Music for Imaginary Dishes

Artist: Arling and Cameron
Album: Music for Imaginary Films
Released in: 2000
Liner Notes: copious

Arling and Cameron are two very silly Dutch producers. They wrote some amazing songs for some other very silly bands (Pizzicato Five - Arigato, Fantastic Plastic Machine - Bachelor Pad). They also write their own rather silly material (Voulez-Vous, How About the Boys, both successfully used in national advertising campaigns... which means they are two very silly rich Dutch producers). And then there's this album.

It really is a collection of music for imaginary films and television shows -- the liner notes provide posters, casts and tongue-in-cheek critical discussion of each extremely silly fake flick. There's 1999 Space Club (70's disco), Le Flic et la Fille (60's French noir), Hashi the Drug Sniffing Canine (action TV series), W.E.E.K.E.N.D. (70's teen TV series with a sugary theme song that I can't get enough of), etc. The actual music is surprisingly cohesive (the drum tracks are standard late 90's / early 00's breaks), often witty (the parody of dub in the Hashi theme), and really great to dance to. The songs also hold up well outside of their original context - I've successfully used two of them on mixes: Le Flic et la Fille on Hey Daddyo (a mix for my dad - Happy Father's Day!) and Zona Sul (cocktail mix) on Cocktail? (a mix for cocktail parties). There's no denying that this is a novelty album, but it remains a joy to listen to because of its sense of fun and its fearlessness about being utterly silly.