Caramelldansen O-o-oa-oa O-o-oa-oa-a-a

Hello AAA community, it’s been longer then I like. The reason? COLDS SUCK! Anyways now that my rant is over I am here to enlighten you. But first it is story time. SO school has started for me, and it isn’t bad but isn’t great. So after I get home I work on my homework usually listening to some nice trance music to relax and suddenly Caramelldansen pops on and that song is not relaxing. So after homework I went to Wikipedia the pit where all bored people and I decided to get my otaku on and learn all about caramelldansen, and yes I will be listening to Caramelldansen the whole time I am writing this. SAVE ME!

So if I’m like any of my other otaku counterparts I’ve heard the song over 9000!!!! times, done the dance OVER 9000!!!! times, and of course facepalmed OVER 9000!!!! times. Still I know nothing about the actual song so let’s start with the basics. The song Caramelldansen is by the music group Caramell, a Swedish pop group. The song was released in November 2001 and was the first track on the album Supergott. The characters from the original Caramelldansen clip were characters from the visual novel Popotan which was released in 2002 and had an anime based off of it in 2003. After the anime was made GIF animation clips were created from the anime and game and were then posted on the internet and found their way to 4chan and other forums. The oldest referce to these gifs was found on Animesuki from the thread “Most kawaii intro” which was started on November 14 2003. A year later on the livingwithstyle.com forum’s a user named “TheMadCountess” made a thread called “Anime Animated Gifs [NOT 56K Friendly]” and posted three links to different Popotan links. These gifs were then used and abused as time went on having music and other things added to them. The oldest being from conectr.com from a user called “punkfreak”. Then Sven from Sweden (not trying to make a joke… well kinda) got his hands on the flash loop and made the original Caramelldansen flash loop which he then spread across the internet where it immediately took hold. Here is an interview that a man named Ruakuu (I am using his blog as a reference. You will be thanked and cited at the end!) had with him.

‘Can you tell me how this idea was put together and where did you post it first?

“The gif-animation was, if I remember correctly, taken from /gif/ at 4chan. I tried some different tracks, found the song that I thought was appropriate, fiddled a bit in Audacity and added it to my page along with all the other loops. And as I wrote on Wikipedia, I didn’t know the loop had started such a meme until just a couple of months ago, which took me totally by surprise. As I added the loop to /f/ on 4chan at the same time I added it to my page, there is a big chance that the majority of views and spread is thanks to 4chan.”

Did you use the sped up version of the Caramell song made by Speedycake or it’s just coincidence it came out almost at the same time?

“About the song, I had the full album of Caramell in my music collection (where I got it from the beginning I don’t really remember, but a qualified guess would be that I got it from a friend through a LAN/filesharing-gathering). I had never heard of the Speedycake-remix until I read the Wikipedia entry.”

“Well the loop turned out a little over the top, very “cute” and very “japanish”, which made it look like something that actually could have originated from Japan (in my own opinion anyway). I then added “ANIME LOL!” (actually reads “ANIME LOL KAWAII ^_^” now, since I had to rewrite the whole site thanks to a server crash a while back) as the title of the page, to give it even more “over the top” feeling. That the loop became popular, especially in Japan, I find quite ironic. :)”

Have you had any interviews asking about this?

“Regarding media interviews, I don’t really think there is much more to the “story”, but of course if there is any interest I’m willing to answer their questions. But for now I don’t think the media care too much for the original story. :p”’

So that is how the original Caramelldansen was made, but all of us are more familiar with the Speedycake remix (the cake is not a lie this time!). Dj Speedycake by this time in 2006 had released the sped up version of our beloved Caramelldansen. I go back to Ruakuu who also interviewed Dj Speedycake.

‘Where does your name come from?

“The name comes from my normal internet alias and then tacking on speedy in front of it after a few live mix sessions that mostly were in the 150+ BPM range. I thought it was suitable at the time. The place where I started my net broadcasts was the first incarnation of #/b/radio located at the Rizon IRC network”

When did you released the sped up song and where did you post it first?

“The song was created on an accidental mixing mistake where I was transitioning the song, completely neglecting to check the BPM difference and turning on the key pitch lock. So when it came for me to start the track, well it was squeaky and high pitched. After the broadcast I had several requests for the song, however the song didn’t really exist in the form that I mixed it in so I released it under the same sped up conditions and posted it on the /b/radio BBS (4chan). From there the song spread onto 4chan’s /flash/ board from which it was almost a daily thing for people to request what song it was and a link to download it which I supplied”’

And from there Caramelldansen took over the internet. Yet we still have one more interesting part to our story. Stay tuned for the next release… I’m just joking. We now go off to Japan and the Uma-Uma-Dance (ウマウマダンス). The Japanese have a funny way of misinterpreting things. The famous chorus which contains “uma” sounds very much like the Jpanese word for umai or yummy, ume or nice, or even uma or horse. Also the part of the lyrics Dansa med oss, klappa era händer” (“Dance with us, clap your hands”) sounds like Barusamiko-su Yappa irahen de” (translated as “ don’t want any balsamic vinegar after all” in Kansai dialect). Quake Inc. a Japanese music distibuter gained the rights to distribute the sped up version of Caramelldansen in April 2008. Then in May the album ranked number 1 on the international music chart for 2 weeks.

Sadly Caramell disbanded in 2002 but has stated they felt it was time to move on, but are very pleased to have one of their songs break through like Caramelldansen.

So now countless repeats of Carmelldansen later I near my conclusion, just three things left. I would like to thank Ruakuu for his information and interviews of which I claim no credit. His blog along with links can be found at http://ruakuu.blogspot.com/2008/06/caramelldansen-history-complete.html. I would also like to thank Wikipedia but my school doesn’t count Wiki as a source. Also be sure to check out http://www.caramellagirls.com/ the official page of the carmella girls, the creators of Caramelldansen with merchandise and English versions of some of their songs. Lastly…

We wonder are you ready to join us now
hands in the air
we will show you how
come and try
caramell will be your guide

So come and move your hips sing wha-a-a
look at hips, do it La-la-la
you and me can sing this melody

Oh-wa-a-a-a
Dance to the beat
Wave your hands together
Come feel the heat forever and forever
Listen and learn it is time for prancing
Now we are here with caramel dancing

O-o-oa-oa
O-o-oa-oa-a-a
O-o-oa-oa
O-o-oa-oa-a-a

Sincerely and trolly,

Folium