DJ OTZI – "Hey Baby (Uhh, Ahh)"

HEEEEEEEEY!
HEEEY TOTTENHAM!
(HOT! SPUR!)
I WANNA KNOOOOOW
WHERE YOUR CAPTAIN’S GONE

I have nothing further to add about this record. [2]

EDIT: On further researching to make sure I had the last two lines right I discover the version Google remembers is, er, considerably more unpleasant. That’s not how the South London inner-city primary school I was at rendered it, though. I assume we were all just too young to be anti-Semetic. Or possibly it being firmly Millwall locality rendered the idea of getting vile at Tottenham pointless.

*I know because I did a survey

Oddly, I always thought it was the World Cup remix of this (“I wanna see-eee England score a goal!”) which reached number one, but I got my facts mixed up. That actually only reached number ten. The version of chart history I have in my head is bleaker than the reality for once.

Suffice to say I wasn’t really paying much attention to the charts in this particular week. I went away on holiday to Berlin to celebrate my birthday – my first trip abroad in many years – and DJ Otzi wasn’t really on my agenda and was, quite happily, totally avoidable.

Unfortunately for me, I’d eventually move to a horrible flat above a cafe in London which was a few doors down from an equally horrible pub – the kind that always sees its windows kicked in at least once a fortnight, and probably isn’t in business anymore – and DJ Otzi was a big jukebox hit with the locals there, so I’d hear this on most weekend evenings, just drifting into my bedroom on the summer breeze. Normally I’m quite happy with the moderate noise of people having a good time, but bloody hell, nobody needs to hear “Hey Baby (Uh, Ah)” every bloody weekend, possibly three or four times in the space of an evening.

The flat was above a Spanish cafe which had an Eighties Eurohits compilation on a loop during weekend days as well, playing FR David’s “Words”, Ryan Paris’s “Dolce Vita” and Baltimora’s “Tarzan Boy” straight through our ceiling. The flat had cockroaches for awhile and they almost wiggled their antenna in time to the rhythm of “Words”. Top that for an unwanted soundtrack to your life, readers (apart from “Tarzan Boy”. I actually really like that one, even after the hammering it got from the cafe). Suffice to say, we didn’t renew our rental contact once the year was up, and I don’t think I’ve heard DJ Otzi much since. Or FR David for that matter. But I’ll forever associate both of them with living in skanky accommodation.

I’m not reviewing this yet, but this is the first 1 you’ve given for the 21st century #1s (2000 was actually in the 20th century, just to let you know).

After the atrocity we’ve been discussing for the past two posts, people were turning to whatever they could find for comfort. But this? Nah! (This was made before the proliferation of bad music seen today was common.)

Incidentally, I went to the Tate this weekend and one of the artworks was constructed using, among other things, Scooter lyrics. Not a single Otzi School painting to be found, by contrast.

Re. 2: “the kind that always sees its windows kicked in at least once a fortnight”

Presumably kicked in with an Uhh! and an Ahh! in rapid succession. Many times I’ve heard this come on the jukebox in a crap pub and with depressing predictability the “two-note crowd participation hook” will be accompanied by rhythmically-appropriate stampings/slappings/gropings/sectarianish abuse. What could be a more appropriate 9/11 number one than a song that continues to enable violence 15 years on and shows no sign of abating? I’m amazed Laibach haven’t had a bash at it.

I’m glad most people seem to agree that this is one of the most offensively bad chart toppers of all time; although the thing I find most unpleasant is the nasally tone of the vocal. To be fair the unfortunate timing of this song’s release wasn’t DJ Otzi’s fault but it’s worth noting that the second biggest selling song for this most terrible of weeks was Bob The Builder. One dreads to think what future generations will make of that.

