Customer Reviews

Junior

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Norwegian duo Röyksopp have been responsible for some of the catchiest and trendiest pieces of Electronic Dance music since their brilliant debut "Melody AM" in 2001, especially the ubiquitous "Eple" which was used in an MTV ad. "Junior" is their third CD and it picks up where their previous two left off. This time around, they feature a wider assortment of female vocalists, Swedes Robyn and Lykke Li among them.

Opening is a swirling/beeping instrumental "Happy up here", one of four, the others being the lush "Röyksopp Forever", "Silver cruiser", and the stomping "It's what I want" (with deep stabbing retro sounding synths; think Cerrone or Giorgio Moroder).

Robyn lends her vocals to the swirling "The girl and the robot" (with lovely heavenly harmonies). The buzzing/reverb-laden "Vision one" features Anneli Drecker, whose soft vocals also appear on the upbeat but ghostly "You don't have a clue" and the sweeping and groovy "True to life".

Karin Dreijer-Andersson lends her vocals to "This must be it" and the frenetic "Tricky tricky". If she sounds familiar (especially her distinctive Swedish accent), it's because she also lent her vocals to "What Else Is There?" from Röyksopp's sophomore disc "The understanding".

Lykke Li (whose debut "Youth novels" was one of my favourites of last year) lends her elfin vocals to "Miss it so much".

Ecstatic, beautiful and mysterious all at the same time, this is another winner from Röyksopp.

Röyksopp - aka Svein Berge and Brundtland Torbjørn - first came to widespread attention with the top ten album "Melody A.M." in 2001 and its singles, in particular "Eple". The sleekly polite European chillout and the glacial trip-hoppy cool of these tracks made them a dream come true for advertising and TV programmes and soundtrack executives.
Sometimes the countess adverts made the Norwegians as unwelcomely ubiquitous as Moby.
The Norvegian electronic duo continue to impress with their third album, "Junior", an energetic and enchanting collection of synth-led songs that ease you into a relaxed state of mind.
As always, the Bergen-based outfit have written, performed, arranged, mixed and produced the album, while this time drawing on guest vocals from the best of Scandinavian talent including Swedish hit-maker Robyn, Karin Dreijer-Andersson (lead vocalist in the Knife) and indie-pop darling Lykke Li.
Their contributions are all largely interchangeable, but that's fine, as they are only here to grease the wheels of Röyksopp's sleek Euro electro machine as it motors through a variety of sonic landscapes.
Like Groove Armada and Goldfrapp, the Norwegian duo won fame in the chill-out zone but have since become more interesting.
The opening song on Röyksopp's "Junior" is perfectly-chosen. "Happy Up Here" is a melodic and uplifting track that sets the tone perfectly for the album.
Much of this third album gallops along in a manner that would never suit an air freshener advert, most notably "Tricky Tricky", which sees Karin Dreijer Andersson of The Knife emoting over a frantic electro rhythm, while Robyn provides another hands-in-the-air moment on "The Girl and the Robot".
In actuality though, they're still better at the dreamy stuff. The twinkly, mid-paced "Vision One" is the sweetest tune amid the clamour.
The album's near-masterpiece, "Royksopp Forever", is an ambitious slice of chillout that mixes cinematic string arrangements with a sample of "Skylark's Suites For My Lady". It's haunting, elegaic, and beautifully moving and evidence of the scope of Junior`s ambition.
Favoirite tracks: :Happy Up Here", "The Girl & The Robot", "Royksopp Forever", "Miss It So Much", "Silver Cruiser", and "True To Life".
"Free of the creeping pomposity that undermined 2005's The Understanding, Junior punches the pleasure centres time and again." - Guardian
"The instrumentals offer damning evidence of the Euro-lounge rut in which the band remain stuck." - Times
All in all, the album is another winning game of steady darts from Norwegian duo, who can also make more of the same sound fresh and enticing. It is is a huge pop album that deserves massive mainstream success.
Favoirite tracks: :"Happy Up Here", "The Girl & The Robot", "Royksopp Forever", "Miss It So Much", "Silver Cruiser", and "True To Life".
Melody A.M.
The Understanding
Seventh Tree
Last Night
Free

This CD is a trip, it takes you on a journey~ You are missing out without Junior in your collection, put it on when you need a boost, especially track #2 with it's bass and punchy notes :)

Röyksopp burst into the electronica scene with their ambient, flowing 1999 album "Melody AM", a freshman delight that propelled them to fame. I've had it in my car for all but 6 months since I bought it in 2004. However, their 2005 album "The Understanding" saw a dramatic shift to a much poppier, collection-of-singles feel. Junior finally brings with it a compromise.

