(EMI Music)

What makes a ‘great’ pop song? Most half-decent pop songs will have a melody, riff or ‘bit’ with an air of familiarity about it that grabs your attention and sucks you in instantly. But after a few listens the ‘bit’ loses its impact and you tire of the song because it has little else, it’s shallow. A ‘great’ pop song however will have this essential ingredient that initially sucks you in but it will also have 3 or 4 other ingredients, the tastes of which you discover morsel by morsel with each subsequent listen, it has depth. Air’s third album, Talkie Walkie, is full of ‘great’ pop songs, in fact almost every track is a ‘great’ pop song, and that makes it a ‘great’ album too. You know…those rare ‘complete’ albums where, from the opening bleep or beat on track one to the final fading swoosh or swirl on the closing track, you adore each and every track.

After the ambitious and somewhat challenging, but ultimately disappointing 10,000 Hz, which followed their much loved debut album Moon Safari, I can happily report that Nicolas Godin and JB Dunckel, the French duo that are Air, have neither made another ‘10,000 Hz’ nor another ‘Moon Safari’. This album is as good as, if not better, than ‘Moon Safari’. A big call I know, but you have to remember that Moon Safari was a debut album, and as such had no reference points, nothing to compare with internally. On the other hand, Talkie Walkie was written ‘in the shadow’ of an electronic music masterpiece, and to emerge from this shadow as an equal and more is an exceptional achievement indeed.

Produced by Nigel Godrich, the man behind Radiohead’s last four albums and Beck’s ‘Mutations’, Talkie Walkie manages to remain accessible and soulful without being obvious, contrived and pretentious. This is how all ‘pop music’ should be, and I ain’t talking about the garbage repeatedly regurgitated month after month on MTV and other video hits shows that masquerades as ‘pop music’. No…I’m talking about the sort of pop music that flowed so infectiously from the minds and hearts of artists like the Beach Boys, Brian Eno, Beck, the Pixies, Nick Drake, and Teenage Fanclub. Exquisitely crafted electro-pop tunes.

Talkie Walkie extends on the cocktail lounge-styled beats and spacey themes of Moon Safari. It still retains some of the lush and sometimes sad 70s synth and string sounds and soundtrack sentiments that so dominate on Moon Safari, but moves ahead with fresh sounds and moods through the greater use of more ‘organic’ instruments such as the acoustic guitar, banjo, flute, grand piano and the plain old human whistle!

The ‘hit’ tune on Talkie Walkie is probably the already popular and accessible Cherry Blossom Girl. It’s a wonderfully gentle and dreamy tune that is very Air. Although, the real beauty of this record is epitomised by both Run and the non-vocal track Mike Mills with its simple acoustic guitar strums underneath a haunting, angelic like piano interlude and rudimentary beat programming.

However, if we are looking for the ‘tour de force’ of Talkie Walkie it is undoubtedly track 8, the gorgeously infectious Alpha Beta Gaga. It plasters a beaming, cheesy grin across your face the instant that whistled melody blows from your speaker cones, and immediately conjures images of the closing moments of a 1950s/60s black and white British train robbery movie, just after the heist has been successful. Add the V8 acoustic guitar and Dr Who Dalek on keyboard duty and you have one downright joyous tune.

And then there’s Biological. Has a banjo ever sounded so good in a contemporary pop music tune? I think not. The banjo skips and picks along in perfect harmony with the lush, saintly synth sweeps and whispering vocals of Godin and Dunckel, whilst the familiar bassline is rather reminiscent of something on Moon Safari.

The promo CD didn’t come with the official CD insert with printed lyrics so the lyrical themes, from what I can decipher from the Charles Aznavour-sounding Gallic accents, appear to be dominated mostly by simple verses of love, girls and more amour. In contrast to the guest vocalists used on Moon Safari, these lyrics are predominantly vocalized by the songwriters themselves. And, in general, it works reasonably well as there is greater personalization of ze songs with only ze odd cringe-worzy moment having to be endured.

Talkie Walkie will be as timeless as Moon Safari, perhaps in a different way, but still timeless. It has an overwhelming beauty and soul that is unrivalled in much of electronic music of the day, and one can only hope that it doesn’t get appropriated and subsequently corrupted by the advertising industry as much as its successful predecessor.