Review Summary: Finding a footing between novelty and substance.
Isn't it funny to think about that in 2012 people actually thought the world would end on the 21st of december? Well, okay, the people who actually believed it were not so many, happily, but the rest of us had a blast, we threw apocalypse-themed parties, we had party-jams, we danced and we laughed.
And oh, did another person laugh, an underground songwriter called Andrew Huang, as he decided that, in the 6 days leading up to the 21st, he would release 6 different version of the old cheese-classic „The Final Countdown“ by Europe. And that it would be hilarious.
And hilarious it was, hearing all these weird, impressive or just plain funny renditions of the old song. I mean, who whould have turned this joke of a song into a dubstep rendition, a classical guitar piece, a rap song, an amped-up version of the original, an orchestral arrangement and as percussion-only other than Andrew? I loved it.
But then I had to take a step back. Did I just enjoy it because of its hilarious novelty-factor, or because it was actually well-made?
Finding a footing between novelty-factor and actual substance is a very hard line to balance on, but Andrew has managed to grasp this quite nicely. Every rendition of Countdown has its own little twists and turns that make it worth listening to, all without throwing the original melody out the window, and serving as a great reminder that the main melody of this song, is, in fact, quite awesome. Not to mention that the sound-quality of all these versions are great as heck.
But why do I give this just a 3? Well, the thing is, there is the problem that plagues most of Andrews EPs, too little music in general. If he had expanded it a bit more, this could have been an amazing project, but still, as it is, it leaves little to be desired.
And as the EP closes of with a cover of 5th Dimensions The Age of Aquarius, it is also a great reminder to check out another great band. So, if you'll excuse me, gotta dust off some old records.
