: ‘Even If I’m Loud It Doesn’t Mean I’m Talking To You’.

Although Tove still delivers electro pop at its finest, the new song is quite a step away from the material on her debut record. Gone are the anthemic choruses and very poppy productions. Styrke is onto something more edgy here. ‘Even If I’m Loud It Doesn’t Mean I’m Talking To You’ is basically built up from one particularly strong melody line that is repeated in the verses as well as the chorus. Although this is not the type of track that has a huge singalong chorus, it is still catchy as hell in all its edgy electro boldness. The lyrics are full of attitude with a cheeky twist and Tove delivers them convincingly.

Although fans of her dreamy soaring melodies might need a while to get used to this punchy in your face beats and vocal delivery, I think this is a step forward in her still young career. Tove, who is only 21 years old, shows that she still deserves her place among Sweden’s crowded female electro pop singers population. The new track takes a bit of Annie, a slice of Robyn and a twist of Gwen Stefani, but mostly adds a whole lot of Tove Styrke flavour. She definitely got enough going on to set herself apart from all the others with this edgy, but promising new direction!