‘Planet of the Bass’ Gets a Full Music Video — With the Original Ms. Biljana Electronica

Miles Klee
·12 min read
planet of the bass world premiere planet of the bass world premiere.jpg - Credit: Toby Tenenbaum
planet of the bass world premiere planet of the bass world premiere.jpg - Credit: Toby Tenenbaum

If you’ve been online at all over the past two weeks, you’ve heard “Planet of the Bass,” a viral 1990s Eurodance parody that rapidly evolved from TikTok gag to, arguably, the song of the summer. Performed by comedian Kyle Gordon (who co-wrote the tune with TV writer Brooks Allison) and singer-songwriter Chrissi Poland, it purports to be a track from the ambiguously European duo of DJ Crazy Times and Ms. Biljana Electronica. Over infectious synthesizers and an irresistible club beat, the pair delivers nonsensical lyrics (“Life, it never die / Women are my favorite guy”) that function as both meme inspiration and enticement to lose your mind on the dance floor.

Until now, Gordon has only released three versions of the same 50-second snippet from the song, playing DJ Crazy Times in each while different women cycled through the role of Ms. Biljana Electronica — this according to genre convention, but a controversial choice nonetheless. Today, much to her ardent supporters’ joy, the “original” Biljana, social media star Audrey Trullinger, returns: after pushing up the release date due to popular demand, Gordon has finally released “Planet of the Bass” in full, with Trullinger starring alongside him in an expanded sci-fi music video that will blast you across every border of space and time. Here, Biljana takes on the role of an alien visitor studying Earth, taking a particular interest in our beloved DJ, of course, and just may help to bring about his dream of world peace:

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Ahead of his hotly anticipated world premiere, Rolling Stone caught up with Gordon to chat about overnight success, a forthcoming album, getting kicked out of New York’s Oculus mall, and why Aqua is more than the one-hit wonder that gave us “Barbie Girl.”

Tell me how this reaction has been. I mean, it seems huge.

It’s pretty crazy. Definitely did not expect this crazy reaction. I’ve been posting stuff on TikTok and Instagram, short form stuff, for a long time — but never has it reached this internet-takeover kind of level.

Why was everyone ready for the Eurodance Renaissance?

Good question! I can only guess. I’ve been posting videos as DJ Crazy Times since December 2020. Funny enough, I actually started doing this character in college. In 2013, there’s a recording of me — the intro track to my college a capella group [album] is me being DJ Crazy Times, hyping up the album, and it’s called Have Some Noise. This is a character I’ve been doing for a long, long time, so the timing is kind of coincidental. Maybe it has something to do with that 20-, 30-year nostalgia mark for this type of music, which seems to be a sweet spot. I wonder if the Barbie movie [had something to do with it]. Because of that, the “Barbie Girl” song is popular. And then you go out one layer more, this type of music is in the ether right now. So maybe people were primed to want to listen to more of it.

I also wonder if some of the themes of love and unity and sex are just are just what we need right now.

I wonder if now is a particular time people are craving that maybe a little more — that might be very well be true.

You’ve been doing this character, as you said, for for good long time now. What was the inspiration to make a fully fleshed-out track and music videos?

So this is the first single off a full album that’s going to come out in the fall. It’s called Kyle Gordon Is Great. And it’s in keeping with what I do online and always have done in my comedy, which is just a wide range of characters. But on this album, each song is a different is a parody of a different genre. So this was obviously the Nineties Eurodance track. And so I knew I had done this character. When I was going to do this album, I wanted to see if I could do a DJ Crazy Times track. Some of the other tracks on the album are an early-2000s, Martina McBride/Shania Twain, pop-country parody called “Girls Are the Best.” I’ve got a bossa nova parody, a pop-punk emo parody.

I think people are dying to know the story with Ms. Biljana Electronica.

It’s kind of nebulous. The singer is a very talented singer named Chrissi Poland. She is the woman who actually sings. And then the woman in the [first and last] video[s] is also a really talented actress and social media personality named Audrey Trullinger. What I was going for was that trope from those early Nineties Eurodance songs where they would like get a really talented singer and then just put a random model in the video to lips sync it. I was going for that vibe. Ms. Biljana Electronica, I’d say she’s more of a concept. I have an image of her in our mind she exists in our collective consciousness.

A good joke for the AI age. Now, about filming in the Oculus for the first video — you got kicked out of the mall?

Yes. I filmed it like I do all my regular videos. My brother, Sam Gordon, filmed it. And the only difference between this video and the normal videos was I bought a $30 gimbal [camera stabilizer]. And we shot it in cinematic mode on my phone. We just went into the Oculus and started running around. We first filmed the parts where I’m rapping to the camera, the beginning of my rap, more by the entrance to the subway. And then we were like running around the outskirts. We got kicked out when we started filming, like, right in the middle, as people are staring at us. We saw the security guards kind of eyeing us for a while. After a while they were like, “Yeah, you you can’t do this.” I guess “we are filming a TikTok” is not a is not a valid excuse for them. What we filmed was just for that one minute clip, because these were going to be social media teasers. [For the] actual music video we’re building real sets, and it’s going to be filmed. Ms. Biljana Electronica is going to be an alien on a spaceship with a bunch of aliens as her henchmen who are studying Earth.

