Charity Shop Album #2: Playing My Game by Lene Marlin
It sounds like someone falling down the stairs. But in a way which is very beautiful and sad.
Is there something you love so much that you even enjoy the “bad” version of it?
Like a Michelin-star chef who LOVES Pizza Hut. Or a serious playwright who binges Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Or an artisanal cheesemaker who has a fond nostalgia for Dairylea triangles.
Hello. I am a musician who loves garbage music.
Think:
Techno house remixes of Andrew Lloyd Webber songs
Songs with the lyrics, “you got me crying like a chi-yi-yild, and the crowd is going wi-yi-yild”
aaaaand turn of *this* century adult contempo-pop that winds up in charity shops
I’m talking about the stuff that sounds like it was written by someone who found a rhyming dictionary with half the pages ripped out. The questionable intros and outros. Songs which make you go, “is this genius, or is there something wrong with me?”
People are sometimes surprised that I, a songwriter, can enjoy this stuff. But I do. There’s little nuggets of gold in there sometimes. A melody here or there which you haven’t heard anywhere else. A lyrical choice which makes you go “really? REALLY?” And, they make me laugh. Just read my last Charity Shop Album Review.
The CD du jour is Norwegian pop artist Lene Marlin’s debut album: Playing My Game. Released in 1999 on Virgin Records Norway, I picked this up because I recognised track 1.
‘Sitting Down Here’ was a big hit in the UK and peaked at #5 on the singles chart. But the rest of the songs? Never heard ‘em. So let’s give it a spin!
Track 1: Sitting Down Here
I honestly thought this was a Corrs song for years, and if you listened to it, you could make that mistake too, I think. Well, apart from the lack of violins.
This track is very 1999 sunshine pop, the lyrics skimming past your ears in a butterfly-light patter.
But upon closer inspection, it’s about someone lurking in the shadows, swearing their revenge. Kinda stalky-like. Hey, just add it to the other stalker-pop song we had in the last Charity Shop Album Review! Maybe I should be making a playlist.
But I've learned how to get revenge and I swear you'll experience that someday…
Ahhh. That bubblegum, 90’s pop we all know and love.
Track 2: Playing My Game
Fresh off the high of ‘Sitting Down Here,’ track 2 gives the listener a truly unique album listening experience: the biggest, fastest comedown ever.
Yep, ‘Playing My Game’ steps into the room and kills the vibe with a single look. It’s a slow ballad with mumblecore verbosity. Melodies? FORGET IT! This girl is SINGING from the BOTTOM OF THE BAG!
I am actually shocked that we get such a slumpy song on track 2 of all places! In albums, this is usually where we place one of the heavy hitting singles. This is a sequencing nightmare.
The guitar solo sounds like the person who did the Dreamworks logo music got broken up with:
Track 3: Unforgivable Sinner
Okay. This was a #1 hit for 8 weeks in Norway when it was released. This song is good. I can forget the track 2 mishap. Lene’s vocal tone is really reminiscent of Cranberries’ singer Dolores O'Riordan in this song.
Fun fact: they filmed THREE music videos for this! (Sabrina Carpenter could never!) All with a publique transporte theme. One in Norway, one in New York, and this one in Toronto’s Union Station which is where I got lost one time and cried and ate a Cinnabon.
This video explores the Tale-As-Old-As-Time trope of ‘Businessman is Sad Because He Is In Business And Doesn’t Understand Love'.
Track 4: Flown Away
Lene!!! LENE!!! I THOUGHT WE WERE DOING SO WELL!
It seems that two upbeat songs were more than enough and we all need a lie down. The tempo is 50 beats per minute, which is technically bradycardia.
There’s something up here
That makes me wince
And I still got the feelings
That I’ve felt ever since
What is she singing about? As we get deeper into the album I start to realise that the structure of Lene’s lyrics are unusual. This happens sometimes in pop with English as a second language.
Think about ‘I Want It That Way’ by the Backstreet Boys:
Tell me why! I never wanna hear you say… I want it that way
This is a Max Martin co-write (you know, the guy who has touched basically every hit song from the last three decades). He wrote these lyrics when his English was still a little rusty. Which is why it sounds like it was written by the Duolingo Owl. Makes sense but… doesn’t make sense.
Why do the Backstreet Boys never want to hear her say, “I want it that way”? And what is “it”?
Backstreet’s label pushed them to create a more ‘straightforward’ version, which went a bit like this:
That is why! I love it when I hear you say… I want it that way
Hmmmmm…..nah. Doesn’t hit in the same way, does it? So they stuck with Martin’s original version.
