The Hottest Hit On The Planet:
“Another Night”
by MC Sar & The Real McCoy.
It’s time to talk, talk, talk to you… about “Another Night,” the definitive 90s Eurodance hit!
“Another Night” by MC Sar & The Real McCoy is at least: the definitive Eurodance hit amongst people who don’t usually consider themselves to be Eurodance people.
That is, Americans. I don’t want to be some kind of Eurodance snob here – do such people even exist? surely music-snobbery is the very antithesis of Eurodance? – but “Another Night” is a Eurodance classic that Eurodance aficionados in Europe weren’t especially excited about at the time. Within Europe “Another Night” was just another Eurodance track, of which there were many.
Outside of Europe though… “Another Night” was the one Eurodance record to rule them all. The Eurodance record that non-Europeans think of when creating parody versions of Eurodance records.
There are better 90s Eurodance hits of course, but is there is any other that better encapsulates the essence of that era when the continent of Europe, freed from the shackles of communism, set course on a decade long party, fuelled by super-fast, super-happy, super-catchy beat-injections of joyous love?
{Having read that last sentence back to myself, egads! That’s some terrible writing.}
But I’m going to keep it there. I’m not going to change it. Poor English skills after all, was what Eurodance was all about! That and exhausting 150 BPM doof-doofs, nuclear-powered keyboard riffs, fembot hook singers, and godawful clunky rappers!
Eurodance! What a phenomenon!
Not a single person involved in the creation of this music had a single shred of artistic integrity.
Many had no integrity at all. Not a single person involved in the creation of this music had a firm grasp of the English language. Never before, in the history of man, had one continent been responsible for so many clunkers! And in such a short period of time!
The bar would be set intimidatingly low early on, in 1992: When SNAP! dropped the immortal “Rhythm Is A Dancer,” with the very-mortal lyrics:
“I’m as serious as cancer when I say rhythm is a DANCER!”
Undeterred by the magnitude of the challenge of topping Turbo B, the next few years would see a host of Eurodance rappers doing their very best to do their very worst.
There was:
- La Bouche with “loving you, not like your brother, yes girl, I wanna be your lover” on “Be My Lover”!
- Twenty 4 Seven’s “Slave To The Music” with “I can’t live my life without jammin’, that is why my life is so slammin’”!
- Melodie MCs with “come and get some, come, come and get some, but don’t try to bite because you know that I got a gun,” on the satisfyingly dumb “Dum Da Dum”
- The very existence of such masterpieces as E-Rotic’s “Max Don’t Have Sex With Your Ex,” 20 Fingers’ “Short Dick Man,” and everything that John Scatman ever did! Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub!!!
- And 2 Unlimited’s “Get Ready For This,” featuring such gems as “feelin’ kinda better, put on your sweater” and – ironically – “feel the bass, you just get closer, be impressed by the words I chose-a.”
Few have ever been impressed by the words a Eurodance rapper chose-a.
And then: There was “Another Night.”
“I am your lover, your brother
Hey, sister, let me cover
Your body with my love is with my lovin’ just another”
What does that last line even mean?
That MC Sar and The Real McCoy made the definitive Eurodance banger ought not to have been a surprise since they had been there from the very beginning:
Since the first Eurodance uber-hit, Technotronic’s “Pump Up The Jam.”
Just as the original was hovering around the top of the charts, MC Sar & The Real McCoy made their own cover version, and… look… I’m not going to mince words here… it sucks. The original “Pump Up The Jam” was a life changing experience. This, though?
It managed to chart in Germany, presumedly by people buying their version by mistake.
Now, you might expect that the guy rapping would be MC Sar. He is not.
He is Olaf Jegliza. Or O-Jay when he’s going by his rapper’s name.
I honestly don’t know who the MC Sar in MC Sar & The Real McCoy is. It’s not the studio boffins, for they have their own studio boffin names: J. Wind & Quickmix.
Olaf may have been the rapper, but he didn’t look like a rapper. So MC Sar & The Real McCoy did what any good German dance-producer in 1989 would do:
They did a Milli Vanilli!
They hired an African-Frenchman by the name of George Shampro Mario to lip-sync, a Black face to mime the voice of a white man, and I honestly don’t know how I feel/am-supposed-to-feel about that.
