Tatu to do Smiths cover (PlanetPop)Time of publication: 25.01.2003 |
PlanetPop was rocked this week by press revelations that Russian pop nymphettes Tatu were spotted kissing boys in a nightclub. The story, for those who have been living in an exclusion zone for the past three months, is already one of pop legend. Pop svengali Ivan Shapalov wanted to put together a duo of pop girls in the vein of a classier Cheeky Girls (not that the Cheeky Girls existed then, but we digress). What he found, before needing to manufacture anything, were teenagers Lena and Julia, two girls who insisted that they were lesbians. Who was he to argue? Since their first single I've Lost My Mind in late-2000, eyes have goggled wherever they went, just as they did in the UK when the video to All The Things She Said appeared on MTV late last year, all rainy East European noir topped off with girlie kissing-and-cuddling.
Revelation
‘Arty' to say the least, but also blessed with one of the best pop songs we've heard in an age. All The Things She Said is a revelation, moodier than Sugababes, catchier than the Kittens and a right lot more credible than most guitar bands either side of the top 20.Their English-language album comes produced by Trevor Horn, the man behind Frankie Goes To Hollywood, who helped plant disco in the UK and the man partly responsible for Video Killed The Radio Star (currently being massacred by Erasure in all foolish record stores). But while Cheryl Tweedy has doomed Girls Aloud to life as one-hit wonders, Lena and Julia are unlikely to be caught up in nightclub brawls. For one, they've got a corking UK-release album in the bag already; 200km/h In The Wrong Direction, and the highlight is the surefire next single.
Covering the Bee Gees as standard is old news but how many Sapphic pop duos have recorded moogy, droogy covers of Smiths tunes? In an act of subversion far more cunning than anything Morrissey has managed in the last decade, Tatu's ‘money-shot' is their genius cover of How Soon Is Now? So while the initials of their name might roughly translate as ‘this girl loves that girl', this week's news suggests that it might all be as much of a marketing trick as Geri Halliwell's yoga. But when All The Things She Said sails to number one next week, it won't be down to the column inches. Until Liberty X's Chaka Kahn bootleg drops in the spring, we already have our single of the year.
Thanks to ta-tu.net |
 |
| Return to "Articles" |
