First, there was Dutch percussionist Steven Brezet performing in the Brazil carnival, now it’s back to the Netherlands, mainly Noord-Brabant, to listen to 71 carnival songs and pick out a few good ones.
Everything I’ve heard so far is quite ‘politically correct’, a sign of the times, except for the usually tits & ass comments that are part and parcel of this genre. A few songs are in English, but they sound like watered down American music, trying to audition for something other than carnival – avoid those. Two songs off this list rip off A-Ha’s ‘Take On Me’, at least two rip off Queen, while others went with the Danube Waltz by Johann Strauss II, Russian folk song Kalinka, Paul Simon, and some bits of modern pop and hiphop.
This one sold me in 30 seconds: disses the Randstad folks (of the bigger cities above the Maas river) and wants to ‘kick them back over’. I immediately sent it to a friend from below the river for approval. The band name, C.V. De Kapotte Kachels, stands for ‘Central Heating, the broken heaters’:
Gebroeders Rossig (‘The Brothers Rossig’) give us ‘De Strijkplank’ (‘The Ironing Board’), which they praise, use to put beer on (instead of the traditional waiter’s platter) and also decide it’s a dance… sort of.
There’s only two songs sung by women (!), but one of them has the dirtiest double entendre of the list hands down : Sjansjee, with ‘Ik Wil Je Pijpen’ (‘I Want Your Pant Legs’, to sew them, but actually saying ‘I want to give you a blow job’ since ‘pijpen’ is both the plural of ‘pant legs’ and the verb ‘to blow’ as well as a plural noun for a small glass of beer, making this a bold move.
Vieze Jack, who never disappoints, rips off ‘The Final Countdown’ by Europe and asks you to get on board his train and I kind of want to.
(Link and image: nieuwstehits.nl)