George seems totally nice, but he wasn’t exactly Mr. Charisma. George was no Rob, and certainly wasn’t fab. And thus – following a second German hit with “It’s On You” (it’s a 3) – the hits dried up.
So the guys came up with another strategy: Just let Olaf be Olaf.
Let Olaf embrace his inner Olaf and be the most Olaf he could possibly be.
“Another Night” was the first release from this new Olaf-fronted version of MC Sar & The Real McCoy, and, although it got about halfway up the German Top 40 – and was thus their biggest hit in ages – it didn’t exactly set the Eurodance charts on fire. In a Eurodance scene chock full of wooden rappers, Olaf didn’t stand out.
“Another Night” needed to find its audience elsewhere. Somewhere where a German rapper might be considered a novelty. Somewhere that had recently produced a white rapper singing in Jamaican patois.
Somewhere like Canada.
Olaf likes to talk about how “Another Night” went to Number One in Canada. It didn’t. It went to Number One on the Urban/Dance charts. On the big chart it only reached No.55. Which was enough to grab the attention of… Clive Davis.
Now, the week that “Another Night” reached Number One on the Canadian Urban/Dance charts, Clive was busy celebrating the fact that Ace Of Base’s “The Sign” was Number One on the Hot 100.
Noticing that they were both extremely European, Clive decided that MC Sar & The Real McCoy were going to be the next Ace Of Base. It made sense; Olaf did give off some of the same frowny vibes that the background guys in Ace Of Base did, but without the neo-Nazi connections.
He still does a good job playing Big Brother on follow-up hit “Run Away.” (sample bad lyric: “Money, sex, in full control/ a generation without soul.” Olaf threatens this in a voice that suggests that he is a proud card-carrying member of such a soulless generation)
(“Run Away” is an 8.)
I really shouldn’t make fun of Olaf and his lyrics. He worked hard on them. He worked real hard. He worked “concrete”. Here he is, talking with Idolator:
“I worked concrete for, I think, two weeks on the lyrics. For a guy like you, okay, five minutes, you have the lyrics finished. But me not being a native…
And I also have this one big mistake in it. It’s the word ‘difference.’ I said, ‘It’s the different between lovers and fakes,’ but it ‘the difference between lovers and fakes.”
I like the fact that, decades later, that’s the lyric that keeps Olaf awake at night, and not, virtually anything from the Bronski Beat-biting “Automatic Lover (Call For Love).”
I could honestly highlight any of the lyrics from this masterpiece.
“Can you feel the force?
Can you feel it?
Can you deal with my reincarnation and combination
With absolute sophistication?”
Who wants to bet Olaf was taking his new English rhyming dictionary out for a spin?
Or how about:
“Yes, call for love, get in touch with me
To feel my super magic space erotic ecstasy!”
The man’s a genius! “Automatic Lover (Call For Love)” is a 7.
So, Clive Davis decides that he’s going to turn MC Sar & The Real McCoy into the new Ace Of Base, mere months after he’d turned Ace Of Base into the new ABBA. He convinced them to finally cut the nonsensical MC Sar out of the name and funded a new video because the first one was a steampunk inspired nightmare!
The new video featured Olaf practically making out with a microphone whilst he played the role of a radio DJ frustratingly smashing records that he didn’t like, one of which was hopefully his own version of “Pump Up The Jam.”
Meanwhile, Patsy Peterson…
…who, despite being a more-than-adequate hook singer in her own right…
…was lip-syncing to someone else’s voice, because old habits die hard… and The Real McCoy simply couldn’t help themselves – rides around on a motorcycle pasting up posters of him everywhere.
But the important voice was Olaf’s, so let’s talk about Olaf’s voice. Because…
…and I’m not just saying this because I’m aiming for a Halloween theme with this column…
..it’s creepy right?
Although Olaf seems endearingly deluded that he is in possession of a voice of pure sex, whenever Olaf says “I talk-talk, I talk to you” all I hear is “I stalk-stalk, I stalk you.”
The man just gives off creepy-douche-bag vibes. Olaf gives off creepy douche-bag vibes even when he’s trying to be sensitive; that’s why he’s talking to Patsy instead of just covering her with his love and then rolling over and falling asleep. Olaf gives off caring-creepy douche-bag vibes, and that’s the worst kind!
