HEY! LISTEN: Fortuan — “Champagne”

Based out of Bratislava, Slovakia, Fortuan hails from a place that (likely) most of us have never been to. But they’re dishing out some very familiar sounds in “Champagne.” The band is prepping for the follow-up to their 2018 EP and, judging by “Champagne,” it’s going to be ambitious. The song begins with a mellow folk-rock lilt that’ll get caught in your head for weeks, swelling into a crescendo with a direct homage to David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” There are so many ways it could go wrong, but in Fortuan’s capable hands it works well.

Fortuan’s Jakub Hančin had a lengthy explanation for the song: “You all probably know the famous song ‘Hotel California’ by the Eagles, that describes the fake consumer era of Hollywood. The narrator describes how a person ends up in a hotel with fake people that you cannot exit. The song was written in the 70s and its lyrics are a great metaphor praised by all kinds of music critics.The narrator represents the generation of our fathers and grandfathers who ended up shocked by the consumer fakeness phenomenon.

“You all probably know the song ‘Space Oddity’ by David Bowie as well. It describes the lonely journey of an astronaut who at the end of the song loses contact with the Earth. That’s where the famous “Ground Control to Major Tom” phrase comes from.

“We have created a metaphorical sequel to these two songs called ‘Champagne’ as the pink champagne on ice mentioned in the Hotel California.

“The song consists of two parts, one referencing the Hotel California and describing the introduced consumer era by the Eagles from a point of view of someone who was born into this consumerism and not knowing anything else. This style of life leads to a metaphorical end of the world, where everything collapses and there is nothing else to be done.

“The second part, when it is already clear that the end is inevitable, uses the Ground Control as the symbol for the Earth which, in its last desperation, total ignorance and lack of responsibility for its own actions, tries to blame the Major Tom as the only person who has left since the Earth started to break down.

“The whole metaphor tries to describe the modern world lacking quality and deep meaning not only in music industry, but in the whole community in general.”

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