Just thinking about Kitty knowing all the All Saints. I thought, it’s funny that she loves them, but that’s not exactly a current reference, so how come she knows? Then it struck me that Alison is a millennial and that’s her era of pop music. Of course. Just like Saturday Night by Whigfield. Alison must have shared with Kitty some of her favourite music from when she was a kid. I don’t think Alison would’ve suggested doing a dance routine together, but I bet she just casually mentioned that she and her mates used to make up routines in their bedrooms, and then Kitty latched on to that.
The ghosts have such a hodgepodge knowledge of modern pop culture. Mary watched Loose Women and Robin liked Christine Lampard, they knew those things from watching current television. But Pat hadn’t heard of Band Aid, quite a big thing to miss considering the track still gets played on the radio every Christmas. Their access has been limited to whatever TV/radio/newspapers they could sneak a peek at over the years. It’s interesting to discover what they know and what they don’t.
Also. When Kitty says she’d invite Nicole, Natalie, Melanie and Shaznay to her imaginary dinner party, and the Captain nods. Like, ‘Quite right. I agree with my daughter.’ lol. What exactly do you know of mid-00s pop, sir.
Man! I Feel Like A Woman! - Shania Twain | Pink - Aerosmith | Du hast - Rammstein | Ironic - Alanis Morissette | Firestarter - The Prodigy | Pony - Ginuwine | Freed From Desire - Gala | Hot Patootie - Brian May | China Belle - Brian May | Cyborg - Brian May | Boombastic - Shaggy | Saturday Night - Whigfield | Whatta Man - Salt-N-Pepa, En Vogue | Give In to Me - Michael Jackson | Let’s Talk About Sex - Salt-N-Peppa | Black Velvet - Alannah Myles | Poison - Alice Cooper | Push It - Salt-N-Pepa | Touch Me (I Want Your Body) - Samantha Fox | Need You Tonight - INXS | Whole Lotta Love - Led Zeppelin | Pour Some Sugar On Me - Def Leppard | You Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC | Closer - Nine Inch Nails | Come Home (With Me Baby) - Dead Or Alive | Relax - Frankie Goes To Hollywood | Walk This Way - Aerosmith
Dee, I had to finally had to tell you that every time I see your Tumblr handle the beginning of Saturday Night by Whigfield plays in my head.
I'm unsure if you'll hate this or love this 😅
hi jess!! i have never heard this song before 😂 its not my normal type of music but i wouldnt say that i hate it!! its a whole lot less unnerving and murdery than the nick cave song “deanna” so its got THAT going for it at least!! 😆😆😆
💖💖💖💖!!
whigfield's saturday night was my #10 song and i hadn't heard of it till reading that fic of urs this fall so idk just know ur influence. the shakira, britney, etc is ur fault too so thank u ive had so much fun being a 00s pop girly this year. anyway the hold ur ed has on me is unreal
Anon, this is such a big compliment. My music taste is... I mean, it sure is. The idea that it's sneaked into your Wrapped is amazing. I'm glad you enjoy my Ed because I enjoy him way too much as well.
When Denmark's Sannie Charlotte Carlson sweetly declared in her opening verse of this debut piece of cotton candy Euro-fluff...
I'll make you mine, you know I'll take you to the top
I'll drive you crazy
...she was ostensibly singing about a guy that she had a crush on. But as it turned out, each of these lines actually ended up having a dual meaning, because once you heard this Whigfield song, it was destined to take up residence inside your mind for a significantly longer period of time than you would've preferred, and there was *absolutely nothing* that you could do to prevent it from burrowing itself snugly in there. And although "Saturday Night" barely made a ripple in the States when it finally got here in '95, the whole continent of Europe ended up falling prey to it; and took it to the top, they most certainly did.
I'm not ashamed in the slightest to fully admit that I absolutely love every last bit of this tune. It might've been the single-catchiest song that the absurd 90s Eurodance and Europop craze ever managed to spawn; and in that realm in which almost everything was so maximal in its tackiness, tending to achieve a so-bad-it's-good status, this one, at its core, stressed repetitious simplicity to outdo all of its own contemporary competition.
"Saturday Night" is a song that's simply all about melody. It starts with a warm and bouncily stabbed bassline, quickly adds Carlson's vocal, and then it unleashes its coup de grace to complete the groove: a blissfully twee and ringing piano riff 🥰. And its Italian producer, Larry Pignagnoli, managed to combine all of these melodic elements together over a house drumbeat in order to take Europe on a sugar-fueled bender that would end up lasting for months.
But this song's massive success wasn't remotely instantaneous. While Wikipedia claims that "Saturday Night" was originally released in 1992—and the source they provide is now a dead link 😕—the earliest logged release for it on Discogs is 1993 on Italian outfit Extreme Records. But either way, virtually no label actually wanted anything to do with this tune at the start. A record store in Spain would start playing it, however, and then it would make its way onto a tastemaking radio show, and by Christmas of '93, it was the #1 song in the entire nation. Other countries would then fall like dominos to its charm too, and in February of '94, London's Sanctuary label would pick it up, but they'd cleverly decide to delay its release. Brits would go on holiday throughout the continent and be exposed to "Saturday Night" just about everywhere they went throughout the summer of '94, and then when they returned back home, they would find themselves ravenously craving for its release, wondering why they couldn't find it. But then in early September, Sanctuary finally gave it the green light, and it rapidly managed to become the first debut single in UK history to *ever* make its entry at the top spot. Remarkable.
But back across the pond, the US did not end up nearly as hypnotized by this tune. "Saturday Night" would get some burn on a few radio stations, but ultimately, it would fail to reach the Billboard Hot 100 entirely, and only ended up topping out at #19 on the dance chart. Pretty big head-scratcher to me, personally, seeing as how I don't see how anyone could actually resist this thing.
But the video was great too, as Sannie seemed to be fully aware of just how overly innocent and on-the-nose-girly the whole affair was. Throughout the video, she puts on her makeup, braids her hair, and even does the cliché thing of singing into her blow dryer. But while she's gleefully getting ready for her Saturday night out, she's also sifting through pictures of guys that she might be interested in, and in the end, she finds one, and it's by far the strangest looking dude of the entire bunch, breaking this whole idyllic Barbie doll vibe that they'd continuously built up throughout the video.
And funnily enough, I've always naturally associated "Saturday Night" with another incredibly catchy and simple Euro-classic debut from the 90s that also never shined in the States: "2 Times," by Ann Lee. And only recently did I learn that Larry Pignagnoli apparently co-produced that one too! But while he attempted to lace the continent with "Saturday Night" in '92, and finally ended up fully succeeding in '94, he'd prove that he still clearly had the knack for it in '99 with "2 Times" as well, even though the commercial dance space had changed considerably by then. But for Pignagnoli, his "keep it simple, stupid" production method would clearly end up working extremely well for him at least...2 times 😩.