Now, I am on the record for giving “Another Night” a 9. What was I thinking? I was just tossing out 8s and 9s at anything back then!
Admittedly, it does seem kind of pointless giving a rating to a Eurodance song.
Eurodance isn’t a genre that can be contained within the confines of a traditional ratings system. Eurodance is a genre where the best records are the worst ones, and any attempt to try and grapple with them critically is doomed to failure.
Nonetheless, let’s give it another go:
“Another Night” is a 7.
Meanwhile, In Halloween Classic Land:
“Red Right Hand”
by Nick Cave
It never ceases to amaze me that Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” – the single, not the album, which had already been out for about a year – was released, not right before Halloween, when it would have made the most sense, but after.
A couple of weeks after, in the case of the UK; not until the end of January, in the case of the US! How does that make sense?
Nick Cave, or at least Nick Cave’s marketing team, was brighter than Michael Jackson, or Michael Jackson’s marketing team. They dropped “Red Right Hand” as a single a week before the big day, the best time for a certified-Halloween classic to drop. The perfect time to drop virtually any record by a man who, by 1994, was already looking like a living-breathing skeleton, and who had the potential to become for Halloween, what Bing Crosby was for Christmas.
For “Red Right Hand” was not Nick Cave’s first Halloween-classic.
A decade earlier, Nick Cave’s thundering, thumping tribal-Goth group The – presumedly ironically titled – Birthday Party had recorded “Release The Bats.”
Sample lyrics:
“Whooah Bite! Whooah Bite! Release The Bats! Release The Bats!
Pump them up and explode the things!
Her legs are chafed by sticky wings!
Sex Vampire! Cool Machine!”
And so on and so forth. It’s pretty damn awesome.
Pretty much every song that Nick Cave has ever recorded wouldn’t sound completely out of place on a Halloween playlist, but “Red Right Hand” is the big one.
“Red Right Hand” is everything a Halloween classic ought to be:
- Drums smack like thunderclaps.
- A ghoulish gremlin plays funky theremin.
- An ogre crawls out of his hole to start playing startling stabs of organ.
- Somewhere in the background a bogeyman is croaking as he squelches in the ooze.
And smothering it all – suffocating it, really -is this stone-cold sense of dread. I’m honestly amazed to find, that in all the detailed description of the “Red Right Hand”-verse, contained in the “Red Right Hand”- verse, there is no mention of ice or snow. Surely this is a story that could only take place in a land covered with ice and snow. Surely that lack of mention of ice and snow is an oversight.
Or maybe it’s in the notebook.
For there are rumours about… a notebook.
A notebook that Nick filled with even more details about the “Red Right Hand”-verse than we get in the song.
Nick drew maps in the notebook. He drew pictures. Pictures of, presumedly, the looming viaduct and the humming wires. And the square, and the bridge, and the mills and the… stack. There may even be a drawing of the tall handsome man with the “Red Right Hand!”
Who was that tall handsome man with the “Red Right Hand?”
The image of a man with a “Red Right Hand” – tall, handsome, or otherwise – came from John Milton’s Paradise Lost:
The hit poem of 1608!
With one line in particular:
“Should intermittent vengeance arm again his red right hand to plague us?”
Just the kind of light reading you might imagine Nick Cave enjoying over a pint of blood, before turning in for the night.
“Paradise Lost” is mostly about Satan and his fall from Heaven. In what was widely regarded as a controversial move at the time, Milton’s portrayal of Satan was strangely sympathetic.
Satan comes across less as the embodiment of pure evil, and more as a rebellious kid organizing an anti-God protest, assisted by a horde of demon minions.
It is those demon minions who are the “us” in the passage quoted above. And the “red right hand” that shall plague the demon minions? That is the hand of God, smiting the naughty demons down!
That’s right. The tall handsome man with the “Red Right Hand” was not Satan.
The tall handsome man with the “Red Right Hand” was God!
This ought not be a surprise. A great many Nick Cave songs are about God.
Besides, Nick mentions himself that the tall handsome man is “a God, he’s a man, he’s a ghost, he’s a gu-ru!” He’s an all-powerful mystical being offering you everything you can possibly imagine, in return for your soul!
