The Future Sound Of London - Environments 3

fsoldigital.com: 2010

So I skipped the first Environments. It wasn't because of the general shrug from fan-based opinions on it, oh no. Rather, it was its presentation, a mere two tracks averaging about twenty-five minutes, each plainly titled Environments. If that doesn't come off about as lazy as anything the Future Sound Of London's put out, I don't know what else could top it (no, From The Archives doesn't count). Lengthy ambient soundscapes are already a dubious proposition, and while I've no doubt the FSOL can capably craft such music, part of their appeal's long been the quirky titles they give their tracks. They're like a guiding suggestion in what imagery is created with their soundscapes. Compared to names like Spineless Jelly, Smoking Japanese Babe, and Antique Toy, Environments is vague and dull.

Dougans and Corbain must have realized this weakness in the first Environments, every piece of music since of digestible length and with an individual identity. While it's unfortunate they still aren't composing albums as distinct thematic wholes, this approach is far preferable to the formless method before. At least, that's how I like my FSOL, hence skipping on the first one.

Okay, I shouldn’t say Environments is totally without theme, as II, 3, and 4 do have self-contained premises, even if it’s only hinted through track titles (do you see why it’s important?). E3 features names like Sunken Ships, The Empty Land, The Oldest Lady, and End Of The World, so we’re in future-shock desolation territory again.

E3 may as well be Dead Cities: 100 Years After, a reasonable assumption considering The Empty Land sounds like a mash-up of My Kingdom and In A State Of Permanent Abyss (and boy, does that ever further beg the question whether all these Environments albums are repurposed old material or spankin’ new compositions). The cataclysm that caused the fall of civilization is an old memory, occasionally retold by aging elders but seldom reflected upon by the surviving generations. Those who remain are eking out a new life for themselves, building upon the structures of old, a somber struggle of a stubborn people. Summer’s Dream has quiet, clicking machinery minding its own business as ominous pads weave about; A Glitch In Cellular Memory is cheerful and jubilant, while Recollection following it invokes child innocence and whimsy. Beware those that will steal what’s yours through dark ambient techno in A Diversionary Tactic, or false complacency as tranquil pianos play in Hall Of Mirrors and gentle guitars strum in Sense Of Being. For, in this uncertain world, who know what electro horror lurks beneath Surface Waters, ready to undo all that was regained.

Yeah, as I’ve said, writing the finer details of FSOL’s music isn’t the easiest, especially when they allow themselves this much freeform expressionism. Environments 3 is another great body of work from the duo though, one that can take you to captivating surroundings, provided you have a foundation to start from.

The Future Sound Of London - Environments II

fsoldigital.com: 2008

Yes! A return to my normal backlog, however briefly. I'd been eyeing The Future Sound Of London's semi-return with some interest these past couple years, curious what the deal with all these releases were about. The From The Archives compilations seems self-explanatory, but my God they just keep coming out with them. Dougans and Cobain also released a few more Amorphous Androgynous albums, though as they're still exploring the roads of psychedelic music that was The Isness, I can't say an album titled The Peppermint Tree & The Seeds Of Superconsciousness looks promising. Then there's Environments, initially the mysterious album advertised in Lifeforms that never came to be, now up to its fourth volume. What's the deal, then?

Though details remain sketchy, Environments was hinted at being what ISDN was: a collection of live-broadcast material of generally free-form music making. You can imagine Virgin, already feeling leery about FSOL's new-found experimental tendencies, would balk at such an endeavour. So to the back-burner Environments went as Dougans and Corbain focused on Dead Cities instead. As the millennium turned, the FSOL were back in charge of their own distribution, and started making available all that originally archived material. Thus, Environments gets its long overdue release in 2007. The world of electronic music shrugged.

Fortunately, that album garnered enough interest to warrant follow-ups, where the narrative of FSOL’s output gets murkier. Far as anyone knew, there was only one Environments, so were these albums new material, or had it also sat fallow all these years? It wouldn’t surprise me if it was a mixture of both, but until we get concrete confirmation, we may as well sit back and enjoy what we do have.

While every Environments album is primarily about exploring sound-forms, Environments II has a loose winter theme running through it. Track titles like Ice Formed, North Arctic, Glacier, and Newfoundland are self-explanatory, while Small Town, Nearly Home, and A Corner may also work in you know your Canadiana (are we certain this isn’t a Boards Of Canada album?). Of course, Serengeti totally deep-sixes that theory, but that’s just one track, and it contains droning voice pads that could invoke glacial imagery just as easily.

