Thursday 19 April 2012

Calvin Harris 'Acceptable In The 80's'

Chart Peak: 10

YouTube

MySpace sensation Calvin Harris set the charts alight at the end of March with the turbo-funky electro marvel 'Acceptable In The 80's'... The Scottish DJ and former shelf-stacjer impressed Kylie so much that after she heard his music she asked him to work with her on her new album.

The phrase "MySpace sensation" does make it feel a bit more than five years ago, doesn't it? Sometimes, though not often, I do worry what might happen if I were to write something critical about a tracks and the artist themselves and they found out about it. Fortunately, the lyric to this song strongly suggests that Harris (born 1984) is only interested in the views of people who were "born in the 80s" and I wasn't. He's sort of lucky there, because this wasn't a track I was fond of at first and I only got more tired of him when the follow-up singles were even worse; in fact I was quite pleased when they started to flop and his career seemed to be over by the end of 2007. As we all know, though, it didn't quite end up that way and he was soon back and bigger than ever: he was the most successful songwriter of 2011 in terms of singles sales. Luckily by then he'd rather grown on me and whilst I don't like all or even most of what he releases, I'm somehow glad he's around.

Even 'Acceptable' has become more, er, acceptable now I've been able to get used to its gimmicky conceit and pseudo attitude. That unforgettable little squelchy riff was irritatingly ubiquitous in its day but has a nice little nostalgic glow about it now. I don't mind hearing this again, though I could do without that video.

Also appearing on: Now 67, 70 [with Dizzee Rascal and Chrome], 73, 74, 79 [with Kelis],80
Available on: 101 Running Songs

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