Collaborations between Eurovision stars don’t exactly have a great pedigree. The heinous duet between Dima Bilan and Nikki stands out pretty painfully in my memory. I therefore felt particular trepidation when I heard Cascada’s Natalie Horler and Robin Stjernberg would be duetting on an acoustic version of Stjernberg’s 16th place song ‘You’, considering neither of them were exactly spectacular vocally in Malmö.

Fortunately for everyone’s ear-drums they’ve slathered the song in auto-tune and just set it over fluttering strings and a simple piano arrangement to fool everyone under the age of 12 into thinking they’re the greatest live acts ever. Unfortunately, Team Wiwi are a little more discerning.

‘You’ is undeniably a prettier song when stripped off all the dancey, EDM cacophony that accompanied it at Eurovision, but there’s nothing acoustic about this single beyond that. Both the vocals are as auto-tune coated as a song from Glee. There’s no rawness to the song, no minor default in the vocals and it isn’t because they did umpteen retakes till they got it right, it’s because someone in Eurodance world flicked a switch and coated any imperfection in some electronic elixir that magically fixed it. Isn’t it cray-zee-eee?

We expect auto-tune from Natalie Horler, but Robin honestly, you’re meant to be a vocalist. Up your game, please.

http://youtu.be/0dbC4DrWqAk

Angus Quinn contributed this report from the U.K. You can follow him on Twitter at @Angus_Quinn17. Then like our Facebook page to keep up-to-date with all the latest news and gossip.

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DEX
DEX
10 years ago

This could sound much better with Serbia’s Nevena from Moje 3..sorry Robin.

Jordan
Jordan
10 years ago

Angus Quinn, take your tampon out and eat a Snickers bar.

Charles
Charles
10 years ago

@Martin: Although I don’t agree with you on the fact that this song has no “soul” or “emotion” because I can clear feel something when I hear it, I will agree on the usage of the word “overproduced” instead of “autotuned”. It’s just that we have been too dwelt on the overuse of “autotune” by almost everybody in the industry music these days that it became such a banal thing that any perfect vocal studio recording is considered “autotune” because we don’t believe it was done raw and true in the studio. Again I wish this duet had been done… Read more »

Charles
Charles
10 years ago

@Sammy: I appreciate your comment and let me just clear you up on the fact that my motivation here was to stand up for Robin’s amazing talent and the fact that during the 2 weeks of preparation for the big final in Malmö there was a lot of “anti-Robin” vibes floating in the air amongst fans and media … for no clear reason. Apparently the huge criticism of some against STV ended using Robin as a punchbag, but this is more myself speculating based on what I saw there. Not a nice view let me tell you … I felt… Read more »

Martin
Martin
10 years ago

The writer mixes up ‘autotune’ and ‘overproducing’. Don’t think there’s autotune involved in her. It’s still an coldhearted song to me, devoid of humanity and inferior to older songs where voices were full of emotion, grittiness, imperfections, simply more real. But alas, young peeps don’t know any better these days. Nowadays, rappers use extreme autotuning and voices of handsome male and female singers have that cold metallic sound that you can hear in virtually every hit song.

Sammy
Sammy
10 years ago

@Charles: I don’t know why you waste your time debating with the author of this inaccurate drivel. It is not auto tuned; the fact the author says it is shows his lack of knowledge of the subject. One only has to Google ‘Cascada unplugged’ to see Natalie’s a singer – the fact she’s made her name and had her success working with two dance producers is not relevant on material like this. I’d also suggest you search ‘Cascada Underneath the Stars’ where she performed with her father’s band – the WDR Big Band to see that she’s a talented singer.… Read more »

Charles
Charles
10 years ago

Not “Robyn” but “RobIn” LOL Sorry for that!

Charles
Charles
10 years ago

@Angus: Not reading your work on my part is not big deal to this topic, but on your part not knowing that there was a solo acoustic version done prior to the ESC by Robin himself does not put you in the best light as far as Eurovision accuracy is concerned. You don’t want to act judgemental on this so called “auto-tuned duet” without at least checking certain things before than that might add some relevance to this. The solo version, for those who know it and like it, prooves to be far superior than this. Adding a dance singer… Read more »

Aufrechtgehn
10 years ago

I’m so damn tired of autotune. It robs any soul out of any song and degrades the former art of singing into just another superfluos, replacable instrument. This could have been an interesting, different take on the song, could have turned it from a campy bit of fluff into an intimate, worthy peace of art – instead, it comes across as a boring, polished-to-death, artificial nothingness. What a waste!

Padraig Muldoon
Admin
10 years ago

While I think the whole auto tune argument is a bit irrelevant, I agree that this version is a bit lacking in emotion and passion, I just don’t get the urge to just get up and go because of youuuuuuuuu like I did with the original. This version is nice but a tad boring.

Angus Quinn
Angus Quinn
10 years ago

@Charles please, if you’d bothered to read my work you’d know I don’t have a problem with Robin…I just don’t follow him forensically enough to have heard the ‘acoustic’ cover of ‘You’ before.

Charles
Charles
10 years ago

Robin knows how to sing … Tooji not that much … though both are amazingly nice guys … vocally speaking Robin knows his craft better than anybody who thinks that doing dance moves while “trying to sing” is a “musical talent”. Whatever studio tricks where used here, I still feel the same cynism against Robin just as much as I felt during the weeks in Malmö. A lot of people were mean to the young man for no reason … There are way worse “auto-tuned” disasters out there in the world and way worse in ESC … yet … bashing… Read more »

Lanti
Lanti
10 years ago

Robin got 14th place, not 16th place. (Though he went 16th in the draw)

David Thielen
10 years ago

>> The heinous duet between Dima Bilan and Nikki stands out pretty painfully in my memory.

I like that song a lot. Much better than the song either won ESC with.

Angus Quinn
Angus Quinn
10 years ago

@Charles oh please, the auto-tunes all around dahling. And if you think Robin isn’t having any computer wizardry worked on his vocal, then you probably think Tooji didn’t either – HA.

Charles
Charles
10 years ago

I guess one forgot to mention that this recording was only a re-recording of the alreasdy existing acoutic version of You done solo by Robin on the piano and later incoportating her vocals to creat the “duet” effect. I agree it should have been a recording from scratch having both in the same studio sharing vocal duties … but nonetheless, and I say this because I’m a sucker for the original solo acoustic, I like the final result: even if there so artificial aspects to it, it sounds great to me. Having the Cascada singer Natalie singing something with no… Read more »

Arianna
10 years ago

Ya, I agree. it’s far from acoustic, but I really like the sound of their voices together in this tune 🙂 They blend together well (I guess thanks to the sugar coated tweaking :p) It’s nice 🙂