Tag Archives: melody a.m.

#1229: Röyksopp – So Easy

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When I was a young boy back in the 2000s, the British mobile network operator T-Mobile – now known to you and me as EE – used to run an advert on TV that was backed by a really cool piece of music. I didn’t know what the people were singing. To me, it sounded like “Ooh, ung, ooh/Haanay, hun, haanay/Ooh, ung, ooh/Da-da, day-da, doo”. I would sing it like that, anyway. I can’t remember exactly what age I would have been at the time. I’m sure it was under ten, though. And I just thought it was one of those songs where the people were singing gibberish on purpose. People do that in songs all the time, so it didn’t seem that strange to me. That melody would stick around in my head for a long while.

Fast forward to my second year in university, late 2014. I’d known about Röyksopp for a good five years by that time. ‘Happy Up Here’ was my song for a good few months in 2009. I was sat in front of my laptop, looking for some electronic music to listen to get me away from the guitar-oriented stuff for a change. The duo’s debut Melody A.M. appeared to have been well-received by critics around its release, according to the sources on Wikipedia. Maybe it would have made more sense to listen to the album ‘Happy Up Here’ was on. But Melody it was. So, I got to searching on Spotify. The first song on there was ‘So Easy’, and holy moly, this was the track that was in that advert all those years ago. Röyksopp made that tune. Well, this album was getting off to a fantastic start.

Searching up ‘So Easy’ on Google upon inadvertently finding answered the question I guess I had about the song for all of those years. Turned out, whatever vocals were on there weren’t gibberish at all and were in fact a sample of a song from the ’60s – one that very much had actual lyrics. “Blue on blue/Heartache on heartache/Blue on blue/Now that we are through” were the actual words. Swedish vocal group Gals & Pals sang them. And it’s these vocal samples taken from this performance that ‘So Easy’ is built around. Well, Röyksopp also lift the source material’s pizzicato string introduction, over which a funky little bassline is laid out. The song ends early, closing out with this little interlude that leads into the next song on the album, ‘Eple’. That’s one I would have written about, but things didn’t line up. But it’s not the last of Röyksopp on here.

#1113: Röyksopp – Remind Me

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Ah, Röyksopp. It’s been a long while since I’ve written about a song by those guys. I won’t lie, I don’t know the duo all that much to write so much on their background if anyone reading was interested in that aspect. All I know is that ‘Happy Up Here’ had been in my iTunes library for some time, and there was a point during 2014/15 where I was looking for albums to listen to that were a little less guitar-centric. Röyksopp fit the bill. Their debut album Melody A.M. appeared to have received some fairly positive reviews, so I went for it. I can say it’s a pretty good record. I didn’t know what to expect when pressing play that first time. I was actually shocked when it came to its opening track. But I’ll save that for another post. What matters today is the album’s eighth track, ‘Remind Me’.

The tune was one that I had heard many years before when its music video played on one of those music channels. Don’t think it was MTV that time, but it was definitely one of them. What had remained in my head from that viewing up to the point of going through Melody A.M. was the song’s hook, “Remind, remind, remind me/Remind, remind, remind me”. Everything else I’d forgotten. So I was looking forward to hearing the song again, almost as if it were actually the first time. The track eventually arrived. But something was off. That hook that I had remembered for so long never arrived. Also, the song sounded totally different from how I recalled it. Well, it turned out that the music video utilised the single version of the track, which was a remix made by an obscure artist going by Someone Else. Probably because the album version didn’t have a clear chorus, which this remix rectified. I was unsure on how this ‘new’ album version sounded. But after giving it a few more plays, I came to appreciate it greatly. It was if that single version never existed.

In comparison to that single version (below), which is much more busier with a thumping beat and a commanding presence, the version on the album has an empty shopping mall/elevator/waiting room-music vibe to it (something I actually really like about it, makes for some really easy listening) that I think works to emphasise the melancholic nature of the lyrics, concerning the buzzkill of returning home after a hectic, busy time away and an attempt of rekindling a relationship that doesn’t go to well, as sung by Kings of Convenience vocalist Erlend Øye. Where a chorus would usually appear after the song’s first verse is replaced by an endearing keyboard refrain, mirroring the established vocal melody. The track’s beat kicks in after that little keyboard break adding a bit of momentum to the proceedings, but not so much that it overbears the soundscape. And these bleeps and bloops arrive in the mix before the final chorus, followed by a subtle, subtle guitar that suddenly appears during it. The track fades into silence, and it’s a bummer when it finishes. Not just because the song’s over, but also because this isn’t one of the most happiest songs out there. Leaves you feeling reflective and all that.