The European Invasion

It seems the teen-poppers (and rockers) of Europe have decided to make their moves on the UK charts – will they succeed? I think it could go any way.

Lucky Twice – Lucky (Video)
Although the video is delightfully cute, this song is just verging on insipid for me (although I much prefer the verses to the chorus) and since I have a very high tolerance of sweetness in pop music, I think a lot of people are going to absolutely despise this song. Still, that alone could get them noticed. The hints of naive homoeroticism could make them the coward’s tATu, as well. I must say I’ve never been totally on board with this track, and I’ll be a bit sad if it gains success while much better Swedish dance-pop songs such as Mambo and Satellites flopped miserably, but any Swedish pop on our TV screens has to be a good thing, so I won’t complain.

Tokio Hotel – Ready, Set, Go (Video)
It’s a sign of the times that in the 90s, German teenagers adored *N Sync and the BSBs, and a decade later it’s this quite serious (despite their youth – the singer and his twin, the guitarist, are only 17 and were 11 when the band formed!) rock band who appear on the cover of Bravo. They began releasing German songs in 2005 and last month released their first English-language album, Scream, which features many English versions of their German hits. They sound to me most comparable to Linkin Park, but I’m no connoiseur of rock, as you know. I’ll be interested to see if they are treated as a kids band or a serious rock band, since they are a bit older now, and there are so few media outlets for young teenage music fans, that they at least won’t have their chances ruined by becoming regulars on the very much defunct TOTP Saturday.

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