TEDDYBEARS STHLM – “Cobrastyle”
There’s a long thread on ILE at the moment about the demerits of iconic faces on T-Shirts, to wit Nico who is apparently on some new New Look gear with the ahistorical slogan “Chelsea Underground 1973”. It made me think of this record, which takes a Mad Cobra sample (the first three or four lines of “Press Trigger”), strings it over a ramalama pop backing and comes up with a sharp, giddy wannabe-hit. Cobra gets a credit of course but really his sonic snapshot is being used to provide a hit of instant cool. So that’s sampling, what’s new? Well, it’s rare to find something so recent being lifted, for one thing, and for another it works. “Cobrastyle” is the distilled swagger of a hundred dancehall sevens, stripped of cultural context and content, imported into Europop more as a catwalk move than a street one. It’s so brazen, so cynical even I’m a bit apalled by its implications – at the same time as I’m swooning over its immaculate pop technique.