In news of the weird, British band McFly have been working on music for their new album with Dallas Austin. It's not that I don't have a lot of respect for Dallas--he's made some of the decade's best songs, no question--but it's a match-up I never envisioned. Hopefully he can refine the boys' sound into something that connects with me more than Radio:ACTIVE generally did. If you've read this blog since its beginning, you'll know how much I love McFly and think they don't get anything near the respect they deserve, but I never fell for the majority of their last album. I'm not sure whether the melodies weren't there for me or if the production wasn't my style, but even just thinking about it now gives me that fingers-down-a-chalkboard feeling of on-edge agitation, which is never a reaction I thought I'd have or wanted to have to the band's music.(Picture from Dallas Austin's blog.)
As incongruous a team as Dallas and McFly seem to make, maybe a bit of spit and polish from the man behind Pink's "Don't Let Me Get Me" and "Just Like A Pill" and Anastacia's "Left Outside Alone" is just what the group needs. It's no secret that I'd prefer them to return to the sound of "Transylvania," "Friday Night," and "We Are The Young" from Motion In The Ocean, but if that's not on the cards, I'll settle for music I love, plain and simple.
Let's take a moment for a Dallas Austin song which, although probably not sounding anything like his material with McFly, is perfect.
In other McFly news, the song I class as their best work since the best songs on Motion In The Ocean, the simple, beautiful ballad "Falling In Love," is apparently at #33 in radio play at Spain's biggest station. To steal from fans of a certain underrated Minogue, $ucce$$!
In even stranger news, they also wrote with Taio Cruz. I really like Taio, but once again, I can't say I ever saw this collaboration coming. Then again, it's so easy to think of Taio as "Break Your Heart," Tinchy Stryder-collaborating Taio that you forget he also wrote Will Young's "Your Game" (though even the former Taio is one that, as I said, I enjoy).
