Taking Sides: "Days Go By" vs. "Missing"

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Dirty Vegas versus Everything but the Girl in a battle of the subtle smoothy pop-accessible dance crooners -- songs club lovers, sober-minded pop fans, and your mother all agree are very pleasant. (Cf Sade, for whom everyone but the most spitefully belligerent rockists will at least have a kind word and a smile.) Hmm. "Days Go By" has that really active bass line twisting under there, and commits itself to its own minimalism and subtlety with a bit more conviction. But "Missing" has more and better harmonic development, and it's also nice that you can read it in either the subtle-smoothy way or the bigger, housier way depending on your mood. Both require you to buy into them from the beginning, or else they seem like numbingly lukewarm nothingness: they wave shiny things around to lure you over, but they will not come to you, which is to their credit.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 30 August 2002 17:53 (twenty-three years ago)

i find 'Days Go By' pretty weak myself but sometimes i find i need weak so thats ok. i'll go with 'Missing' tho because Tracy Thorn sounds far better than that Dirty Vegas bloke - simple as that this time

― blueski, Friday, 30 August 2002 18:07 (twenty-three years ago)

I hate Days Go By, I quite like ETBG. I keep reading all these articles about Dirty Vegas breaking America and Dirty Vegas this and Dirty Vegas that, so fucking what, it's not dance music, it's not dirty, and it's not going to last very long.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 30 August 2002 18:13 (twenty-three years ago)

I largely agree with Blueski, although the absolutely classic video for "Days Go By" almost makes up for the weak singing.

Ronan, the fact that you don't like it doesn't mean that it's not dance music!

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 30 August 2002 18:14 (twenty-three years ago)

The album is the most hyper produced thing I've heard in ages aswell, it's like major surgery is done on each track with a harpoon cos um....some guy ran off with the scalpel doctor. Also there's a few pink floydesque stonery tracks, stay well away.

Yes I know Dan, but my point is as I say that it's such a safe sanitised over produced version of dance it barely pushes the right buttons in any genre, it's somewhere between a few genres for me. I liked the intro a bit but it doesn't really do anything after that.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 30 August 2002 18:18 (twenty-three years ago)

Ronan don't you think "Missing" does that a little too? I wouldn't use terms as perjorative as yours but yeah, basically, they're both dance tracks with the big "this is dance" signifiers smoothed out until they're not as much of an issue.

I'm curious about your thoughts on this cause I perceive tracks like this to be the ones that get those 12-CD straw-men to say "Oh I usually don't like 'techno' but I think this song is really nice."

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 30 August 2002 18:29 (twenty-three years ago)

I think Missing is like a chilled out dance track, sort of skulking somewhere underneath bigger tunes, it still feels right to me though, I'd need to hear it again but what springs to mind instantly is that Missing sticks to the repetition side of dance music more strictly, albeit with a vocal stuck over the top.

I feel Dirty Vegas are like a bad indie singer teamed up with two average dance producers, it's like lets mask the crappy lyrics and acoustica with all this production, and hey this production won't work without some massive vocal over it either.

I think they are songs 12 cd types might like, but that in itself is no massive criticism, I'm sure there are lots of tunes that the 12 CD type likes that don't fall into the above trap, and still make the crossover.

I guess my dislike (pretty strong) for Dirty Vegas is also because people might feel they're uniting genres, but in doing so they're not showing the best side of anything, they seem to be the ultimate lazy option.

The one review I got for Mixmag when I did work experience with Anna there was Dirty Vegas, gave it 2 out of 5.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 30 August 2002 18:38 (twenty-three years ago)

I mean I now sound as though I'm saying anything which breaks dance conventions is crap, when what I'm really saying is Dirty Vegas break dance conventions to use electronic music as masking tape for bad songs.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 30 August 2002 18:40 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, I think I follow you -- and I didn't mean the 12-cd thing as a criticism for either, just a sort of uniting factor. (Cf, I just realized, the sudden massive popularity of "chill out" comps, being advertised quite frequently on national television in the US and, one imagines, being purchased by those much-maligned 12-CD 45-year-olds on a regular basis for in-SUV listening.)

I really go back and forth on both -- in certain moods they seem very good, and in other moods they seem laughable and irritating. The one reason I'd lean toward "Missing" is that I'm convinced there's a remix of it out there somewhere that would work perfectly for me; I have a hard time imagining this is the case with "Days Go By."

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 30 August 2002 18:48 (twenty-three years ago)

Well actually!

No it's not great but there's a remix of Days Go By which I thought was vaguely pleasant, it only has a few lines of the vocal cut up in it, don't know who did it. There must be loads of good Missing remixes.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 30 August 2002 18:54 (twenty-three years ago)

i agree that Dirty Vegas shouldnt really be regarded as a dance track. if you're dancing to 'Days Go By' then i'd be very worried! its far too light/weak, there's no kick and no stimulation to dance as a result. its more a travelling track, and there's not even much of an electronic flavour other than tepid synths and the usual compressed to the point of dilation bass and beat. it only exists for fast food restaurant tannoys surely (granted you'll hear 'Missing' on those same tannoys now and then but that track benefits from Todd Terry's more punchy house beat and bassline and it has such a Balearic stigma attached to it that i always think more about Ibeefa in the early 90s rather than just having a coffee in a crap franchise joint waiting for it to stop pissing down outside and wishing they'd change the dial from 95.8 to something better)

― blueski, Friday, 30 August 2002 18:57 (twenty-three years ago)

Missing wins,hands down.Tracey can sing,and doesn't need vocoderization.Every time I hear that Dirty Vegas song I think of that highly loathesome commercial with the chick body popping in the front seat of the car.Everybody I know wants to slap her senseless!

― dek1, Friday, 30 August 2002 19:09 (twenty-three years ago)

Didn't "Missing" start off as a conventionally arranged pop track before it found a second life as a Todd Terry remix?

― Alex in NYC, Friday, 30 August 2002 22:49 (twenty-three years ago)

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