You know, there is a list of songs that no matter how many times you hear it they will just never go away. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing though… ‘Come Together’, ‘I Will Always Love You’, ‘Mad World’, and ‘Crimson and Clover’ you can’t deny it; they’re all classics and all have amazing covers done of them by some of the biggest artists in the world. When I found out that French pop superstar M. Pokora had a take on ‘December 1963 (Oh What a Night)’ (originally by The Four Seasons) in French, I had to take a look.
Now, this is quite a twist to the M.Pokora that many know and love. Taking a step back from his typical upbeat modern pop that has made him a household name in his native France, this funky feel good tune is gaining traction thanks to the explosion of “Uptown Funk”.
When it comes to covers it’s easy to criticize because sometimes there will be an element that feels like karaoke. Then the flair of the artist gets lost when it’s a direct cover. Yet, with M.Pokora there is a an element that transcends my criticism of covers, as he is bringing a classic to the ears of a young generation that needs to get a history lesson at how good it was. Disco isn’t dead. It’s only starting to come back! You can hear it in even some of the Top 40 today, with little elements starting to creep their way back into our eardrums.
With a little brass band and dancing to highlight the song, you have an instant classic video. It’s as Pokora has immersed himself back into the time where visuals weren’t needing to be overly theatric to get high quality entertainment. With this video in particular, I see not much of a difference from some of his more recent videos. M.Pakora is an instant showman. If you want to see how a proper video should be done, or how they “used” to do it…check out ‘Cette Année La’