Wow, we’re going even bigger picture. The Oculus kind of seems like a UFO already.

Exactly. My brother used to work around there. So when I’d go visit him, I’d walk through the Oculus, and it always seemed to me like somewhere they would shoot a scene in one of the Bourne movies or something. It’s what people thought the future would look like in 1989.

Can you explain to me the “Croatian” teaser that dropped after the first one? I was a little confused by this.

I did not expect this first video to go so bananas. So my initial plan was what I was saying about playing off those tropes, having an actual singer singing the track and then different actresses and models lip syncing in the videos. So that my thinking behind it. But yeah, that’s pretty much it.

The popularity of that first one makes it tough for the next model, because everyone’s like, “Where’s the original Ms. Biljana?” They miss her!

I know, I know. I did not expect people to be devoted to the original incarnation.

Did I see that you’re debuting the song in a live performance as well?

At Mood Ring, in Brooklyn, I’m going to be playing the song live. They have this Eurodance night on Thursdays, so yeah, I’m pretty excited to see how people respond to it actually in a live setting. It’s going to be DJ Crazy Times in his in his element.

Talk to me about this outfit that you wear in character, because I’m obsessed with the tactical vest. And are those actual goggles?

Those are swim goggles. I got temporary hair dye. I have these clip-on earrings. The pants are just my winter snow pants. The vest is actually — so for another video I did a few months ago I bought this [costume] just called “Army Man” on Amazon. It came with a full camo jumpsuit and that vest. And so yeah, I have just been wearing the vest from “Army Man.”

Will DJ Crazy Times ever actually DJ, or is he just a rap and hype man?

I would say never count anything out. He might have to learn how to DJ first. But yeah, once that happens, the sky’s the limit, I guess.

He’s got the raw talent.

He has the confidence for sure. If you give him the opportunity, he’ll just do it.

This has been going crazy across platforms, but I noticed that it seemed to really strike a chord on Twitter, even more than TikTok. Maybe it has to do with some of your lyrics — “Women are my favorite guy” is something I’ve been seeing every day. Where does that come from? Because it’s really resonating.

I did not expect that. I’m so glad that it’s the mantra of this. It’s hard for me to say where it came from, because my goal from the beginning was sort of incoherence. To be honest with you, I have no idea where I came up with that. But I knew there were certain phrases that are so specific to that era and genre. I knew I had to say the word “cyber.” I knew I wanted the full version to end with like a phone call outro between me and Biljana Electronica, and I wanted to say, “Sex on the phone.” There are certain phrases that I definitely want to slip in. But yeah, “Women are my favorite guy” has taken on a life of its own.

Some gender positivity thing happening there. Did you grow up with this kind of music? This is hitting a certain nostalgia for you as well, I imagine.

I’m 30, so I was born in 1992. When I was going to, like, bar and bat mitzvahs of older siblings in the late Nineties, I’d hear Haddaway and Aqua. It was sort of this ambient thing that was in the air. Also, I feel like in the Nineties, on pop radio, only one of these every now and then would actually break through. This weird thing that would peek through every once in a while, like “Barbie Girl” or “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” or “What Is Love?” It will always sound odd among the rest of American pop music. As I started to do this character more, I dug more and more into it. And it’s just the best. The DJ Crazy Times playlist has been my like running playlist for the past seven years. Aqua, Real McCoy, Culture Beat, Toy-Box. These groups are just so unambiguously fun.

Are you going to drop that playlist?

That’s the plan! Once the song drops. I’ve been building it out for four years now. So I’m ready to go with the official DJ Crazy Times playlist.

Is there any deep-cut dance jam that more people should know about?

It’s not so much of a deep cut, but after “Barbie Girl,” every song on Aquarium by Aqua is a masterpiece. So good, and [people] should listen to the whole album. I would say my new favorite song in this genre — I’ve been listening to it for a while but I just saw the music video, and it’s completely bananas — is called “Space Invaders,” by Hit‘n‘Hide, which is an incredible name. The song is an amazing relic of this genre and the music video is sort of what I’m going for [with “Planet of the Bass”]. The gruff rapping dude is an alien who gets teleported. You have to watch, it is bananas.

Did you have to move up your own music video release just because the song was such a monster hit right away?

One hundred percent. People were going to murder me. We were like, how much can we move it up? Still making sure everything’s in place with streamers and all that. People are now saying “song of the summer,” so I want as much summer [as possible] to be left when it releases.

Well, it’s a good problem to have.

When they hear the full song, there’s a lot more. In particular, there’s the intro and outro to the song, those are particularly insane. More stuff that people will be psyched for.

More lore, more mythology. That’s exactly what we want. So you got it right.

Awesome.

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