There are two decades that have some of the weirdest music, the first and obvious is the 1980s, I have done a marathon of 1980s songs and still did not cover some of the weirder songs. The next is the 1990s, although this was more for different reasons than the 1980s. Weird in the 1990s was more the odd one-off hits that were popular for a while but faded as the time went by, see the Latin dance craze for more proof of that. To put this in perspective, in 1996 the number one hit song of the year was "Macarena", it beat out "One Sweet Day" at #2, "You Oughta Know" at #29, and "1979" at #44. Actually, it was a remix that topped the charts, the actual "Macarena" only made #98, six spots below "Until it Sleeps" by Metallica. The 90s were weird, and in the midst of Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, and Hanson, is it any wonder that this is one of the better decades for music? Yeah, there was garbage, but there was Grunge, Heavy Metal became more experimental giving us Marilyn Manson and Rammstein, Daft Punk released Homework, also we got Garbage, and we also got this song, which is one of the best songs released in the 1990s.
This is a Hip-hop, Dance Pop song sung mostly in Scat, only in the 90s right? For those who don't know, Scat is a singing style that is mostly nonsensical and random syllables and improvised melodies. Scat has a long history, dating back to Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway if not further. But don't worry, if that still confuses you, the song itself starts with a good portion of it.
Even though the opening is Scat, as is a lot of the song, the song itself is not A Capella, there is a synth riff in there and it sounds great. You know "Axel F", well the synth is kind of like that in sound, as in the sound of the synth itself, the actual synth beats are different, but are still energetic and upbeat. The drums in the background also keep a nice discernible rhythm and the Scat singing is actually really catchy. If you want to make a dance song, this is a good song to learn how to do openings.
The song really kicks in around the 21 second mark, and this is where the song becomes really difficult to talk about, since a large portion of the instrumentals are Scat singing, and it is already difficult to describe instrumentals in the first place, this becomes an extra challenge. However, to put this simply, the Scat singing changes in beats and tone and becomes even more upbeat than before, and catchier as well.
Now the lyrics kick in, and if the song itself wasn't awesome before, well it's definitely awesome now. You see, Scatman John was a stutterer, think The King's Speech if that helps. However, singing actually takes place in a different part of the brain from normal talking, so this did not really have much negative effects on his career, and the Scat singing may have actually helped his career. I bring this up because, one, it is amazing to know, and two the first actual lyrical verse is well... "Everybody stutters one way or the other /So check out my message to you /As a matter of fact, I don't let nothin' hold you back /If the Scatman can do it, so can you".
You remember what I said in my "Johnny B. Goode" review, where I said that even though the song had one set of lyrics that meant one thing, the song itself could actually become kind of inspiring? It's kind of the same for this song, it's pretty much saying, "I can do this, so can you", and it is really encouraging.
There are other lyrics, but honestly, I don't think I could explain them if I tried, so I'm not going to bother, which is good because it will let you come to your own conclusions about the song.
Of course, between each bit of the lyrics we get some more really upbeat and really catchy Scat singing and damn does this become one of the most energetic songs ever, seriously this could easily make my list of best party songs.
Honestly, I think that is all I can really say about this song. It's funky, fun and oh so catchy. I seriously mean it, you will be humming the beat to this song after you hear it, it's that catchy. On top of that the instrumentals themselves add to the upbeat tone of the song, and the vocals are solid, not the smoothest, but they are rather nice.
Well, I think next time I'm going to look at a classic, I'm the Entity of Darkness and keep watch, next time I'm thinking about Boston.
No comments:
Post a Comment