Okay sorry. Let me get back to track 4. Oh god I don’t want to.
I don’t have much more to say than this song is the audio equivalent of this:
Track 5: The Way We Are
I’m not going to lie, I get lost at this point in the album. This track and the next two pass in a miasma of horizontal tempos, aimless guitar lines and melodies so lacklustre they have an iron deficiency.
Track 6: So I See
Track 7: Maybe I’ll Go
What did I say? MIASMA. This interlude of songs hits about as hard as a five millilitre dose of MILK of MAGNESIA. Hoo boy! Give me a hot chocolate and pass me the striped pyjamas because THIS BOY’S going NAP-NAP!
Track 8: Where I’m Headed
Okay I’ve woken up again! This song is like ‘Sitting Down Here’ has a little sister.
Lyrics again are lacking but… hey, they rhyme!
When there's someone I see
There's no one here but me
I'm fooled by something inside my head
If I lay down now
I might seem kinda dead
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not singling out the lyrics purely because they were written in a second language. I mean, Lene’s done a better job than I did when I attempted to write a musical in French when I was 12. All I had was a few years’ worth of “je m’appelle” and a Level 1 textbook.
If you realllllly want to know, my French musical was about two sisters, one of whom had become a werewolf. I didn’t know the word for ‘werewolf’ in French, so I just used the term ‘minuit chien.’
Here is a translation of a high-octane number from my unfinished French werewolf musical:
Midnight dog! Midnight dog! Ahhhh!
Midnight dog! Midnight dog! Ahhhh!
Midnight dog, you are the one that I hate
Midnight dog, you bring the rain upon my day
But I digress.
It’s not the language thing that makes these songs hard to connect with. The thing about Lene’s songs on this album is that they distinctly lack visceral images, which I believe all good pop songs need. Think about any hit in the charts right now, you can pull out at least one image from each:
Good Luck Babe: When you wake up next to him in the middle of the night
Manchild: Whole outfit you're wearing, God, I hope it's ironic
That’s So True: Kicking back on your couch, making eyes from across the room
These songs have vignettes in their lyrics. Scenes! Details! Images! The songs in Playing My Game have hardly any.
OK POP MUSIC LESSON OVER!
Track 9: One Year Ago
The vocal processing on this one is so strange. It sounds like a badly recorded demo vocal was botoxed-up so that it could be used in the final version. And I kind of like that? It gives a different texture compared to what else we’ve got on the album.
‘One Year Ago’ starts simply, with a guitar line that slides between two notes. Kinda reminiscent of Lou Reed’s ‘Walk On The Wild Side.’ There’s a little bit of a tempo but it’s kept by some palm-muted acoustic strumming. Nothing special. But by the time we get to the chorus, it picks up! We get a beat which was pretty typical in 1990’s steady pop songs. Think Westlife or Britney’s more mid-tempo tracks.
Still, I think I just can’t reconcile the melodies that Lene delivers in these slower songs. There’s not enough confidence behind them. They go up, go down and when they land on their final note they land tentatively. And that lack of conviction really undermines what she’s saying.
Track 10: A Place Nearby
Final track on the album! Oh god…. WE MADE IT. WE SURVIVED. There were good times, there were bad times, and now… there’s this song.
Plinky-plonky piano enters with a sad arpeggio, sounding like someone falling down the stairs but in a way which is very beautiful and sad. We get half-tempo hits, snare rim and tambourine alternating on each beat. The lyrics are about the afterlife:
Heaven is a place nearby…
Each to their own, but if I died and you wrote a slow sad song about me worthy of a cats-and-dogs Sarah McLachlan infomercial, I would come back and haunt your ass so hard you’d make it on the Spooked podcast.
🧪 In Summation
Bops to flops ratio: 3:7
All in all, I was really hoping for an album populated with songs similar to ‘Sitting Down Here.’ What I got instead was… not that.
But don’t worry, next Charity Shop Album Review will be INTERESTING. Because, it’s an old album that I bought myself, once upon a time.
A compact classic? A jejune gem? (did I really just write ‘a jejune gem’?) A crash course in cultural-appropriation?
Just wait ‘til I get my little hands on… ❤️ 😇 🎵 👶 (can you guess what it is yet?)
👀 Read My Last Album Review
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i love that bop to flop ratio instead of a rating!! keep the charity shop album reviews coming !!💿