This review covers the pop track Tove Lo – Talking Body.
This track was released in 2015 as part of the album Queen of the Clouds.
The main element of this track is definitely the vocals. The vocals were decent enough. They weren’t exactly amazing given that they didn’t do anything particularly special, but they weren’t terrible either.
The lyrics were probably a controversial element of this track. Some recoil at use of the four letter word. Others feel uncomfortable about the subject matter in question. In my opinion, there is merit to the criticism, but a lot of people seem to not be able to really articulate it well. This track aims to have a primal erotic theme throughout. Unfortunately, the lyrics fall flat on their face because of the constant problem of falling back on very generic and unimaginative words. A track can define the human body as something like smooth like silk, glistening eyes, trembling lips, how it fills the senses or even fires every nerve of the body. Even if you call some of those terms cliche’s, it at least offers some sort of visual of what the track tries to paint. Instead, this track falls back on general terms similar to great or beautiful which ultimately means nothing. Because of the generic terms used, any detail or meaning gets stripped out and replaced by boring and lifeless lyrics.
Compounding the problem is that the lyrics hardly every stray from the title. It’s fine to have the title found in the main chorus, but when it’s repeated in the verses so frequently, it gives the impression that the writer more or less ran out of ideas of where to take the track after the chorus. To add insult to injury, there’s next to nothing found on the verses. Besides the intro, this track gives the impression that it’s all just the chorus and little else. That stunts the tracks ability to, again, have any meaning because the verses don’t add hardly anything to the chorus.
This track is more than just vocals and lyrics. The general melody and instruments used could add so much to the overall mood to a track like this. Unfortunately, what is heard in this track is very generic and offers nothing to accentuate what little meaning is found in this track. That, I found, to be disappointing.
Besides the half decent vocals, this track ultimately offers hardly anything. Between the unimaginative chorus and next to no verses in this track, the lyrics are borderline meaningless. With a generic sound backing the lyrics, this track ends up being rather bland. A track to pass on.
Score
5/10
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Google+.