The entire album starts off with a sample of the Norwegian duo's sincere and joyful laugh. The mood holds with "Happy Up Here", the delightful, bouncy main line that harkens back to Melody AM's mood but with The Understanding's poppy chord structures. An immediate change of tone of "The Girl and the Robot" brings a full vocal track with a backing of haunting moans like those of a middle-age religious piece. Truly this track accomplishes the darkness and melancholy that The Understanding strove for but could not quite reach. The strength of the stand-alone tracks becomes evident from this piece alone and shows how the duo can simultaneously build a rolling soundscape that will still hold its own in the pop singles charts. Vision One continues the future dystopian theme with serious compression occurring on the backing keyboard part lending the entire piece a bit of a sticky feel such as that of Melody AM's 40 years/Come back's string bass part. This Must Be It, albeit fairly forgettable, allows for a less sharp divide between its predecessor, thus allowing for a more sentimental theme to press forward. Royksopp forever delivers another deliciously instrumental piece, a time when they almost always shine. The heavy violins and slurring bass lines bring a feeling of epic confrontation and shift to the track. A sudden key change totally upsets the raw determination of the piece, as though it was climbing a hill and reaching the crest. In this masterful way, the track fades away to Miss It So Much, a much softer, almost childish piece once more set in the future. The innocent vocals shine through like a small child running through the glacial landscape of the duo's Scandinavian homeland. Tricky Tricky is a frantic piece of whimsical panic that brings some of the dark pop back from The Understanding but just enough crazy to confirm that this is still the Royksopp that put out those feel-good poppy hits a little less than a decade ago. You Don't Have A Clue makes a powerful follow-up leading to a feeling of back-and-forth between stark-eyed futuristic depression and innocent idealistic lover fodder. Silver Cruiser brings the greatest instrumental contribution to the track. In the tradition of tape music with heavy sampling, this track is simply a melody of recorded instruments with some light electronic touchings-up to make it more acceptable to the album as a whole. The entire piece brings a very subtle about-face to the table as it quietly changes mood from plodding and dejected gray-world 5 PM melancholy to a warm, complacent bubble-bath of hazy autumn afternoon sun in the final bars, bringing with it a harmony rarely allowed in typical club electronica. True To Life, honestly, pretty forgettable. It's dark and haunting, but really just not the kind of material that has any real memorable quality to it. Finally, It's What I Want makes a fine finishing track with a rather surreal ending. The strange feeling of off-key falsetto makes it feel more like there was some sort of strangle synthesis as compared to actual singing, but indeed this may well not be the case.

In conclusion, Junior is a rare bridge between an artist's historic phases. For those disappointed by The Understanding, grab Junior and let the Royksopp back into your hearts.

There are many enjoyable tunes here from one of my favorite groups Royksopp. "The Girl and the Robot", "Royksopp Forever", and "Happy up Here" are just a few of the standouts. On "Happy up Here" they remix an old Parliament tune into the groove and create a winner. Robin serves up excellent vocals on the haunting "The Girl and the Robot"
I just downloaded the entire CD and I am really enjoying all of the tracks.

Don't get me wrong. I love this band. Many of the tracks on this album are collaborations with other artists (Robyn, Anneli Drecker, Karin Dreijer-Anderson and Lykke Li), however. I found none of those very interesting, with the exception of "Tricky Tricky" (Dreijer-Anderson), which is amusing. The band is better off on its own, as in the dark and brooding piece incongruously titled "Röyksopp Forever" and in "Happy up Here", which is indeed a very bouncy opening track.

How to define Royksopp? Are they an electronica act with a better than average understanding of melody like the French band AIR? Are they a shoe-gaze influenced trip-hop band with an electronic vibe? Or are they something entirely different? Something that defies conventional classification?

I'd argue the later, as even comparisons with AIR run out of steam when faced with a track like "Alpha Male" from The Understanding. Royksopp are masters of melding synth beats, layers of sound, understated vocals, story telling, found sound (the ring tone backdrop in Vision One for example) into tracks that defy convention. Mysterious, undefinable genius fills their music. They are architects of auditory landscapes that are haunting, beautiful, sometimes danceable, funky, fun, intense, both pop and anti-pop, but always worth the price of admission.

