A Song Gotye Used To Know

I've been a fan of Gotye since hearing “Hearts a Mess” years ago. If you’ve never listened to it, you should, really. Go ahead. I’ve provided a link and everything. Haunting and evocative stuff, yes?

Now he works a lot with samples and looping and other techy stuff I’m not too au fait with so it takes him a long time to make albums, which suits me just fine because it takes me a long time to get around to buying albums. It doesn’t take him as long as the Avalanches who have been working on the follow-up to “Since I Met You” since some time in 2005. “Since I Met You” was made up of over 3000 samples spliced together and has been voted the best Australian Album of all time and was released in 2000. That’s 12 years and counting. Second album syndrome affects everyone differently I guess….but back to Gotye.

Last year without much fanfare Gotye released a new single and announced an album would follow. I heard bits and pieces of the song on the radio and liked it but I kept missing out on hearing it in its entirety so I checked it out on YouTube.

Like a lot of people, it turned out once wasn’t enough and I clicked replay on this song “Somebody That I Used To Know” and its accompanying video clip quite a few times. Part of its appeal is that it is so distinct and different to pretty much everything else around at the moment.  I have long held the theory that the most talented creative types are those who can produce something that appeals to both the critics and the fans and this song does that.  And for a muso, Wally de Backer manages to emote sufficiently well on screen to give the song quite an impact (although standing around in body paint for hours on end would make anyone a bit angsty). The video complements the song perfectly.

And so “Somebody That I Used to Know” took off and the viewer count increased by thousands everyday (last count approximately 239,000,000 views). It became the song of the summer and the race for the number two spot on Triple J’s Hottest 100 was on.

Why is it so popular? Well, a music boffin could probably explain technically what is going on but I think it is because it taps into universal themes (“did I mean nothing to you?????” - we’ve all been there) and you should never underestimate the appeal of a song you can sing along to - and I don’t want to be an old fossil saying “they just don’t make music like they did in my day” but it is hard to sing along to hip hop.  Punters like a good tune.

Probably thanks partly to YouTube, Australia and Belgium were just the beginning* and it started creeping up the charts all over the world, culminating in taking the number one position in the US charts earlier this month. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer, more talented bloke.

It probably can’t even be described as a hit anymore. It has become something of an international obsession. There have been covers galore already and it is barely 12 months old. It popped up Glee (passably). Most recently Tina Arena and Tex Perkins did something to it at the APRA awards. I’ll spare you the vision but Tex Perkins should know better.

I wonder what Gotye thinks of his song, which now seems to have a life of its own. It is a song that will keep him financially solvent for the rest of his life, so if he’s smart he’ll probably only occasionally mind when contestants keep murdering it on shows like the Voice.

So, here's what you do - whenever you hear it sung by someone else doing yet another cover version, or when you roll your eyes at hearing it over the PA in shopping centres or in a while when you think it is passé and been done to death, go back to YouTube and check out the original to remind yourself just how good it is.

Yours musically

* file under 'sentences you don't get to say very often'.