Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God!
You know when an artist that you really really love comes back after a long long break? And you’re worried what they’re going to sound like, because you loved their old sound so much but at the same time you understand that as an artist they simply have no choice BUT to evolve, and not even just from an artist perspective, after all pop music changes so much and if they do choose to sound the same then they run the risk of sounded dated and then radio might not play their new stuff and so then nobody will buy it and then they’ll get dropped and then you’ll never hear from them again? So you accept that there’s going to be a change in their music, but you just hope and hope and hope that this change has been incorporated in a way that will make you still fall in love with every new song like you did before, and that they haven’t somewhere down the line decided FUCK THIS I’m tired of sounding like that and I wanna sound like this now, and they’ve gone and totally changed direction and I don’t know, perhaps picked up GOD FORBID an acoustic guitar and a penchant for dark and minimal synths or something. So that when they do come back, they sound nothing like what made you love them before, and so the initial joy you felt that they WERE launching a comeback has now been replaced with disappointment at what they’ve become and only served to exaggerate your feelings of loss towards their previous songs?
ANYWAY…..
Margaret Berger is back! But DON’T WORRY – none of the above applies here, and she’s still amazing!
She released brand new single ‘In A Box’ yesterday in her native Norway. The first single from her forthcoming third album, and the first single in far too long. And trust us, we had actually worried that the above fears would become a reality in this case, as a couple of years ago, Margaret DID state on her myspace page that she was going to get a little darker, sonically speaking. ‘In A Box’ thankfully isn’t dark. It’s the bright electro pop sound that has made her such a heroine in the eyes and ears of her considerable amount of fans inside and outside of Norway.
It starts off with a synth riff that sounds like a softer version of the one famously used on Scissor Sisters’ version of ‘Comfortably Numb’, and then that’s soon glossed over by brighter and bubblier synths. Then of course we get to hear her voice again, THAT voice again, that we had missed so much – making its way politely through the first verse, not causing too much alarm in the melody stakes, as it knows that its sound alone is going to be enough to be getting fans in a tizzy, not wanting them to be overcome with too much excitement. And then…..the chorus….and the introduction of the all important and ever-so-sweet melody. So infectious, so dreamy, so her. It’s fantastic. It’s what we wanted from her. And it’s a song that we keep repeating over and over to listen to again and again.
Welcome back Margaret Berger!
It’s out on Norwegian iTunes now, and will be released internationally soon. But you can listen to it below.
