Aqua – Megalomania – 2011
Even though, in my music-loving life, I have generally preferred various rock variants. The harder, the better! Megalomania is one of the albums I’ve been most excited to hear in recent years. Although it was a few tears ago I originally wrote those first lines. It felt incredibly unlikely that the Danish group Aqua would release a new album 11 years after “Aquarius”. Which was their second album. Their debut came back in 1997, and the group is probably forever associated with the hit “Barbie Girl” from their first album. It’s unbeatable, I agree, and Mattel probably thought it was so good that the group was sued for copyright infringement or something like that. When I heard the first two albums, I realized that there is actually innovative and good pop!
You can’t expect time to have stood still since the last time, and Megalomania starts a bit tentatively with “Playmate to Jesus,” a title that can certainly attract some unwanted opinions. Using religious references with insinuated sexuality can certainly be offensive if things go wrong. The music is much more straightforward pop than what the previous albums were about. It’s not quite the same back-and-forth between Lene Nystrøm and René Dif as in the old days. It’s more mature and straightforward than before, which is not necessarily an advantage.
More adult themed
Already in the second song on Megalomania – Dirty Little Pop Song, you feel more at home. It gets even better in Kill Myself and Like a Robot, which may feel a bit blunt due to its lyrics, which may be too adult for this type of music – “Fuck me Like A Robot”. But, on the other hand, it has lyrics that stick (and that’s, of course, not the only one, even if it doesn’t always involve explicit text fragments). In fact, one top song follows another. Even if the album may not reach the heights of the first album, it is still clearly better than the group’s second from 2000!
They have managed to renew themselves while still holding onto the essence of what they once became known for. That is truly appreciated. Some of the songs may be a bit too mature for my taste. They may lack the humor that characterizes many of the songs on their previous albums. But the overall result is still incredibly successful! Some mean tongues claim that Aqua has imitated other famous pop songs in their choruses similar to this one, but I don’t recognize it at all. Well, yes, the closing song “If the World Didn’t Suck (We Would All Fall Off)” bears clear traces of Ralph McTell’s “Streets of London,” but it’s probably just a coincidence.
