Clean Bandit and Louisa Johnson have done a song together. It's out tomorrow and they're performing it on the Britain's Got Talent final on Saturday.
In case you've forgotten:
- CLEAN BANDIT: Five Top 5 hits, twelve million singles shifted, most-played radio song of 2014, invented Jess Glynne and violins.
- LOUISA JOHNSON: Singer of song, 2016 X Factor winner, owner of impressive Twitter username, seems nice enough.
'Tears' is a song that as well as being amazing in its own right solves two problems at once.
UPDATE: Here it is!
Louisa's X Factor winner's single wasn't what you'd call a record breaker; whacking her on an out-of-the-box radio smash collaboration is probably the smartest X Factor graduate launch strategy since 'what would Madonna do'.
Clean Bandit, meanwhile, appeared with such a distinct sound on their debut album that it felt as if they needed to do something different next time around — very much 'nice but what else have you got' territory. 'Tears' still sounds like Clean Bandit, but doesn't feel like they're treading water.
Jack from Clean Bandit, who wrote the song with Sam Romans, has described 'Tears' as "an epic trap-2step breakup ballad".
Well, Jack. We suppose you could call it that.
But do you think you could perhaps also call your song an epic tears-in-the-toilets survivorbanger that makes Gloria Gaynor sound like James Blake?
And the thing is, Jack, your song kicks off quite unassumingly.
You've made sure that when 'Tears' begins it sounds very much how people would expect a Clean Bandit and Louisa Johnson collaboration to sound. And you knew what you were doing, didn't you Jack? You knew you had to ease people in gently. Because you don't want to scare people.
And yes, there's a hint of Great Chorus at the 0:46 mark, but it's not the full monty the first time people hear it, is it? It's a tantalising glimpse of what might be coming.
And you were right to put that there Jack, because it signposts the point at 2:00 where the song explodes like a million confetti cannons with Louisa bellowing "TEARS ON THE GROUND, TEARS ON MY PILLOW". And you have fun building up to that moment, don't you Jack? Those rising strings that lead to the explosion are quite something.
So you can call it "trap-2step breakup ballad" if you like, Jack, but:
a) This is not a ballad, what on earth are you chatting about.
b) Basically it's not a trap-2step breakup ballad at all, is it, apart from the breakup element which definitely is a part of the song, what with the whole thing being about finding empowerment in sadness and so on.
c) Jack if you're still reading an entire album of songs like this would be great. Cheers!