It was inevitable. Just as sure as night follows day. Just as Michael Phelps was always going to bag the best looking swimmer on the Australian team. Just as surely as Russia was lying when they said they’d withdraw from the breakaway region of Abkhazia, the chain has been broken. I feel ashamed that it had to be me. But coming home last night at 12:03am after having wiled away the evening hours laughing at Tropic Thunder, I realized it was too late. It was all over. Saturday, August 23, 2008 was never to be again. And it would go down in history as the one day in the last ten or so that had no blog to its name. I felt shame. I felt anguish. I felt disillusioned. But more than anything, I felt I had to come back swinging this morning with TWO songs to make up for my stunning oversight.
Seeing as it’s Sunday morning and on Sunday morning everybody likes to dance (except those people who go to Church, or who are quadriplegic, or who have no sense of rhythm), I’ve decided that dance music will be a fitting theme for Sunday, August 24, 2008 – the day with two songs. Firstly, let us turn our attention to The Ting Tings’ That’s Not My Name. I can tell you, from experience, that there is no better track to get ready for a Strauss Opera on the 10th Floor of the Intercontinental Vienna. Don’t trust me? Try it. Much like Die Fledermaus, Katie White bursts onto the scene after a sincerely dance-o-rific introduction. The song keeps its punch throughout most of the first half and by interval, the audience is fanning itself with the opera programs, so heated and frazzled by the galloping pace of the beast. The interval though, all orange juice and light cakes and ferrero rochers and middle-upper vocal range serves as some respite. Fifteen seconds later, though, we’re driven back inside the sweltering furnace of a musical theatre to heavy instrumentalism and the overlaid vocals of Jules De Martino which only peter out in the final scene of the thing. Yes, the conclusion is bad. But we leave satisfied, smug in the knowledge of our own corpulence and astounding wealth and all the better for the experience.
If That’s Not My Name is an opera, Dizzee Rascal, Calvin Harris and Chrome’s (the guy who always gets left off) Dance Wiv Me is its low culture polar opposite. All grungy beat, Calvin-ator synthesizer aesthetic and sharp East London lyrics, Dance Wiv Me would be anathema for the audience at the Ting Ting’s opera. Monocles would shatter, fob watches would be glanced at disapprovingly and perfectly parted hair ruffled were the Calvin/Dizzee/Chrome band to come to town. I’ll make no bones about it, I like Calvin Harris. I liked him at Fox Studios when I saw him there last year, I like I Created Disco in my car, on my stationary bike and when I’m eating breakfast. Even if his songs all sound exactly the same, what’s wrong with that, especially if it’s good same. Mmmm… good same. His synth-heavy brand fits Rascal’s rascal rap (check that alliteration shit out) well (although I’m not sure how happy die-hard Dizzee devotees (second time in a sentence, mother!) would be about his crossover. That being said, Dizzee does well not to dilute the damning, driving, dizzying ditty and it all comes off dastardly dashingly.
Peace up, A town down.
The Ting Tings – That’s Not My Name
Dizzee Rascal – Dance Wiv Me Ft. Calvin Harris, Chrome
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