Calvin Harris - Ready For The Weekend

This album hasn’t exactly set the heather on fire - to use a Scottish expression. It’s not really had the internet ablaze either. Infact, there’s been a bit of an apathy about the whole thing. ‘Ready For The Weekend’ came out on August 17th, but with more of a whisper than a shout, which is disappointing concerning the mass hysteria surrounding Calvin Harris when he first emerged doe-faced from Dumfries in 2007; hailed as some sort of underground saviour of the rockpopdance world. Where’s the Calvin that brazenly told festival-goers at Live at Loch Lomond 2007 that he was “at least playing our own fucking tunes, unlike some [insert expletive] that just make money playing other people’s records”? I paraphrase, but you get the idea – instead nowadays we have nice shots of him in tie-less suits in other people’s music videos, trying to appear the epitome of cool, or as the next Mr. Ronson

It’s probably that which put me off him – not the music, but Calvin Harris himself. I was a self-confessed lover of his debut, but the attempts to be cool and aloof just come across as arrogance and prickishness; a total lack of discernible personality.

Sadly this seems to have come through on this release. With the exceptions of a few tracks that we’ve heard and probably not realised who wrote it (‘Ready For The Weekend’ which is ridiculously catchy, and summer dancey-anthem ‘I’m Not Alone’), the rest just feels very.. long. Oh, and there’s that collaboration with Dizzee Rascal – which was released how long ago? Bored of that months previous thanks.

In all though, it’s not bad, but that’s probably the problem – this is destined to be damned by faint praise.