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August 4, 2005
Jello Biafra, Meet the Girl from Ipanema
Yesterday while driving back from Lowell I was listening to WBCN when suddenly they began playing what sounded like a Brigitte Bardot bossa nova rendition of Modern English's "I Melt with You." This had me really confused, because I always thought Modern English's version was the original, not a remake.
Turns out I was right. The bossa nova version is the actual remake -- or perhaps "pre-make" might be a better word for it, given it sounds older than the original. The song comes from an album called Nouvelle Vague, French for "new wave." The album, created by a pair of French music producers, is a bossa nova tribute to British and American new wave music -- quite appropriate since bossa nova basically means New Wave in Portuguese. They hired a group of French and Brazilian women to perform new wave classics, with one condition - that the singers had never heard the originals of the songs they were to perform.
The result is an ultra-groovy, occasionally hilarious collection of sultry bossa nova tracks, ranging from Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and the Clash's "Guns of Brixton" to the Dead Kennedy's "Too Drunk to F**k" and Public Image Ltd's "This is Not a Love Song."
Can't wait to have friends over at our apartment - this album will definitely be playing on the steroa. Meanwhile, maybe we can get the producers to produce a collection of 1980s metal tracks sung in the style of folksy French chanson. Now that'd be a real hoot.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at August 4, 2005 3:24 PM
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