What does the current biggest star on radio have in common with the sports anthem of the year. While most people have cast the goosebumps of FIFA madness to cricket confrontations with more immediate neighbors, the Wavin Flag phenomenon still has one last hero standing at the top of the charts!
It’s the man who co-wrote the lyrics to the song that was most requested and most played on radio and most downloaded on to mobile phones in Sri Lanka not too long ago. He is also co-wrote the head-spinning dance track, Right Round by Flo Rida. Bruno Mars is the new babe behind the biggest scorers in music. Lending his vocals to B.O.B.’s hit, Nothing on You, and Billionaire by Travis McCoy.
The American Filipino singer-songwriter, known at home as Peter Fernandez, recently released his debut album, It’s Better If You Don’t Understand.
The album contains four songs, that range from summer sunshine grooves and finger-snapping and whistle-into-the-wind melodies. Somewhere in Brooklyn is about the girl that got away – the little miss perfect sitting at the train stop, red Nike high tops listening to hip hop. The song is soulful with a youthfully cheery tempo and probably the best song on the compilation, with subtle woohoo harmonizing, gentle falsettos before unraveling into heartfelt wails.
Count on Me follows a similar tempo, reminiscent of Bruno Mars’ work on Billionaire with a simple Mraz style reggae sway from side-to-side.
B.O.B. lends his voice to the Drum and Bass energy of Other Side. B.O.B. sings in his verse, “If they say life’s a dream, call this insomnia, ‘cause this ain’t Wonderland, it damn sure ain’t Narnia”. Other artists that contributed to the song include Cee-Lo Green. The best part of the song is the way Bruno Mars’ vocals adjust to different tempo and energy that pumps through the song while still sounding just as soulful as he does on a piano-driven ballad like Talking to the Moon.
Talking to the Moon follows a Leona Lewis like melody but its continued wailing can either make the song beautiful if you are really spending the night just following the ways of the moon, or can be boringly monotonous given the refreshing tones of the other songs on the album.
Somewhere in Brooklyn
[Play Now]Other Side
Talking to the Moon
[Play Now]Count on Me
[Play Now]
United States of Eurasia starts as a piano ballad as Bellamy quietly starts on vocals that seem almost Queen-like in the way it is delivered with such restraint over such a simple melody. But as you listen you are constantly expecting him to let go of that restraint and it does – almost as you expect it – and in the same Freddie Mercury type moment of operatic tenor now famed in football stadium glory in songs like We Are the Champions. Except here instead of saying Man-United, Bellamy bellows United States! But then it strangely develops into a quasi-Arabic melody like you were now on a magic carpet ride to Bohemia. And then he is joined by a choir, chanting Eurasia, in war-like theatrics as if announcing the arrival of the marching troops of the wicked Axis of evil in World War II. And then as the chaos of music settles, it seems that all that emerges in the shadows is a little girl dancing ballet quietly in a room, glistening with a piano-playing background. That’s just the image we heard in our heads. But that’s how absurdly eclectic this track is. Sometimes pretentious for trying too hard to be too many things and sometimes as wonderfully absurd as Alice would have it.
Others will try to recreate the magic of past musical eras. But the need to please as many as is necessary to push the album sales is what makes the beat throb on your radio.