As for the music itself... um, it’s FSOL? Describing their future sounds was difficult enough for albums with actual themes, and there’s little hope of proper detail here without bursting the self-imposed word count. Here’s a taster: electro crops up in Factories And Assembly; Glacier would go great with an opium den; Baco Manu comes off like Jan Hammer on acid; Colour-Blind cribs Vit Drowning’s beats; Journey To The Center and Viewed From Above features orchestral arrangements.

Stylistically, Environments II isn’t that far a leap forward from their ‘90s output, though hardly dated either, as the FSOL were already light-years ahead in musical craft back then. The fact they can still release music unlike anyone else in the experimental chill-out scene to this day is all the proof you need this album’s worth your attention.

Soundgarden - Down On The Upside

A & M Records: 1996

I could have skipped all these rock albums. I’m not required to review them, no overhead demanding I write about this or that. Plus, isn’t it self-defeating and counter-productive that a blog dedicated to electronic music deviates from its target field so wildly? Yes it is, but as my personal collection of music contains barely one-tenth rock, an occasional divergence into Neil Young or Yes wouldn’t hurt my overall scope. Doing so set a precedent though, and now I’m obligated to cover bands like Tool, The Offspring (soon), and Filter (way later), lest I turn hypocritical in providing preferential exposure to any music. Damn it, Ish’, why couldn’t you have discovered electronic music earlier in your life?

2014 Ishkur: You wanted the CD tower; you get my old CDs.

Right. Man, maybe I should get shelves next time. With this sort of luck, the next chap I get a tower off of will be a jazz enthusiast.

Anyhow, Soundgarden. They were a very important band coming out of the Seattle grunge scene. Many fans of the era place them on equal footing with the Big Two (Nirvana and Pearl Jam), despite not breaking through until 1994's Superunknown. Makes sense it took that long, as their first couple albums found them playing traditional forms of hard rock (punk, metal) as their Washington State peers were defining a genre and generation (however unintentional it was). That background led to a darker tone in Soundgarden’s music, Black Sabbath often getting name-dropped in comparisons. In all, it helped identify Soundgarden as a unique offering to grunge's legacy even as the scene was increasingly drowning in copycats.

The band also followed suit with other early grunge bands in quickly moving on from the genre before it grew too stale. Down On The Upside, their final album before taking a decade-plus hiatus, isn’t so heavy on angst and bleak Gen-X existence as their prior work, instead trying their hand at other forms of rock. They still allow for a couple ‘traditional’ grunge cuts like Blow Up The Outside World, but by ’96 the whole “quiet verse, loud chorus” arrangement was in serious parody mode, and I’ve no doubt Soundgarden were fully aware of it. No, ‘tis better to let inspiration and creativity flow rather than fall back on what fans undoubtedly expected of them.

And so they did. In tracks like Rhinosaur, Ty Cobb, No Attention, and Never The Machine Forever, they sound like the Led Zeppelin inspired band they were always likened to; other times they let their acoustic (Dusty, Zero Chance, Burden In My Hand) or blues (Boot Camp) interests dominate. They also experimented with odd time signatures and alternative tunings, because Wikipedia tells me so. Clearly, it’s nothing so overt that it detracts from the songcraft, unlike other hard rock bands of the time.

Down On The Upside’s a solid album, for sure. Can’t say I’ll ever listen to it again though. I’ve had my fill from alternative rock radio stations.

The Tragically Hip - Day For Night

MCA: 1994

For the past twenty-five years, it was every Canadian rock lover's patriotic duty to enjoy The Tragically Hip. You really had little choice in the matter, Canadian Content legislature forcing a high percentage of national acts onto our airwaves - the more popular a band got, the larger chunk of that percentage they'd take up. As The Hip typically offered a brand of alternative bar rock that was quite easy on the ears, they were a safe bet for radio playlists. With each subsequent album released, their classy reputation and Canadian fame grew, hitting the perfect middle-road of rock 'n roll that wasn't too heavy, wasn't too wimpy, and rewarded fans with excellent live shows. So the story goes, I am told.

Yeah, I can't say I was bitten by the Tragically Hip bug, though was exposed to them when their third album, Fully Completely, started making the rounds among my peers and adult-folk alike. I specifically recall a classmate getting in trouble for wearing a t-shirt sporting the cover art, on account it had a boob on it, albeit mangled Picasso-like. He thus had to either wear no shirt the rest of the day, or go home.

