Las Ketchup The Ketchup Song

Indie talk: Carrie Haber

In between gigging at London's hippest bars, the colourful singer spares fives minutes to tell Ramona Depares all about her music.

The bubbly readhead has come a long way since she left our shores to pursue her dream in London. With THAT voice, that vibrant personality and the sheer love for life and music that she somehow portrays while on stage, it was obvious the girl would go places and would do so fast. Add a very quirky – and in my humble opinion adorable – style that is as far removed from the usual, mass-produced MTV look that most musicians nowadays sport, and you have a total winner.

Yes, I'm star-struck. Go on, listen to the woman's voice and you'll be as star-struck as me. In the meantime, you can get the gossip straight from the horse's mouth. If only horses' mouths were so pretty, of course.

How do you describe your music?

In lots of ways. Dramatic, light hearted, comic, deep, cynical, emotional, metaphorical, theatrical, dark, truthful, comforting, quirky, shocking, demanding, urgent, challenging and a heck of a lot of fun! My music is a rollercoaster ride of life experiences and thoughts that no one would care to own up to. Even though they are thinking those thoughts right now.

Which bands/musicians influence you?

Tori Amos, Regina Spektor, Imogen Heap, Damian Rice, Mumford & Sons, Marina & The Diamonds, Goldfrapp, Radiohead, Nosnow/Noalps, System of a Down, Ingrid Michaelson, Franz Ferdinand, Queens of the Stone Age, The Dresden Dolls, Elbow, Kaiser Chiefs, Laura Marling, Arctic Monkeys, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Bon Iver, Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven, Hans Zimmer, Joni Mitchell, The Beatles and many more.

What was the first CD/cassette tape you ever bought?

The Corrs - Talk On Corners

Your top three albums ever and why?

Goldfrapp's "Felt Mountain" – because it's got a life of its own. It's like the most beautiful painting I've ever "heard". Tori Amos' "To Venus and Back" – it contains a compilation of some of her best songs as well as a live CD . and if I lose the live CD I would feel as if a part of myself went missing. The third favourite is Blur's "Midlife: A Beginners Guide to Blur" – it's my moving-house album!

Do you sing in the shower?

Rarely.

A song you hate and why?

Hate is a strong word. Hmm, I'd have to go with 'The Ketchup Song' by Las Ketchup. *Shivers*.

Greatest Un-Hits: Las Ketchup's "The Ketchup Song" (2002) | Popdose

Under its actual, original, Spanish-language title of “Asereje,” “The Ketchup Song” is one of the biggest pop hits everywhere in the world except America ever. It’s like the soccer of music, or the Fanta of music. Simple, palatable, inoffensive, and yet impossible for it to make it in the states. Actually, Las Ketchup themselves remind me of the Fanta Girls, that ill-conceived corny-sexy excessively Euro ad campaign that appealed only to Europeans used to shill that stuff that they used to make Americans want to drink weird foreign pineapple soda.

Obviously, the point of comparison here is the Macarena, as both are Spanish, Spain-originated, highly catchy songs with an accompanying stupid-easy dance. But this came out in 2002, which was about five years after Macarena saturation and overload— 14 weeks at #1 for the Los Del Rio song, every goddamn wedding and  team building company retreat ever after for the dance. Also, things were good in the summer of ’96, the summer of the Macarena: the economy was good, we weren’t involved in any wars. In 2002, we were far too dark-spirited with high terror alerts and high unemployment to cheese out on a wacky foreign song and its wacky foreign dance. But really, we were still sick of the Macarena.

It’s completely cheesy, completely forgettable, dumb fun Euro dance nonsense. Which means it was spread across Europe like disease-inflected fleas on medieval rats. “Asserjé” went to #1 in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, The Netherlands, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and Spain of course, and also Japan. They even made a version of the song partially in English and partially in Spanish. The entire rest of the English-speaking world, the whole of the Commonwealth, ate it up. The Spanglish version went to #1 in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and Canada.

The record label lazily and cynically renamed it “The Ketchup Song” for non-English speakers. The group is a sister act (they’re the Spanish Corrs!) and are the daughters of flamenco guitarist Juan Munoz, nicknamed El Tomate, so, you know, ketchup. Without knowing this joke though, “Ketchup” in a song doesn’t make sense and it’s kind of gross. It just conjures up images of messy babies, pig rectum-filled hot dogs, and Teresa Heinz Kerry, not foxy girl groups and line dances.

West's federal reporter, cases argued and determined in the United States courts of appeals and Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals

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