Disiz ft. Theodora – Melodrama

“If Shazam cannot identify a song, check your microphone permissions, ensure you have a stable internet connection, and update the app”…

[Video]
[6.14]Will Adams: The softly treading synthpop doesn’t communicate melodrama, but the opening line, where Disiz describes himself as a sad-sack who “végéter dans l’TGV,” sure as hell does. It’s an acknowledgement that, sure, the situation isn’t that bad. But sometimes it feels good to wallow, head leaning against the train window, watching the streetlights pass by.
[7]

Claire Davidson: “Melodrama” works well within its niche, hitting all the required marks for its rollicking pop swell: pleasantly muted strobe-synths, crisply programmed percussion, and a bright ray of acoustic strumming that adds some texture to the song’s otherwise crystalline sheen. Yet while I know my lack of fluency in French prevents me from grasping the full resonance of the song’s lyrics, I’d struggle to differentiate this track from the hundreds of indie pop songs of that have used this exact same template within the past ten years — when translated, this is ultimately still a standard heartbreak anthem. That lack of a distinct perspective extends to lead vocalist Disiz, too, whose delivery is so blank that Theodora’s reliable flair allows her to upstage him on his own song. There is one lyric here that caught my attention, though, that being the first line of the hook: “I’m like a song you wouldn’t have Shazamed,” a quip so specific in its ultra-modern defeatism that I couldn’t help but find it funny. It’s a shame, then, that I still wouldn’t Shazam “Melodrama,” either.
[6]

Ian Mathers: “I’m like a song you wouldn’t have Shazamed” is a perfect line for a song called “Melodrama,” effectively channeling both pathos and bathos. It helps that the production here keeps the whole thing moving steadily along, and both vocalists don’t lapse into fully melancholic affect. I bet if you listened to this going home after an unsuccessful evening out, it would hit hard in the car/subway/bus (or even on the sidewalk).
[8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Oddly reminiscent of mid-2010s alt rock radio filler for a Francophone smash hit; I’ve always had a soft spot for that music, though, and Theodora is a much more charismatic vocalist than anyone in the Portugal. The Man set.
[7]

Andrew Karpan: On second thought, the promise of “un son que t’aurais pas Shazam” is perhaps more hauntingly beautiful than anything the French have thought of since the First World War.
[8]

Nortey Dowuona: The flat, unexciting drumbeat underneath this otherwise fine song is the last straw for me. As a kid who grew up with ’80s pop music and the drums heavy mixes of the ’90s, this is the last thing that I want to hear, since the rhythm and thrust of the drum is core to my experience and love of pop music. As more pop nostalgists continue to use those drum patterns, it reminds me how many people only used drum machines not as instruments in their own practices but as replacements for the drummer, to the point where you have generations born since 1989 who prefer only the taste of the drum machine, of Sprite, of McDonald’s french fries, and you are nothing more than an aging fool, still remembering the richer tastes of your youth. So the only thing left for you is to cast aside your own nostalgia and embrace this newfangled taste, that in fact, the continued diminishing of the human experience by our own carelessness and selfishness is acceptable. I am of course, not referring at all to this song, but to Phil Collins’s “Another Day In Paradise.” Which has literally all the same problems but at least was released in 1989. Pick new drums, cowards.
[3]

Katherine St. Asaph: “Déchetterie indie” sounds so much nicer, doesn’t it?
[4]