Kele - 'Tenderoni'
I had an interesting moment while digging about on YouTube for the video for this. You know how you always get a list of other videos which are in some way related to the one you want to watch? Well while I was watching the dancers and the neon and Kele's statuesque physique, and quietly pondering where I'd heard the principle musical motif before (srsly, that's how I think), my eye ran down the list, and the first clip which doesn't feature Kele himself is Wiley's 'Wearing My Rolex'.
I'm not sure how those lists are generated, but someone - or something - has made the connection between Kele's slurping portamento synths and Wiley's slurping portamento synths, and whacked it on YouTube for all to see. And that's because there IS a connection. They're pretty much the same.
(. It's buff.)
Not that Kele's dropped his opaque indie sensibilities and started yapping on about his brilliant clothes, his fantastic talent, and being the most astonishingly potent sexual being in a nightclub situation. He's too busy whisper/yelling accusations at some unnamed companion who has clearly fallen short of his high expectations.
It must be someone he wants to think highly of, mind. You don't go making up fake-Italian words based on 'tender' without some degree of affection. Somehow the potential for fantastic chemistry has not been realised. And if that's the case, it's eerily close to capturing my entire reaction to the song itself.
Essentially, I like Kele. I like that he's an indie traitor/sonic adventurer (delete according to rocksnobbery). I like that he pushed Bloc Party to morph from what they were into what they then became, and I like that he takes his role as a creative person so very seriously.
And I like what he's done here, bringing unease and fear into what is often a frighteningly assured musical landscape. It may be driven by the ecstatic release of the dancefloor - something it does brilliantly well, especially in that chorus - but that doesn't make the song a happy or a confident song.
What I'm not getting is a fully-realised musical statement, apart from a desire to weld whiny indie introspection to dance music in a Wiley stylee. The verses aren't up to much melodically, it's a tune he uses a lot, and he's sort of buried himself in the production so that, just at the moment at which he feels ready to appear semi-naked and bulging in a video for a song bearing his actual real name, his presence within the music has become shadowy and withdrawn.
If he had a tune to match those (made-up) words though, HOO BOY!
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(Fraser McAlpine)
"Folks who prefer this type of music will say this is better than anything Bloc Party ever did. They would be wrong."
"It's as if the man himself is dancing in your brain."
"There's also a feel of Grime without the actual style of vocal."
Comment number 1.
At 13th Jun 2010, U14429597 wrote:Nononono! This is 5* mayyn! I LOVE this song, its so much better than 'wearing my rolex' even though it does blates copy it ( MY jaw metaphorically dropped when i found this out). I love the beat and the untranslatable chorus (WHAT does he actually SAY?!). Anyway I love it :)
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Comment number 2.
At 13th Jun 2010, BloggingLiam wrote:Beyond amazing.
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Comment number 3.
At 14th Jun 2010, CurtainJerker wrote:Interesting - me and my girlfriend saw the video recently, and we both immediately perceived it to be copying the sound from a different song: "Yeah Yeah" by Bodyrox ft Luciana. Which was out several years before "Wearing My Rolex".
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