Still to quote Edmund Blackadder (not for the first time on here), `You can’t argue with the box office`. As noted on the Mambo No 5 thread it wound up the sixth biggest seller of the year overall with an initial 1-2-3-2-3-3-3 chart trajectory and even when it finally dropped to six the wretched thing lingered a few more weeks in the top ten. And now we come to the worst horror of all – when it finally sunk to number 11 it was only because DJ Otzi himself entered at 9 with the follow up; a cover of Do Wah Diddy that makes Hey Baby almost bearable by comparison.

So who the hell bought it? It seemed to have a particular appeal to the older generation and thus became a staple of work parties, mainly due to the call and response of the Uhh Aah. Thankfully it seems to have died a death in recent years but we shouldn’t let ourselves forget that this abomination would have dominated the September 2001 chart if not for a genuine pop smash.

And what is he supposed to be doing on the CD cover? Does his jacket not fit? Why does he look so serious?

@3: I can think of far worse life-soundtracks than that list of songs you mention. You’ve been particularly unkind to poor old FR David and “Words”, which is an amiably weedy Europop earwig (not cockroach!). It has a plaintive, unassuming feel that I really quite like. “La Dolce Vita” is almost as catchy and equally weedy, but again I actually rather enjoy that spindly synth sound.

As for DJ Otzi, the passage of time has rendered this slightly less execrable to my ears than when it was inescapable (and it really was for a while). Its one small saving grace is that it affords the original some modicum of respect – and avoids being maddeningly repetitious – by preserving the verses and basic structure. 2

It’s the second (and last?) of the big Euro-pop hits that evokes that moment when (presumably) work is done, dinner (malzeit?) has been taken and now.. “It’s Party Time”.

But whereas Whigfield is right there at the start of it, this DJ only notices about two-thirds of the way through that it’s Party Time. Up till then, I dunno it might have still been sitting down and finishing your beer time.

@15 – Let’s just say that I was probably mostly indifferent to “Words” when I moved in, but grew to loathe it by the time I moved out. It’s weediness became a source of extreme irritation. If you live above (or work in) a shop or restaurant that plays the same CD or tape on a loop, anything less than a very good track starts to grate on your nerves eventually.

Besides, I prefer FR David’s earlier work myself, usually under the name “FR David Explosion”: https://youtu.be/2oAr0xcLSuw

I have purely personal reasons for quite liking this. On the Tuesday of the week of the previous number one, I’d been on a plane flying to New York, for what was to be my first, much anticipated trip to that city. An hour before we were due to land, we were told there’d been a change and we were now landing in Boston. Naturally, we just assumed bad weather or a minor fault with the plane and that we’d have to face nothing more serious than the annoyance of having to make a further connection to complete
our journey. Arriving in an utterly shutdown, deserted Logan airport suggested something else might be up and we started to hear rumours, along the queue, of planes crashing into buildings.

Boston is a lovely city, and I can’t think of a better place in the US to have spent that time (waiting for Logan to re-open and seats home to become available) but it was an awful lot of hard-work for a holiday. So a stag-weekend in Amsterdam a month later ended up as my de-facto holiday. On the Saturday night myself and a couple of others had split from those seeking more hardcore sleeze and ended-up in a tiny, traditional Amsterdam bar. It was still contained a lot of visitors, but the solitary barman had no qualms about leaving us all in their alone with his stock while he went to change barrels. The main other bar-goers were a stag-party and a hen-party who bellowed along to Summer Loving (doing the respective male/female parts) and this. We sat, at the bar, between them, smiling indulgently.

Compared to the rather ugy, frightened world I now seemed to live in and the seamier size of Amsterdam I’d seen earlier, Hey Baby was rather charming and inncoent. Was this part of it’s wider appeal that sent it to number one at this point? Probably not. How much of the innocence was DJ Otzi responsible for and obviously lots of that innocence comes from its early 60s origin. -And I can’t really claim it’s any better than Bombalurina or any number of other records I loathe, but for a while it made everything seem
a bit better.

Predictably, our next bunny was also a permanent soundtrack in Amsterdam.

(6)

I was in Austria in early 2002 and saw a DJ Otzi bobble-head musical doll on sale.

