Mark Ronson - The Bike Song

Artist: Mark Ronson & The Business INTL

Song: The Bike Song

Album: Record collection (2010)

Mark Ronson didn’t mean to make a debut album that reinvented party-friendly hip hop. Nor a follow-up that became one of the defining albums of the second half of the Noughties. He never anticipated that three of the up and coming British singers he produced and wrote with in his scruffy New York studio (…)

Record Collection is the third album headed up by the mid-Atlantic muso mastermind and, as usual, he’s brought a host of famous friends and former collaborators along for the ride. The follow-up to 2007’s triple platinum Version--which sold one million copies in the UK and saw Ronson score the Best Male Solo Artist gong at the Brit Awards--is every bit as impressive as it’s predecessor. This time however, Ronson has made a point of ripping up the rule book that he had written so well. So it’s goodbye to the Dap Kings and their horn-y break downs and au revoir to the innovative cover versions. Instead, Ronson is saying hello to Brooklyn b-boy sonics, swirling retro synthesized sounds and the kind of off-kilter pop sixth sense that it’s impossible not to move to.
Recorded at Dunham studios in Brooklyn and working with vintage keyboards, the album melds eighties indie to nineties hip hop beats and also sees someone rather special take to the mic... "Lose It (In The End)" was co-written by Jonathan Pierce of The Drums and features rhymes from Ghostface Killah and vocals from Mark Ronson himself. The old school flavour of the album is behind much of its charm. "The Bike Song"--co-written by the Zutons’ Dave McCabe and with laid back, but never lazy, vocals from The View’s Kyle Falconer--boasts an almost psychedelic sixties vibe while the warm doo-wop of "The Night Last Night" is brought to glorious life by former Pipette Rose Elinor Dougall.
"Somebody To Love Me" is another highlight. Jake Shears of Scissors Sisters, Cathy Dennis, erstwhile Dirty Pretty Thing Anthony Rossomando, and Andrew Wyatt all had a hand in writing what Ronson describes as a ‘bionic’ song. Then he persuaded Boy George, to sing this song of ‘earnest blue-eyed soul’ and a lost club classic with a modern twist.

“The Bike Song” features the View’s Kyle Falconer and Spank Rock, and was co-written by The Zutons’s Dave McCabe. Listen for the bicycle bell Ronson added to the beat.

In its original form “The Bike Song” is a breezy ode to Peter Panism. Major Lazer’s remix focuses on Spank Rock’s verse, so it’s a lot less cute, a lot more sexual. Of course. Have a listen.

(…) Record Collection is an infinitely more likable record than Version – even if The Bike Song makes you want to go and kick in some spokes. The cast list is great and some of the songs are excellent. Ever the businessman, Ronson must get props for his abilities to bring so much talent together; he's probably the only pop star you'd trust to organise a booze-up in a brewery. --Will Dean

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