Keen to capitalise on the ironic internet popularity of classic banger Sandstorm by Darude, American singer and actress Bette Midler will release an Avicii-produced acoustic version ahead of a special comeback show at XS Nightclub in Las Vegas.
“I’ve always loved that song, it’s got such emotional depth while also being an uplifting floor filler,” confirmed Midler from the Las Vegas VIP area where she lives with Barbra Streisand. “I remember the first time I heard it, I was at a New York rooftop party listening to David Holmes play one of his famously eclectic sets when I heard some belligerent drunk repeatedly shouting for Darude Sandstorm to be played.”
“I glanced over to see who was being rude only to spot Keanu Reeves off his nut with his cock out, covered in lumious bodypaint clutching a bottle of Jim Beam whiskey into which he was dropping lumps of mandy,” explained Midler, who says she now laughs at the memory but at the time remembered being disappointed in Keanu’s penis. “I almost didn’t recognise him at first because his face was making expressions and not stuck in the same wooden frown like usual.”
“Eventually Holmes just tutted, switched off whatever U2 remix he was playing and dropped the needle on Sandstorm,” continued Midler while racking out generous, Hollywood-royalty sized lines of cocaine. “My life changed for ever that day, from the first dididida and the drop of the beat I knew music would never sound the same again.”
“I knew then what Keanu had known all along,” she added. “It was a proper banger, a timeless piece of music history that it’s taken me 16 long years to work up the courage to cover.”
Midler claims the cover version will be entirely acapella, with her performing the main riff using only her own hoarse beatboxing skills while Avicii stands behind her setting off fireworks and holding his hands out like Christ.
“It’s the best thing I’ve ever worked on,” admitted Avicii. “It’s the sound I was trying to create with country EDM. Midler just nailed it, she burst into my dressing room at a show, slapped the drink from my hand, looked me dead in the eye and asked me did we want to make music history together…then she started grunting the main riff from Sandstorm.”
“It was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard, after she’d finished and wiped the spittle off both of our faces I broke down and cried,” he added. “I just want the world to hear the sound of a husky old woman’s gristly voice grunting the entire melody of Darude Sandstorm.”
Midler claims that the track will be released later this summer to coincide with her deep house residency at XS in Vegas and will be released on Steve Aoki’s Dim Mak label.
“The track is probably the best thing ever released on that label,” concluded Midler, “and it pisses all over Wind Beneath My Wings.”