I swear I’m not making this up: http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/d247825a6839498aa41dcc2423455268/dpa-dj-oetzi-austrian-pop-singer-presents-two-dj-oetzi-doll-versions-d3a15f.jpg

Well, the first version of the song I heard was Ringo’s. This came some time after he co-wrote “Devil Woman” which was one of his b-sides and had a near identical first-verse. I did wonder if he did the cover version as payback.

@25 – you’re right about the first verse, but I was distracted by the chorus;

“you’re like the devil with horns in your head,
The only way i’ll get you is to get you in bed.”

What, as they say, the actual.

I have a real fascination with the European phenomenon of Schlager music, which in its purest form (such as this song) is rarely seen in the UK charts, but has a huge popular following on the continent.

This was Otzi’s first and breakthrough solo hit all over Europe, and while his chart career was predictably brief here, he’s released a mind-boggling 15 albums since, still routinely charting in the upper reaches of the German and Austrian listings.

For a sense of how his sound has evolved over the past two decades, here is ‘Geboren um dich zu lieben’, which reached #6 in Austria and #11 in Germany just last month.

https://youtu.be/kAABG09HNA4

He’s no lone phenomenon either. It seems like every European country has an equivalent of DJ Otzi, if not several.

Austria does seem particularly fond of them though. This song was in their singles chart for THREE YEARS

https://youtu.be/US8mPmN-vro

I can’t quite imagine ever choosing to listen to this, but I’ve got no problem with it existing and am surprised by how negative everyone’s reaction is.
You all hate fun, etc.

Well, I am to Tom what DJ Otzi is to Bowie, but fwiw over the last couple of weeks I’ve found myself starting to understand the claims people make for Heathen. Goodnight Uncle Floyd in particular has been on loop in my head.

I posted my “Bowie best to worst” list on FB and should replicate it here (well not HERE, but somewhere on the site). I really ought to go into more detail on the 90s and 00s stuff, I will try and make a last post on the thread if I have time (the next Popular entry is fairly big, not So Solid big, but big)

Has Schlager changed its meaning over time? For me the word’s associated with those awful oompah Euro-hits from the 60s and 70s where the chorus invariably went BOMP, bomp, BOMP, bomp… What did the Casuals’ Jesamine (1968) have in common with Chiquitita (1979)? Listen to the chorus and sing along: BOMP, bomp, BOMP, bomp… I heard the Spanish-language release of Chiquitita on holiday in 1979, and had a (nightmarish? utopian?) vision of the whole of Europe united, millions of people across hundreds of miles singing along to a multi-lingual refrain. Which sounds like pretty much what happens with contemporary Schlager; one nation under a groove, indeed . Just a shame about the groove.

ARGH of COURSE. Thanks to the comments above I have just realised that my utter revulsion towards this song actually stems not from Otzi (though he doesn’t help matters), but from it being linked to Dirty Dancing. My subconscious obviously remembered, even if my memory didn’t. I have age-old beef with that soundtrack.

#29 The synth backing on that feels like a hilariously half-baked recreation of a future Guetta bunny…

(My “where were you on 9/11?” memory, by the way; at school, and I was alerted to it by an English teacher who knew my interest in the stock market and mentioned that the New York Stock Exchange had closed, I think that was the first thing that stuck to me amongst the confused remarks. The visuals, of course, stuck far too easily.)

I was in Edinburgh visiting Dr T (who some of you know). We’d seen Moulin Rouge the night before, thought it was shit, and after a leisurely morning checking ILE we were planning on an afternoon record shopping and drinking. Stopped in at a newsagent, an American couple were talking, saying something about a bomb. I bought my crisps, Dr T’s phone alert went. His girlfriend texting him – “Get to a TV. New York is on fire.” There was a pub next door, we spent the next few hours there.

