Last night, Eric Saade posted previews of two brand new singles that he’s releasing next Wednesday – ‘Marching (In The Name Of Love)’ and ‘Miss Unknown’. You can listen to them here.
Earlier this week though, he gave Scandipop the first listen to the two new songs in full. And here’s what he thought of them;
Let’s start with the positives, shall we?
‘Marching (In The Name Of Love)’ is amazing. It’s the successful transition that we think Eric has been wanting to make ever since coming home from Eurovision. While ‘Hotter Than Fire’ succeded in making him sound like an international popstar, ‘Marching’ makes him sound like an international popstar that has actual hits. Specifically – Usher. And even more specifically – on his collaboration with David Guetta, ‘Without You’. ‘Marching’ is basically ‘Without You’ with a big Scandipop chorus. Interestingly, in that preview you heard yesterday, we bet you’re expecting it to ALL. GO. OFF, just as the preview ends. And it does, but not in the way you expect it to. Instead of getting the “cos if tonight we go to war chorus” again bigger and bolder, the song then actually goes into an instrumental dance breakdown. Brilliant – and not what we were expecting at all from a new Eric Saade single. A year in between Saade singles was a long time anyway, but it’s even more evident when you hear how much his sound has evolved with ‘Marching’. This could be on a Chris Brown album! And as much as we loved ‘Hotter Than Fire’, you couldn’t say the same about that one.
Marvellous stuff. We’re in love with it already and it’s clocking up iPod plays at an obscene speed.
Then there’s ‘Miss Unknown’. Hmmm. We’ve given this quite a few listens too, but it’s sort of a baffling situation. It’s not that it’s a bad song, cos it’s not – it’s actually good. But ‘Miss Unknown’ is not as good as pretty much everything that was on the ‘Saade Vol.2’ album (or on the ‘Saade Vol.1’ album either, for that matter – but we know that Eric’s not in that place musically anymore, so that’s irrelevant). And while that might seem like he’s taken a step back quality wise, that’s difficult to say also, as ‘Miss Unknown’ is most definitely a step forward in his sound. However, that’s where the problem lies. We mentioned above that ‘Marching’ puts Eric in a place where he can be compared to US pop stars of today, and that’s good, because in the case of ‘Marching’, Eric can definitely hold his own. But in the case of ‘Miss Unknown’ it’s a different story. We’ve always thought that Eric Saade is better in every way than his infinitely more well known and more successful US counterpart Justin Bieber. But if you take ‘Miss Unknown’ and Bieber’s current single ‘As Long As You Love Me’ (both mid-tempo pop tracks with an urban edge to them), ‘Miss Unknown pales in comparison to Bieber’s hit. And that’s the first time we’ve ever thought that when comparing songs by the two artists – Eric has always been the winner there, as far as we’re concerned. ‘Miss Unknown’, while a necessary statement from Eric to the pop world that he’s not making songs like ‘Manboy’ and ‘Popular’ anymore, falls into the trap of being style over substance. The production is there, but the song struggles to be remembered. It’s good, but it’s not amazing. Not as amazing as it needs to be anyway.
Let’s go back to ‘Marching’ being amazing though. It really is. And if any of Eric’s singles have deserved to be the one to take him internationally, or at the very least, giving him his biggest in Sweden outside of Melodifestivalen, it’s most certainly this one. We just hope that it doesn’t suffer from right now having to share the spotlight with the vastly inferior ‘Miss Unknown’. That would be an awful shame.
Let’s hope he continues to march forward with the better of these two sounds for his next album!
