We’ve finally landed on The Planet of the Bass.
After weeks of online hype and several controversial teasers, comedian Kyle Gordon’s—excuse me, DJ Crazy Times’—overdue entry for song of the summer, “Planet of the Bass,” is finally here. The full track hit streaming platforms on Tuesday, with the OG Ms. Biljana Electronica back in the picture.
Whether or not you’re familiar with the song’s grammatically confounding lyrics (like “All of the dreams… How does it mean?” and “Women are my favorite guy”) or know anything about the controversy surrounding the song’s “female vocalist” probably depends on how much time you spent on TikTok and Twitter over the past three weeks. So let’s get you up to speed.
ADVERTISEMENT
On July 28, Gordon dropped a 51-second preview of his latest parody with the caption “every Eurodance song in the 1990s” on TikTok, where he’s amassed 3.1 million followers. The video shows Gordon dressed as his vaguely European, magenta-haired DJ character and the song’s featured singer Biljana Electronica, played by actress Audrey Trullinger, dancing, lip-syncing, and fist-pumping around The World Trade Center’s Oculus to the synth-heavy banger. In the following days, the snippet spread like wildfire on social media, with listeners eagerly awaiting the full song’s arrival.
In the interim, Gordon and his viral spoof received widespread coverage with write-ups in The New York Times, GQ, Variety, and Interview Magazine. A few days ago, Amy Poehler posted a TikTok duet with the song. The Brooklyn comedian also dropped two additional teasers where Trullinger was noticeably replaced by two other actresses—the second starred yoga influencer Mara Olney and the third featured popular TikToker Sabrina Brier.
Each new Biljana brought on a wave of confusion and outrage from fans of the original TikTok. Meanwhile, Gordon and others on social media pointed out that the replacements were simply a meta flourish based on the tendency of Eurodance groups to swap out their female singers with random models in music videos. (For what it’s worth, the actual vocalist in the recording is singer-songwriter Chrissi Poland.)
Now that the full “Planet of the Bass” has been unleashed into the world, fans are greeting the song and its outer space-themed music video with equal parts enthusiasm, disappointment, and exhaustion.
To be fair, three weeks is a nearly punishing amount of time to make listeners wait for a song these days, especially when its chorus is already inescapable on the internet—and when arguably the catchiest parts of the song were already previewed in the teasers.
Still, the full-length track does a solid job expanding on its goofiness and giving listeners more befuddling phrases to commit to memory. “If you want parties to be making, have some noise—Bratislava!” DJ Crazy Times screams at ear-splitting volume at the start of the tune. “Oh, I’ve got an idea. World Peace!” is a delightfully stupid gem, as is, “Heaven is a time today.”
In his interview with The New York Times, Gordon posited whether the song would ironically become an actual hit. Given the increasing number of Eurodance samples in pop music and the overall revival of dance music, the reality of listeners earnestly blasting “Planet of the Bass” at parties and in their cars—if they aren’t already—certainly seems plausible. “If it starts off as ironic but people genuinely love it—and let’s say it does chart—at a certain point the irony has to wear off,” he told the publication.
In the words of the internet’s new favorite DJ, let’s hope it never dies.
