The Fox plan backfired — and turned into a hit!

(Pop Spot did not appear earlier this week because of space constraints. It is being published today. It will be appeared in this space next Tuesday as usual).

By Geoffrey Rowlands

How do you get a big hit single without really trying? Just ask Norwegian brothers Vegard and Bard Ylvisaker who have an enormous world-wide smash with The Fox (What Does The Fox Say?).

“People seem to think we’ve come up with this magic formula,” smiled 34-year-old Vegard. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”

“We wrote the song and made the video to promote the third season of our Tonight with Ylvis talk show on Norwegian television,” explained Bard, 31. “It was just meant to be a few minutes of entertainment for our viewers.”

“In fact, we planned for it to be an anti-hit,” Vegard laughed. “We got the Stargate production duo involved. Everyone knows how incredibly successful they are creating huge hits for people like Rihanna, Katy Perry, Beyonce and many more. The idea was that we had all the advantages of working with Stargate and still couldn’t get a hit.”

The plan backfired spectacularly. Not that the boys are complaining.

“Nobody laughed when we screened the video in our production meeting,” Bard recalled. “The song lyrics are ridiculous and we hoped the video would be funny so this wasn’t a good sign. Even so, we put the video on YouTube to promote the first show of the new season and suddenly found it had gone viral.”

Millions of YouTube views translated into record viewing figures for Tonight with Ylvis before the video became an international phenomenon. It took just 35 days to pass 100 million views on YouTube. Psy’s Gangnam Style reached this mark in 51 days.

“Most people obviously didn’t know us as comedy and variety performers so I guess they thought The Fox was a serious song,” Vegard suggested.

“The music is good but we can’t understand how anyone could take the childish lyrics seriously. Yet people were singing along, dancing to the music and having a great time.”

The Fox spent three weeks at number six on Billboard’s Hot 100. It became by far the biggest hit by any Norwegian act since A-ha’s Take On Me topped the chart in 1975.

“The response has been incredible,” Bard remarked. “We got all kinds of offers to perform The Fox on TV shows in America and had accepted some before we realised we’d never actually sung it live. The song was recorded in sections and then pieced together so we had to work on perfecting a live performance before we could do the shows.”

The boys have been overwhelmed by the parodies and spin-offs from their song.

“We understand the parodies,” Vegard stated. “This seems to happen with everything which becomes popular on YouTube. We even reviewed some of the best-known parodies.

“But we also have a deal to publish a What Does The Fox Say? children’s book, a record deal to make serious songs, we won International Favourite Artist at the Asian Music Awards and we’ve been nominated in three catagories at the forthcoming World Music Awards.”

“Everything is truly bizarre,” Bard reflected. “Trying to become pop stars and failing miserably was an ongoing joke for our shows. We’ve made some pretty strange songs which naturally didn’t sell. The same was supposed to happen with The Fox.

“Working with Stargate was where we went wrong. Those guys are so good they could get anyone a hit. We’re having a lot of fun but we don’t know if we’ll become real pop stars. We’ll certainly make more songs for our shows and just see how things go.”

IN BRIEF

Lucius

Rolling Stone magazine proclaimed Brooklyn-based indie quintet Lucius as “the best band you may not have heard yet.”

The vocals of joint lead singers Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe have seen the otherwise all-male band described as “like a sixties girl group transported to the modern day weaving western and folk strands into their doo-woppy pop.”

Their recently released debut album, Wildewoman, has attracted amazing critical acclaim. The 11 tracks have been heralded as joyous, melodic anthems.

Judge for yourself if all this praise is justified by checking out the band’s music on YouTube. Official videos for Go Home, Turn It Around and their latest single, Tempest, can be accessed from www.youtube.com/user/luciustunes/videos. Some live performance videos are also available here.

Several more, plus some audio recordings, have been posted by fans elsewhere on YouTube. These can be found by typing the band’s name in the website search box.

The Killers

The Killers have continued a band tradition by releasing their eighth Christmas charity single.

Co-written with American folk-rockers Dawes, who also perform on the song, all proceeds from Christmas In L.A. will be donated to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS.

Famous names from the acting world are also involved. Harry Dean Stanton is heard, and briefly appears, in the video while Owen Wilson is the star.

The Christmas In L.A. video is posted at www.youtube.com/watch?v=938GYJjxBeU. Links to a host of other Killers songs can also be found on this webpage.

Boyce Avenue

Sarasota-based pop / rock trio Boyce Avenue have also released a charity record. All proceeds from their new single, One Life, will be donated to Pencils of Promise. This organisation increases educational opportunities for children in developing regions by building schools and creating teacher support programmes.

The cause is particularly dear to brothers Alejandro, Fabian and Daniel Manzano. Their mother is a teacher so the importance of education has been emphasised throughout their lives.

The boys regularly feature other artists on their songs. They have done so again for One Life which is officially credited to Boyce Avenue & Friends. The promotional video is posted at www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIeEA0GdYj4.

Tame Impala

Tame Impala were the big winners at last week’s Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards ceremony.

A psychedelic rock band from Perth, Western Australia, they won the trophies for Best Group, Album of the Year and Best Rock Album for their second LP, Lonerism.

The entire album is available to hear at www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYVq8GwoTlk. If you enjoy their songs, the band’s 2010 debut album, Innerspeaker, can also be heard in full. It is posted at www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ0P9ls_ZcE.

Bipolar Sunshine

Anyone familiar with the music of defunct indie-rock, ska and hip hop band Kid British will already know Bipolar Sunshine. Not that they would recognise the moniker as he performed vocals for Kid British under his real name of Adio Merchant.

Since the band split up around this time last year, Adio has been working on solo material. His second EP, Drowning Butterflies, is available now. It can be heard in full at (no www.) soundcloud.com/bipolarsunshine. Also here is his Aesthetics EP plus a number of remixes.

The video for his latest single, Love More Worry Less, is on the home page at (no www.) bipolarsunshine.com/. Click on “free download” here for access to the Drowning Butterflies title-track which is offered in exchange for your e-mail address.