Record label Jamster! has announced that the scheduled release of the Crazy Frog’s follow-up to Jingle Bells/U Can’t Touch This has been delayed indefinitely. The album, featuring the working title Ring Ding Ding!, has been dogged by staff walk-outs, contract disputes and, insiders say, increasingly bitter disagreement over its creative direction.
Record label Jamster! has announced that the scheduled release of the Crazy Frog’s follow-up to Jingle Bells/U Can’t Touch This has been delayed indefinitely. The album, featuring the working title Ring Ding Ding!, has been dogged by staff walk-outs, contract disputes and, insiders say, increasingly bitter disagreement over its creative direction.
Reports suggest that the Frog, in a departure from his previous work, is pushing for a more melancholy, introspective collection of songs, while the record company is insisting on eleven remixes of previous ring-tones and an oom-pah-pah themed novelty single entitled 'Crazy Polka'.
While neither side has commented publicly on the split beyond an SMS to fans reading “:P sorry :(”, the Crazy Frog's revealing interview with German magazine Der Spiegel has shed some light on the delay.
“At the moment, the world only knows one side of me, the wacky, naked, invisible motorbike-riding side,” said the star. “But the work I’m doing now is drawn from a wider emotional palette. I think that it’s going to really surprise people who think I’m just crazy all the time.”
One insider says the Frog’s new-found creativity cuts no ice with music executives. “The first time they asked for a rough cut of one of the new ring-tones,” said one informed source, “they got a twelve-minute tone poem produced by Trent Reznor. And it didn’t have any engine noises in it.”
“The Frog is a classically trained yodeler, so I think he felt the whole Axel F thing was a bit beneath him. He has a lot of trouble accepting that that’s what people want from him. He feels he has more to give. It’s the old Disco Duck story.”
Standard industry protocol in such a situation is to bring in an experienced producer who the artist respects. It's understood that Jamster! is planning to approach former Paula Abdul collaborator MC Skat Kat.
