This is a CD single that takes me back to the heady days of the 1990’s where hopes were high and the most famous member of D:ream was the singer. A look back to days, that are not in anyway clouded by the cloying fog of nostalgia, which were probably the last time people bought singles. I bought cassette singles or cassingles. Yes, I’m that kind of guy. You turn right; I turn left. You buy VHS; I buy Betamax. You buy Playstation; I buy Sega Saturn. The point is the readership of this piece will be about eight people in a world of six billion.

To the song. Forget the umpteen pointless remixes. They all sound the same, to wit: mindless East European trash smeared over a paint-by-numbers techno beat. If you buy this single for the remixed (bearing in mind that the odds of this will be astronomically high. I tried to work the odds of one of eight people in the world reading this seeking techno remixes of songs from “Russia’s most dangerous band” but it made Excel smoke) then you are certainly a unique individual who should be locked away from society; preferably in a concrete bunker underground with a constant armed guard.

To the song I decided to apply the Old Grey Whistle Test. To those who are not familiar with this expression it is the process of playing yourself a song repeatedly and seeing if it stirs your memory enough to make you hum it in the next couple of days. Unfortunately I ended up humming 'Hey Matthew' by Karel Fialka. It’s not a terrible tune it just filters from the memory like an eel on its way to Sargasso.

To the video. This CD single has enhanced media. In other words, bang it in the computer and you can watch the video as well as play the song. Nice video as it goes. However I grew distracted as the front man Ilya Lagutenko has the same eyes as Ray Wise. Odd but strangely compelling.

7

Dean Smales