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Pop Rock Nation

Category: Videos

  • 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 8/26/10: Shalamar “Dancing in the Sheets” (1984)

    Ever hear a song you’ve known for most of your life and realize that while you may have heard it a zillion times, sung along with it almost as many, you know the words, you even know the guitar solo enough to scat sing along with it while you wail on your air ax – you still have never really realized just how awesome, or, in fact, how dirrrrrrty it was until, say, you’re sitting at your desk on a Thursday morning trying to catch up on two days of e-mail, and it comes up on your iPod. That was my morning. This was the song.

    Though Shalamar, who started out as the studio creation of a Soul Train booking agent, were one of the few disco groups to weather the turn of the 80s, this Top 20 hit from 1984, featured on the soundtrack of Footloose, also marked the beginning of the group’s end. Singer Howard Hewett was the sole remaining original member of group by this time, and soon after, he too would follow former members Jody “Hasta La Vista, Baby” Watley and Jeffrey Daniel out the door to launch a solo career, leaving the group adrift for the rest of the decade before they finally broke up.

    The video finds Hewett dressing up in his favorite Zorro cape to visit the gayest not-gay-bar in the world where he finds keyboardist Delisa Davis holding up a wall and looking slutty. When he makes a move for her though, a table full of mustached mobsters gets all upset, some phony violence ensues – whoah, who’s that guy with the pecs? – but Hewett, Davis and guitarist Micki Free manage to escape unscathed when Free unleashes a guitar solo that entrances and, presumably, pacifies the totally gay un-gay bar’s patrons. The 80s were awesome.