Electro goes Pop Culture

Been a bit busy lately and haven't found the time to write, so for now I'll just leave you with some fun stuff.

Every once in a while some electro reference will appear in the world of pop culture. I guess synths and vocoders are signifiers of choice when something is supposed to look retro/80s. Kind of sad in a way cause it goes to show that that part of hip hop has been irrevocably sidelined, or better yet: overrun by the merciless train of world history. General pessimism notwithstanding, it always puts a smile on my face when I stumble upon something like this recent ad for Cadbury (a chocolate company from the UK):




It heavily samples Freestyle's "Don't stop the rock", one of the most amazing vocoder electro tunes ever written. No wonder this came from the UK - it often seems the Brits are more determined than the rest us when it comes to preserving the electro legacy:





Here's another example ... a 2007 track by R&B singer Amerie:




I'm not too keen on modern reworkings of 80s tunes, but in this case I gotta admit the female vocals work well with the feel of the original track. It's not much of a reworking after all, just 2 loops lifted straight from Malcolm McLaren's "World's Famous" (beat & piano provided by Trevor Horn and Anne Dudley of Art of Noise fame, vocals by The World's Famous Supreme Team):