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LABEL: Sheffield Tunes |
RELEASE DATE: March 12, 2010 |
GENRE: Hard Trance, Hardstyle |
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How long will we replay this one?
Well, hockey season is coming up. Wait... but according to when I wrote this review, it's already the middle of March! How could hockey season possibly be approaching? The flowers are supposed to be arriving, and with it, the mildly cool season of spring is also here! Well, don't let Germany find this out, or they might be a tad peeved. They are planning to hold their 2010 IIHF World Championships in May, and they'll probably follow through with it. And they've selected "Stuck On Replay" by Scooter as their official anthem -- fancy that! This nomination certainly gave the three happy campers from Scooter a good opportunity to release yet another single from their most recent album, Under The Radar Over The Top. Well, not much has changed between the album version and this new single. Based off the chorus from Lionel Richie's hit, "Stuck On You" (a fact that I wasn't too thrilled about in my original album review), the Radio Edit is a mix of happy high-pitched vocals and some deep synths underneath the typical ravings of frontman H.P. Baxxter. There's a bit more of a melody in the background in the single version, but the differences overall are minimal at best. The song is...okay, provided you can absorb some of the saccharine nature of the chorus. Might be a bit tough to swallow for some.
The Club Mix is much shorter than expected. Starting out with a really, really cool hardstyle sound that reminds me of starting up an engine, ambience hits the speakers as a deep voice utters a short speech that doesn't have any relevance to anything at the moment, followed by the high-pitched vocals, and then it's back to business as usual with the synth melody. As for the Extended Version, I hardly consider it much of an extension. Clocking in at only 3:50, this is the shortest "extended version" I've ever encountered. Granted, it technically qualifies as one, but still, it's pretty much what you would expect from the Radio Edit with some extra fluff at the beginning and end. And as usual, there's a B-side, masterfully entitled P.U.C.K. after a certain hockey item, and not a pun on a certain cursing term. It's a bit of a stretch for Scooter with some very deep sounds in there, but there's nothing particular special or innovative in here. They chop up female vocals and wedge them into songs all the time, and this is no exception. Even the melody, if there is one, lacks significant inspiration; it sounds like the composition of a 10-year-old. Nothing to write home about, but certainly head and shoulders above that awful "Countdown" B-side from late 2005. The single concludes with a previous single, Ti Sento, which still bears the same rating with me as before, and a shortened version of the album's final instrumental track, Metropolis. I'm not entirely sure why both of these are here, though they are apparently the Official Goal Anthem and the Official Opening Ceremony Anthem of the 2010 IIHF World Championship respectively. Yeah, hardstyle opera = sinking a goal. Well, it does add a tiny bit of extra bang for your buck.
It's hard to say anything particularly positive or negative here, as the single just doesn't stand out for me. The fact that the Club Mix and Extended Versions are so short are rather peculiar, as they are usually much longer. I am somewhat aware of a limit on the total length of a single, at least in Europe, where it will cost more if it goes over so many minutes, so perhaps this has some relation to why they shorted those tracks down. But did we really need the last two tracks, which are easily available elsewhere? The previous pair, The Sound Above My Hair and Ti Sento, struck much more of a chord with me. "Stuck On Replay" isn't a terrible mess by any means, but I just don't think it will go down as one of the greatest singles of our time (nor will its music video, which is mostly hockey footage and girls shaking their fannies). I guess we'll let the public determine what makes a good song, eh?
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