Calvin Harris
I CREATED DISCO/ READY FOR THE WEEKEND
SONY
Steve Harnell
Remember the days when Calvin Harris was a DIY dance hero, rather than a global superstar DJ and boyfriend accessory to Taylor Swift? In light of his now-ubiquitous position as a worldwide EDM titan, his modest and extremely enjoyable debut is ripe for revisiting. There’s a clear nod to Mylo’s Destroy Rock & Roll on The Girls, amid a record packed with hook-laden tunes including Merrymaking At My Place, and Acceptable In The 80s. It’s a little front-loaded, but the seeds of a hitmaker were already sown. By second album Ready For The Weekend, the rough edges were smoothed off and replaced with precision-tooled dance pop. There’s a broadened sonic palette on The Rain, and the title track shows a new crowdpleasing awareness for bigger stages… By the time you reach I’m Not Alone, you sense that the enormodome gigs were an inevitability.