It’s entirely possible that you don’t have the foggiest idea what Nick is singing about on “Red Right Hand,” and that’s okay. Even Nick himself has admitted that he doesn’t really know what he’s going on about half the time.
But you know how the song makes you feel: as though you have just come face-to-face with pure evil and yet somehow managed to come back. How does someone, a mere mortal like you or I, write such a song?
Now, Nick was going through one of his periodic attempts at quitting drugs at the time. He does not appear to have been successful.
We know this because, a few years later, when PJ Harvey broke up with him over the phone, Nick famously described his reaction as “I was so shocked I almost dropped my syringe.”
Whilst attempting to quit drugs, Nick would go to a church every morning and listen to a preacher. He was living in Sao Paulo, Brazil, at the time, so the sermon would have been in Portuguese. How much did Nick understand? Did it matter? Probably not.
For Nick was listening to the sermon for one reason and one reason alone: to give himself an excuse to visit his drug dealer after lunch. Having done something righteous in the morning, Nick felt he had earned the karmic right to do something bad in the afternoon.
Religion in the morning, heroin in the afternoon: that’s the headspace Nick Cave was in when he wrote “Red Right Hand.”
I doubt that it’s possible to write something like “Red Right Hand” – seamlessly combining both scary ghost story tropes and religious imagery as though they are one and the same thing – in any other.
Nick Cave may have been living in Sao Paulo, but his soul was living in a war zone, part of the never-ending struggle between good and evil. He was a microscopic cog in a catastrophic plan.
“Red Right Hand” is a 10.
Meanwhile, in Most Definitely NOT-a-Halloween-Classic Land:
“Zombie”
by The Cranberries
the quietly spoken, pixie-haired lead singer of the quaintly Irish jangle-rock group, The Cranberries, initially wrote “Zombie” by herself. She wrote it on an acoustic guitar.
When she brought the song to the band however, Dolores figured that it would probably be better if she switched to electric. That it would be even better if she stomped on the distortion pedal a little.
This may have been the first time that Dolores had ever stomped on a distortion pedal. The Cranberries weren’t really a distortion-pedal-stomping kind of band
Then Dolores turned to The Cranberries’ drummer – whose name was Fergal – and politely suggested “maybe you could beat the drums pretty hard.”
When the lead singer of a band has to politely suggest to the drummer that maybe they could beat the drums pretty hard, it’s a good sign that the band is not prone to rockin’ out.
Sure enough, The Cranberries did not typically engage in rockin’ out behaviour, preferring instead to jangle their guitars in a Smiths-like manner, whilst Dolores murmured lyrics with an Irish lilt, as evidenced on their previous hit, “Linger,” the most stunningly sad song of the 90s (it’s a 10.)
Although The Cranberries did not typically rock, they were able, just this once, to call upon the Gods Of Rock, to give them the power, to give them the strength, to give them the volume, to match the anger in Dolores ’ soul!
“It needs to be LOUDER,” Dolores kept on telling them. “IT’S AN ANGRY SONG!!!!” She probably didn’t say it in all-caps though. She probably just politely murmured it.
What was it that Dolores was angry about?
I think most people have a vague idea of what it was that Dolores was angry about, even if they might be a little uncertain of the specifics. But there are the specifics:
Dolores wrote “Zombie” in response to the Warrington bombing on the 20th March 1993:
When terrorist group, the Provisional Irish Republican Army, as part of their campaign to spook the UK government out of Northern Ireland, and having decided to extend their campaign onto English soil, detonated two bombs hidden in litter bins on a retail strip in Warrington, Cheshire.
Two children – Tim Parry and Johnathan Ball – died in the attack.
Those children were totally innocent. They’d never committed any offence against the Irish people.
Johnathan was only three years old. It was the fact that innocent children were being caught up in the never-ending cycle of adult-perpetrated violence – that innocent children were being murdered – that had gotten Dolores mad.
“I don’t see how any human being can get satisfaction from destroying a little child and seeing his mother, who carried it for nine months, and pushed it out between her legs, and all the pain and suffering she went through, seeing her lose him.
Why? Because she happened to be walking down the street. To me the whole thing is very confused. A lot of people need to grow up… don’t stick a bomb somewhere where you’ll hurt kids.”
