"I've got love for you if you were born in the 80's..."

I have no idea what to make of Calvin Harris.

Quite honestly, he's thrown me for a loop.

I was introduced to his work through three songs in the following order:
1) The Girls

2) Acceptable in the 80's
3) Merrymaking at My Place.


As a result, I started out hating him because of "The Girls." For me, the great background beat and composition could not gloss over the seemingly atrocious lyrics (If you want a song about being attracted to different kinds of girls, just listen to "Finding Out True Love is Blind" by Louis XIV). I cut him some slack mentally because, really, that beat's pretty awesome and very catchy. But then, upon listening to "Acceptable in the 80's," I considered the option that he might've been trying to play it cool with sparse, purposely shallow lyrics and loading up on the seeming redundancies to accelerate the danceability of the song and cause people to go with the flow. And when I saw the video for "Merrymaking at My Place," I thought, you know, this could be a guy I'd party with. Maybe, just maybe, Calvin Harris was not the jerk that he seemed, but a Scotsman who wanted to be the new LCD Soundsystem and who could honestly throw on some electronic jams that will make you dance. And then I noticed his album was titled "I Created Disco," and my mouth dropped open.

So is it an act? Quite possibly. I'm not sure. Is he going to be played at every synthesizer-friendly place this side of the Atlantic? Jury's still out. And yet, I sort of want to knock back some booze with my friends to "Merrymaking at My Place."

Judge for yourself.
Calvin Harris - Acceptable in the 80's from I Created Disco
Calvin Harris - Colours from I Created Disco