Most of that week – from memory – was spent on ILE, deleting the occasional troll, maintaining the threads: we put a 100 post limit on each one because most people were still on dial-up. It was the first time I’d seen the net used to check people were safe, the first time I’d seen it used as a news aggregator too. Those threads are an amazing time capsule of people trying to piece together what’s happened and how the world is changing – just slow enough that you can follow them. It’s one of the times I was proudest of setting ILX up.

#43 I had never seen the footage of people jumping/falling before. There is a lot on YouTube. It’s distressing, but it’s odd that it appears to have been censored (presumably out of respect to the individuals, but the footage of the planes hitting the Towers is just as distressing when you think of the people inside)

I’d wandered off to “Tie Rack” in Liverpool Street station to buy a white bowtie for my Master’s graduation ceremony on the Thursday. (My degree had ended over a year earlier, I was already well into my first proper job.) Sushi lunch from the place that used to be next to Moorgate tube, eaten on the Barbican highwalk.

Back at my desk, one of my flatmates phoned me to say a plane had crashed into the World Trade Centre. I really thought nothing of it – little bi-plane, whatever. Not least as she’d phoned me the day before (from her desk at somewhere in the City) to express surprise/shock at a sudden drop in share prices – my response being, that happens, they go up and down, a few % in a few minutes is neither here not there,. As it wasn’t. Stop wasting my time being hysterical about trivia. As she had been on the Monday.

Only when the 2nd plane hit, of course, did it start to make sense, of a sort. Remember checking through news-sites online to try and find explanations. The Russian media, in particular, was wide of the mark. Collective silence, shock, horror, disbelief. Journey home not helped by seeing someone suddenly run out of a church on the Finchley Road wearing a satanist t-shirt. We had a friend from the US (over for the graduation ceremony) staying with us (her stay was prolonged after the skies were shut down), and we made a point of saying we were “standing shoulder to shoulder” with her a la Blair and Bush. Another from New York, who lost a friend in the WTC, of course, couldn’t make it. Such an intensely shocking day.

I’ve mentioned before how, for most of 2001, I’d dreaded my forthcoming 13th birthday. Maybe because I’d spent most of my life wanting to be a “grown up” and now this new era of my life was about to begin I suddenly realised I was perfectly happy still being a child, thank you very much. I imagined turning into a ‘Kevin’ in the Harry Enfield style and had these awful future visions of long hair and swaying limbs, telling everyone how much I hated them. But I’d had an enjoyable summer and as September began I was a little more hopeful. It’s not like the world was going to change or anything.

It happened thirteen days before my thirteenth birthday.

I was off school, with nothing to do, watching a dull soap opera on ITV. Halfway through when the adbreak was supposed to begin, a still image of the station logo appeared on a black background – a calm, sombre announcement that they were interrupting the programme to go to the news studio. I remember finding the use of the words “We interrupt this programme” rather odd and old-fashioned even then, like a fake report in a TV show, and straight away I realised what must have happened – Queen Mother’s snuffed it, right? Newsreader fades in wearing black. Yep, definitely. And then announces that two planes have hit two towers.

There’s a forum thread still online somewhere and everyone’s discussing the news seriously, only for me to ramble on about ‘The Simpsons’ and whether a forthcoming BBC2 repeat involving Sideshow Bob hijacking a plane was still going to be shown (it wasn’t). Chatrooms that night were full of teens swearing in capital letters and talking about the start of World War 3. Even CBBC’s ‘Newsround’ had the unlikely co-host of Huw Edwards, and links into the likes of Blue Peter and (on the other side) Art Attack were, while not mentioning the events, noticeably sombre than usual.

My 13th birthday was fairly subdued. I got a free icecream from McDonalds. A couple months later, I find the CD single of this in the bargain bin at Tesco for less than a pound. I didn’t buy it, although my aunt’s 40th birthday three years later had all the 60+ grannies ooh-ahhing on the dancefloor with gusto.

This childhood ‘era’ of pop music still has a few more bunnies left for me, but by Christmas, Steps had split up, Live & Kicking had finished and the summer of 2001 already felt like a lifetime ago.

My childhood was over.