Danny Saucedo "Brinner i bröstet" - Review

Swedish ex-quiff master and two-time Melodifestivalen runner-up, Danny Sauceo, has finally decided to put his quarter-life crisis aside and return to the Swedish pop scene with his first original Swedish-language single, "Brinner i bröstet," which roughly translates to "Burning in the chest." But despite the power of that imagery, the single and accompanying video are often just lukewarm at best.

Danny Saucedo has always been an excellent vocalist. For every E.M.D. (the boyband-trio of which he was a part) single, the grandest vocal lines were always reserved for Danny. It's no surprise that on this latest single, he sounds just as good as he always has. But if the song had started at lower levels to offer up more contrast with the song's climax(es), the greater range would have allowed for more of an impact. The song also could've benefited from more deep percussion throughout the song as well as a more expansive lower register, be that from synthetic bass or cello perhaps. In fact, the greatest point of the song is Danny's emotive vocals which carry the song far more than the production itself. Critiques aside, it is a perfectly competent song and pleasant enough to listen to, but perhaps we were just expecting a more explosive comeback single. Two years is a long time to keep folks waiting...

Final point of analysis is the music video. Before we get to it, perhaps we should revel in the fact that there is a music video at all, particularly when you consider that Danny's greatest single to date, "All In My Head," never had an official music video made and had hardly any promotion for it.

The "Brinner i bröstet" music video starts off with Danny and his back-up dancers in all-white outfits and Danny is wearing some sort of veiled apron attached around his front, making viewers subconsciously reach for their dishes for Danny to wash. With his band of all-white-wearing misfit-waiters around him, I half-expected him to start spouting, "I am Jack's complete lack of surprise." Speaking of lack of surprise, the instant the sneak-peek was posted, revealing that the video would be black and white, I was left flabbergasted at why such a choice would be made for a song with the word "burning" in the title and jumped to the prediction that there would be some done-a-hundred-times-before transition to colour towards the video's end and guess what? It totally does. Little about this video is innovative. The effects (the best-looking of which look virtually identical to Måns Zelmerlöw's "Perfectly Damaged" album cover), lowest-setting wind machine, unconvincing attempts to pantomime playing the song's piano hook by guest-artist Malcolm B, the uncomfortably blank Stepford-gaze of the video's female lead (with whom Danny doesn't even interact with once), and the dollar-store-eyedrops teardrop as part of some contrived attempt to emote the song's actually decent lyrics made this a just-okay video. Have we seen worse? Yes. But were we hoping for more? Absolutely.

But before we leave you thinking that the video has no redeeming qualities, we will note that the second set of outfits (the black-and-white outfits) are overall a much cleaner and stylish look. The use of sign language to communicate the lyrics, as there is no lipsynching at any point during the video, was genuinely touching. The choreography is decent, save for the out-of-sync execution of the moves that go down to the ground and back up again. The moving camera angle at the video's close is also a visually eye-catching point that had us thinking that when combined with the song's decent success on iTunes in Sweden, perhaps Danny is on the right path to getting his career back into a groove. We certainly hope so! We're more so befuddled by the choice to make the lead single of his big comeback be a ballad, particularly so close to the summer season, which is when Swedes tend to drop their biggest party singles. But we're happy to welcome back one of our most cherished blonde bombshells of Sweden. Hopefully, he'll build his momentum back up and return to Melodifestivalen. After all, Måns Zelmerlöw's six-year-gap away from Melodifestivalen led him to the complete and utter slayage of Europe!

What are your reactions to "Brinner i bröstet"? Does the music video ignite your fiery fangirl adoration? Check it out on Aftonbladet and let us know!