29 July 2010
If in 2010 you were only consuming the latest pop sounds by whatever you overheard on TV stings or a passing radio—and it happens to us all—chances are you still knew the bleepy Charleston of ‘We No Speak Americano’. Electro-this-that-and-the-other was having a moment at the end of the ’00s and into the tens; the artier Paris radio stations within my 2010 earshot played a lot of electro-tango, which may sound like the name of an alcopop but was just modern acts like Gotan Project playing the sultry Buenos Aires dance with added electricity and beats.
Anyway, ‘We No Speak Americano’ is electro-swing. The vocals and title are transplanted from a ’50s Italian ditty. Other than the “Americano” and bleeping of the chorus, there’s laughably little to this thing. It goes on for an age. What did the people of 2010 see in this, I ask myself, before remembering that they were still pointing excitedly at ringtones. Electro-swing? More like Crystal Swing.
As for its pushers, Yolanda Be Cool and DCUP, a duo and a producer respectively, were from Australia. We’ll be meeting a surprising number of one-hit Antipodeans at number one in Ireland during the ’10s, each slightly peculiar in their own way. More on them in due course.
