Eiffel 65: Europop : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

The first great mindless hit of the new millennium, Eiffel 65's "Blue (Da Ba Dee)," wields Cher-esque vocoder vocals, trance-lite synth riffs, unabashed Eurodisco beats and a baby-babble chorus so infantile it makes the Teletubbies sound like Shakespeare. Celebrating the singer's melancholy mindset and monochromatic color scheme with a single-mindedness that suits its obsessive-compulsive subject, this international megasmash, created by three previously anonymous Italian dance producers, is perhaps the giddiest, most willfully plastic song ever penned about depression. Far more New Wave-influenced than their diva-helmed Eurodance peers, Eiffel 65 flaunt contemporary electronica gurgles while bringing back Eighties-style melodic melodrama. These new-school New Romantics lack the hipster self-consciousness of synth-pop revivalists Les Rythmes Digitales and DMX Krew, merrily spinning well-crafted variations on the whiter-than-white formula of "Blue," skimming the surface of topicality on "My Console" (video games), "Hyperlink" (Internet intercourse) and "Another Race" (alien life) while their dumbed-down Depeche Mode hooks dig deeper. Like it or not, Europop is the sound of the rest of the world. (RS 835)

BARRY WALTERS