The first great mindless hit of the new millennium, Eiffel 65's "Blue (Da Ba Dee)," wields Cher-esque vocoder vocals, trance-lite synth riffs, unabashed Eurodisco beats and a baby-babble chorus so infantile it makes the Teletubbies sound like Shakespeare. Celebrating the singer's melancholy mindset and monochromatic color scheme with a single-mindedness that suits its obsessive-compulsive subject, this international megasmash, created by three previously anonymous Italian dance producers, is perhaps the giddiest, most willfully plastic song ever penned about depression. Far more New Wave-influenced than their diva-helmed Eurodance peers, Eiffel 65 flaunt contemporary electronica gurgles while bringing back Eighties-style melodic melodrama. These new-school New Romantics lack the hipster self-consciousness of synth-pop revivalists Les Rythmes Digitales and DMX Krew, merrily spinning well-crafted variations on the whiter-than-white formula of "Blue," skimming the surface of topicality on "My Console" (video games), "Hyperlink" (Internet intercourse) and "Another Race" (alien life) while their dumbed-down Depeche Mode hooks dig deeper. Like it or not, Europop is the sound of the rest of the world. (RS 835)
BARRY WALTERS

by Chris Massey

When I first heard "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" on the radio, I thought, wow, this song is really, really bad. The second time I heard it I found myself thinking, "Chorus ain't too bad." Well, many repeated listenings later -- the damned song is everywhere now -- I love "Blue (Da Ba Dee)." I figured these fellas, Eiffel 65, couldn't be much more than one-hit-wonders, though. Sure, "Blue" is a good song, catchy fluff if you will, something that will keep the dance floors alive for a few good months. One of those songs you're dancing to a coupla years later and ask, "Who did this again?"

But is the album good enough to sustain another hit after the "Blue" phenomenon?

In short: sure, why not. All of the tracks on Europop are fully capable of mainstream success. Eiffel 65 excels at well-crafted electronic paper pop. There's nothing of any real substance here, just vocoder vocals -- remember that Cher song, "Believe"? -- and Eurodisco beats throughout.

Sounds cool? It sure does. Wears thin? Of course. It's an enjoyable album, full of disco and short on depth.

Don't expect much more than "Blue." when you first spin the disc. If you're looking for more than thump-thump-thump and "Move your body / Every, every body," I would suggest you look elsewhere. From beginning to end, this is pure dance music -- nothing more, nothing less. There are attempts at content -- the castigation of money on "Too Much of Heaven" comes to mind, as does "Hyperlink," which covers with very little thought the subject of sex on the Internet -- but they are half-hearted at best, the lyrics serving as excuses for pumping rhythms straight from the dance floors of Europe.

One of the most humorous tracks is "My Console," a song apparently attempting to say something about the video game industry, using the Playstation game console as an example. If the members of Eiffel 65 are trying to make a statement, it's lost on me. When they start spilling Playstation game titles repeatedly, as excuses for lines and verses, then they end up spelling Playstation over and over-"P-L-A-Y-S-T-A-T-I-O-N! P-L-A-Y-S-T-A-T-I-O-N!" -- It's damned funny. The music is straight from the "Mortal Kombat" soundtrack, and groovy at that, but the lyrics are anything but serious.

There are better moments. "Your Clown" is a lilting electronic cookie of a good Cure song. "Too Much of Heaven" will certainly bring the house down, if ever released.

In the end, however, you're left with a good dance album thin as Cher's "Believe." John Jeys vocals wear on your nerves after a while and you start wishing that he'd turn that damned vocoder off for more than two songs. Can he really sing? Who knows.for most of the album he sounds like a truly inflective robot. His voice becomes just another electronic instrument along with the beats and the bass.

Call it outstanding fluff if you dig the dance floor; otherwise, dig the empty "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" on the radio, and if you're feet don't like to move, stay away from Europop.

The Eiffel Hour (2008)

Eiffel 65
Sure, 'Blue' is just so much cheese. But powered by that hit single and Europop, their RAM-bunctious top 10 album, Eiffel 65 may actually be at the forefront of digitally minded 21st-century pop.
By David Browne

Arriving just in time to initiate an altogether new century of one-hit wonders, Eiffel 65's ''Blue (Da Ba Dee)'' makes a funny face at all its competitors at the top of the pop charts. That competition has become a suffocatingly earnest lot -- a veritable army of dewy-eyed, talent-show-rooted balladeers who seem to have temporarily checked their fun gene at the door. (Jessica Simpson emotes like a visitor from Planet Star Search.) By comparison, the musical gnome ''Blue (Da Ba Dee)'' is actually a refreshing bit of absurdity. Its sing-songy, nursery-rhyme hook will lodge itself in your cranium despite your best efforts to remove it, and the contrast between its downbeat images (''I have a girlfriend and she is so blue'') and its paradoxically peppy, throbbing-club ambience makes you want to listen closer: Is there more than meets the ear in the music or in the Goth-cutup delivery of singer Jeffrey Jey?

