After I wrote about Alcazar's "Burning" for the first time, I spent my next trip to the gym listening to nothing but that 52 second clip on repeat. Literally nothing else the entire time.I offer that fact up as a way of explaining that there was absolutely no way I was going to be able to hold myself back from posting the full song once we had it. Disco Defenders is full of great songs which could easily hold up their own post, but "Burning," with its Alcazar-meets-Star-Pilots vibe--read "swooshy, hands-in-the-air, full-throttle dance-pop inspired by the '80's-sampling dance hits of modern times that is pure fun and completely contagious" if you're not familiar with Star Pilots--is irresistible and my easy favorite of the songs on the album we hadn't previously heard in full. It's always dangerous to start throwing phrases like this around, but if "Burning" isn't one of the best songs of 2009 by the year's end, we'll have had a breathtakingly good year for music. "Burning" has to be the most international and crossover-friendly Alcazar have sounded for quite some time. It's also exactly the sort of song this blog is here to promote, praise to the heavens--because make no mistake, "Burning" is nothing less than a gift straight from the gods of pop--and beg you to buy.
One of the most surprising things about the album is that the best songs come from various different writers; superproducer Anders Hansson may be responsible for a plurality of the tracks, but the highlights come from multiple writers. "Stay The Night," "We Keep On Rockin'," and the previously unheard "My My Me And Mine" are all by Anders Hansson, "Baby" is by the Pet Shop Boys, and "Burning" is from Empire Studios' Johan Fjellström, Joakim Udd, and Karl Eurén. I'd also put Figge's "Put The Top Down" near that list, though the fact that it includes acoustic guitar work and is more a cruising down the avenue song than a dancing in the club song may make me fairly alone in that belief. Still, if I'm going to put that song near the best of list, then I'm going to have to start talking about "Harlem Nights," too, which is better and probably belongs in that first list, and then I'll just start listing off almost every track on this great album.
If you don't live in Sweden, you can buy Disco Defenders here or here.
Next up: maybe Erik Hassle or someone else if I can manage to stop playing Alcazar's new album for long enough to think about anything else.
