8 posts tagged “2007”
In EYE-BLEEDINGLY LOW QUALITY BECAUSE YOUTUBE FUCKED UP THE CONVERSION SOMEHOW, and only has the "normal quality" version available, instead of the high quality and the normal quality, as is the case for the rest of my videos -_-.
Not a whole lot happened that summer. Just a bunch of small road trips and a bunch of cooking. And meds, apparently!
Having narrowly avoided contracting malaria (I think!) while in Vietnam, Spring 2007 progressed in a fairly routine manner. With Bjork. And a guy. And the Dull Flame of Desire.
I went to Vietnam in March 2k7. I stayed in my hotel most of the time because Vietnamese people are mean, at least to me, in Hanoi. Also it rained a lot so whatever. I did go to Ha Long Bay, and that was cool.
Music is uhhhh Be Yourself by V6 and Akaku Moyuru Taiyou by NEWS, which have nothing to do with Vietnam, but is what I listened to while huddled in my hotel room reading trashy airport novels.
Jan-MAr 2007
feat some song by some chick called Kanazawa no Ame, and uhhhhhhh Honey Beat by V6
It's Friday (or, it was until recently -- it's still Friday for most of you, though) and that means new music.
This week, I want to take you on a trip. Hop in my time machine with me. Here we go! Don't mind the bumps.
Behold! It's 1995! And who's that strapping young lad wandering through a mall in Orleans, alone, while the rest of his grade 8 class is doing something uninteresting elsewhere in the mall, spending more money than he had ever hoped to have? Why, that's me! And look, he's entering a music store. Even then, he enjoyed music, but his taste was rough, unrefined; he still thought it mattered to listen to the music other people in his social group did. Oh, how silly and naive children can be~.
But lo, what is this entrancing beat issuing forth from the speakers? Why... why do my feet want to move? I... I think I want to shake my booty! What manner of devilry is this? Watch closely friends, for you are witnessing a 14 year old me losing his Eurodance virginity. The guise in which this cunning temptress took me? Whigfield.
Whigfield, as I was to learn later, was the artist name Danish singer Sannie Carlson. The song I was hearing, "Saturday Night", a song that was arguably among the best to come out of the 1994 worldwide Eurodance boom, was her first (and really, only) major hit. Later singles would come and go, but nothing would ever reach the same level of popularity as Saturday Night attained. Yes, 1994. Yes, I was late to the party, but cut me some slack -- the radio stations I could pick at home only played country music or adult contemporary. Whigfield? Too edgy for them, as strange as that may sound.
"Where," I fervently pleaded with the clerk, "can I find this incredible tune that is playing over your speakers?" He, a high school student, or possibly university student, bored with his job and bemused with the 14 year old in his store, gestured to the display half a metre to his right. I've always had a problem seeing things right in front of my face, but I digress.
When I finally had the chance to listen to the entire album, I knew that Eurodance was not something I'd be saying goodbye to anytime soon. The beats, the vocals, the lyrics -- it was the catchiest music I'd heard, and the first Eurodance I'd ever been exposed to (unless ABBA counts, and though I suppose it could be argued that it does, I would disagree). I was hooked.
But the years passed, trends came and went. Now and then I'd pull out my Whigfield album, put it on, and reminisce about old times. Eventually, I lost it, and couldn't be bothered to re-purchase it -- I couldn't have afforded it anyway. I grew up, I went to university, my musical tastes matured and my adolescent need for conformity disappeared. Come with me as we return to the present.
WIth Christmas right around the corner, in class, we're doing Christmas songs; not normal Christmas songs, mind you, but ones that are popular in Japan. The most popular is, unfortunately, Wham!'s "Last Christmas". I loathe Wham! (but not as much as the Carpenters), and so this is a difficult time of year for me. As this year's Hell Week (that is, the week before Winter Vacation when we do Last Christmas) approached, I suddenly remember hearing, long ago, that Whigfield had done a version of Last Christmas in her own particular idiom. "This," I thought, "will save me from my own personal torture!" I went in search of it, through the wonder of the Interwebs.
FACTOID: The 1995 album, when released in Japan, was named Let's Whiggy Dance.
I found it, and was glad, but I also found something else, something wonderful! I discovered the entire album I had purchased back in 1995. So happy! As I listened again, more than a decade later, after so much more experience, and so much more exposure to the various styles of music that exist -- after so many years of my love affair with Eurodance, to be returned to this, the root -- it was glorious. Yet... a part of me (the cynical, angry, HAHAHA WHAT part of me) couldn't help laughing at how dated it sounded; the music hadn't aged well. Despite what I may have thought in '95, Whigfield was not timeless: it still sounded like the mid-90s.
Imagine my delight when I continued searching and learned that a Greatest Hits-like album had been released only two months ago, by Whigfield, featuring updated, modern-sounding versions of classic songs such as "Saturday Night", "Another Day", and the campy "Sexy Eyes". Much like Alanis Morrissette before her, Whigfield had taken what was old and dated and, without destroying the sentiment those of us old enough to remember may hold, made it new again.
If you never got to experience the original, you don't know what you're missing. Luckily for you, you don't have to miss it anymore! Here, to tickle your fancy, two tracks from 1995's "Whigfield", and the same two songs, from 2007's "All in One". Enjoy.
Also new this week: V6's new single, the song from Okada's drama "SP", "way of life". This is the piano version, from the B-type limited edition bonus disc.
Did you like today's featured music? Get more here!
Whigfield - Whigfield (1995)
Miscellaneous Whigfield (incl. Last Christmas)
Whigfield - All in One (2007)
V6 - Way of Life (Limited Edition A) (2007)
V6 - Way of Life (Limited Edition B) (2007)
V6 - Way of Life (Regular Edition) (2007)
