Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

MUSIC

Ibiza fury as song suggests party island has drug culture

A song about taking drugs in Ibiza has become a smash hit in Europe and the United States, annoying the Spanish holiday island, which is desperate to ditch its reputation for debauchery.

Published: 6 April 2016 09:05 CEST
Ibiza fury as song suggests party island has drug culture
The song highlights the debauched side of Ibiza. Photo: Jaime Reina / AFP

The remix by Norwegian duo Seeb of US singer Michael Posner's “I took a Pill in Ibiza” was top of Britain's singles chart this week and also among the top ten in the Billboard singles chart in the US.

The video for the remix has been viewed over 60 million times on YouTube.

The lyrics, which include the line “you don't want to be high like me”, describe Posner's comedown after taking drugs at a party on the Mediterranean island, whose turquoise waters and packed nightclubs have made it one of Europe's top beach destinations.

The video for the remix shows a young man whose head morphs into a giant cardboard mask after he swallows a pill at a nightclub. He is then seen surrounded by revellers who dance, take drugs, throw up and have sex in the bathroom of the nightclub.

“We have invited the author of this song to discover Ibiza because we have much more to offer besides the nightlife which is known worldwide,” the island's tourism director, Vicent Ferrer, told AFP.

“We have museums, beaches, culture, gastronomy, we have a wide offer but unfortunately we have been typecast this way. Unfortunately someone who wants to consume pills or alcohol can be found in any tourist destination, the fact that it is only us who are pigeonholed does not seem fair.”

A former haven for hippies, Ibiza has become an electronic music mecca which is home to several sprawling nightclubs like Privilege and Amnesia that draw top DJs from around the world. It is often listed in guides as a “party capital”.

Last year, US television station MTV dropped plans to film a reality TV show, which would follow the booze-fueled exploits of a group of young people who share a house on the island after the project ran into fierce opposition from local officials.

Ibiza authorities were so worried about the negative impact the show might have on tourism, they called for businesses on the island to boycott production of the show.

Just over 2.5 million people – a third of them British – visited Ibiza and the neighbouring island of Formentera last year, according to regional government figures.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

CULTURE

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday’s death

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

Published: 17 November 2023 09:05 CET
New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

SHOW COMMENTS