Album: 18 Months
I love me some Calvin Harris, loved his debut "I Created Disco" and his even better follow up "Ready for the Weekend." So over the past almost two years it's been with bittersweet joy that Mr. Harris has become not only a hit-maker extraordinaire, but one of the most sought after pop producers currently in the game. Congrats, but you're no longer my little electro-pop secret! Oh well, obscurity doesn't equate quality... get that coin Mr. Harris.
"18 Months" is less a Calvin Harris "album" and more a compilation that he's produced every track. That doesn't make it bad, but it separates it from his early work. The other issue is that of the fifteen tracks on the album, we'd heard nine of them already, with six getting the full single treatment before the bloody album was released! And with three songs that could be considered interludes... what was left?
None of this makes the record bad, and honestly this contains some of the man's best work. The mega-smash "We Found Love" featuring a little singer known as Rihanna is always welcome, and previous singles "Bounce" (with Kelis,) "Let's Go" (with Ne-Yo,) and "We'll Be Coming Back" (with Example) were all pretty amazing. OH! And I'm forgetting the Calvin-sung "Feel So Close" which was a surprise hit here in the States AND possibly his best song and single ever... "Sweet Nothing" with Florence of Florence + the Machine. KILLER shit. Watch the amazing, sad video RIGHT NOW.
So what is left? Well, I didn't connect with "We'll Be Coming Back" until the album came out so that was a nice little non-surprise, surprise. It's a good track. Current single "Drinking from the Bottle" with Tinie Tempah is nice fluff, but one of my absolute favorites is the Ellie Goulding collab "I Need Your Love" which I first heard as a bonus track to her amazing 2012 album "Halcyon." As it was always at the end of her record, it feels very much like the ending of something... and therefore oddly placed in the middle of "18 Months." But it's not at the end, because there is a better "ending song" on the record, the lush-yet-buoyant "Thinking About You," featuring Ayah Marar. That one is a highlight, though it has no chance of becoming a single.
And yet the album didn't contain his collab with the Scissor Sisters "Only the Horses" or the peppy "Call My Name" first single by Girls Aloud singer Cheryl Cole that were also released this year. Busy boy!
It's hard to argue with such a bevy of quality tracks, but next time Mr. Harris, please make another album... and not another compilation. I know you have it in you.
Calvin Compilation
Enjoy.
I Need Your Love
No comments:
Post a Comment