All of which sounds completely and utterly reasonable. You wouldn’t think it would be controversial. You would be wrong.
Rumour has it that The Cranberries’ record label – Island Records – were so worried about what the reaction to “Zombie” might be that they offered the band a million dollars to stop working on it.
Dolores took the cheque and tore it up.
Island Records were worried that “Zombie” would not get any radio airplay. That no radio station would want to play a song so political. That no radio station would play a song whose full appreciation required an encyclopaedic knowledge of 20th Century Irish history. Or at least to be aware of what exactly happened with the same old team, in 1916?*
As anybody who ever turned on a radio for more than five minutes during the 90s can tell you, this did not turn out to be a problem.
The label wasn’t totally wrong though. “Zombie” did turn out to be controversial. Dolores found herself forced to insist, time and time again, that “Zombie” was not a political song, that she wasn’t taking sides, that she wasn’t specifically pointing her finger at the IRA.
Dolores was telling the truth.
“Zombie” can’t possibly be specifically pointing the finger at the IRA, given that, although they had access to a great many guns and bombs, they – according to a list of weapons used by the IRA on Wikipedia – did not possess a single tank.
“It just about the death of a child” she said, “it could have been me, on tour, in Bosnia, and seeing some babies out there and writing a song about that… it’s not politics, it’s the heart, it’s just human respect and love, leave the kids alone, y’know.”
Once again, this feels like an absolutely reasonable – and uncontroversial – stance. “Leave the kids alone, y’know.” But apparently this was a controversial stance to take in 1994.
What am I saying? It’s still a controversial stance. There are still those who – with their articles, and their blogs, and their comments, and their tweets – argue that Dolores was naïve, that she didn’t understand, that she was being insensitive to and mocking the Irish communities of Northern Ireland, that she should have just minded her own business.
The reputation of “Zombie” being a naïve anti-war anthem probably wasn’t helped by Dolores saying things like she was “just being really sad about it all.”
Or, “I don’t go around thinking about it all the time, it was just on that day, there was lots of press and stuff.” Still, the idea that Dolores didn’t know what she was singing about seems a little odd given that she was Irish and so news about “The Troubles” was on the television and in the papers all the time! Not to mention in the classrooms. “It’s drummed down your throat in school when you’re in Ireland” she said.
Before you start arguing that I – much like Dolores herself – clearly don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll have you know that I’ve watched all three seasons of Derry Girls!
The Cranberries got Samuel Bayer to direct the video. A guy who – between “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and the bee-girl in Blind Melon’s “No Rain” video – pretty much invented the whole 90s alternative rock video aesthetic.
In the place of the bee-girl, we have Dolores painted in gold, wearing a Cleopatra wig, standing underneath a crucifix, waving her arms around urgently.
We also have footage from Northern Ireland, complete with British soldiers and their guns, which Samuel managed to shoot by claiming that he was filming a documentary. Which, I guess, wasn’t a total lie.
“Zombie” may have received blanket-radio-airplay, but video-airplay was a different matter. At least in the British Isles, where the video was banned by both by the BBC and the Irish public broadcaster, the RTE. Finally, there was something that both sides could agree upon. “Zombie” was bringing them together!
Speaking of bringing the two sides together, it is a fact that the IRA finally agreed to a ceasefire just a couple of weeks before “Zombie” was released.
I like to think that someone in the IRA heard a leaked demo and suddenly realized that it was all in their heads. I like to think that “Zombie” made that difference. I mean, I know it probably didn’t, but then again, “Zombie” is a powerful piece of pop.
One reason “Zombie” was so powerful, was The Cranberries own unmistakable Irishness.
Originating in Limerick, arguably one of the most Irish parts of Ireland, a place so Irish that even other Irish people don’t understand what they are saying half the time, Irishness was not something The Cranberries could avoid.
Dolores wasn’t intentionally dropping into the Irish yodelling style known as sean-nos towards the end of “Zombie” – the same sound she had previously turned into something close to an aria on “Dreams” (it’s a 9) – but when she launches into her great “o-oh, o-oh, o-oh, o-oh, o-oh, o-oh, o-oh, hey hey aaaah, ya-ya-aaaaw”, it’s difficult to imagine her being born on any other isle.
