Back when Christian Walz posted his new album, The Corner, on MySpace, I wrote that I couldn't wait to hear the strings in "Loveshift" in high quality. The good news is that they--and the musical backing of the song--are exactly what I was hoping they would be. The bad news is that I still hate the opening two lines of the first verse. Still, I've gotten over them enough to appreciate the song as a whole.
"Loveshift" is, in its own way, cheesy as all get-out, but it's not cheesy in a '90's pop sort of way--it's that relentlessly upbeat string section and the deeper '70's style mid-tempo beat underneath that do it, that and the little xylophone part periodically perched on top. It reminds me so much of something, but I can't quite place what. I do always end up wanting to sing the chorus to "Love Train" every time we move towards the chorus, but I don't think the instrumentals match up totally, to the extent as they would with whatever song it's reminding me of. I'm absolutely convinced that if you listened to an instrumental version of this, you'd be convinced you were listening to some long-lost song from decades ago--the '70's, probably (this is where my lack of music history knowledge hurts me). Like "What's Your Name," though, and in fact probably even more so, it avoids the novelty record category by being just so darn good. One more note: I love that this song sounds fully, properly produced, as opposed to going the deliberately lo-fi route.
To buy Christian Walz's third album, The Corner, go here (physical) or here (digital).
Next up: maybe that British pop-rock.