JUNIOR, their third studio album, comes after their most recent offering THE UNDERSTANDING, which was a bit of change of directions from the trip-hop heavy Melody A.M.. MELODY A.M., so good that it and only it challenges Moon Safari as the best 'electronic' album ever created, was initially the evidence many used to argue that THE UNDERSTANDING was sub-par and that even Royksopp wasn't immune to the legendary Sophomore Slump. However, most of that criticism was unfounded and had more to do with the preconceptions of listener than the comparative quality of THE UNDERSTANDING. Another MELODY A.M. it was not, but it was a great album in its own right.

Junior is a convergence of musical styles found on Royksopp's last two albums. Tracks like "Royksopp Forever" or "You Don't Have A Clue" are more similar to THE UNDERSTANDING, while "Vision One" and "Miss It So Much" seem closer to MELODY A.M. in style. However, JUNIOR is not just a rehash of older material. It seems a happier album than THE UNDERSTANDING, one filled with a sort of pervasive hope and ecstatic, electronic sensibility that is less 'tripy' or melodic than MELODY A.M. It listens like a completed album, easily moving from grove to enchanting grove with effortless ease. There are a few tracks that slip a bit ("Tricky Tricky" and it's silly lyrics for one), but these don't distract from the overall quality.

5/5. One of the best releases of 2009 and a must have for Royksopp fans.

Keepin' it terse: Melody A.M. has some great tracks, but lacks cohesiveness as an album. The Understanding initially underwhelmed me, but I finally "got" it, and now find it to be a _great_ album, from beginning to end. The arc of the story that's told in it is simply amazing--at turns sad, joyous, resigned, hopeful...

But Junior just isn't doing much for me, even after more than a dozen listens. I find some tracks insipid ("six's afraid of seven, cuz seven eight nine" - ugh), others pretty good, but all-in-all most tracks sound like lesser, alternate versions of songs found on their two prior albums. I truly hope that they put more heart into Senior, and that it picks up where The Understanding left off.

JUNIOR sees Röyksopp returning to their joyous roots -- "Happy Up Here" might as well be "Eple, Pt. 2." They have a electro-pop sensibility, but without succumbing to cheesiness or 80s nostalgia. The album also features a veritable who's who of Scandinavian vocal luminaries: Robyn delivers a powerhouse performance on electro-pop bonbon of "The Girl and the Robot," while Anneli Drecker makes a reappearance on "Vision One" (though it was probably unnecessary to process her vocals as much as they do; "You Don't Have a Clue," thankfully, features her unique tone more prominently). Karin Dreijer also reappears with the toe-tapping "This Must Be It" (even if her odd lyrics on "Tricky Tricky" are head-scratching), and Lykke Li provides her delicate voice to "Miss It So Much." "It's What I Want" is a minor misstep, but the instrumentals more than make up for its weakness: "Silver Cruiser" has a lovely drifting quality, and you know you're in good hands with "Röyksopp Forever," which starts out with melancholy strings and a plaintive guitar, before switching gears halfway through and becoming gorgeously triumphant, like a heavenly victory song. It's a fine return to form.

We heard "Happy Up Here" on the radio and decided to give it a try. The song is accessible, poppy, and unique all at the same time. It's a great start to a great album.

But listening to the album, well, I wasn't sure. The other songs did not impress, at least at first. But I am of the firm belief that some of the best albums, the ones that remain eternal favorites, are those that you have to listen to a few times to get into.

This is definitely one of those for me. I found that on later listenings, I would find a new favorite. And after many listenings, each and every song (well, all except one) joined my favorites list.

They use a variety of vocalists - including themselves, I think - to give the album a lot of variety. Compositionally, I think this pair has a lot going for them - interesting and complex, with some touches of classical, interesting chord progressions, but in a pop vein. While the vocals are great, the music between vocal parts is some of the best, too. Röyksopp Forever and Silver Cruiser are totally instrumental, and they're great.

My favorite tracks? Besides Happy Up Here, Vision One is at the top of my list. Miss It So Much, Tricky Tricky, The Girl and The Robot. But really, ALL of them. My least favorite track, which is still a good track, is It's What I want.

If you buy and like this album, you should visit their Web site, become a member (free), and you'll get access to the Members Area, where there are several other tracks by Röyksopp you can download. Of them, my favorite is "The Girl and The Robot (Davide Rossi Suite for a Robotic Girl Re-Interpretation)", which is best heard after you are very familiar with the original version. There are instrumental versions of (so far) three more tracks from the album.

For another offbeat re-interpretation, check out "Happy Up Here (Marching Band Version)" available as an mp3 on Amazon. It's fairly short, but at least it's only 69 cents track, and I love it. Again, best heard after you're familiar with the original.