‘We get a lot of requests for it to be used in sex scenes’: how Goldfrapp made Ooh La La
‘I couldn’t think of a line for the chorus – but we had just been to France,I got Baudelaire into the lyrics somewhere, too’This song was an ode to glam rock,My older sister was really into Marc Bolan and her passion for him and his sound really rubbed off on me,I love the vocal effects and drum sounds on those old records,I couldn’t think of a lyric for the chorus, though, and I thought to myself: “What do I need?” We’d just been to France, hence the “Ooh la la”, but we wondered if it was sufficient.
It felt good, though, so we stayed with it and kept layering the voice and then added these vocoder voices,We liked the synthetic robo feel alongside the natural voice,The lyrics were personal, about a relationship and how I was feeling,I like to use visual metaphors,The breakdown section, about breaking a heel on a shoe, came from this old 1950s film I’d seen on TV.
An image of a woman, walking along the road in a tight pencil skirt, limping because the heel had broken,That stuck with me,I had a book of Baudelaire poems hanging around, so I got him into the lyrics somewhere, too,Portishead’s Adrian Utley, a friend of ours, came in to play guitar, which was quite a departure for us because for ages we wanted to stay clear of guitars,He’s so instinctive the way he plays, incredibly lean with the notes.
He got the right tone immediately.For the video, I thought it would be fun to have an imaginary glam rock band.Dawn Shadforth was director, the late Cathy Edwards the stylist.We had some good budgets back then, there was plenty of time to do it all carefully with detail, no rushing.The song gets used in many places.
Some requests are pretty funny – often sex scenes.We’re not too precious but we have said no many times, too.I remember performing the song on US TV, being in this freezing cold studio waiting to go on air, and Simon Cowell was standing about six feet away with his arms crossed, doing that thing he does on The X Factor, a rather disapproving expression.He was wearing this pink fluffy jumper, which I became fixated on.“Wow!” he said.
“It’s all just kicking off for you in America, isn’t it?” I was already so nervous and him being there and saying that made me freeze with fright.I was listening to Ooh La La again recently for the first time in ages and was surprised at how little is actually in there.The whole thing hinges on the claps – it’s just claps, bass line, vocal, and a few little stabs from synths and guitars.We used to have this thing of renting spaces – usually slightly chintzy holiday homes – over winter when you could get a six-month let.The more lo-fi, the better.
It felt more satisfying than being in a flashy studio.And not being in London was important.A lot of great music comes from that isolation.The song was an outlier because every time we tried to change the chords, we thought: “Why don’t we just stay as we are?” So it’s literally a one-note piece.We were delighted that we’d somehow sidestepped all those complications that usually come with songwriting.
I made this mistake one day when I was playing the riff – I’d left a microphone on, so when I played it back, I got the sound of the bassline but also the clatter of the keys.I couldn’t get rid of it because it was all on one track, so it’s in there.I’m old enough to remember the 60s and thinking in the 70s: “Oh no, it’s all over, it’s all gone wrong.” I absolutely hated it after the Stones and the Beatles, but Alison was very good at educating me.I remember her playing me Joan Jett.
I needed talking round, but I got it.I didn’t appear in the video.That was probably a mutual choice.Alison has always had this great visual side.I would have looked like Ron Mael, the synth player from Sparks.
He used to do nothing – and I always thought I could relate to that.We got Mark “Spike” Stent interested, this amazing mixer who’s had millions of hits.We ended up camping in his studio while he was mixing and we were still writing.I felt like such an amateur – I couldn’t even get a bass track together without splitting it into a mosaic of different parts.But it was exciting, a real whirlwind.
