AlmostWorthKnowing.com...

Almost Worth Knowing: A Continued Look with Eurotrance - Basshunter's Best

Moving away from Crazy Loop, I'd like to focus on another artist today: Basshunter. He's an artist who aggressively pursues fish of a game animal nature, all belonging to the family Perciformes. Kidding.

Basshunter is a DJ and vocalist of Swedish decent, who produces music he describes as Eurodance. However, according to Wikipedia, and to my agreement, many consider his music to be Eurotrance. If you remember my post from a few days ago, the distinctions in Euro music are subtle. Nonetheless, as I stated in yesterday's post about Crazy Loop, musicians can call their music whatever they want.

Now, Basshunter, who's real name is Jonas Erik Altberg, came to prominence in 2006 with his hit single "Boten Anna," which became the first ever Swedish language song to reach number one on the Dutch Top 40. I think it is especially interesting to note that Altberg began producing music under the stage name Basshunter as early as 1999, which means he was only 14 or 15 years old. Altberg's music was largely promoted through the internet, before he was finally picked up by Warner Music in 2006. Due to the nature of their lyrics, Boten Anna, and much of his other music including his later single, "Vi Sitter i Ventrillo Och Spelar Dota," allowed him to gain particular notoriety amongst the geek culture. As a point of trivia, and quite interesting for a musician, Altberg has Tourette Syndrome.

Boten Anna has a rather interesting back story. The whole piece is about the mistaken identity of an IRC user, a program which Altberg used regularly. According to Wikipedia:

The song is based on an actual experience of Altberg, who explained the situation in an interview with the Finnish website Stara.fi. His friend said he would create a bot with administrative capabilities to keep order in his channel; when this happened Jonas saw a new user with administrative capabilities named Anna enter the channel, and naturally thought this was the bot. Months later, he learned that Anna was actually not a bot, but was his friend's girlfriend; the embarrassment, he says, inspired him to create the song.

Curiously, the pronunciation of words in the song cause "bot" to sound like "boat" in the original dialect. Due to the nature of this confusion, many who heard the song thought that Altberg was singing about a "boat named Anna." Further, the "channel" she protects in the song is interpreted as a body of water, not an "IRC channel." This was all later reflected in the music video.

I know a song. It's name is Boten Anna. Boten Anna is its name. Check out the video, with subtitles for your full enjoyment:

Not bad, huh?

In my opinion, Basshunter's next single was much better. "Vi Sitter i Ventrillo och Spelar DotA" can be translated as "We're sitting in Ventrillo, playing DotA," though the song is often known simply as "DotA." Its infectious melody is a remix of a previous tune by Daddy DJ. Again, the cyber-culture references are apparent: Ventrillo refers to an online voice chat program used by internet gamers, while DotA is an abbreviation for Defense of the Ancients, a popular user-created scenario for Warcraft III. The lyrics are rather self-explanatory. For that reason, I've been nice enough to embed a video version with sub-titles. Pay special attention to the awesome Eurotrashy girls:

Basshunter also released a second video of "DotA" with a slightly remixed club sound. This video is really cool too, with a higher production value than the first. He's got some moves:

Oddly, while looking for the translation of "DotA," I came across one website that translated the lyrics in a way that I am now pretty sure is incorrect. Nonetheless, I like this individual's translation:

I like to use vent, when I play a little DotA
I play with this chick called Millie, but she never ever talks
I like to use vent, when I play a little DotA
Me and Millie get all of their creeps, she'll sleep with me

This translation works well because of the premise of the game: a large portion of Defense of the Ancients revolves around killing in game "creepers."

Finally, I'd like to mention that Basshunter did re-record "Boten Anna" under the name "Now You're Gone," for English speaking audiences. Similarly, "All I Ever Wanted," an English translation of "DotA," is the first song I ever heard by Basshunter. While neither song is as good as the original (though they have far less repetitive lyrics), each song's video can be found here and here, respectively. If you have time, I think you should take a look, particularly because the girl in the second video is cute, really cute. And don't forget, look out for Basshunter's new upcoming singles, "Please Don't Go" and "Angel in the Night."

That's all for today, and possibly all for the Euro-music series. I'll leave you with two challenges, since this week has been lacking.