Well, if The Tragically Hip are hip enough to force a day’s suspension, I had to check out that Fully Completely CD in my old man's collection. It was okay, quite similar to the music I heard from my Dad's practice sessions, but totally not my thing at the time (ooh, Dance Mix '93 is out!). To this day, that assessment stuck, and now that I'm forced to sit down and listen to another of their albums, surely my matured tastes have finally found enjoyment out of these Canadian icons.

I guess. Day For Night's considered The Hip's best overall album, combining their dependable alternative blues-rock style with craftier song writing, broader topics, and even new sonic tricks for flavor. The opener and big hit off here, Grace, Too, plays to their anthemic capabilities, a casual pace of rhythmic harmony building upon itself as singer Gordon Downie relates a simple tale of an urban rendezvous between a rich man and an unsuspecting young woman. What does this interaction lead to? Downie leaves it a mystery, as he does with many other narratives throughout the album (though seldom as ear-wormy as Grace, Too).

Most consider Downie's lyrics the highlight of Hip tunes, but I struggle getting into them – he strikes me too much of a Michael Stipe sort. As with most rock, I’m more interested in the music itself, and Day For Night features a few neat tweaks to the alt-rock formula. Johnny Fay adds a cool filter to his drum kit in Thugs, droning guitar feedback envelops the acoustic Titanic Terrarium, and any chance the band gets to rock out (Fire In The Hole, Nautical Disaster, An Inch An Hour) is A-okay in my book. Shame they don’t go the lengths Crazy Horse does though; maybe live they do?

Various - Dance Mix 90

Quality Special Products: 1990

This… actually exists? I had no idea Dance Mix went back so far. My first exposure to the series was with Dance Mix ‘92 (a CD that changed everything for yours truly), but I’d seen a Dance Mix ‘91 on shelves too. It doesn’t even look like it belongs with the subsequent volumes, font and airbrushed cover art seemingly time-warped from the ‘50s – small surprise the inlay shows advertisements for a pile of ‘jukebox classics’ compilations. It’s doubly bizarre seeing it in a collection of CDs filled with grunge and hard rock. Hey, Teenage Ishkur, how did you come about having this?

Teenage Ishkur: This isn’t mine. I don’t listen to dance music. This looks lame and stupid.

Oh. I guess he got this later, after electronic music culture lured him away from ‘angst rawk’. Still, young Ish’ isn’t too far off in his appraisal of Dance Mix 90, even if it’s for the wrong reasons. This is an incredibly sloppy CD, with a bizarre track selection for the time and mixing that would embarrass even a rank amateur. MuchMusic's oversight for later volumes vastly improved upon the formula of DJ mixed dance-pop, such that it became a Canadian fixture larger than any Chris Sheppard compilation.

Between licensing issues and probable lack of knowledge about the scene at large, Dance Mix 90 is hardly a comprehensive collection of electronic music of that year, even at a commercial level. For sure there are big hits – Roxette’s The Look, Yaz’ Situation, and Milli Vanilli’s Girl You Know It’s True - but they don’t make a lick of sense when paired alongside Depeche Mode’s Strange Love, Inner City’s Big Fun, and Soul II Soul’s Keep On Movin’ - to say nothing of the copious amounts of Stock, Aitken & Waterman productions throughout. While Dance Mix would turn the genre hopping into strength once they narrowed their scope, this first attempt comes off a mish-mash of instantly dated synth-pop and club beats.

Then there’s the ‘mixing’. Oh my God, is there ever ‘mixing’. Key clashes, shoes in the dryer phrasing, nonsensical genre blends… Dance Mix 90 is so inept at creating a flowing DJ set, it’s entertaining in spite of itself. I’ll grant the DJ mix CD was still a young concept in 1990, but this has all the production chops of utter bargain-bin toss-off. Every beatmatching attempt is hilariously forced, other times we’re treated to clashing fade-slams that aren’t even timed properly, and there’s a complete second of silence between tracks midway! I understand this was intended for the tape copy of Dance Mix 90, but you don’t allow that shit on a CD designed to be a continuous mix.

This disc’s total pants, yet I can’t help being slightly intrigued by it as well, considering the legacy Dance Mix earned during the ‘90s. Like that Beatles’ Anthology, it sheds light on the inglorious beginnings of an institution many assume was great from the start.

