I’m angrier than a senior citizen whose retirement fund got wiped out over the fact that I stopped listening to the song that I’m about to mention. By the way, this article is going to use some strong language, so I’ll put the jump here and if you’re not in a place to read vulgarity, go away. The rest of you, here we go.
A long, long time ago in a land far, far away, I was the founder and president of 2 Unlimited’s US fan club. I got my news updates directly from the record labels via a weekly phone call. As part of that relationship, I was able to get my hands on new music before they were in the music stores.
Yes, kids, once upon a time, you used to have to go to a physical music store to get your music. This was a long time ago, when cassettes were also used to release singles. You kids these days are spoiled because you never even have to get out of bed to purchase music.
One of my favorite songs that I got an advance copy of from the distributing record label, Critique Records, which went out of business a long time ago, put out was Who the Fuck is Alice?, by Dutch producers who called themselves Gompie. Of course, to be radio friendly, the song was actually legally entitled Who the X is Alice? or Living Next Door to Alice in countries that are too soft.
The music video is simple but effective, a nice call and response situation. Not too flashy, just simple and entertaining, the way music videos absolutely should be.
The song went what we call today viral, and Gompie performed all around Europe in 1995. Given that the performance was in Europe, they performed the uncensored version. That would never fly in the United States.
Of course, this song isn’t a complete original. The song Living Next Door to Alice was performed in 1972 by Smokie. At the time, it was customary for one DJ to mute the sound at the “who the hell is Alice?” and the audience went wild, screaming “who the fuck is Alice?” That got the producers thinking and they came up with the new version.
The original song was a big hit in Australia, where the word “fuck” isn’t considered to be as taboo as it is here in the snowflake United States, where people get offended by simple words that someone deemed to be naughty. It’s embarrassing.
As for the Gompie version, it became a giant hit in over 80 European countries. In the United States and Canada, of course, the song was censored. The single, sadly, had little to no impact here in the USA.
By the way, that censored version is very hard to get a hold of, and I can’t find it on YouTube. I still have a copy that the record label sent to me, but it’s packed up in storage and I am not going through all of those boxes just to provide a link here.
For that matter, the uncensored version is also difficult to find in physical form because Critique is gone and any copies they may have had left have probably been sold at the bankruptcy auction.
There are many remixes of the song, but one version that was on the CD single was this one, which is uncensored as well. And then there’s this high energy one that was released last year.
Yes, this brings back fond memories of high school and getting into trouble because I was singing along with the uncensored version in the gym when I was a student employee of the district. I was merely doing my job setting sound equipment up. Some snowflake teacher got her knickers in a twist.
Welcome to America, the land of free speech!
Of course, no one ever answered the question. Who the fuck was Alice?