With a surprise ending!

[drwex]

Today's music special has a surprise ending. I hope you'll play along because it's just that kind of awesome.

Step 1: the set-up
http://www.mashup-industries.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=321&Itemid=27
We begin by checking in at Mashup Industries, as I do a couple times a week. They don't post as often as they used to, but it's the place to go to hear the newest stuff from people like Clive$ter here. His latest offering "We No Speak Chica" is a strongly latin-influenced fast-paced pop dance tune. I like it and since I don't know either of the component parts I go off to listen to them so I can backtrack what the DJ has done to produce this mash.

Step 2: the players
In this case, we have Yolanda Be Cool & DCUP doing "We No Speak Americano" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wavpWRK6IX8). Yolanda are a couple of Euro DJs who have teamed up with DCUP, an Australian producer. Being an American I had no idea that "We No Speak Americano" had topped several European charts already this year. The song samples a 1956 hit "Tu vuò fà l'americano" (You want to be American) by Italian singer Renato Carosone (or so says Wikipedia). Cool.

The second part is Dan Balan's "Chica Bomb" and my first search for that turns up the official video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWxnI8-5LEg. Go ahead and watch that, at least long enough to get an idea of what's going on. Keep in mind this is the official video for the song.

Step 3: the video
I watched about 45 seconds of the video before my jaw bounced off the floor long enough for me to send the link to MizA who promptly responds with "Boobies!" And "it was nice of her to invite her gay friend into her video."

No, sorry, that's his video. What, exactly, is he adding here? A bit of freak and three words, repeated, assuming you think "oooh" is a word. I'm still unclear on who the female singer is - she's got a decent voice and I'm pretty sure she's not the "jiggly sweaty tits" so succinctly described in Nick Levine's pithy snark (http://www.digitalspy.com/music/singlesreviews/a234883/dan-balan-chica-bomb.html).

Step 4: who is Dan Balan anyway?
Right, so if he's not the moving force on this bit of electro-house, who is he? Well, like lots of musicians he has a MySpace page. To which I will direct you in a moment, but it auto-plays and you need some background first.

He's Moldovan and he's done Eurovision entries as part of a band called O-Zone. If that's familiar to you, then you know what's coming and props to you. I was sitting there thinking "Hmm, where do I know that from..." when I went to his MySpace page.

Step 5: the reveal

So now you should visit his page: http://www.myspace.com/balanmusic/
Just in case it doesn't auto-play for you, scroll down past the very different-looking angsty photo to the player and click on "Sugar Tunes". Go ahead, I'll wait...

You really only need to let it go about 15 seconds into the song, by which point I'm thinking... holy crap! That there? That's an English translation of one of the best YouTube memes of the past few years. Formally known as "Dragostea din tei" but much better known as "The Numa Numa song" that catapulted Gary Brolsma to his 15+ minutes of Internet fame. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmtzQCSh6xk if you still don't know what I'm talking about.) These days just about every copy of the video you can find has the original label and credits it back to O Zone but back in the day it was very much a what-the-heck-is-this sound. Something you heard in a weird YouTube vid, something associated with Brolsma who erroneously became known as "The Numa Numa guy." It's an error, though, because this is not how we got here.

So yes, dear patient readers. That gaydar-flashing, pink lipstick-wearing, freak-dancing, European metrosexual in that softcore near-porn Chica Bomb video? THAT is the Numa Numa guy!

I can not make this stuff up. Life is just way weirder than you ever expect.

Comments

[dot_fennel]

Sadly, that's not a translation of "Dragostea Din Tei"-- the lyrics are totally different. (See

http://www.catteacorner.com/dragosteadintei.htm

versus

http://www.lyricstime.com/dan-balan-sugar-tunes-lyrics.html )

Maybe I'm misreading it, but the new lyrics seem to be about being a one-hit wonder.

[lachesis.livejournal.com]

I've heard the Yolanda B Cool song on BBC; they all seem to love it, I liked it - once. :)

[xthread.livejournal.com]

Which brings us back to the eternal question posed by Graham Norton, Gay or European?

Exactly!

[drwex]

When MizA said that to me I replied "Well, he is European, so it's a different set of standards."

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

eee -- i was flipping back through old posts, and i'm not sure how i missed this. love love love Clivester!