The story of "Blue (Da Ba Dee) " by Eiffel 65
VICE USA explores the story of the famous dance hit
April 1st, 2019
20 years ago on this day, Blue (Da Ba Dee) of the Eiffel 65 was transmitted for the first time on Radio Deejay entering the history of Italian music and projecting the Turin trio in the gotha of the Eurodance. It was enough that the radio passage wanted by dj Albertino to turn a flop into an international success. Already, as soon as it was released at the end of 1998, the single barely managed to sell 200 copies, obtaining bad feedback and empty club tracks. Then thanks to Radio Deejay comes the lucky turning point: number 1 in different countries, almost three million copies sold of the Europop album only in the United States, where the song, came in 4th place in the standings, the highest position of a piece Italian since 1962. The impact of the Eiffel 65 in the US is so great that the song ends, long after its golden age, in the opening titles of the movie Iron Man III, leaping back into the charts. Today, twenty years after its debut, Blue and his strange story are the protagonists of a documentary made by VICE USA. The online magazine, for the new appointment of his series called The Story Of in which he analyzes some great pop phenomena of the past, interviews Massimo Gabutti of the Bliss Corporation, the Turin dance music factory where everything was born, and the components of the trio, which is he formed almost by chance: Maurizio Lobina, who wrote the melody for the project; Gianfranco Randone, aka Jeffrey Jay, who wrote the text, and dj Gabry Ponte, head of the beats.
Fun fact: many will remember the video of Blue, inspired by Metal Gear Solid and made in mixed media mixing real footage and computer graphics with the members of the Turin band trying to recover the singer Jeffrey, kidnapped by a group of bluish-skinned aliens. Those bizarre characters continue to have a parallel life online on Zorotl.com.