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Pop Rock Nation

Author: Paul Lorentz

  • Monsieur West, I Presume? Kanye Willfully Upstages Belgian Kanye

    Last year, around this time, Kanye West was getting himself into trouble by hijacking an adorable white girl’s acceptance speech at the VMAs. This year, he’s taken to hijacking an established international dance-pop phenomenon with a remix of Belgian dance-pop-rapper Stromae‘s debut single “Alors on Danse”.

    Though the song’s been sitting at our near the top of the charts throughout Europe for most of the last year, it has yet to make much of an impact here. But that may be changing. The apparent embargo on viewing the song’s official video in the U.S. has been recently lifted, and an actual downloadable single has also been released; in the last couple weeks, it’s shown up on the Canadian pop charts (although French language songs have an advantage in Canada they don’t have here). This may be the latest hint that the hit may soon be gracing U.S. airwaves. (Also, my teenager, who loves Linkin Park and Maroon 5 and speaks not one whit of French, completely digs this song and will probably be horrified to hear the Kanye-fied version).

    Kanye’s substituted Stromae’s verses which (en Francais) detail a cycle of existential ennui with his own dorky verses (en Anglais) about being a discerning partier and a prolific consumer. The fact that he’s annointed Stromae‘s song with his holy Kanye-ness can be read as a sort of meta-proof of his rarified tastes. (Read: Dude loves himself some genuine French stuff! Err, French-ish.) That said, much – most – is lost in translation, and I hope that if Kanye does manage to get American listeners’ attention with this remix, they’ll soon enough abandon it in droves to embrace the superior original, which is that rare thing: a supersmart, superpopular pop sensation (which also has a very cool horizontal split screen video – see below).

    Meanwhile, Stromae’s debut album Cheese was just released earlier this summer, and is currently promoting the follow-up single “Te Quiero”.

    The Kanye Remix

    Stromae “Alors on Danse”

  • The Daily Awesome: City High “What Would You Do?” (2001)

    Lauryn Hill is ready to record again! But hey, what about her Sister Act 2 co-star and fellow former Wyclef Jean associate Ryan Toby, who, along with (future Intervention-subject) Robby Pardlo and (Pardlo’s girlfriend and future ex-Mrs. Toby) Claudette Ortiz, recording as City High, scored a terrific surprise hit in 2001 with the song “What Would You Do?”.

    The song, a conversation between a guy at a party and a woman he knew from when they were kids who’s now working as a stripper and turning tricks on the side, treads a tricky line between passing judgment and urging empathy. It was an unusually earnest, message-y song more fitting the social consciousness of the late 80s than the blingy-clubby early Aughts (Toby actually scored his biggest hit as a songwriter with Will Smith’s “Miami”), but somehow it overcame, and damned if it doesn’t still sound great and feel resonant.

    Still, City High had trouble following it up – a second single “Caramel” did just all right. Meanwhile, tense group dynamics (putting it lightly) led to their break-up, and their self-titled album was their last. Toby did release a solo album called The Soul of the Songwriter in 2006 which came and went without much notice, but hasn’t put anything out since. Where is he now? YouTube, of course.

    City High “What Would You Do?”

  • The Daily Awesome: Radiohead “Let Down” (1997)

    After an artist has been as highly-regarded for as long as Radiohead has been, it’s easy to forget what was so exciting about that artist in the first place. After sneaking out from under future-one-hit-wonder status to usurp the title of World’s Greatest Living Rock Band from U2 in the mid-90s with their albums The Bends and OK Computer, Radiohead channeled their renown into crafting two of the strangest, most dissonant and experimental records to ever top the American pop charts – Kid A and Amnesiac.

    In the last decade, with the single ascendant (due to the advent of iTunes and easy piracy), Radiohead have almost single-handedly kept the album relevant as a form. Which is why it was sort of disheartening, if not entirely surprising, to hear Thom Yorke talk about the band moving away from recording albums after the release of 2007’s In Rainbows. 15 years after The Bends, it’s easy to take for granted that Radiohead have been the greatest album band of their time; but it’s even easier to forget that the band first got our attention by just writing some really good songs (“Creep” among them, to my thinking). Tonight, I was taking the long way home from work because I just got a new car – one that I can plug my iPod into! I had it playing on shuffle and when I heard the shimmering opening notes of “Let Down”, I didn’t even recognize it. It was like I was hearing the song – which I had in heavy rotation on my Walkman in the summer of ’97 – for the very first time. The way Yorke sings the verses in gradually expanding ellipses of melody; the way his voice maintains a flatness and distance even as the music behind him grows grander and more urgent; the layers of shimmer and twinkle, delicately plucked arpeggios and folky strumming chords backing up lyrical images of disappointed people “clinging to bottles”. I’m not sure how serious Thom Yorke was about Radiohead focusing entirely on singles – and Radiohead have always been a band that thrive when they’re defying expectations, even the ones they’ve helped to perpetuate – but if, in fact, they never release another album, I have every reason to suspect that they’ll become the Greatest Living Singles Band in the World. Songs like this are why.