THIS IS CARACOLA-ALBUM REVIEW!

Caracola-This Is Caracola

The poptastic trio Caracola from Sweden have gone and released a very special English version of their debut album & its one of the best bubblegum albums of 2008. They first appeared on DSTP two years ago! Yes two years ago! Anybo! Here is the much delayed and long-overdue album review of the Cd they've just released.

Smiling In Love

The brilliant Melodifestivalen hit single. Simple lyrics but backed up by some very impressive vocals and catchy melody. This fast becoming a girlband classic. This celebrates everything that is great about the summer & as such its very similar to the vibe of the sorely missed Passion Fruit girlband. It even has the all important key change. The strongest track on the album. Dontstopthepop rating: 5.0

Mango Nights

The lead single. Written by Marcos Ubeda and lyrics by the wonderful Billy Butt. This is perfect for driving around with the girls in Ibiza with your top-down and lip-gloss drawn on places of the body that shouldn’t be mentioned in public. Mango Nights sets out the form and indeed constitution of what the album, This Is Caracola, is about-going out with the mates and ending the night with your mates in a fit of hysteria. DontStopthePop Rating: 4.2

Life Is a Holiday

Ok, the girls change the vibe and this song takes you to the Caribbean via Ace Of Base. Life Is A Holiday is the teenage version of Life is a Flower and could be a huge smash hit if released next year when the sun comes out. The chorus is “Oh, eoo, life is a holiday” and that gets repeated over and over. Its very addictive despite not being as immediate as the first two songs. Not on the first Caracola album but was a b-side. DontstopthePop Rating: 4.9

Gimmie Magic Tonight

Gimmie Magic Tonight is a rip-roaring dance classic that looks at ABBA’s Lay All Your Love On Me, fuses it with a dash of Donna Summer and a touch of Kylie’s On A Night Like This. This is a kinda punch ya fist in the air pop song. 4.3

Vamos, Vamos

This a brand new song and demands to be the follow-up to Smiling In Love. Its made for Costa del sol as the Spanish title suggests. Here the sound similar to Lucky Twice who were huge in Spain so this could be massive in the discos that lick the beaches of Ibiza and Mallorca. Also has a key change! Dontstopthepop Rating: 5.0

Summer Night

Summer Night is one of the best bubblegum songs by girlband in 2008. If a song makes you wanna dance right where you are then its done its job. I’d own this album for this track alone. Summer Night has the potential to be a global hit for the girls. Its got that quality to send the dancefloors into a little bit of a frenzy. Dontstopthepop Rating: 5

My Baby Blue

This is the current single and its great. It truly is. I can see this being performed at G-a-y but the only problem is it sounds too much like Deeper Shade Of Blue. The two songs could be twins-they even reference the same colour in the title for heavens sake! You couldn’t make it easier for the lawyers Caracola! Still a great and dramatic pop song! Dontstopthepop Rating: 4.6

Go Paparazzi

Ok this is lyrically the best songs on the album. This so about Paris Hilton! How else can one interpret this: “You have only had one dream and that’s to be famous and be seen. There is nowhere you wouldn’t go for your picture in in Hello/You gotta get your face on TV and every film premiere’s in your CV!”. One of the bitchiest pop songs of 2007 and for this it deserves a round of applause. Dontstopthepop rating: 4.5

Love Alive

Originally called Ända Fram, Love Alive continues with the uplifting night out vibe. This is about a boy with bright eyes who, the girls confess, make them “cry like a child”. She promises that they’ll offer the boy the stars if he gives them his moon. This is a perfect song for Eurovision as it includes a sublime key change at the end! DontStopthePop Rating: 4.5

Love Makes The World Go Round

Anthem alert!!! This is a great pop song and is a distinct Caracola track. Its extremely uplifting and should make you warm inside. Gone is the stress and negativity of the daily business of banks, bills and so forth. Plus it’s the only dance song to my knowledge that makes online chat rooms rather kinky yet oddly innocent. Take the line “Drop me a message where and when-no matter if Skype or MSN” proving that Caracola are a thoroughly modern pop band. Musically this sounds a bit like DJ Sammy’s Heaven and the entire first album by ATC. Dontstopthepop Rating: 5.0

You and I

Caracola approach their poptastic routes once again with this pink pop English version of “Du Och Jag”. Personally I think this is one of the strongest tracks on the album. You think it’s a pretty usual track from the Swedish trio but wait till you get the chorus-it recalls the amazingness of the Vengaboys and their bus. You wanna book that flight to Palma and dip into some pink hotpants and bounce around the sand dunes without a care in the world. Yes the British summer was absolutely awful but You And I ensure that even the coldest of hearts will feel a ray of sunshine. The girls go for the high notes and expose one of the most concise pop songs in their catalogue to date. The writers Niklas Ringstrom and Linda Sonnvik really create something special on this track and in English that is simply taken to another level. A great pop song. Dontstopthepop Rating: 5.0

