I really like "Hold My Girl"

Unrelated, but retrospectively 'Budapest' is actually a really pretty song. I didn't really think much of it at the time.

10.0 Pretty Shining People

11.0 Don't Matter Now

07.5 Get Away

08.5 Shotgun

10.0 Paradise

07.5 All My Love

08.0 Sugarcoat

10.0 Hold My Girl

07.0 Saviour (feat. First Aid Kit)

09.5 Only A Human

07.0 The Beautiful Dream

 

Not as good as his debut was for me but I still really love it <3

Elements of this album really remind me of Vampire Weekend and I guess in turn Paul Simon. Which is a really good thing, I'm liking it far more than I expected to.

 

 

After enjoying Paradise and loving Don’t Matter Now, I bought this today. I’m on my second listen and really loving it!

 

Besides the singles, I haven’t heard his debut album. May have to purchase that in the coming weeks.f

Surely 'Shotgun' has to be the next single! It's so damn good.

The more I listen to this, the more excellent I think it is. He's more than beaten the sophomore slump - in fact, I think this is better than the first album.

 

SO many potential singles. "Hold My Girl" is captivating; "Pretty Shining People" is a big sing-a-long anthem; "Saviour" is rousing and atmospheric - those were the grats I believe. "Shotgun" is catchy and managed to go top 40 on album release week.

 

That's on top of the excellent "Paradise" and "Don't Matter Now" and I haven't mentioned the other tracks which tbf deserve a mention.

Hold My Girl is indeed lovely, and sounds like a 'future classic' sort of ballad. Surely a future single.

Hold My Girl is indeed lovely, and sounds like a 'future classic' sort of ballad. Surely a future single.

Absolutely. Compare it to Ed Sheeran's equivalent from this era "Perfect" and there's no contest.

shotgun is a total earworm, guess it's the next single???

Paradise is really challenging for my song of the year so far that isn't Eurovision (ie Jessica Mauboy - We Got Love :kink:), the other main contender being This Is Me by Keala Settle - it's quite simply an utterly joyous and uplifting 4 minutes of music :wub: I need to check out the album because Shotgun and Pretty Shining People were great as well and the whole album might get to finally appreciate Don't Matter Now too.

Technically This Is Me is a 2017 song ;)

 

Listening to the album helped me appreciate Don’t Matter Now a lot so I definitely recommend that! I skipped over it completely last year but within the album it works a lot better :heart:

Paradise is really challenging for my song of the year so far that isn't Eurovision (ie Jessica Mauboy - We Got Love :kink:), the other main contender being This Is Me by Keala Settle - it's quite simply an utterly joyous and uplifting 4 minutes of music :wub: I need to check out the album because Shotgun and Pretty Shining People were great as well and the whole album might get to finally appreciate Don't Matter Now too.

I'm with you on "Paradise"! It has kind of snuck up on me as an overall favourite - I was playing it regularly for weeks and it was hovering around in the middle of my chart's top 10 and not going down, and then realised I actually really loved it. I think it's been my longest running top 10 hit of the year and grabbed 2 weeks at 1.

 

Definitely give the album a go - I really do think he's stepped it up from album 1, and that's probably why he spent longer away than expected - to ensure this wasn't going to be his slump.

I kinda like both albums, I think they're pretty similar in the sense that both have great tracks + quite a bunch of album fillers but still the overall result is great

and both albums are pretty diverse in sound, which is great, maybe I'd like more tracks in the same vein as Barcelona in album 2

 

I'm actually a bit tired of Paradise and find myself skipping it lately, and I think there's better tracks in the album, namely Pretty shining people, Hold my girl, Shotgun and Saviour

 

Shotgun in particular is a real earworm and I see it being a big summer hit

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b120l5

 

It seems Shotgun will be his next single, and he will perform it on SLFN next week.

Great choice of single!

Yeah that is the sensible choice of single for when the sun comes out, though I'd have waited until mid-May perhaps...

This is my album of the year so far! All the songs sound great in the sun and I love that the majority of them have anthemic, sing-along choruses. "Pretty Shining People", "Get Away" and "All My Love" are my top three.

I think Paradise has become my favourite paradise-named song of all time I think! Coldplay & Green Day are tough competitors but this has become one of my songs of the year so far :wub:

my fav Paradise is Guns N Roses - Paradise City or Sade - Paradise if you want the exact title ;)