25 March 2016
Back in 1992 The Shamen had to invent a spurious Dickensian oddball called Ebeneezer Goode to get their ode to ecstasy onto the radio, TV and top of the charts. No subterfuge required in free-thinking 2016 – at least not in the lyrics. I felt a bit hoodwinked, though, to discover that this track was originally a dreary acoustic singer-songer ballad and shows up here thanks to a chart-friendlier EDM remix by Norwegian producers Seeb, much like a not-dissimilar-sounding chart-topper the previous year, Lost Frequencies’ ‘Are You With Me’. It also has a twiddly Balearic-trance instrumental hook in the chorus, much like another not-dissimilar-sounding chart-topper the previous year, ‘Lean On’ by Major Lazer, DJ Snake and MØ. And it has the same dancehall rhythm as those tracks plus Justin Bieber’s three 2015 number ones.
In other words, ‘I Took A Pill In Ibiza’ continues the mid-’10s chart dominance of tropical house, this time grafted onto Sheeran-esque sad-boy folk because even the most basic of us (i.e. you) deserves to feel on-trend occasionally too. The provincial “Ibeeza” is out of the way early, but Seeb’s remix can’t do much with Posner’s chorus affectation of pronouncing the word “songs” as “sowngs”. Maybe he thought it was soulful or singerly; instead it shows up his maudlin, navel-gazing sowng as a shallow ‘7 Years’-style misery-pop contrivance that lucked onto the grace and favour of expert Scandi production that brought fashionable Caribbean-Mediterranean vibes to the outlaw glamour of a naughty-naughty title. Ebeneezer Badde.
