Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Is this Swedish girl from the Future? Pt. II


Funny, she doesn't look like a Japanese robot. Because, seriously, Japan has singing robots.

So, after a long (like, very long) absence, I have returned to satisfy the 10 or so of you out there who have been patiently awaiting our follow-up to the "Is this Swedish girl from the Future?" post from almost a month ago.

In our last blog, we explored the first part of my two-part thesis to explain the Swedish musical phenom known only as "Robyn". Recall that the first prong of my thesis was that Robyn was a musical genius, akin to WC Handy or Little Richard. Further recall that this prong was thoroughly and quickly debunked when it was revealed that it was not Robyn who was the musical genius after all, but her songwriter, Max Martin.

Crestfallen, we dive into prong two of the two-prong thesis: that, in the alternative, Robyn is from the future.

Now, I know this is yet another incendiary thing to say. Surely Robyn cannot be from the future, for time travel has not been invented, right? And if it was invented, surely it was not invented by the Swedish, as they spend their time inventing safe automobiles and expensive-yet-cheap furniture for young professionals to covet.


"Use the giant screwdriver on the giant screw and hold a map in front of your upset tummy while putting together this miserable furniture." - IKEA instructions for the Bjarnum.

Or, no, only the Japanese are from the future, because that's the only logical explanation as to why they would produce such weird toys, literature, and anime?


I mean, seriously, this is weird, right?

The reason I'm positing that Robyn is from the future is because after she had moderate success as the proto-Britney Spears, she went on to have (probably) less-than-moderate success being the progenitor of another pop singer: Fergie from the (hopelessly embarrassing) Black Eyed Peas.


U-g-l-y, Fergie has no alibi.

Now, wait a minute, you say. How can this Swedish chick be both the forerunner or Brit-Brit and the forerunner of meth-faced Fergie? There hasn't been that much talent in one person since at least Michelangelo!


At least not since this Michelangelo...

But yes, I do believe Robyn was the talented forerunner of the talentless Stacy Ann "Fergie" Ferguson. And here is the song that helps me prove it:

Robyn - Konichiwa Bitches.mp3

That's Konichiwa Bitches, from Robyn's 2005 self-titled album. For those scoring at home, Robyn also speaks Japanese (or at least knows the same amount of conversational Japanese as I do), which helps lend some credibility to the whole future hypothesis a little more, don't you think?
Also, check out this creepy video with a sock-monkey playing drums while she inhabits a 2D cut-out world reminiscent of a Tex Avery/Pee-Wee's Playhouse acid trip:



But back to the music, doesn't that song sound a whole lot like a little hit Little Miss Devil's Dust had in 2006, Fergalicious?


Fergie - Fergalicious .mp3


Found at bee mp3 search engine


I know the songs are not EXACTLY the same...but just like in our Britney/Robyn comparison, I think there are strikingly similar elements in the delivery of the lyrics and some of the melodic content. Not literal copying here, but copying of the "essence" of Robyn, which I think lends credence to Robyn's talent outshining the talent (or lack thereof) of Stacy Ann "Hillbilly Crack" Ferguson.

Now, this time around we don't have the songwriting link between the two works (will.i.am wrote Fergalicious, while Robyn and Klas Ahlund wrote Konichiwa Bitches. Actually, there were ELEVEN writers listed for Fergalicious. Yeah, ELEVEN. I guess it's really difficult to come up with lines like: "My body stays vicious/I be up in the gym just workin' on my fitness" or to rhyme "I'm tryin' to tell" with "clientele"), so it's not a Max Martin-type thing. Further, we don't have the connection of working with the same producers at subsequent times, either (as Britney Spears worked in Sweden with the same team that had worked with Robyn). So, without any other evidence, I think it's pretty obvious: Robyn brought back her musical genius from the future.

Or, said another way, Robyn was simply born too early. The world wasn't ready for the slow-rhyme-talking and disinterested style of Robyn in 2005. Perhaps it was the inclusion of the Japanese word that people didn't respond to? Perhaps it was the "Bitches" in the title, as the world was maybe a much more conservative place in 2005 than it was in 2006?


Glenn Beck didn't get on TV until 2006, so there was no one in the country to compare Hitler to everything while using "air" "quotes" in 2005.

Probably not. I think it's just another case of poor Robyn getting passed up, in the right place, but a little bit early.

Or...maybe they're just both rip offs of this (start at the :29 second mark):

Supersonic.mp3

That's JJ Fad's Supersonic, from 1988. I definitely spent some time roller skating to this jam back at Doyle-Ryder.


Uh...yeah, something like that.

Turns out Arabian Prince (a former member of NWA, no less, which proves that gangster rap was not nearly as threatening as white people would have you believe) wrote and produced this song. He eventually sued will.i.am for the striking similarity to Supersonic. Looks like he won, or at least settled, too, as 3 of those 11 writers on Fergalicious are the writers credited on Supersonic.


Arabian Prince is the guy you don't recognize over there on the far right.

So, perhaps my second prong of a well-crafted thesis has also been disproved: it wasn't that Robyn was some Swedish angel from the future coming back in time to give us a glimpse of the music Americans would spend their dispensable incomes on; it wasn't that Robyn was only a conduit for the fame and fortune achieved by a Crank Skank and a man who uses lower-case letters and punctuation in his own moniker in order to appear ironic or artistically wisened (Fergie and will.i.am, respectively); it wasn't that Robyn really got screwed over for being too talented, either.


"Scante" Ferguson and Billy "i.am.william" Adams, Jr.

It was that they both probably had old copies of the same JJ Fad record.


Stockholm was rotten with copies of this record in 1989.

Not nearly as groundbreaking or sexy a proposition, if you ask me.

1 comment:

  1. Tooooo funny, Carl! I can definitely see why you are on law review! Who knew a post about Robyn could be so interesting? I only recall her as the girl who sang "Show Me Love."

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