Don’t Talk to the Cops – “Gimme That ’80s Butt”

Dadaism is a thing that gets thrown around a lot these days in the worlds of literature and indie rock, but you don’t hear it applied to hip-hop all that often. That’s too bad, because as Seattle’s Don’t Talk to the Cops prove, hip-hop and Dadaism are two cultural forces that come together pretty damn well.

The last significant salvo DTC shot across the bow of the internet was the magnificently weird “Big Ass Head,” an infectious, goofy single that stood perfectly well on its own but morphed into something altogether more splendid in video form. Treats Club visionary Derek Erdman wasn’t exactly drawing moustaches on the Mona Lisa, but he was exploring a similar collision between goofiness and beauty by throwing random illustrations and debris atop the shoulders of a stylish, leggy dancer as DTC’s Biz Markie-like sonic shenanigans played out in the background.

DTC’s new video for “Gimme That ’80s Butt” is essentially as minimalist, except now there are more dancers, less illustrations and the beat forgoes melancholic humor in favor of a chopped up industrialization. The song and the video are like an Interview magazine take on Major Lazer and Eric Wareheim’s “Bubble Butt,” as Gray Matter Productions suck the color and plastic out of the proceedings in favor of a vogue audition for more fashionable derrieres. Major Lazer’s got the kitchen sink approach on lock down, but the pop pranksters in DTC dig the repetition and aren’t afraid to show it. There’s barely even a verse let alone a chorus, just a hypnotic groove, some choice vocal manipulations as hooks and a whole lotta fun. At the end of the day, I still don’t know what an ’80s butt is, but I like it when I see it.
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Nick Hanover got his degree from Disneyland, but he’s the last of the secret agents and he’s your man. Which is to say you can find his particular style of espionage here at Loser City as well as Ovrld, where he contributes music reviews and writes a column on undiscovered Austin bands.  You can also flip through his archives at  Comics Bulletin, which he is formerly the Co-Managing Editor of, and Spectrum Culture, where he contributed literally hundreds of pieces for a few years. Or if you feel particularly adventurous, you can always witness his odd .gif battles with Dylan Garsee on twitter: @Nick_Hanover