Denmark’s electric-pop sensation Vinnie Who is back with dance moves better than ever! According to the promotional material on Vegaøs website, their new album Midnight Special, with its nostalgic disco grooves, “is even better than the first album”. That’s some claim!
Of course, the lead singer Niels Bagge didn’t become a star overnight. After completing his upper-secondary education, the then 20-year-old took his first synthesiser and Macbook to his parent’s basement and began working towards his two-year goal to release an album and perform at Roskilde Festival. Although the young Bagge had no connections in the music business, he was in no doubt of his future success.
“I decided to bet everything on it: to just sit down every day and write songs and to continually improve,” he told Politiken. “I made the agreement with my father, so he understood that I was serious. It meant I could get up every morning, go to the mirror and look myself in the eye and ask myself: What are you doing today? You should write songs! Do not sit and play ‘Counter Strike’ on your computer or something else.”
His intensive music making set the foundation for his career, and in the end it took considerably less than two years for the introverted Bagge to transform himself into the outgoing disco prince we know today.
The now 25-year-old singer is uniquely defined by his falsetto vocals and nostalgic disco-pop. Channelling early 1980s Michael Jackson and Prince, he often sports a black punk-do, high-waisted white jeans and killer dance moves that are nothing short of dapper.
Bagge clearly holds Jackson in high esteem. “Obviously nobody can perform like him,” explained Bagge to Politiken. “But what the hell … he is brilliant, so you might as well steal some of his tricks!”
The princes of pop aren’t his only inspiration. As a member of the rock crowd during his school days, he found it embarrassing to listen to pop music. He was particularly into Radiohead and Britpop.
“I love music that is sexy, lost, naive, self-confident, warm, cool, electronic and organic at the same time,” he told GAFFA magazine. “Paradoxes are my favourite.”
However, Bagge would be nothing without the eight-piece band that completes Vinne Who.
“I wouldn’t like to rely completely on myself, and that’s how it should be,” he told GAFFA. “If you get too confident, you could become like R Kelly!”
Taking into consideration all of their recent acclaim, it’s no doubt that Vinnie Who will win over the crowd at their sold-out show at Lille Vega. Check internet forums for tickets.
Vinnie Who
Lille Vega, Enghavevej 40, Cph V
Thu 21:00
150kr, www.billetnet.dk
