Song Of The Day 2/23/2015: Black Lace - "Agadoo"

Do the Dance Craze: I wasn't familiar with the Agadoo before I compromised my already-plummeting standards and watched this video for the first time, but the readers of Q magazine named it the worst song of all time (or something just as damaging) a few years ago, so I figured somebody in my social circle had heard it. I asked on Facebook if it was so; only two people responded they were familiar with the Agadoo, although King Dinosaur claimed to have invented it.

What can I tell you: This is what happens when you watch Carmen Miranda films after Ted Turner's colorized them. Black Lace were two chaps from England who dressed like they were Australian. Before this banana republic of a song, Black Lace were selected to participate in -- say it together, everybody -- the Eurovision Song Contest. They finished 7th with a song called "Mary Ann," which I understand is generally how anybody who acts like this finishes with Mary Ann.

The Agadoo itself is as low-intensity a dance as you can get. The hip-shaking and gyrating performed by Black Lace in this video is strictly personal choice, and some communities may be put off by the gratuitous showing of such flair. I know you all want me to get into an analysis of the lyrics, which give the very rough outline of a maiden on the Hawaiian island of O'ahu selling pineapples. There's your lyrical analysis. Hawaii, pineapples. Really hard to mine more nuances from a stereotype so quickly arrived at. That's something you come up with when you really have to be somewhere in half an hour. Also, not one part of the music sounds the least bit Hawaiian. No effort to even simulate the far less hyperactive slack-key guitar of the islands with an Oberheim synth. It's the farthest thing from Hawaiian, which means it's... Eurovision!

As for the video, you got dancing fruit. Someone offered their own thoughts via erratically placed subtitles, of which this is my favorite: "Is this dance fruitist??" Because there's a lot of pineapple-shoving in it, you see. Good to see the Agadoo inspires the snarky creativity in all of us.

Finally: Nobody in the world, any civilization, any society, any subculture, grinds coffee like that.