The track still seems relevant, partly because of the synths and the simplicity.It doesn’t bed itself into an era particularly, because it’s got this mixture of things boiled down to something without putting a foot too far into any identifiable genre.Supernature by Goldfrapp 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition is out now
‘She was a bitch in the best possible way’: the life and mysterious death of drag queen Heklina
The performer was found dead in ‘unexpected’ circumstances in her London flat in 2023. Why are her loved ones still waiting for an explanation?In commemorations and memorials after her death, the view was unanimous: Heklina had been a bitch. In the world of San Francisco’s drag scene, where she made her name, this wasn’t meant as an insult. Heklina had been a legendary performer whose stage persona was equal parts raunchy and abrasive, slinging insults known as “reads” in fine drag tradition. “Yeah, she was a bitch,” recalls her longtime collaborator Sister Roma, “but she was a bitch in the best possible way
‘I don’t go around telling people I love the Spice Girls’: Mo Gilligan’s honest playlist
The first single I bought Rollout (My Business) by Ludacris from HMV in Lewisham Shopping Centre. I played it over and over.The first song I fell in love with I grew up listening to a lot of reggae – my dad was a Rastafarian – so Get Up, Stand Up by Bob Marley was always playing in the house when my mum was dishing out the chores. It’s ironic that it’s a song about redemption when you’re being told to clean the house.The song I do at karaoke You need to have a song that everyone knows, so they can help you sing along, so I’d go for Angels by Robbie Williams or Wonderwall by Oasis
My cultural awakening: A Queen song helped me break free from communist Cuba
Listening to Brian May’s multi-tracked epic on a battered cassette player when I lived in repressive Havana inspired lit a spark of rebellion inside meThroughout my childhood and teenage years growing up in 80s Cuba, Fidel Castro’s presence, and the overt influence of politics, was everywhere – on posters, on walls, in speeches that could last four hours at a stretch. The sense of being hemmed in, politically and personally, was hard to escape.I had been raised to believe in communism, and for a long time I did. I even applied twice to join the Young Communist League, only to be rejected for not being “combative” enough: code for not informing on others. Friends were expelled from university or jailed for speaking too freely and my family included people in the military and police, so I had to be careful not to endanger them
The Guide #227: A brain-melting sci-fi movie marathon, curated by Britain’s best cult film-maker
Few directors currently working merit the title of ‘cult hero’ more than Ben Wheatley. Over a 15-year-plus career, the British film-maker has dabbled in just about every cinematic genre and style imaginable: psychedelic horror (A Field in England, In the Earth), grimy video nasty (Kill List), stylish, gun-toting thrillers (Free Fire), murderous Mike Leigh homages (Down Terrace, Sightseers), literary adaptations (Rebecca, High-Rise), and even a whopping great studio monster movie (Meg 2: The Trench).Wheatley’s latest film further cements that cult status. Bulk is a defiantly DIY sci-fi-noir-paranoid-thriller hybrid, starring Sam Riley as an investigative journo tasked with rescuing a scientist from his own malfunctioning multi-dimensional creation. With its handwritten title cards, overdubbed dialogue, sticky-back-plastic special effects and general vibe of formal experimentation, Bulk exists a world away from most modern film-making
From Saipan to Take That: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead
SaipanOut now As the Irish national team descend on a small island in the Pacific to prepare for the 2002 World Cup, an epic falling out between manager Mick McCarthy (Steve Coogan) and top player Roy Keane (Éanna Hardwicke) is looming, in this sports drama loosely based on the infamous real-life spat.No Other ChoiceOut nowKorean auteur Park Chan-wook (Oldboy) enlists Squid Game’s Lee Byung-hun to lead this dark comedy about a man who has recently been made redundant but is so committed to reclaiming his role that he feels he has “no other choice” but to resort to murder.H Is for HawkOut nowBased on the novel by Helen Macdonald, this drama sees Claire Foy play a woman mourning the loss of her father become on the idea of training a hawk. This project isn’t necessarily a natural fit with her life as a graduate fellow at Cambridge. Directed by Philippa Lowthorpe and also starring Brendan Gleeson and Lindsay Duncan
Tell us your UK town of culture nomination
With the search for the UK’s first town of culture under way, we would like to hear your suggestions.Guardian writers’ own nominations include Ramsgate in Kent, Falmouth in Cornwall, Abergavenny in Monmouthshire, and Portobello in Edinburgh. Which town would you nominate, and why?You can tell us your choice for the first UK town of culture using this form.Please include as much detail as possible. Please note, the maximum file size is 5
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