Stone Temple Pilots - Core

Atlantic: 1992

Of course a teenager would have a grunge album in their collection if they were a teenager in the early '90s. Wait, I never did, firmly planting my flag with 'techno' and making little concessions for other musics thereafter. I did have a single mixtape with some Nirvana on it, but that was about as obligated to the grunge scene as I ever got. Still, I have to give the former owner of these CDs credit, collecting mostly obscure grunge. No Pearl Jam, no Nirvana, no Alice In Chains, no Hole, no Smashing Pumpkins, and no Mudhoney; there is a Bush album with the lot I got though. Hey, Teenage Ishkur, why didn't you have most of the recognizable grunge bands with your CDs?

Teenage Ishkur: My older brother has them.

Oh. Well that makes sense.

Stone Temple Pilots may also be an obvious inclusion, but only if you have Purple. Carried by two of their most successful hits in Vaseline and Interstate Love Song, not to mention an iconic cover I’m sure Billy Corgan took notes on, the band’s sophomore effort has gone down as the only album by Stone Temple Pilots you’re supposed to have, even if you’re not a fan of Stone Temple Pilots. Can’t say I was much of a fan myself, always mistaking Vaseline as a song by some other grunge act. By the time I did properly notice them, it was during the promotion of their third album, Tiny Music... Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop, specifically the Big Bang Baby video. With its cheesy So-Cal style, it was all kinds of silly, which I understand was the point, but 1996 Sykonee sure didn’t know that. Stone Temple Pilots thus remained with the rest of grunge on my ‘Don’t Give A Shit About’ list.

As with many things lately, I’ve reconsidered that foolhardy teenaged assumption. Their debut album, Core, is far more kick-ass than I thought it would be, and I see why this band was held in the same breath as Pearl Jam and Nirvana. Hell, with Scott Weiland really getting his Eddie Vedder on, they even sound like Pearl Jam, albeit with far heavier guitars front and centre. It’s like what Metallica might have sounded like if they’d emerged from grunge instead of thrash, a ridiculous comparison, true, but one that my limited exposure to this music made nonetheless.

When Core came out, Stone Temple Pilots were derided as bandwagon jumpers by the regular rock press, a not unfair judgement considering their early work as Mighty Joe Young was more eclectic. That said, this debut is also a competently written and strongly executed album from a group that had earned their stripes in the trenches. For that fact, Core has endured as a minor classic of the early ‘90s hard rock scene. Purple may be more essential to the casual, but if you’re gathering up grunge for your music collection, Core definitely deserves a spot on your shelves too.

James Horner - Braveheart

London Classics: 1995

What a bizarre week of music. That's what I get for taking on someone else's teenaged CD collection, but some sense of it all would be nice. All of these, it just don't add up: ace synth-pop, corny euro-pop, old-timey rock, over-the-top rock, boring-as-sludge rock, and now this. At least James Horner makes use of a tiny bit of electronic music on this soundtrack – like, a brief bit of ominous pad in Revenge - but that's more synth work than half of the other material I've covered this past week (to say nothing of what's yet to come).

Anyhow, Braveheart was the movie that turned Mel Gibson from heartthrob action movie star into super-mega serious acting star. Also, quicker than you could say “bye, Costner”, Hollywood found themselves a sparkling new historical-epic director, ol’ Mel setting the world of film on fire in the ensuing decades with many more successful directorial follow-ups. Then he set his career on literal fire while standing on a rickety rope bridge, likely spouting a bunch of drunken nutjob nonsense.

It's been years since I last watched the movie, endless parodies and Mr. Gibson's increasing meltdowns making it difficult to take it seriously anymore. I never was in much of a hurry to make a repeated viewing of Braveheart anyway, a movie that had a terrific first half, then dragged as dry politics and blunt martyrdom replaced a compelling storyline and intense action. An extended public execution is the movie's climax? Well, that's just all sorts of depressing (and subtle-as-a-brick symbolic). Why not throw in the full Bannockburn Battle at the end, give the audience its proper cathartic release? Oh, right, it’s Mel’s movie.

James Horner’s score for Braveheart perfectly captures the narrative downward slope of this Mediaeval melodrama. By the mid-‘90s, Horner was well established as one of Hollywood’s A-list composers, despite his work never catching onto pop culture until Titanic. Braveheart inched him a bit closer to the top though, with stirring uilleann pipe themes conjuring images of romantic pastoral Scottish days long since gone. Funny, that, as the uilleann pipe is in fact Irish in origin (which explains why I think Celtic music instead), but as these pipes have a softer, melodic tone to them, it’s understandable why Horner would utilize them over traditional Highland Bagpipes.

