Grammy Award winning Italian DJ Benny Benassi is taking the David Guetta route and releasing a brand new single featuring some well known American stars ahead of his forthcoming album, due in Autumn.
Naturally he’s roped in the currently renowned dance diva Kelis to help him do this while also getting a little assistance from Black Eyed Peassole Fillipio member apl.de.apl and writer-producer Jean Baptiste.
Benassi is probably best known for his inescapable 2002 hit Satisfaction and with Spaceship, he provides a similar Eur0-house production although many of the naff, cheesy Euro elements have been scrapped so that the song will appeal more to an American market. This is a club track but has that slight alternative edge to it that should appeal to the Pitchfork crowd much in the same way as Kelis’ Acapella single was.
Speaking of Kelis, she’s the star of the show on this track. While Jean Baptiste repeatedly drills the words “Jump on the spaceship” into your head and apl.de.apl. (who I normally like a lot more) provides an Auto-Tuned rap verse that sounds like it came straight from The E.N.D., Kelis is here to provide her trancey, sultry vocals. I don’t appreciate the song’s main hook being “Get high”. I know the majority jumping around to this in club on Saturday night will be mostly likely under the influence without any enforcement but Kelis should not be encouraging this in music anyway.
Still, Spaceship is a great club track and it’s backed up by an even better video. Although it was filmed on a green-screen as the picture shows below, which often makes videos come across looking very cheap, it certainly doesn’t suffer these problems.
Spaceship has some stunning futuristic scenery from the colossal spaceship to the Red Planet which they land on to the fiery meteorites which drag Kelis calmly away as she spins around in a colourful orbit. It certainly is stunning to look at as is the oriental garden at the start and the end of the video where Benassi is sitting, all Zen-like as he thinks about the concept for the video.
But of course the drug encouraging conspiracy theories come back to me and makes me believe that Benassi is in a higher state of mind and this visual is all a trippy dream. Hmmm. >:( Spaceship is set for release soon.
P.S. Kelis looks absolutely gorgeous in the video? So much for her saying she’s tired of being pretty because it’s “boring and exhausting”