Duck Sauce – ‘Barbra Streisand’
I’m conducting an experiment. This is a fun song, isn’t it? And that’s something which pretty much everyone can agree on, right? It’s close to being a universally upbeat piece of music, which has been widely praised on the internet and elsewhere for being a great tonic: a cast-iron rocket-powered lift from bad thoughts and a devastatingly effective endorphin tickler.
It’s got one of those circular dumb/brilliant refrains that people just love to sing – even if they hate themselves for doing it – it’s got the disco euphoria, and it’s got a man saying “Barbra Streisand” in a dramatic voice at seemingly random intervals. It’s basically happy in a can, assuming you’ve taken your mp3 player or CD, or a speaker, and, y’know, put it in a can.
Naturally, the scope of the song’s potency will need to be put to the test. So what I propose is a kind of emotional barrage, where we examine whether it’s possible to break a really bad mood with a really happy song. And ChartBlog being a pretty underfunded laboratory, the only subject I have to work on is myself.
Clipboards at the ready? Let’s science!
(I can’t show you the video cos of swears, but trust me, it’s all about the universal and the happy. Apart from Kanye West’s bit.)
EXTRACT FROM MY NOTES:
You join me at 11:30am. A time which carries neither the optimistic glow of a new day or the excitement of the lunchtime to follow. I’m sitting in an uncomfortable chair, in a draughty room, which is slightly too warm, so I’m sleepy, but harassed. And I can’t sleep because there are people talking about something they don’t know enough about, in a foolish and annoying way, on the other side of the room. I’m also sleepy because I stayed up late watching a TV show that I don’t really like.
Time feels like it is running slow like treacle, and also disappearing in chunks. It’s hard to work out what the point of anything is. I’ve got the thousand-yard-stare so bad, a squirrel down the road thinks I’m giving it the evil eye. It’s cloudy, it’s damp, and I’ve managed to annoy everyone I have spoken to so far today, without really meaning to. I’m officially fed up.
Time to put this silly song on then, I suppose…
SOME TIME LATER:
Isn’t life AMAZING SOMETIMES? I mean when you get right down to it, aren’t we LUCKY? The whole world is out there to explore, and then there’s space and beyond, and, right, it’s ALL BEAUTIFUL. So much beauty it’s hard for the mind to take it all in. And it’s not just the natural world either. I mean people…sheesh!…people are THE BEST. There’s literally nothing that we can’t achieve if we put our minds to it. And I truly believe that we will. Oh I can’t WAIT! CANNOT WAIT! There’s just so much joy and love in the world and it’s there for each and every one of us, we just have to open our hearts and GET it. And music is the KEY! THE KEY! It’s the KEY! Stuff it…I’M DANCING!
Q to the E to the D, boyeee.
Download: Out now
www.myspace.com/ducksaucenyc
BBC Music page
(Fraser McAlpine)
Another Dying Artform says: “I can’t help it. The disco beats. The simple premise (or lack of one). The video making urban life out to be one big party. The song is unadulterated fun.”
I Guess I’m Floating says: “Every single one of their songs I’ve heard thus far have been house-thumping tracks built with pure disco gold”
View full post on BBC – Chart blog