The pipe theme is often repeated in the early portions of the score, as are many recurring melodies and leitmotifs, of which Horner’s always excelled at (possibly only rivalled by John Williams). As Braveheart plays through, it’s easy to recall all the associated moments from the movie, including the powerful build of The Battle Of Stirling. Unfortunately, the CD never recaptures that peak. As we move into the aforementioned ‘politics-n-martyrdom’ segments, it seems Horner’s run out of gripping music too. It’s still serviceable score work, just nothing as captivating as the pieces that made up the first half. At least they weren’t in danger of also getting turned into a trance tune by DJ Sakin.

Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell

MCA Records: 1993

Didn't I just say Bat Out Of Hell could only have been made in the '70s? Why on Earth is a sequel showing up in the '90s, then? This was the era of grunge and punk (again), leaving bombastic rock opera to the dust bins of baby boomer record shops. Jim Steinman, who wrote most of the music on Meat Loaf's most famous album, had been writing a second Bat since at least the turn of the '70s, but complications in development and a soured relationship with Meat Loaf stuck the project on hold for years. Some suspected Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell would end up another in the growing list of unrealized rock albums. Yet here it was, fifteen years after the first, and, amusingly, coincidentally, arriving around the time Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy was announced. Guess something in the rock world must carry that ‘indefinitely delayed’ banner.

So Meat Loaf’s BOOH II: More Heller came out, and unsurprisingly, it was a hit with aging rockers. It probably helped that Steinman and Loaf expand on the youthful nostalgia that made the original such a sleeper hit, showing mature reflection of aging times, themes anyone in their mid-life years could relate to. If there’s a big, anthem chorus along the way, all the better.

And like any sort of sequel, the music and arrangements up the theatrical productions to near breaking point on BOOH II: Helluva Boogaloo. The opening track and lead single, I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That) almost seems like a parody of Meat Loaf (which is funny, considering some critics called Bat Out Of Hell a parody of Springsteen), with bigger string sections, larger choruses with choirs, lengthier guitar and piano solos, a run time easily breaking anything Steinman and Loaf penned together, and the ‘humongous rock star of the universe’ sounding more humongous than ever; or, to sum it up, one bloat of a song. Quite a few folks loved it, but I’d Do Anything For Love is flying into ludicrous speeds of pompous rock overload. How did this get popular in ’93 again?

Yeah, bloat’s a good word to describe this album. Bat The First had some of it too, but vinyl limitations prevented it from getting too excessive. The extra time afforded on CD, however, gives Steinman all the opportunity to go overboard. There’s still some fun cock-rock about though - Life Is A Lemon And I Want My Money Back gets the fist pumpin’ good; the Wasted Youth skit’s a lot of fun, totally deserves a Jack Black re-enactment, and is a great lead in to the arena antics of Everything Louder Than Everything Else; plus I swear M83’s Midnight City nicked part of It Just Won’t Quit.

Michael Bay directed some of the videos spawned from Bat Out Of Hell II: Back To Hell, and this album comes off like one of his sequels: doubling-down on more of the same. Not for me, thanks.

Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell

Epic: 1977

My first exposure to Meat Loaf was an advertisement in an '80s Transformers comic. You know the one, where all the Marvel Superheroes (Spider-Man! Iron Man! Hulk Man! The X-Men Man?) chime in with kids that they'll help him with the Special Olympics, but they weren't sure how. What a weird comic, thinks 1987 Sykonee, more so this Meat Loaf character. I’d never heard about the 'Humongous Rock Star Of The Universe'. My second exposure to Meat Loaf was as an actor. No, not Fight Club. No, not Rocky Horror. It was the Patrick Swayze flick about big rigs, Black Dog; specifically, the TV ad where the gruff announcer does the cast roll, showing Meat Loaf glowering as he chomps down on a big stoggie. What a weird name for an actor, thinks 1998 Sykonee.

Okay, I likely heard his actual music a few times between those two points, but it never registered as anything more than “dad's rock”. And no, my old man wasn’t much for Meat Loaf, but many of his peers were, and Bat Out Of Hell almost certainly has seen rotation on classic rock stations, to say nothing of his ballads playing out at weddings I attended or helped DJ as a teen.

