Ok, forget ‘Electrica Salsa’, THIS is my new favourite mid-80’s Sven Väth masterpiece… [September 1986]

As dance music memes go, Sven Väth’s Electrica Salsa takes some beating.

The video for the track, recorded during Sven’s period as the lead vocalist in German pop group OFF (Organisation For Fun) is a stonewall classic: nonsense lyrics – “Ba-ba, ba Baaa!” – a bierkeller full of confused Germans, and an iconic part where Sven gets groovy with a robot (check out 1:50).

But the same year Sven hit the big time, he recorded a track with OFF bandmates Luca Anzilotti and Michael Münzing (who would later go on to form Snap!), who were performing under the name 16-Bit.

I argue that their debut single tops even Electrica Salsa in terms of nostalgic Euro brilliance.

The video for Where Are You?, which seems to be set in the Medieval Zone of the Crystal Maze, kicks off with Sven pulling off some serious shapes in a black tunic, as a sombre-looking Anzilotti looms in the background.

At around 1:49, however, the track really gets going, as the spoken word dialogue begins – “I know the remedy for your sickness!” – with a clearly perturbed Sven responding in kind, “Where are you?”

It’s a New Beat masterpiece, and we reckon it still has the power to wreck the dancefloor (perhaps with a stronger 4/4 and a bit of mastering).

As for Sven… well, as we all know, the artist we now lovingly know as ‘Papa’ is doing just fine. 🙂

[Kudos to Benito Benites and alexosg for the YouTube uploads]

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