Culture Beat Mr Vain Recall

[Renita Lukins]

"Mr. Vain" is a song by German musical group Culture Beat, released in April 1993 by Dance Pool as the lead single from the group's second studio album, Serenity (1993). The song was written by Steven Levis, Nosie Katzmann and Jay Supreme, and produced by Torsten Fenslau. Tania Evans is the lead vocalist and Supreme is the rapper. The female part of the lyrics describes the narcissist title character Mr. Vain, while the rap embodies his selfish desires.[3]

"Mr. Vain" achieved success worldwide, reaching the number-one position in at least 19 countries,[4] including 9, 7 and 6 weeks at number one in Germany, Denmark and Finland. In the United States, it peaked at number 15 on the Cash Box Top 100, number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number two on the Billboard Dance Club Play chart. In 1994, the song earned an award at the German Echo Award, in the category for "Best International Dance Single"[5] and an award in the category for "Best Hi-NRG 12-inch" at the WMC International Dance Music Awards in the US.[6] Its accompanying music video was directed by Matt Broadley and received heavy airplay on music television channels such as MTV Europe.[7]

German DJ an producer Torsten Fenslau and his friend Jens Zimmerman formed Culture Beat in Frankfurt in 1989.[8] They took the name from the idea of trying to mix high culture and music,[8] and had their first hit same year, entitled "Der Erdbeermund" ("Strawberry Lips"), which meshed house sounds with the poetry of 15th century French writer Franois Villon. With the success of songs like "Rhythm Is a Dancer" by German group Snap! in 1992, which several critics later would compare "Mr. Vain" to,[3][2] the formula for what would be known as 90s Eurodance was now beginning to establish. Fenslau wanted to develop the group further[9] and American rapper Jay Supreme and British singer Tania Evans were recruited to front a new single and album. Supreme had moved to Germany after being in the US Army, while Evans had been working as backing singer for Neneh Cherry.[8] The lyrics to "Mr. Vain" were written by German musician and songwriter Nosie Katzmann with Supreme and Steven Lewis, and the single was released on April 16, 1993.

AllMusic editor William Cooper called "Mr. Vain" an "engaging house tune". He compared it to Snap!'s "Rhythm Is a Dancer" and Real McCoy's "Another Night" with its "instantly memorable keyboard hook".[2] Larry Flick from Billboard described it as a "chirpy rave/NRG track", stating that "if its European chart success is a fair indicator", then the song "will be all the rage within minutes."[10] Nicole Leedham from The Canberra Times noted Culture Beat's "combination of soul, insightful lyrics and dance floor-friendly music".[11] Student newspaper Columbia Daily Spectator stated that "near-indiscernible rapping over a pulsing techno beat and an unforgettable synth line" make it "the quintessential '90s dance track."[12]

In his weekly UK chart commentary, James Masterton said, "Stand by for the dance hit of the summer." He added that "although in actual fact as one of the best European dance records of the year so far it would probably have been a major hit anyway."[15] Simon Price from Melody Maker viewed it as an "audacious rewrite" of "Rhythm Is a Dancer", and categorized it as "house music. Not rave, not techno, but good ol' rump-pumping Hi-NRG house." He also remarked, "When Evans purrs, "I know what I want, and I want it NOWWW", empires crumble."[16] Diana Valois from The Morning Call noted its formula of "staccato beats, deep bass lines, and nervous and tinny keyboard riffs." She added, "Balancing the somber vocals of Jay Supreme is the optimistic soulfulness of a cheery Tania Evans".[17]

"Mr. Vain" first experienced success in Germany, topping the German Singles Chart for nine consecutive weeks from June to August 1993,[22] before spreading to other European countries. The song spent 33 weeks within the German Top 100. It also topped the charts of Austria (1 week),[23] Belgium (4 weeks),[24] Denmark (7 weeks),[25] Finland (6 weeks),[26] Ireland, Italy (2 weeks),[27] the Netherlands (2 weeks),[28] Norway (2 weeks),[29] Switzerland (4 weeks),[30] and the United Kingdom, as well as on the Eurochart Hot 100. In the UK, the song hit the top spot during its fourth week on the UK Singles Chart, on 22 August 1993,[31] after entering the chart at number 24. It was the first single to top the chart that was not released on 7-inch vinyl,[32][33] spending four weeks at the top and 15 weeks inside the UK Top 100. It sold more than 442,000 copies in the UK,[34] and also topped the Music Week Dance Singles chart as well as reaching number five on the UK Airplay chart.[35][36] Additionally, "Mr. Vain" peaked at number two in Sweden for 4 weeks, behind UB40's "(I Can't Help) Falling in Love with You" and 4 Non Blondes' "What's Up", and was a top-3 hit in France, Iceland and Spain.[37][38][39] The song debuted on the Eurochart Hot 100 at number 65 on 5 June,[40] after charting in Germany. It peaked at number one thirteen weeks later, on 28 August, and stayed at the top position for six consecutive weeks,[41] before Haddaway's "Life" took over the top position at the chart.

