Song #61: Elin Lanto - Tickles (off Love Made Me Stupid - 2010)
Scandinavia has really mastered two musical genres: metal and pop. Power metal (for which I have previously expressed a love) combines the two, and though I have a metal side that reveals itself every so often, I have an obvious and incurable pop preference.
Elin Lanto is a Swedish pop vocalist whose record “Love Made Me Stupid” has been the soundtrack to a thousand White Girl Dance Parties. Her English isn’t amazing (see “Funeral” for a blatant abuse of prepositions) and she’s not exactly redefining the girlpop genre, but her songs are probably the catchiest of 2010. In my mind, she beats out the Gagas, the Katy Perrys and POSSIBLY the Ke$has (“Stephen” is stiff competition).
There’s a purity to music that says absolutely nothing new and still manages to convey something universal. In “Tickles,” Elin could be talking about Limerence or self-pleasure. Maybe both? I believe that ticklishness is heightened if there’s unresolved sexual tension. If you keep that in mind when you hear the first verse, it goes from a masturbatory anthem to a song of sexual longing.
Addendum: I was going to bite my tongue, but part of Elin’s appeal is that she looks like my ex-boyfriend in drag. Just add a beard - it will never NOT be amusing.