Given just how far out of The Cranberries’ comfort zone “Zombie” is – rockin’ out, giving the distortion pedal a stomp, Dolores taking a stand – it’s truly amazing how well they pulled it off. It’s truly amazing that the song became a global hit and one of the definitive rock hits of the 90s.
It’s less amazing, and not just a little bit depressing: That whilst most people understand that “Zombie” is an anti-war song, even that limited level of comprehension is not universal.
If the number of Halloween playlists featuring “Zombie” is any indication, a disturbingly high proportion of people think that “Zombie” is literally about zombies.
Don’t be one of those people! Please: Do not play “Zombie” on Halloween.
Halloween is not a day for playing “Zombie.”
“Zombie” is a 9.
*The Easter Rising. Google it.
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Red Right Hand is on my Halloween playlist.
Zombie is not, for pretty much all the reasons that you gave.
I binge watched every episode of Derry Girls sometime last year or so. It is really good.
Nick Cave and Eurodance together at last. Red Right Hand would work great given a super high BPM, super happy clappy Eurodance treatment.
Eurodance was inescapable here, there was an endless stream of it from all over the continent from the late 80s through to the 00s. At 30 years distance nostalgia may have softened its blow but some things are best left in the past.
I was never a Cranberries fan so Zombies doesn’t do anything for me but I can understand Dolores anger in writing it. I went to university in Warrington a year after the bombing. It’s a pretty non descript town, not a place that has much of a presence nationally which is probably a reason why it was chosen. There’d been plenty of bombs in London but this gave a sign that they could reach anywhere.
As good as Red Right Hand is I’d recommend Derry Girls as the essential takeaway from this week. One of the funniest shows there is, capturing all the joy, idiocy and live for today attitude of being a teenager. While weaving in the Troubles and showing how the abnormal of growing up with soldiers a constant presence on the street becomes normalised.
Two comments so far, two votes for Derry Girls. I like where this is going.
Combining two of the above topics – here’s a Eurodance cover of Zombie, which made the top 20 itself in the UK in 1995.
https://youtu.be/ASQDzdiblNE?si=vxo18_zaHgRlQWnS
Zombie (the original obviously) and Red Right Hand are both 10s.
So people were dancing to a song about 2 innocent children being killed?
Which perhaps set the table for this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtWEiWDYxL0
That’s nothing. OMD set a historic atrocity to a dance beat. My hips always feel guilty:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5XJ2GiR6Bo
“My hips always feel guilty.”
“Thanks. Alex.”
“I’ll take, “Things I’ve Never Said But Now Can’t Wait To Work Into A Conversation” for $100…”
Oh, crap. I have to give a shoutout to Lesley M.M. Blume. I nearly read Fallout in one sitting. The New Yorker made a name for themselves by accurately reporting on the casualties in Japan. The book is in my trunk. One of three books I had second thoughts about donating to the public library.
Oh, crap. Why am I laughing?
Based on the comments, I suppose it’s good that I’m in the office and can’t play the songs, and even better that I don’t remember “Another Night.” If it’s anything like you say, it’d get stuck in my head and I’d have no option to replace it with something else.
Though “Zombie” can be a pretty effective earworm, too.
BONUS BEATS: At some point, somebody decided that “Red Right Hand” would make a good children’s storybook, particularly if the pictures were drawn Dr Suess style.
Then someone made a video of it. Here it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EtiHDgZBEw
BONUS BONUS BEATS: Nick released a sequel song of sorts to “Red Right Hand,” the lead track on his 1996 album Murder Ballads. It’s a real song of joy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77oXG0VNghU
But my Halloween Cave pick is “Up Jumped the Devil.”
Derry Girls is one that has been on my watch list for some time. I may have to push it to the top, based on the recommendations here.
And Red Right Hand should be on every Halloween playlist.
When I travel, I have recently been developing a serious dependency of watching CNN on the hotel cable TV.
I’m sure that Anderson Cooper is a nice guy and all, but it all might be getting to be a bit unhealthy, mentally speaking.
These ‘Derry Girls’ you all speak of might have arrived just in the nick of time.
I LOL’ed at the idea that people think Zombie is a Halloween song. However, it’s a good enough song for any day of the year. Just don’t juxtapose with the Monster Mash for Samhain’s sake!