“All I wanna do, all I wanna do, all I wanna do is touch you…”
Danielle Jane Minogue, Queen of Clubs™, is taking a look back – back to a time when everybody changed underwater, when we disremembered, and when we got everything we wanted.
The year was 1997, the album was Girl, and Dannii was about to rocket to the top of the UK charts at the end of summer with her Brian Higgins co-produced lead single and “comeback” track, “All I Wanna Do,” a lusty dance-pop ode that stands the test of time, over twenty years later.
The accompanying music video is the stuff of glossy, bright ’90s pop perfection (reference certainly intended), including a pre-Britney Rolling Stone corded phone-in-bed moment, some goldfish play and, of course, some ancient World Wide Web cyber sessions. You can almost hear the shrieking 56K modem in the background as these dudes hungrily watch the pixelated pop princess do her digital tease.
The song’s success would not only provide Brian the opportunity to co-write on Cher‘s game-changing “Believe” a year later and pave the way in pop with Xenomania, his hallowed pop production troupe responsible for endless smashes, but would elevate Dannii to new heights with her first Top 5 hit in the UK, as well as kicking off Dannii’s dozen-plus Dance Charts reign.
“Producer Brian Higgins had written a song called ‘All I Wanna Do,’ which I thought was OK when I heard it, but I wasn’t exactly jumping up and down about it. Everyone else, however, thought it was a hit…thankfully, I did try it, and ‘All I Wanna Do’ went hurtling to number four on the charts on its release in August 1997; my ‘comeback’ single was my highest chart position to date. You can’t always be right, you know,” she amusingly recalls in her book, Dannii: My Story. (Go read it, you’re at home – you have the time.)
Fast forward to the summer of 2020, and things are…well, different.
On Wednesday (June 24), Dannii released the “2020” version of her Girl lead single, released “in a ‘hands off’ world,” as she describes the current climate. And suddenly, a phrase like “all I wanna do is touch you” feels oddly fitting for a time when human touch feels especially taboo.
The subdued version of the track was created with Masked Singer Australia composer and bandmate Dorian West and constant collaborator Ian Masterson, filled out with hypnotic acoustic guitars, a rerecorded vocal with beautiful harmonies and atmospheric background sounds. Never one to be predicable, Dannii takes the track into new territory around the midway mark (“hold me ’til the eeeeeeend!“), launching into more experimental electronica territory. In fact, it even evokes a hint of Madonna‘s “Bedtime Story” around the 2:15 mark.
The rework was made for this year’s Pride Month 2020.
“This is a completely new take on ‘All I Wanna Do’ for 2020 – a year when, globally, we’ve not been able to hold and touch the ones we love. All I want to do with this track is spread some sparkly cheer for Global Pride 2020. Wherever you are in the world, Pride celebrations this year will be vastly different to what we would have anticipated even six months ago. My hope is we can still connect with one another and create some memories that comfort us and bring smiles,” Disco D says.
The Dannii takeover of 2020 extends to the homeland (Australia) as well: Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is using “All I Wanna Do” to soundtrack their virtual parade for Global Pride this weekend.
Plus, there’s a new EP coming – All I Wanna Do 2020 – The Remixes – with new remixes from Trouser Enthusiasts and celebrated singer/songwriter and friend to the pod/blog, Bright Light Bright Light.
“I can’t quite believe it’s been 23 years since I did the Trouser Enthusiasts mixes on the original release of ‘All I Wanna Do’. It seems our sound has come full circle again and now a new generation of clubbers are discovering pop trance. It was exciting to brush off the cobwebs and get back on the dance floor. Dannii and I have made a lot of music in the intervening years so it’s a joy to return to where we first started out and update this track for 2020,” Ian says.
“Getting to remix one of my favourite songs, by one of my favourite artists, during Pride Month, is absolutely one of the most fun things that’s happened to me! I imagined myself on Fire Island drinking cocktails in the sun, and the remix kind of made itself, Dannii’s voice is so perfect draped in disco sounds,” adds BLBL.
While a new record of fresh club bangers would be a welcome distraction amid quarantine (Club Disco, Vol. 2, please), this is still a gorgeous gift for the Dannii Stanniis. And, if she’d like to stay on brand pandemic-appropriate reinventions of her myriad club classics, perhaps we’ll get “(Don’t) Touch Me Like That” and the “Dirty Hands, I Absolutely Don’t Demand” pandemic remix of “Put the Needle On It.” A boy can dream.
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