Song Fads

This video 'Move your Feet' by Junior Senior is really interesting as it is animated to look like an old arcade game. This look is unique and is in keeping with the upbeat nature of the song. The basis of this video is to keep in time with the beat and the different shots/sections are edited perfectly in time with the beat, also by using animation they have been able to create a fast paced, colourful, imaginative video doing things that they would not normally have been able to achieve like a dancing robot or a flying horse etc.

This song was extremely popular in 2003 when it was released and I remember that everyone at school had it on their phones and the video was continually being played on TMF and The Hits music channels, and because of this it soon spread and the 'move your feet' bug hit the entire country, allowing it to climb to #3 in the charts. Why was this song so popular? And how did it become a fad?

The first thing to look at is the versatility of this song enabling many different remixes to be made from it and also because of the simple upbeat lyrics and the dynamic beat its great to be played at any venue whether it be clubs, pubs or just your bedroom. On top of this it appeals to an enormous audience with children in high/middle school playing it on their mobiles, adults dancing to it in clubs and even the middle aged audience gets a kick out of the happiness of the song.

In a music world filled with depressing lyrics (in 2003) like 'Life's like this you
You fall and you crawl and you break' (Avril Lavigne with Complicated), 'dropped by your heart' (Simply Deep by Kelly Rowland) and 'Where is the love?' (a song by the Black Eyed Peas). This song by Junior Senior would obviously become a cult classic because it lightened the music scene from images of lost love and the pointlessness of life to a picture of two danish men dancing, that make you want to join them.



Another song that became a huge fad was the JCB song by Nizlopi, shown below.



This video again is an animation, but i do not think there is a correlation between having an animated video and becoming a fad single that is played everywhere, merely because the song is played a lot of the time without the video so a certain proportion of the enticement involved has to be about just the song.

These songs utilise the multiplier effect where it is released in many different formats like, mp3 downloads for your phone ring tone or mp3, video format, CD and LP (for nightclubs/discos Junior Senior only)and because it is so widely spread over the country a few people get it and it is heard on buses as ring tones, in clubs, at schools etc and others catch on and download it, and so on... This means that the songs spread extremely quickly and so become a fad that lasts for a month or two.

Another point to keep in mind is that both these songs come from relatively obscure musicians who were not well known before and are not prominent now, so although these fads can be huge they generally do not last very long.

Even bigger than the other two songs was probably the fad that has lasted the longest or has seemed to because it is extremely annoying; of course it is the crazy frog by Axel F (shown below).




I seem to remember that when I was in high school this track and video was very popular especially with the boys, because it annoyed the girls. However 'The Crazy Frog' exhibits many of the same traits as the other two videos for example it was released in lots of different formats, has had hundreds of remixes made from it, is playable in almost any venue, and has a very catchy tune.