The Singles Jukebox

None of the folks in the picture are actually in the band…

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[6.11]

Jonathan Bogart: Good heavens. Anything that mixes dance beats and crackly old records is going to have my attention — I’ve always thought “Your Woman” should have sparked an entire 78-digging genre rather than being a one-off — but I’m not sure the anonymous, hardbody pulse of this works, exactly. Then when the beat cuts out for that waveringly pretty bridge, I’m fully on board. I dunno who any of these folks are, but I’m looking them up as soon as I finish typing.
[7]

Chuck Eddy: Americano no speak you, either! But seriously, this appears to be either some species of bel canto Euro café nostalgia kitsch I don’t know the scientific name of or a not-quite-electrodance-enough updating of same. Fun bounce, either way.
[7]

Alex Ostroff: An utterly charming Italian take on swing once performed by Sofia Loren is sliced and diced and stuttered in an attempt to make yet another novelty dance track. The chopped and looped ‘chorus’ and the polka-esque dance beat are both grating and unnecessary, which means that it’s only a matter of time before the song is totally inescapable. Points for what remains of the original.
[4]

John Seroff: Renato Carosone’s late 50’s “Tu Vuò Fa’ L’Americano” all hopped up on Jolt Cola and Crazy-Frogged out. Sure, it’s gimmicky as all get out but it’s also tremendous fun that keeps its flavor after a full day of play. “Americano” evokes US3’s sweetsugarpopsugarpoppopsthatrock and that late 80’s megamix of 30’s through 50’s pop songs… what was that song called again? Help me out here, jukeboxers?
[9]

Alfred Soto: I first heard a version of the original in the 1999 movie The Talented Mr Ripley, and, really, that’s when this current Euro hit deserved its airing: it’s all Fatboy Slim scratches, delays, and builds. I find it hard to believe anyone’s dancing to this.
[4]

Martin Skidmore: It bounces along in a way that could be jolly or very annoying. The stiffness of the keyboard sounds and it lasting a minute longer than was useful made me eventually come down in the ‘irritating’ camp.
[3]

Mark Sinker: The jostle of two kinds of distortion — the stretch and smeared squinch of a Latin semi-novelty vocal and arrangement, against glitchy cuts and edits topping and tailing everything into punctuation, interruption and flutter, instead of flow and swell. Which is neat and all, because they have a great ear for the material and how they can make it workably odd at an atomic level. And they pace it ear-wormily, so that being good with the small detail may be enough to stop it being totally annoying if/when it gets really big and really everywhere
[7]

Iain Mew: It has enough variations on its interjections to always engage, together with a pulsing urgency to the main hook that every time it kicks back in is welcome. Top moment is the one when they just slightly lengthen the pause before the vocal and heighten the effect of its return.
[7]

Michaelangelo Matos: They’re Australian, which I hadn’t expected: was thinking it was Euro, because that’s what its hefty cheese quotient is reminiscent of. But there’s a restraint there that I like; it’s almost too pop to be underground dance of the Resident Advisor type, and almost too pure to be real Euro-cheese. I imagine I’d get tired of it fast if I were encountering it against my will on a regular basis, but as something I can choose, I’m happy to let it melt on top of whatever else I’m eating at the moment.
[7]