Music Review: Hurts - Happiness

It’s weird how sometimes you can hear a song on the radio or on Spotify in my case, for the first time but still know a large portion of the lyrics. Evidently, this means of course, it isn’t the first time you have heard the song. You somewhere along the line must have heard it in passing, whether that was when you spent hours buying new clothes or somewhere on the television say. Well, I finally figured out that is when I had heard Hurts song "Illuminated." Sky had used it to advertise their new drama schedule for the fall on Sky HD. I had also heard their songs "Wonderful Life" and "Better Than Love" before but I haven’t quite managed to pinpoint those previous experiences yet.

Hurts debut album Happiness, is definitely needed in your iTunes collection, or if you’re like me, your CD collection.

At first glance of the duo, on the front cover of their album, you do get the feeling that you may have slipped back into the eighties, but without the leg warmers and Kevin Bacon’s dancing. Every time I see that image, I think of Spandau Ballets album cover with Gold imprinted in a very similar font. On first hearing their music, you’ll note a touch of ‘synthesizing’ being used, immediately connecting the duo to The Pet Shop Boys.

But despite many similarities to the eighties, their music still upholds a very contemporary style. This comparison to that decade reportedly shocked the duo as they considered their music to have closer resemblance to music in the nineties. Listening to the lyrics, I can see this is very true as much of it is one big romantic hugely cliché. You can almost guess the next line in a couple of tracks. However, in this case, I don’t regard this as a bad thing at all.

Maybe that is because I am a Hurts fan and my biased adoration is blinding the truth. But, even I can see how they can be described as ‘Marmite.’ They are very much a love them or hate them band. Their music is very heavily based on romance, but the backing tune is upbeat and fast which puts their music in a different genre to ballad for example, although their song "Evelyn" is a tad dramatic.

Anyway, when you have time, try to check out their album which is now available or download and find out whether you love them or hate them.

Article Author: Becca Weaver

A recent graduate, Becca spends most of her days now looking for a half decent job. While she waits, she writes; whether that is fiction, scripts or reviews.

Visit Becca Weaver's author page — Becca Weaver's Blog