“Planet of the Bass,” a parody Eurodance song by Park Slope's Kyle Gordon — famous for character-based comedy on TikTok — was released to a salivating public on Aug. 15 with its seriously funny lyrics and peppy beat.
Unlike most parody songs, this one is highly acclaimed: Rolling Stone published a nostalgia-filled review of “Planet of the Bass,” and the song is being called the song of the summer... All before anyone even heard the full version.
“I think the timing of [the release] happens to fall in maybe a bit of a nostalgia sweet spot,” Gordon said. “With Barbie being in the zeitgeist, Eurodance generally is back in the zeitgeist.”
“Planet of the Bass” owes its success to the first version of its music video teaser, posted June 28. In it, DJ Crazy Times, played by Gordon, and Ms. Biljana Electronica — voiced by Chrissi Poland and played by New York City comedian Audrey Trullinger — dance emphatically as Biljana cries out, “When the rhythm is glad, there is nothing to be sad” in purposefully broken English.
The original video has surpassed 110 million views on X (formerly known as Twitter) and 8.4 million on TikTok, as of Aug. 16. One line, “Women are my favorite guy,” immediately became a meme.
“I've been doing this character since like 2013,” Gordon said of his character DJ Crazy Times.
In 2013, Gordon was attending Ohio’s Denison College and in an a cappella group, where DJ Crazy Times was the jokey emcee. After graduation in 2014, his character went dormant.
“When I started doing more like TikTok and Instagram videos, that's when I brought DJ Crazy Times back,” Gordon said. “He was kind of just doing those classic DJ, David Guetta-type ad-libs.”
DJ Crazy Times graduated to singing his own tunes when Gordon started writing a full parody album. Each song on the album will be sung by a different character, spoofing a different musical genre. It’s the product of several years of comedic performances at venues around Brooklyn like Park Slope’s Union Hall, Gordon said.
“When I moved to New York, I was really, really into improv,” Gordon said. “I wanted to develop a solo performance that I could do [if I got] booked on a standup show, but that wasn't my taste and not really my strength. So, I sort of developed this solo character musical thing.”
Writing “Planet of the Bass” necessitated a deep dive into the Eurodance genre, which Gordon joyfully took on.
“I’m definitely a long-time fan, actually,” Gordon said. “When I'm running in [Prospect] Park, a lot of the time, that's the music I'm listening to. I really, really love that type of music. It's so fun and silly, and it's great to run to.”
Soon after DJ Crazy Times’ initial success, Gordon released a second version of the video with a new Biljana, played by Mara Olney. The third video featured a third Biljana played by Sabrina Brier. Gordon said the ever-rotating Biljana is part of his satire.
“It was always a bit,” he said. “It's such a weird relic of this genre and this era, but like, especially in the early nineties, a lot of these European dance groups, they would get a singer to sing the song, they would put out the track, and if it got popular, they would just put a random model in the music video.”
“I also didn't predict that [Audrey] would become, like, a cultural icon," Gordon said. "So, I think when the second video came out, people were, understandably, so in love with Audrey that it was a bit of whiplash.”
The full music video includes all three Biljanas, and Trullinger is back in her original outfit, to the satisfaction of her fans.
The success of “Planet of the Bass” has opened surprising doors for Gordon, he said. The same day that the song premiered, Gordon drove all the way to Boston to perform it for the first time onstage at a Jonas Brothers concert.
“The full track has a lot of elements that are really new and different and fun and really weird,” Gordon said.
Aside from secret surprises like the Jonas Brothers appearance, fans can look forward to his full parody album dropping in fall 2023.
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