Put The Blame On Me

Originally called Bara Skyll På Mig, Put the Blame On Me is an odd choice to re-record. Only because there are much better songs on their Swedish album. A great little pop song but after You and I you feel somewhat shortchanged. When stood alone it really shines but it is overshadowed. Dontstopthepop Rating: 3.9

Conclusion: This is Caracola is cute little pop album. If you adored Atomic Kitten back when they were poptastic (aka before Jenny Frost got involved) then you’ll love the CD. Or rather if you still pine for the days when PWL ruled the world, when Ace Of Base topped the charts or simply when Kylie blew bubbles of catchy pop music then this CD is just up your street. Its not too sickly sweet and clearly gives the likes of BootyLuv (UK), Love Shy (UK), LuckyTwice (Sweden) and the Electric Dolls (UK) a run for their krona. Each track is a catchy little story of its own and the girls will do well if they take the CD to the rest of Europe. Its loaded with summer sunshine anthems. If you like your schlager pop shaken and remixed up (and in English), This Is Caracola is perfect for you. My only complaint is the fact that the girls didn’t translate their songs Du (La, LA, La) and Allting Stannar Till which would worked brilliantly on the album…

Buy here: Cdon
Buy here: Megastore

THE LINDA BENGTZING DONTSTOPTHEPOP ALBUM PREVIEW/INTERVIEW!!!!!

Spread the news! An English Linda album is in our hands! Linda B is back! The queen of Melodifestivalen is ripping through the current stages with her key changes, "hah!"'s, gloves and the brilliant stomping schlager anthem that is "Hur svårt kan det va?". Her new album, wonderfully called Vild & Galen, is released in just a few weeks (I am counting down the days!) so DontStopthePop decided that it was only right to have a little chat with its key song-writers involved in one of her biggest anthems "Alla Flickor", her current Melodifestivalen/Eurovision anthem and some of the songs on the new LP.

Of course, the legend that is Tim Larsson (of Play Productions)! Its already March and I've used up my yearly allowance of exclamation marks but its Linda! Its Tim Larsson! Its PlayProductions!! Its Sweden!!! Its Melodifestivalen!!!! So without further delay....

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Tim, first all...can you explain to Dontstopthepop readers who you are? (although most will know, hehe)

We're a songwriting/production team called Play Production and we live/work in a town called Örebro in the middle of Sweden. We're focused on writing and producing pop music. We have released over 100 songs by different artists.

Are you aware that Linda has a huge international following?

Actually no. She told me that we should record an english version of the "Hur svart kan det va?" song but I thought that she was kidding :-). It's funny 'cause of the language we thought that she was "stuck" in Sweden...

Nooooo. Not stuck in Sweden at all. Despite not speaking or understanding of Swedish, she has a major international following! I think this is mainly down to brilliant song-writing.

Thanks, we thought that the melody structure are kind of Swedish as well. Still it´s fun how music can have an impact even though you most certainly can't understand a word, I guess :-)

I have played songs you've written - Alla Flickor in particular - at parties & such and the place has exploded with joy and merriment. Its the songwriting! Its not the Swedish lyrics per se. It goes beyond nationality. Thats the power of great pop music. It gets you up no matter what! Alla Flickor is amazing. Can you tell us how that came about?

We pretty much had the song done and we needed a fresh artist, we tried at least 10 artists known and unknown but it just didn't feel right. We talked to a Swedish label and asked if they knew any new fresh artists. Linda came to our studio and we loved her at first sight.

Linda strikes it lucky this time! "Hah!"

Congratulations on Linda's success at Melodifestivalen! you must be so chuffed!

Yeah, we´re really glad to make it to the final. The song were picked out of almost 3500 songs and 32 made it the Swedish Eurovision contest. Now there's 10 songs left in the final competition.

Ok, tell us about the next Linda B album and what we can expect from it?

We made 5 songs for this album and I think that this album will be much stronger in terms of songwriting than her last one. We tried to keep Lindas energy but mixed it with some deeper emotions but made some really happy as well...

Take us through the songs you (and playproduction) did on it?

Hur Svårt Kan Det Va?

The Swedish Eurovision contest song! A typical Linda song, energy from start and it gets more intense for every second..

Utan Dig

We wanted a more deeper midtempo song to show that Linda can be kind of deep as an artist as well. We used a lot of orchestral arrangement in this production.

Inga Pojkar I Världen

This one might be her next single after "Hur svårt kan det va". A different song that still feels Linda to it. We found a special baseline that goes almost through the song, Hi tempo one..

Vild & Galen

This one is really intense, this song i a couple of years old but it worked out well in a new fresh production. We had some plans to do a duet but Linda performed it so well in the studio that we removed the idea...

