Accordions and a Bad Katy Perry Cover Equals World Fame for Ukrainian Band 'Los Colorados' (Лос Колорадос)

Ukrainian pop act "Los Colorados"  (Лос Колорадос) may have single-handedly sealed Ukraine's fate as a nation that will never rule the world, and with just one video.

Their live televised version of Katy Perry's 2008 hit "Hot N Cold" features everything we in the West feared more than anything during the entire Cold War: Hideous attempts at popular music.

This is surely one of the worst yet most amusing attempts to perform any song ever, let alone cover a major pop hit by a major Western performer. Or is it?

Perhaps not. Maybe it's the most ... ingenious. It's so damned bad that it's actually good. You can just watch it once. Like a bad car crash, you can't seem to look away. That, however, is only one video. The band is actually NOT at all like what we seem in this video. Rather, they are solid rockers, having a sound not unlike the Beasty Boys, as you can see in these videos recorded at the Festival Slavske Rock in 2011 and posted on the band's own website.

These boys are pranksters, you see...


In the video above, the accordion-anchored band seems to be in a television studio. A morning talk show, perhaps? You can see a crawl across the bottom, along with the local temperature (2 degrees Celsius). A green cloth serves as the backdrop, clumsily draped behind the four young men of Los Colorados. Bad furniture on bad carpeting serves as the only props in the video.

https://www.facebook.com/LosColorados

Weird closeups of Adam's apples and a second-hand musical instruments give a weird charm to this bizarre performance, obviously considered good enough to be put on television in the Ukraine. After watching the Katy Perry cover a couple of times, I realized that these guys are spoofing her, not emulating her. They've played a marvelous joke, managing to simultaneously poke fun at Perry's bubblegum pop music style and also at traditional Ukrainian folk music.

Los Colorados just might be getting the last laugh. The video I've embedded here has had 1,663,521 views (as of January 16, 2012, 02:38 UTC). They are certainly getting notoriety, and that's a big deal. Suppose Katy Perry decided to do do record a video of this polka-style version of her monster hit with Los Colorado? Suppose a European music promoter decides that these guys are worth putting on tour opening for bigger acts just because they've gotten massive YouTube exposure?

According to an entry on Wikipedia, "Los Colorados (from the Spanish: The colorado potato beetles, also known as The Colorados) is a Ukrainian band formed in 2006 in Ternopil. The band play their own songs, but have also covered a few popular and folk songs. Los Colorados increased in prominence after their cover of Katy Perry's song "Hot n Cold" grew popular via online video websites. The band plays guitar, [accordion], bass guitar and drums."

Suppose I'm wrong, and this actually cements Ukraine's place as a future world superpower? Not likely, but there's something about this band's spirit that I like. Here's to Los Colorados!