“Call On Me” number 26 on BBC Radio 1 charts. Um, why?

People who like music never stop their search for more.

Dance music still seems to be a European stronghold. As such, I research new artists and songs online in foreign blogs and websites (I don’t remember how I first found out about Lady Gaga in 2008, months before her album or a single released*). The BBC Radio 1 website streams the station live to viewers anywhere, and provides copious charts.

I was looking at the Top 40 Dance singles and saw that Eric Prydz’s “Call On Me” song is sitting nicely at #26 (up one position) and has been on the chart for 32 weeks. That puts it entering the chart just before the middle of 2009.

Eric Prydz performing at Glastonbury, in 2009. Photo by Haydn Curtis.

I wish I knew why. Maybe I’ll hop on a plane and ask someone in London.

The song launched in 2004 as a catchy club tune. The music video made the song even more popular and spawned numerous copycats and parodies (usually with the gender roles reversed). Had YouTube been around in 2004 (they launched in 2005), “Call On Me” would probably have been the first “Single Ladies” (Beyoncé’s 2009 song) encouraging people around the world, of all ages, to remake the video in their personal way. See Cubbyradio’s video or JoeNationTV’s baby dancing.

I saved my favorite “Call On Me” parody video, keeping it safe until a site like YouTube would come around. Watch below (watch the original here). The video is eye candy for women and gay men, showing military personnel in skintight clothing.

*Lady Gaga performed at the Lollapalooza in downtown Chicago in the summer of 2007. Back then she had dark, brown hair, and dressed in a bikini (it was hot). She didn’t have her hit song, “Just Dance,” nor did she adopt her persona, until months later in 2008. Maybe she did this because Our Man in Chicago mistook her for Amy Winehouse.

What does it really mean when Lady Gaga yawns?

Lady Gaga performed at the Rosemont Theater on Friday, January 8, 2010.

As expected, the Chicago Tribune (CT) and Chicago Sun-Times (CST) both sent music critics to check it out. Greg Kot, a longtime reviewer for the Trib (since 1990) and co-host of NPR’s Sound Opinions, and the Sun-Times’ Mark Guarino both checked out the same show.

See more photos from monster†

Mark (CST) wrote little about the actual show or songs itself, but wrote about how sexual she acts and how maybe she’s not the altruistic pop star she claims to be, but is really a capitalist showbot like everyone else.

Greg (CT) centered his review mostly on the quality of song and dance and showiness. Her costumes “embodied a raven and a fang-baring wolf, rarely playing to sex-nymph clichés that plague most pop concerts.”

Both writers touched on the fact that she yawned as part of an unambiguous message to the audience. But what did it mean? Here’s each critics take:

Mark said the yawn represented that she was bored with concertgoers “who were forced to re-purchase tickets.”

Greg saw a connection between the yawn and her high-concept show: “It was just one of many little sarcastic asides in a show that played like one long critique of celebrity…” He continued with, “…overall this was a visual spectacle heavy on ideas rather than self-aggrandizing glamor…”

Which critique do you think is right?

I don’t think I can comment honestly about the situation after reading the viewpoints of both writers. I love nearly all of Lady Gaga’s songs and I think anything I say would be too easily construed as biased support for the artist. I really appreciate it when musicians show their cards (haha) and guts. And you can’t deny Lady Gaga’s music talent: She plays the piano, sings acapella, and studied music for a bit at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Madonna, another favorite musician, studied ballet at the University of Michigan. Madonna is often commended for dancing in her shows, and in the past 10 years has shown she’s very flexible at an “older” age (and quite muscular, too). These two musicians work hard and it shows.