Outside Europe, "Mr. Vain" peaked at number one in Australia (1 week),[42] on the RPM Dance chart in Canada for ten weeks,[43] and in Zimbabwe (1 week).[44] In the United States, the single reached number 15 on the Cash Box Top 100[45] and number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100, earning a gold certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). "Mr. Vain" also peaked at number two for two weeks on the Billboard Dance Club Play chart.[46] It charted also in Asia, peaking at number ten on the Japanese Oricon chart.[47]

A music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Swedish-based director Matt Broadley.[48] It features Evans and Supreme at a baroque house party populated by a mlange of powdered dandies and silver-vested ravers.[49] The video begins with Supreme in black-and-white, looking at himself in a mirror, putting on a ring. As he looks into the mirror again, he sees the cracks in his face. He then attends the house party. Now in colours, people are dancing at the party and Evans sits in the corner of the room, seeing Supreme peeking by the curtain. He walks towards her and offers her his hand. She leaves, with him following her. Meanwhile, an epic arrangement of fruit is served at the party and it devolves into an hedonistic orgy of juice.[49] As the video ends, after being followed through the hallway and up a dark staircase, Evans finds a hand-mirror lying on a nightstand and puts it up to Supreme's face. In black-and-white, his face becomes cracked and chipped again.[50] The last shot depicts a white rocking horse rocking alone in a room littered with leaves. The video received heavy rotation on MTV Europe in July 1993.[7] Broadley would also be directing the videos for Culture Beat's next singles, "Anything" and "World in Your Hands".

The German Echo Award honored the song with an award in the category for "Best International Dance Single" in 1994.[5] Same year, it also received an award in the category for "Best Hi-NRG 12-inch" at the WMC International Dance Music Awards in the US.[6] Same year, Peter Paphides and Simon Price of Melody Maker praised songs such as "Rhythm Is a Dancer", "What Is Love" and "Mr. Vain" as modern classics, "butt-shaking Wagnerian disco monsters. Or, as someone else who knew a thing or two put it: Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat."[51] In 2005, Freaky Trigger ranked "Mr. Vain" number 78 in their list of "Top 100 Songs of All Time".[52]

The Guardian featured "Mr. Vain" in their "Sounds of Germany: A History of German Pop in 10 Songs" in 2012. They wrote, "Culture Beat's glorious "Mr Vain", with its rollicking beat, diva vocals and stilted rapping, comes as close as anything to summarising the spirit of the genre."[53] Australian music channel Max included "Mr. Vain" in their list of "1000 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2012.[54] In their "The ABC in Eurodance" in 2016, Finnish broadcaster Yle noted, "If someone could look up "The archetypal Eurodance hit song" in an Encyclopedia there would probably be a link to an audio file for "Mr Vain" - a song that more than anyone else came to define the 90's dance music."[55] BuzzFeed ranked the song number 17 in their "The 101 Greatest Dance Songs Of the '90s" list in 2017.[56]

JONI MITCHELL BLENDS VARIED MUSICAL STYLES FROM EVERY PHASE OF HER CAREER IN NIGHT RIDE HOME, A NEW ALBUM THAT JUST MIGHT BE HER MOST ACCOMPLISHED YET.

Twelve years ago, when Joni Mitchell was taking a drubbing for Don Juan's Reckless Daughter and Mingus, two wildly peculiar albums that were commonly regarded as the rash, overambitious work of an inept jazz wannabe, she told ) Rolling Stone that some of the things she'd done were half-baked, yes, but that "they lay the groundwork for further developments. Sooner or later," she insisted, "some of those experiments will come to fruition."

