When growing up, there are certain things that we simply assumed were factual – like Santa being real or stepping on pavement cracks being a sure-fire way of breaking our backs. One of these universal facts included Jamelia‘s “Superstar” being an original tune, or, in the words of Gaga, “totally unique, completely not ever been done before, unafraid to reference or not reference, put it in a blender, shit on it, vomit on it, eat it, give birth to it.” You catch my drift.
Well, I was today years old when I found that Jamelia’s “Superstar” – responsible for making my 8-year-old bussy pop when when watching Rage every Saturday morning – is, in fact, not an OG banger. *Universal gasp* I know, I know – life as we know it has now deceased.
I was scrolling through my feed this morning when I came across a tweet containing a rendition of ‘Superstar’ that I’d never seen before, with lyrics that made me gasp. “You must be some kind of superstar,” the singer crooned, “’cause you move like you’ve got some kind of choreographer.” Behold, tweet:
Do you think Jamelia’s version of Superstar still would’ve been a hit had she retained the terrible lyrics of the original pic.twitter.com/lnZi5c4mnp
— Nick Bond (@bondnickbond) February 17, 2020
What is this random singer doing – I thought to myself – and why the heck are they trying to steal Jamelia’s thunder? With ‘choreographer’ in the lyrics?
And then it hit me, like a nostalgic slap to the face – this was the original tune. “Superstar” was originally released in 2002 by Danish pop star Christine Milton and spent 7 weeks atop the Danish charts.
In the words of my co-worker (and ultimate truth-teller) Courtney, “this is NOT what I got top score on SingStar for”.
Jamelia then covered the bop a year later, causing the tune to go worldwide, including a short stint atop the ARIA charts. It’s kind of like when you say a joke and no one hears it, then someone repeats your joke and gets a whole lot of laughs from the group. Or like, when someone takes your tweet and it goes viral. That being said, I completely understand why Jamelia’s version went global – I mean, the 00’s queen bodied “Superstar” and rightfully promoted the tune to the upper echelons of slapworthy anthems from my childhood.
Both versions are iconic, in my humble opinion, apart from that one ‘choreographer’ line… too many damn syllables.
Sleep paralysis but it’s just choreographaaaaaar on repeat for 4 hours. Bye.
