The fourth single from ”Odd Blood”For Valentine’s Day this year, the indie-popsters Yeasayer delivered a heart-shaped (or rather head-of-an-aging-biker-shaped) box of nostalgic synth-pop candy in the form of the fourth single from their 2010 sophomore album Odd Blood. The song’s called “I Remember” and in addition to delivering a typically strange/gross/cheesy/beautiful video (not quite as distractingly icky as their last), the band has made a three-track EP of the song available for free download. Awwwwww. How sweet, right?
The EP contains the original album version of the song along with two remixes. The first, by Painted Palms (who posted their own free EP a couple months ago), is a small-but-lovable psychedelic trifle. At just under three-and-a-half minutes, it doesn’t go much of anywhere, but it sounds cool enough. But the second remix, by the Belgian house dj duo Villa is an eight-minute widescreen epic of digital-age longing – a sonic Doctor Zhivago for the Facebook set – built around the song’s original structure and vibe (no thumping club beats here!) but heightening its atmosphere and drama with patterns of glitches and loops to make the whole thing feel like a night spent alone in a city apartment, watching the nightlife below as it happens without you, and wishing upon a falling drunk that the phone would ring.
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”.
Ah, late night tweeting at its best. Sometimes, you have to be up late to catch all the good stuff.
On Thursday evening, Mr. West tweeted out a link to the remix to his latest single, Power. It was being sent around earlier in the day, but this was the official tweet.
Kanye West: OFFICIAL POWER REMIX http://www.kanyeuniversecity.com/blog/
That link is fine and dandy, but use this one instead. It’s a bit more direct.
It’s available to check out or download for free. Get it before it’s gone.