It's taken a while, but with her new album, night Ride Home (Geffen; all formats; 66), Joni Mitchell has proved herself right. From a musical standpoint, it's the most graceful record she's ever made; no awkward effects, no mad, darting tunes to accommodate mad, darting thoughts. The basic style is smooth, accessible jazz fusion, but there are so many echoes of her particular musical past-a wash of synthesized sound that recalls The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975), the rhythmic quirkiness of recent albums like Dog Eat Dog, even a plain old circa 1970 acoustic guitar lick or two-that it simply sounds like the distilled essence of everything she's done before. Her lyrics are as elegantly lean as the music. Mitchell half-jokingly calls this album "a collection of middle-aged love songs," and though she doesn't appear to be any fonder of the aging process (she's 47) than the rest of us, her approach to the subject is tough, unsentimental, and blessedly free of the peevish whining that so often passes for middle-aged wisdom.

Of course, Joni Mitchell has never pretended to be wise; all she's really managed to deliver in the course of 16 albums is one of the most vivid and delicious chronicles of a woman's life that's ever been produced in any medium, anytime, anyplace. That's not something she gets credit for very often, in part because it's unseemly to treat a living and not-yet-venerable woman as if she were one of the Bronte sisters. But it's true, nonetheless: The "I" of Mitchell's songs is a half-real, half-fantasy character, which has evolved over time into a genuinely modern romantic heroine, a feminist devoid of cant, who's trying to figure out not how to live a politically correct autonomous life, but how to live a deeply fun autonomous life.

By now, people who've stayed with her over the years know the terrain of the Joni character almost as well as their own: the western Canadian town of her childhood and her hoodlum-y teenage pals; her travels, her troubles, her friends, her friends' troubles; the variously vain, smug, and actively evil strangers observed and dissected from behind a pair of sunglasses or a potted palm. And, of course, there's love, her favorite turf: from the fairy-tale imagery of "I Had a King" on her first album (1968) and the open wound of Blue (1971) to the sly and sexy fun of Court and Spark (1974) and Hejira (1976) to "Lucky Girl," her partly earnest, partly ironic tribute to wedded bliss on Dog Eat Dog (1985).

Mitchell's genius for illuminating what she feels, thinks, and sees has one stubborn flaw: She's never entirely stopped being the artsy girl, the classic middle-class, butterfly-painting adolescent, all unfettered creativity and ignorance of technique and mannered self-immersion, traces of which are to be found even in her best work. (The most egregious example of her self- absorption might be "Furry Sings the Blues" on Hejira, in which, contemplating how the blues were born, she sings: "W.C. Handy I'm rich and I'm fay/And I'm not familiar with what you played/But I get such stro-o-ong impressions of your hey day "-which, for sheer blithe condescension, is hard to beat.) That, more than anything, may be why people are reluctant to grant her the kind of legendary status accorded to '60s-generation prophets who've had far less to say than she-though it's hard to know what to think about a culture that's put off by a little artsy-girl preciousness while remaining riveted by the banal self-destructiveness and baby nonsense of classic artsy boys like Jim Morrison. Go figure.

The news is that the artsy girl seems finally to have been put to rest with Night Ride Home, and not a moment too soon: This album is about being a grown- up, dealing with standard mid-life concerns like trouble with your spouse ("Nothing Can Be Done," with music written by her husband, Larry Klein), getting religion ("Passion Play"), getting sued ("The Windfall"), and, almost as bad, the end of the world ("Slouching Toward Bethlehem"). Yes, that last song is a setting of W.B. Yeats' poem "The Second Coming," more or less: Mitchell has taken it upon herself to change the title and a good many of the words, presumably for reasons of relevance and musical flow, but the changes are nothing to get huffy about-her arrangement is so subdued and tasteful that the substance of the original poem comes through just fine.

Mitchell dips into her adolescence for two songs, "Cherokee Louise," a sad tribute to a sexually abused pal, and "Ray's Dad's Cadillac," a more cheerful take on the sexual customs of the '50s. As for present-tense love songs, there's "Night Ride Home," a perfect number about a perfect (shared) moment; melodically she hasn't done anything this straightforwardly pretty for something like 20 years. More interesting, though, is "Two Grey Rooms," about a woman who seems to have rented a flat just so she can catch an occasional glimpse of a man she's been in love with for 30 years: With its lush, string- soaked arrangement and cool, concentrated vocal delivery, it's vintage Joni Mitchell-crazy, elusive, gorgeous. This is an album with no splashy moments and no major statements; just musical refinement of the highest sort. For an artist whose publicity bio lists her vocations as "poet, painter, musician"-in that order-it's got to be a triumph. A