Album Review: Calvin Harris - 18 Months

Calvin Harris, one of my favourite producers (who also happens to sing) releases his third LP 18 Months. I figured why such is the title - since it has been roughly 18 months since the supposed release of the record. 

I first heard about Calvin Harris when he produced two of Kylie Minogue's stand out tracks on her X album - In My Arms and Heart Beat Rock. From then on, I became curious about his sound. Started listening to his I Created Disco record back in 2007, but what made love this fella was his 2009 release: Ready For The Weekend.

With much anticipation about his new record and his new-found fame -- including producing We Found Love for Rihanna; collabs with Kelis, Florence of Florence and the Machine, Ne-Yo, Nicky Romero -- the album raised so much expectations and I could say they were met. Or even have exceeded for the many. 

What difference can 3 years make, right? I've seen and heard how Harris musical palette and style evolved and how he is also becoming smart about its business side without compromising much of his artistry. 

With the explosion of the EDM genre in the music market, Calvin's sound is something I'd still want to hear. I just hope he doesn't succumb to so much commercialism. While the collab with Ne-Yo, and producing jobs for Mary J. Blige, Ke$ha, and other mainstream artists are quite the sign he's onto the same path as David Guetta took, I still have much respect to his talent and how he helped mould the UK dance scene with his is really interesting and funky attitude.

Only one track stood out for me: Awooga; while the other noteworthy tracks are: the 2-dozen chart-topping hit We Found Love, Mansion, Feels So Close, Iron, We'll Be Coming Back, Sweet Nothing, and School (which is a great reminder of how Harris' sound started out.

Track Listing

What do you think?

Republiq presents: Calvin Harris (23 February 2012)

Been anticipating for this and finally I will get to legitimately wear my fly eye glasses in a Calvin Harris event. 

Last Thursday night at Republiq Club in Manila, all the Stars Come Out for Calvin Harris. I was so Ready For The Weekend and Feel So Close to Calvin that night. And now, all are just a Flashback of how fabulous that night was!

If you were there, too, share your experience--

Album Review: Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Make A Scene

After so many release date push-backs (and album name changes), finally, Sophie Ellis Bextor's fourth studio album Make A Scene was released in June 2011 in the United Kingdom (April 2011 in Russia)

Having done collabs with the likes of Armin van Buuren, The Freemasons, Calvin Harris and Junior Caldera, the album achieved that Euro electronic vibe. I LOVE IT!

The album spawned quite a number of singles and the two that captured my attention were her collabs with AvB, Not Giving Up On Love and Junior Caldera, Can't Fight This Feeling.

Other noteworthy tracks include: Revolution, Bittersweet, Heartbreak (Make Me A Dancer), Off And On, Starlight, Dial My Number and Synchronised.

Tracks:

01. Revolution

02. Bittersweet
03. Off And On

04. Heartbreak (Make Me a Dancer)

05. Not Giving Up on Love (with Armin van Buuren)

06. Can't Fight This Feeling (with Junior Caldera)

07. Starlight

08. Under Your Touch

09. Make a Scene

10. Magic

11. Dial My Number

12. Homewrecker
13. Synchronised

14. Cut Straight to the Heart

Thoughts please--

After a Heartbreak that made her a dancer, Sophie is Bittersweet and goes Straight to the Heart rather than Make A Scene

Seeing tweets of SEB that she's finally worked on her 4th studio album and that she's releasing its first single next week got me all perked up. With Sophie joining the bandwagon of my favourite female artists releasing their new singles -- this is something great to look forward to musically. I'm a fan of great music and I just want to see my favourite artists to be out there.

When Sophie made a collab with Freemasons: Heartbreak (Make Me A Dancer), I loved it instantly. Freemasons never fails to make a hit. As a fan of Euro Pop, they always hit that particular demographic perfectly and gets the listeners addicted to what they have concocted. When I heard the song, I thought that Sophie was bound to release a 4th studio album which she initially mentioned she would in Summer of 2009. Same with Christina Aguilera then. I was excited for both to release new records. I was too excited even there were no obvious materials out yet and all were just mere press releases. But now I could see and hear actual artworks and singles released I'm sure there's no holding back now.

Bittersweet is another track produced by Freemasons and having the Freemasons label in a song is like buying a household name product i.e. Colgate, Frigidaire, Xerox. When I hear Freemasons, it is a given fact that I will highly likely adore the song. Think when they remixed Kylie's The One -- super GV! However, having been produced and written by Freemasons, it does sound very similar to Heartbreak -- to me it seems like a sequel, a continuation of being heartbroken to moving on bittwersweetly. I still think Heartbreak is better than Bittersweet.

The album title was supposedly to be called Make A Scene but when SEB tweeted weeks back that she's changing it to Straight to the Heart, it made me think it sounds like her sophomore album Shoot From the Hip which is a less hot version of her froshie album Read My Lips and only produced very few good tracks. Having that solid proof, I was a bit worried that this fourth album might suffer the same fate. I'm pretty sure she has an artistic reason behind the change and by looks of the producers and collabs she's done with: Calvin Harris, Freemasons, Greg Kurstin, Sneaker Pimps, Armin van Buuren (how exciting!!!), etc. I went from a zero worrying stage mother to a confident beauty title holder in sixty seconds. This is gonna be like Kylie except that it is Sophie.