If Picasso Were Alive Today...

If Pablo Picasso were alive today and decided to channel his artistic genius into directing music videos for MTV, he probably would have come up with something very close to the video for DJ Eric Prydz Call on Me.

Let me back up a second. First let’s talk about how awesome the song is. The song is AWESOME. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you need to do one of the following:

A.) Get your ass on iTunes and download it
B.) Burn it from a friend that’s already in the know
C.) Go back to the year 2004 and walk into any club in L.A. or New York

I first heard the song this summer at a club in Milwaukee where people were rocking out to it like it was brand spankin’ new (we here in the Midwest are a little slow picking up trends from our fashionable neighbors on the coasts). It blew my mind then like its blowing my mind right this second as I’m boppin’ along to it and typing these very words.

The reason Call on Me is so awesome is that it takes the best part of Steve Winwood’s Call on Me, Valerie and gives it to you over and over again. And again and again. And again and again. It’s like eating pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Every day.

If I ever open up a night club, the theme of the club is that I’m going to instruct the DJ to play Call on Me basically every other song, unless of course the kids out on the dance floor are having too much fun, in which case I’ll have the DJ play it a ratio of 3:1 to other songs, in favor of Mr. Prydz’s opus of course.

The only other songs I will allow in my club are songs that have the same format as Call on Me, where the refrain is simply repeated over and over again. That way, uncoordinated white guys like me can string together a few coherent moves on the dance floor, secure in our knowledge that the beat isn’t going to go anywhere.

I might also allow songs with explicit instructions on how to move throughout the entire duration of the song. I’m thinking of that one song where the dude is like, “slide to the left, now slide to the right, three hops this time, now cha cha cha.” You know what song I’m talking about. It’s played at every wedding. Please don’t make me look it up. In any case, I can gyrate to that song as well, so it’s okay.

I wish I could somehow have Call on Me pumped into my cubicle as a permanent soundtrack to my work week. The hours would go by like seconds as I completed all my daily tasks with machine-life efficiency. Then at 5:00, the music would stop and I would slowly awaken from my trance, staring at my hands quizzically and asking myself questions like “where I am?”, “how did all this work get done so quickly and thoroughly?,” and “why am I getting promoted to vice-president?”

Enough said, Call on Me is genius. Picasso would be proud.



I don't think this video needs an explanation. This is high art, people!