Sanningen

Linda wanted a harder song with some more heavy guitars. We had an idea of a the chorus and it turned out well. It´s more of this "I´m angry and frustrated" song. It's always good to do an album with different styles so that Lindas audience find her interesting in the long run.

What are they about? Any party anthems & any key changes? Are they all schlager?

There´s only one Schlager but there are party, mellow, harder & faster ones...

2008 Swden - Linda Bengtzing (Semi 4)

Can you shed any light on the other songs on Linda's album that made you go "Wow!"?

I haven't heard them but as it stands it feels like its a good album.

What can we expect from the Play Production team in the future?

We're working a lot in the US now. We´re working with some major acts but I can´t tell you more before the CD's on the shop.

So do you think Linda should do a English album consisting of english versions of her favourite hits?

It's more up to you guys, if the label says yes then we´ll fix it...

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I can't quite compute the poplicious magnitude of those answers. They. Will. Fix. It! Woohoo! We must fly over to Mariann Records & demand a English album. Linda wanted an English version of her new single! Its up to us, yes us! Tim & his team have done harder, faster, mellow and party songs with Linda on the album. WoohooX2! Yelps at the history of Alla Flickor! Linda knows about her English fans! & now so do her song-writing team! Woohoox3! Whatever next....

The album is out very soon and available through CdOn.

LOVESHY DEEMED TOO MODERN FOR EUROVISION!

LoveShy revealed themselves tonight (and their dancers!). And, they were absolutely amazing. It was their first ever performance and they look like a force to be reckoned with. Amazing outfits, stunning hair and excellent performance-the girls (Aimee and Emma) rocked it. But they were deemed too modern for Eurovision and sadly they didnt get through. Instead Britain picked someone called Andy. Who lifts no shirt (or rips them) and no quirky lyrics about eating too much man.

What? Yes. The BBC right royally fucked it up for Britain and two girls' dreams. Some woman called Carrie said the girls were shaky on the vocals. Which being the first act on and the youngest on the show is understandable but Carrie-no relation to the horror film character-has an amazing career as a successful singer so she didn't blink when she curled her lips with her critiques. Known as Carrie Grant, she has had an amazing career in the long-lost band Sweet Dreams whose single "I'm Never Giving Up" is a fine moment in British pop history. Interestedly it too was rebuffed at the national heats in 1983 (the year I was born!). It truly makes Carrie a fine one to judge on what should go forward doesn't it? Do you think she holds a grudge? Not for me to say. Still, what is the point of judges on a show called "Eurovision: Your Decision" pray-tell? Perhaps its ironic? Are BBC truly that clever these days though? I think not. More on that though below.

Alas, am I being too harsh? To be sure, I am very fond of Loveshy. It makes me blighted with bias. Actually no. My bite is with the judges. One had the audacity to say Mr.Gorgeous was too modern ("more of a pop song than a song for Eurovision"-what!?) for the audiences of Eurovision. Wait? Is the entire of Europe (including Isreal) is backward? I mean that is essentially what is implied in the suggestion. Still, whats wrong if the song was too modern? Europe is not some backward place! Half of the song was made in Europe. Germany, one of the biggest pop markets, would have absolutely lapped up Mr.Gorgeous. Nearly most of our pop music is made in European studios these days. Take a look at Robyn! Take a look at Mirwais! These are European scene-setters. And don't harp on about East Europe is different. Right now, DJ Ella is riding high with her amazing track DJ Take Me over in Poland. Russia gave us Tatu. Eurovision is ready for modernity. It can even do post-modern acts (LT United). These are countries are not dancing to folk music or scrubbing out Communist scraps from a forgotten era where the songs celebrate the Bolshevik revolution of yesterday.

Now to the concept of the judge on the show. Look at Sweden. Its left to the people to decide. Tonight they picked the glorious Linda and Charlotte (with the NuPagadi-esq Nordman & the Westlife belter sort of song by Sibel going to Andra Chansen). I absolutely disagree with the idea that it should be up to a panel to preside on matters. Especially if that panel consists of people not quite connected to Eurovision. It should be left up to the people to decide. The thing is, the BBC wanted to change the format. The show tonight now reflected its other shows (namely its god awful reality outings). So, acts were put together into categories. The judges would then decide which act from each category would go forward to the national vote. This means the judges blocked LoveShy from going to the public vote.

As such, LoveShy can hold their heads up high. They did what they had to do. So they didn't appease the judges. They can be proud of what they did tonight. Their new single is out this week and as people from Australia and U.S emailed me, its wet their appetites for more. Get downloading people! Its rather wonderful! In the future, people are gonna wish Loveshy were the band the UK picked. But thing is, we won't even get the chance to regret because of the judges. Which is a bit sombre and I can't quite understand what i mean right now. The judge system has to abolished! Oh and Loveshy really were amazing tonight. I welcome the new band and can't wait to see and hear more......