Never dream of cardboard again
Manon, I fancy a wiepie on the balcony
ManonThe Youth of Today (2015)
As Tim den Besten in 2015 for 3for12 Radio The Youth of Today loosely – he has a big hangover – interviews about their new record, Manon, he naturally asks who that is, Manon. Record label Top Notch has already hinted in a swollen press release. Manon is none other than the ideal woman.
The useful addition comes from Vieze Fur/Vjèze Fur, one of the rappers and singers of De Jeugd. Manon likes to photoshop her own face and put it on social media, he tells Den Besten. Further: ‘Manon has beautiful hair.’ The conclusion: ‘Manon is Manon.’
In the title track, witty rhyme of likmevestje dominates and electro beats provide entertainment. Manon’s hair color is ‘chestnut-mushroom’. With the exception of a ‘wiepie on the balcony’ everything remains tidy.
Ten years earlier, Willie Wartaal, Vieze Fur and Faberyayo (with producer Bas Bron) had kicked off with a record based on rap and beats, Pearls before swine with the hit What happened?! In 2015 it was time for something new. The time of a song where “all kinds of cunts have to take to the dance floor and clap their pussies” (the rough Applause) was apparently over.
One member of De Jeugd had become a father, the others would soon follow. Brought into the great twilight zone between seriousness and fun of De Jeugd Manon confusion in the fanbase as well. Never before has the band sounded as subdued as on the fifth album. The double bottom had largely disappeared.
Reviewer Gijsbert Kamer inquired de Volkskrant a little worried whether the men, now in their thirties, had outgrown the fun and mischief. True, they hadn’t become sentimental old farts yet, he concluded with relief, but they were close. Elsewhere the word ‘best before’ was used, usually not a good sign either.
Manon, the album, was created in Brussels, where De Jeugd van Today retreated for a month to a hotel with a temporary studio. The partners of the gentlemen stayed at home. Perhaps it was because of this that, when the wheat had been separated from the chaff after all the shots, an all-encompassing theme unexpectedly presented itself: the woman.
Everyone wanted to know who Manon was and everyone got a different answer. In an interview in Fidelity she was ‘the blueprint woman’ and ‘an example for every woman’. Vjèze Fur also had the most fun here: ‘Manon is someone who takes you in your convertible to drive slowly towards France. With a piece of cheese.’
The album was presented in a favorite room of the men, Tivoli Vredenburg in Utrecht. The pop stage had previously been razed to the ground by Utrechter Henk Westbroek and he called it a bottomless, leaking subsidy pit.
They didn’t let that happen. At the presentation, everyone in the room wore a T-shirt with a very De Jeugd van Today-like text: ‘West Henk Broek’.
John & Paul