None of this should imply that ''Blue (Da Ba Dee)'' is all that good, but any bit of loopiness is welcome these days. The hit distinguishes itself in other ways as well. There's the way the tin-can production makes the song feel like a freshly unearthed relic from the now-distant '80s. And there's the way it preserves two admirably moronic pop traditions: the vocoder-distorted vocal gimmick (resuscitated prominently on Cher's ''Believe'' and Christina Aguilera's ''Genie in a Bottle'') and the subgenre we can call baby-talk-core, heard in gibberish-rock hits through the ages, from Steam's ''Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye'' to the Police's ''De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da'' and Trio's ''Da Da Da.''

Europop, the Eiffel 65 album that's been catapulted into the top 10 on the heels of the success of ''Blue (Da Ba Dee),'' is nearly as eccentric as its hit. With blatant nods to the likes of Erasure and early, pre-facial-hair Depeche Mode, it may be the first album to treat old-school synthesizer pop as revered roots music. Thankfully, Eiffel 65, comprised of three Italian dance-club mavens, don't take themselves as seriously as their predecessors. Beneath their chintzy beats and computer bleeps, the bouncy ''Living in a Bubble'' and the treadmill-ready ''Move Your Body'' are new-millennium bubblegum techno and disco, with Jey's vocal tic (a smirking-robot sarcasm) setting the tone. It's hard to call these songs timeless masterpieces, but it's also nearly impossible to hate them.

Cutesy hooks and a deadpan sense of humor constitute what little saving grace Europop has. When Eiffel 65 try to play it straight, they stumble. Their tortured-soul ballad, ''Your Clown,'' is drearily sullen. In ''Now Is Forever,'' they muse that ''The past is all that's gone/ The future is yet to come'' -- surely the most duh!-inducing line in a pop song since America sang ''the heat was hot'' in ''A Horse With No Name.'' Title notwithstanding, ''Dub in Life'' has no hint of dub or reggae but is a generic dance tune with a Studio 54 bass line. Moreover, Europop could easily have been reduced to an EP: The threesome (Jey, keyboardist Maurizio Lobina, and DJ Gabry Ponte) recycle themselves shamelessly. Several songs, like ''Hyperlink (Deep Down)'' and ''Another Race,'' employ the same vocal and production devices as ''Blue (Da Ba Dee),'' but to lesser effect. There's even an unnecessary remix of the single tacked onto the album.

Ultimately, the most fascinating element of the eminently disposable but intermittently amusing Europop is entirely unexpected: its lyrics. The music's programmed vibe isn't the only indication that this is an album made by children of the digital age. The word ''hyperlink'' is used not only in a song title but as a sexual pun (''a hyperlink to go inside of you''); ''My Console'' is such an undisguised celebration of a Sony PlayStation it could double as a jingle; and the line ''all I want is a silicon world'' is communicated with utter sincerity. This is music that stems not just from computers but from computer culture. Why the album isn't called Byte Down Hard is even more of a mystery than why a novelty Italian club act named itself after a French monument.

Review by Jose F. Promis

Eiffel 65's vocoder-heavy Europop, which yielded the major international dance smash "Blue (Da Ba Dee)," falls somewhere in the dance music spectrum between Daft Punk and the Vengaboys. It employs funky, deep house grooves with vocoder enhanced vocals, similar to Daft Punk and Modjo, yet many of the songs incorporate nursery rhyme choruses and solid pop stylings. The album has its share of "Blue" sound-alikes, some better than others. For example, "Dub in Life," "Another Race," "Hyperlink (Deep Down)," and the unremarkable second single "Move Your Body" all sound like "Blue" and offer very little else. "Silicon World," on the other hand, also recalls their hit, but takes the formula into a much cooler and sophisticated direction. This album really succeeds, however, when the formula is stretched and the act tackles different musical styles. "Too Much of Heaven" is an intelligent, funky, anti-capitalist dance song, and "Living in a Bubble" is an interesting, string-enhanced hip-hop track. "Your Clown" is gothic and dark, and unmistakably recalls Depeche Mode. "Now Is Forever" is a trippy, shuffling slice of house, and "Europop," despite its title, is the album's acid house representative. Eiffel 65 will mostly be remembered for its hypnotic smash "Blue," however, and its less than stellar follow-up "Move Your Body." But if one digs deeper, then this album offers several surprises and interesting dance grooves.

CONTACT REVIEW

Review by MacKenzie Wilson

Eiffel 65's infectious club stylings on Contact are as catchy as their breakthrough album, Europop. The vocoder is still in place on songs like the funky gloss of "Lucky (In My Life)" and the hypnotic spacescapes of "Crazy" and "I DJ With the Fire." "Life Like Thunder" is ultra-hip with its disco beats and fashionable Euro-dance hooks. However, the blazing trance loops on "People of Tomorrow" showcase Eiffel 65's undeniable star power. Their sound isn't intricate, elegant, or sophisticated, but it's loose enough for clubland. Contact is a party album more than anything -- nothing to be taken seriously.

Русская версия будет в понедельник 21 апреля.