Calvin Harris - I Created Disco

So, my first review and i'm going to commit a cardinal sin of a reviewing and give my opinion of it in the very first line - it's okay. It would be really easy for me to do an album that I really like and I could wax lyrical about for hours and hours on end but no, I fancied challenging myself.

I first heard Calvin Harris months before anyone else seemed to and chatted shite about him to the point where people must've thought we were involved in some sort of gay relationship. Was it the fact his music was catchy? Was it the fact that me, Mr. Can't Dance Wont Dance, wanted to get up and start throwing some shapes when his songs came on? Or was it the fact he wanted to give me a cuddled for being born at the arse end of 1987? Well, it was all of the above if i'm completely honest. Acceptable In The 80's is a brilliant dance track when you're on a night out and lose your inhibitions. It's a simple beat mixed with frankly cack lyrics that just makes you want to get up and dance. The same goes for his second single, The Girls, in which he talks about all the different types of girls and how they apparently fall at his feet (Okay then, Calvin). Although he can make nice dittys to dance to, lyrically he isn't the next John Lennon.

Now, with all that in mind imagine my excitement when I managed to get my hands on a copy of his album, I Created Disco. I was hoping for more nuggets of gold along the lines of Acceptable In The 80's and I did get them, just in smaller quantities than I would've liked. The album starts of really well with two or three very good tunes that will have your feet tapping. Merrymaking at My Place is a great album opener and really gets you in the happy, carefree mood that it should. That is soon followed by the two 'big guns', The Girls and Acceptable.... Unfortunately, after this the album starts to slowly descend into mediocrity. First of all, it's clear to see that that Calvin Harris was beginning to run out of ideas. For example, Vegas sounds just Acceptable In The 80's played through a Stylophone very poorly. All the effort Calvin's Australian cousin Rolf put into marketing this piece of kit as a legitimate musical instrument is undone in one fell swoop. Cheers, Calvin.

If you're going to put 14 songs on an album you need fourteen ideas, it's obvious he only had around 10. The track Love Souvenir leads me to believe that Calvin had been watching far too much Shaft prior to making this record and fancied doing his own Blaxploitation movie theme. That's then followed by the last track, Electro Man in which you hear what sounds like a very poor David Bowie impersonator crooning away. It's a shame because if Calvin Harris had cut the album down by about four or five songs and then spent another few weeks writing he may have pulled something amazing out of the hat. Instead we're left with an album that will have your head nodding with the beat in some parts and your head shaking in disbelief at others.

There's no doubt Mr. Harris divides opinion. Unashamedly pop, his songs carry just enough electronic wurring to attract Dance music fans but are layered with guitar in the vain hope of getting the 'Indie' (Urgh, I hate using that word) kids on board too. Has his plan worked? Yes and, well...no. If you're in a club and one of his songs come on don't expect to see lads in tracksuit bottoms mixing with girls in skinny jeans in some sort of utopian rave, you're more likely to see half of the crowd dancing away like their lives depended on it and the other half hastily making their way to the bar. Calvin Harris is good at what he does, the problem is he's not the best.