The creation and development of Bat Out Of Hell is a story of perseverance triumphing in the face of relentless doubt, which is likely why its retained rock-n-roll classic status despite so many things suggesting it shouldn’t (kick-ass cover art notwithstanding). For one thing, the music is so over-the-top, almost gloriously so, it’s surprising anyone could take it seriously. Jim Steinman, who wrote most of the music with Meat Loaf and already had a background in musicals, holds little back in unleashing his bombastic arrangements; little surprise Steinman lists Wagner and The Who as influences. Included within are string sections, piano ballads, full complement of blues musicians (including borrowing a few members of the Springsteen’s E Street), and a lead singer with the theatre chops to pull the concepts off with earnest sincerity. Bat Out Of Hell, All Revved Up With No Place To Go, and Paradise By The Dashboard Light may be playing up typical teenage rock ‘n roll tropes in a fantastical way, but they sure are fun regardless.

Paradise By The Dashboard Light in particular’s quite an ambitious bit of rock. Opening with honky-tonk, of all things, it then runs the gamut through arena choruses, goof-ball baseball innuendo, and a wonderful back-and-forth between Meat Loaf and Ellen Foley over going for the ‘home run’, and the implications it would mean for their relationship. Good stuff, and totally deserving of a Broadway musical supporting it.

Steinman reflected that Bat Out Of Hell is “timeless... that it didn’t fit into any trend”, but this album could only have been made in the ‘70s. While not a full-on rock opera, it retains all the swagger of an era fuelled by bold experimentation and aging reflection – it’s ‘70s rock in all its charming pomposity.

Aqua - Aquarium

Universal Music: 1997

Yeureuo-daoncshh ofth the yeaurly ‘90shth ha’ all mwut die’ mwy 1997, mwut the worold wash shtill a cople yearsh away from the nu-italo exploshion that marked europop’sh next shtage of evolushun. Mwridg’ng the gap wash a curioush four-‘iece ‘ailing from the landsh of Danesh. Inishally a ‘appy ‘ardcore group going mwy Joyshpeed, they took thoshe mwumwmwle-gum anticsh to the mainshtream, produshing – eshcushe me a momen’…

Sorry, I had to remove that foot from my mouth, though why I would write like that befuddles me (I don’t talk aloud when I type). See, I recently made some disparaging remarks about Aqua on the TranceAddict forums, likening the group’s goofy presentation and novelty music to the cornball antics of current dance pop. Many contemporary videos remind me of that silly era, Yvis’ The Fox being a prime example, though it was tracks like Laidback Luke’s Pogo and Chicky’s Bunny that set me off. I felt Aqua marked the end of euro-dance’s glory years, a final nail in ruining whatever slight credibility the genre still had in the eyes of the general population when Barbie Girl was the flag bearer. And now I’m forced to contradict myself by reviewing Aqua’s debut.

I’ll get this out of the way: I like Lollipop (Candyman). Maybe it’s that piano hook that reminds me German trance (no, really!), maybe it’s the wonderfully campy sci-fi video, maybe it’s the totally obvious double-entre within a pop song, but I like it. A lot. Even back in the day, when I was anti-Aqua on principle. And I continued liking it, a lot. Now leave me alone about it.

Then there’s Barbie Girl, the inescapable hit you loved to hate, but couldn’t deny the surprising, thought-provoking subtext lurking within an apparent bubble-gum song, a dark statement on the vapid Valley Girl lifestyle. Okay, I’m giving Aqua way too much credit there, but they claim the tune’s a social commentary, so kudos for them in thinking a bit deeper where dance-pop’s concerned (to say nothing about pissing off Mattel to no end).

The rest of Aquarium features more happy-go-lucky euro-dance and the requisite forgettable ballads that pad out pop albums. Roses Are Red, the first single released under the Aqua banner, is pretty good for mid-'90s euro, though it's clear in follow-up singles like Doctor Jones and My Oh My the group were quite content at crafting cartoon music. Can't fault them for achieving their goals, and they look like they had fun making equally cartoony videos (which Katy Perry totally style-bit!), but listening to this is still no more satisfying than munching on cotton candy. Then again, everyone must love the fluffy, colourful stuff, Aquarium going down as Denmark's all-time best-selling album.

Guess I was too hard on Aqua back in the day. I still wouldn’t recommend them unless you’re perfectly fine with music at its most infantile, but they sure don’t deserve the ire of ‘music are serious’ types. Ann Lee and that godawful 2 Times, however…