In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well—some inspired by a weekly theme and some not, but always songs worth hearing. This week, we asked, “What’s a song you like by a band you know absolutely nothing about?”
Generally speaking, I know at least a little something about most bands with songs I like: where they’re from, what their album looks like, or that one of their songs has some horrible title. I know absolutely nothing about Jimmy Luxury And The Tommy Rome Orchestra, though, and I’m absolutely fine with that. Their song, “Cha Cha Cha,” popped up recently in a car commercial and sent me into a flurry of nostalgia Googling as I tried to figure out why I knew the cut and what place it held in my life. While I think I know the song from the movie Go, it could be that I heard it on TV once or that, with its marked quirkiness, it landed in the stacks while I was doing college radio. I don’t know, really. I do know two things, though: It’s not a very good song, but I like it anyway. “Cha Cha Cha” is pre-mashup kitsch that takes lounge-act bullshit to the nth degree. It combines rapping, cha-cha, and fake record scratches to make something that’s pure cheesy goodness. And while Jimmy Luxury is (presumably?) the rapper, who, exactly, is the Tommy Rome Orchestra? The original band that was sampled, or a DJ collective, or just the result of some words jammed together? A quick Google search would answer that question, but I’d rather stay in the dark. In this case, all the mystery turns a just-okay song into something intriguingly charming.