Since I wouldn’t watch the Grammys if you paid me (unless you paid me a lot — for instance, I’d watch them, once, for a million dollars), it was sometime later that I learned that “Royals” won “song of the year.”
So I guess my 20-month-old grandson was onto something.
He has been obsessed with that video for months. If he sees a screen — a smartphone, a tablet, what have you — he immediately points to it and says, “Ah-Ooh.” Because that’s what he thinks the background vocal is saying on the refrain. You know how she goes “And we’ll never be royals” and the background echoes “ro-yals”? Well, maybe you don’t. I wouldn’t, if not for frequently giving into his request.
‘A hit is a hit,’ he says.
Anyway, when they sing that, he sings along, in tune, “Ah-ooh.” Hence the title. Or rather, his version of the title.
At first, I thought maybe he was fascinated with the girl singing the song, who is counterintuitively named “Lorde.” The mystique of an older woman (she’s 17), that sort of thing.
But he also enjoys the spoof version, with dogs, below.
Bottom line, the news is that he can spot a hit when he hears it, like Hesh Rabkin on “The Sopranos.” Maybe he has a career ahead of him in music. Either that, or as an automotive engineer…
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Not to question my main little man’s judgment, but — while I recognize the qualities that make “Royals” a hit — I personally prefer the song that his big sister was obsessed with when she was his age: Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know.”
I was a little disturbed when I first saw the beginning of the video — not crazy about my grandchildren looking at pictures of naked men — but soon saw how a kid would love both the video and the song. As did I. It harkens back to some of the great videos of the 80s, a time of tremendous innovation in that medium.
By contrast, the visuals of “Royals” seem less impressive. Does he like the girl? The skinny boys boxing? What? I think it’s mainly the song…
I find it interesting to contemplate these things not only because my grandchildren are infinitely fascinating to me — which they are — but because kids’ reaction to a song or a video is so pure and unadulterated (so to speak). It’s elemental, and unsullied by the prejudices of experience. They’re reacting to something very basic in the song, or the visuals.
And those mysterious basics — the qualities that make a song “beautiful,” or a hit — always fascinate me, as I’ve written before…
Lorde was less than coherent in her acceptance speeches… I’m putting her in the one hit wonder category.
Show your grandson Wrecking Ball.
When our girls were little I noticed the same thing. There were songs that fascinated them–and they didn’t need videos to go with them. I always chalked it up to the beat. Royals has a neat little beat to it. It’s the same thing that makes us involuntarily tap our feet to some songs, and hit the skip button on others.
And it’s easy to dance to.