An ode to Michael Gray’s ‘The Weekend’

In all my life I really, truly believed I would never write 700 words on Michael Gray’s ‘The Weekend’ but here we are. Look, I don’t feel particularly proud about committing these thoughts to a lasting online document, it’s not like I’m writing about an obscure, Balearic Italo track that changed my life. But at the same time it feels very cathartic. There’s a reason Catholics have the confession box. This is mine. And by today’s standards of everything ‘cool’, ‘hip’ and ‘credible’ I’m hoping to receive a lifetime of Hail Marys from the echo chamber that is the internet and be sent on my way into a life free of guilty pleasure.

I fucking love Michael Gray’s ‘The Weekend’ and it is a goddamn banger. That is just fact. Like the fact that Gray is from Croydon, a place known for its garage, two-step and dubstep over funky house. Or the fact that ‘The Weekend’ went number seven in the British charts before being disposed of like a banana out of a car window, left to decompose in the lay-by of the M1 motorway.

Beats were big at the beginning of the millennium. People didn’t want subtlety. We survived Y2K FFS! The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim and Groove Armada were in their prime and people got away with wearing cargo shorts. When ‘The Weekend’ came out Greece had won the Euros and the Hoxton Fin was sweeping the nation. It exemplified how the ease of whacking a fat, booming kick under a disco sample had created and simultaneously destroyed filter house by making it fodder for places of workout worship; 'The Weekend' worked in the club AND the gym.

But I didn’t witness any of that first hand. I came across the track about two years later at the musically curious age of 16. I was already a fan of Daft Punk, the lush chords and groovy, over-compressed basslines of French Touch spoke to me. But I wasn’t all the way into dance music, there were just a few outliers. So why am I now here signaling it’s virtues in a public forum? Well, partly because it's a shameless rip off of ‘Voyager’ a track that I thought was the most underrated Daft Punk tune on ‘Discovery’ but also because it's just happy.

The lyrics aren’t winning a Mercury Prize, but how many times have you literally (LITERALLY) said to your co-worker on a Friday afternoon, head buried in emails, “I can’t wait for the weekend (to begin)”. That’s the main line in the song, mate! Fuck your “it’s better to burn out than fade away”, Gray's lyric taps into the most primal instinct of the modern human: To escape neo-liberalism for just two days.

Combine that with an infectious stuttering lead, the pumping drops, a funky AF bassline and it takes you to a hands-in-the-air place. Seeing as I was yet to feel the warm embrace of a club at the age of 16, I turned to Michael Gray’s warm embrace instead.

I’m really not going to try and assign any worldly, overarching theme to ‘The Weekend’ (the song has recently become a meme). It didn’t change music, it didn’t inspire anyone and it isn't iconic. Gray seems to be a pretty cut and dry, cheese and ham-eating, Myspace-using, half-naked women dancing over funky house drums combined with overt disco samples kinda guy. He probably doesn’t give a shit about changing the course of underground house music, he just wanted to slam out a track that made people dance, and he got lucky the combination of vocals, melody and rhythm made it a hit.

It’s funny, the more I research this song and think about it, I go back to listen and expect to hate it. But 45 seconds in I’m already filled with the familiar feelings of joy. It’s like going back to a poisonous ex: when I’m away, I see the light and the logic of not liking it. Then, in an attempt to prove to myself I am finally resistant of it’s charms, I revisit it. But instead of walking away, I’m gyrating uncontrollably hoping no one sees while feelings of both shame and comfort rattle around in my bones. Am I forgiven for my sins? Probably not. Was it worth it? Hell yes.

Louis Anderson-Rich is Mixmag's Digital Intern and lives for the weekend. Follow him on Twitter