Thursday 28 November 2013

Eric Prydz 'Pjanoo'

Chart Peak: 2
YouTube
'Pjanoo' (pronounced 'Piano') is, not surprisingly, a piano-led house track by highly acclaimed DJ and producer Eric Prydz... It took the club scene by storm over the summer and climbed to No. 2 in the UK chart in September 2008 giving him a 3rd massive UK hit following 'Call On Me' (2004) and 'Proper Education' (2007).
It's quite remarkable to have three consecutive Top 3 singles, but spread over the space of four years. I suppose you can't accuse him of flooding the market. No less remarkably, 'Pjanoo' is the only one of those three hits that appeared on his debut album Eric Prydz Presents Pryda, and even that was four years later. It also puts him alongside Madness, Fleetwood Mac and the Shadows in the small group of acts who've made the Top 10 with both instrumental and vocal singles.

As if to prove my point about the retro tendencies of late-2000s dance, Prydz claimed that this track was an old outtake from 1996 that just went down well at a DJ gig so he freshened it up for single release. Whether or not that's true, the fact that it was at all believable speaks volumes about the sound of the song, and the trends it fitted into. It's a very simple track and unusually a totally instrumental one with no sampled or spoken vocals of any kind. It certainly has a piano on it, although not quite the sort of big reverby one I tend to associate with piano house from the early 1990s. The radio edit is a tactfully brief 2 minutes and 37 seconds, which is quite pleasant although it doesn't go anywhere really. I'm not sure I could ever be bothered with the full club mix.

Coincidentally, I heard this song in Poundland today, and the ability to mention that fact in this post is alas the highlight of that visit. Also, today is the 30th anniversary of the release of the very first Now album, so I think it might also be the fifth anniversary of this blog. You might expect me to know that sort of thing, wouldn't you?

Also appearing on: Now 59, 66
Available on: Superstar DJs - Ministry of Sound

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