I Think Something's In the Air

Weeks that begin with a long weekend mess with my brain. It can't already be Wednesday, I just wrote a post on--that was how long ago? OH CRAP QUICK GOTTA WRITE SOMETHING CRAAAAAAAAP



Ahem. Beg pardon.

You'll forgive my brief absense, I hope. Once I got back from the previously mentioned long weekend, everything sort of snowballed at once around here; I've made no progress on the one thing that I haven't unveiled yet, I've made major progress on the other thing that I haven't unveiled yet, and just today I received lots of pertinent information about something from before that I may or may not be able to unveil in the near future.

(I'm being furtive. Let me have my fun.)

Possibly unnecessary secrecy aside, I certainly owe it to you guys to talk about something. And if there is to be one thing that I find time to post about, one topic of such premium importance that it takes precedence over all else, let it be this:

Junior Senior - Take My Time (Hey Hey My My Yo Yo, JP 2005 / NA 2007)
[buy | site | myspace]

This song is awesome.

If you have heard of the Danish dance-pop act Junior Senior at all, you have probably heard of them because of their pixel-happy video for "Move Your Feet". It had some reasonable playtime on MuchMusic, and it has (I'm told) recently popped up in a Dance Dance Revolution game. That was the single from their first album, released in 2003; their second album just came out a couple of weeks ago.

I should qualify that previous statement; their second album just came out here. The album hit Japanese stores back in 2005, and the Japanese went crazy over it. (Act surprised.) So when I present this song, "Take My Time", off that album, you can rest assured that it's big in Japan -- and if there's a better worldwide indicator of quality to go by, I haven't found it!

As regards the song itself (I spend too much time talking about the artist when I could instead be talking about the music; I need to work on that), this is what you need to know. I am confident that the following hypothetical scenario is precisely what happened to bring "Take My Time" about.

Junior Senior is comprised, appropriately enough, of Junior and Senior. One day Junior turned to Senior and said "hey, I know -- let's be the Jackson 5!"; Senior, pleased with the idea, turned to Junior and said "great idea! You be the 'Jackson' part and I'll be the '5' part!"

This is exactly what happened. Exactly.

I have no doubt in my mind that they set out specifically to replicate the good old days of Jacksons lore, back before we found out that each and every one of them are crazy. And have they succeeded? My friend, they have succeeded to such a degree that there is no more possible success left. All attempts by other likeminded artists will surely end in failure, because there is nowhere to go but down after this. That is how good this song is.

Like "Move Your Feet", "Take Your Time" also has a music video; it isn't as striking an artistic success as its predecessor, but it scores big marks with me for being both charmingly handdrawn and astoundingly literal in its interpretation of the song.

Dig the fly dance moves their animated selves are busting out! I can't possibly be the only one who picks up major Beavis & Butthead vibes from those, can I? No, no, surely that's impossible.

(And, if you were wondering about the women with beehives and the conspicuously-labeled plane in the video: Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson, the two female voices of the B-52's, sang the backup vocals for this song. So there's that.)

Now, If I had my own video for the song, one personally crafted around my initial reaction to its merriment, I can assure you that neither the choreography nor the cinematography would be very complex. The first thirty-seven seconds would be me staring directly at the screen, sitting perfectly still but smiling increasingly wider; at the thirty-eight second mark, right when those perfectly crafted guitar chords hit the prechorus, giant cartoon hearts would begin floating from the top of my head. The remaining three minutes and ten seconds would be me bouncing around in my chair, making a vain but earnest attempt to sing along even though I don't actually know the words yet.

And the key change at 2:47? That blessed, wonderful key change is when I would spontaneously develop the power of flight, like Christopher Walken in "Weapon of Choice", and take off through my window and into the night sky. Because this is my imaginary video and I'll frame it the way I like, thank you kindly.

Anyway! To recap. It is an excellent song, they are an excellent duo, and you should totally check their other music out. I'll do my best to come around with more content tomorrow; we'll see what pops up.