List | S | Statemachine | 'Hologram' CDM 1996

Track:	Name:	Time:
1.	Hologram Radio Edit	3:37
2.	Play With Passion	3:59
3.	Hologram Album Version	3:25
4.	A Crying Statue Statuary Remix	4:12
5.	Hologram Summer In Amsterdam Version	4:14
	Total	19:27

Comments:

It's funny how wrong you can be about a new band, judging them on only one song. I really didn't like this first song I heard by this band called Statemachine, but later came to love the album. Here's what I initially wrote:

"This is the first material I heard from this new Swedish synth pop band. I really can't stand it. 'Hologram', that is. It's Eurodisco, goddammit! It's bouncy, blippy, and with a damn catchy synth riff, but to that incredibly stereotypical beat I simply feel convulsive about. The vocals are both male and female and mostly fairly good, but incredibly silly lyrics like "I turn you into bits and bytes" is way too clich‰ed for me. Ok, so it's probably rather good for cheap bad Eurodisco (at least it's not E-type!), but anyway. And I don't really see the need for the remixes; one version is more than enough.

Fortunately, the B-sides are better. 'Play With Passion' is also rather upbeat, but not as annoying. True, there is some sort of E-type-ish half-rap part somewhere in the middle, but apart from that it's pretty ok. The lyrics are less silly (yet still not entirely to my liking) and the beat is the steady 4/4 boring standard disco. The main riff is also reminicent of Eurodisco, but at least it seems a bit disted.

No, the highlight of this single must be (the remix of?) 'A Crying Statue'. It's a fairly slow, melancholic sort of tune, with very little vocals ("Just because I'm dead" and "Wouldn't want to stir things up" softly spoken and the title melodically sung somewhere in the end). I suppose these are stripped vocals; I expect the original version (if such a thing exists) to have more vocals. Well, I got this single for free so I shouldn't really complain."

Ok, so I didn't care too much for it, but if I was to sell the album, I'd probably pick this song as well as a first single, since it's clearly the one with the most hit potential. Then again, it might scare the synth pop audience away (as it nearly did with me), and once the Eurodisco crowd heard more of the album they'd stay away from it. I dunno, maybe it's a good thing I'm not in charge to decide these things.

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