News

Armand Van Helden: “Barbra Streisand” Was Nearly “Neil Diamond”

• 19th May 2011

Chart-topping international dance superstar Armand Van Helden has been chatting about the making-of process for his recent huge hit “Barbra Streisand”:

“A Track and I have a brainstorm, or maybe a brain-quirk. He spits out ideas and I spit out ideas, we throw them up against the wall and see what works. We usually end up laughing, that’s kinda how it worked for Barbra Streisand.  We both have wacky senses of humour and we're drawn to these things that make people sit up and listen.
 
So we had the track with-out that part and realised we needed to add a something into where the gap was.  The first idea was to put some sort of word there, some sort of silly sample. Then, instead of looking for a sample, we decided we should just say something, we should say someone's name. Then I had a moment when I thought , we gotta say someone's name, someone in music, who has nothing to do with this.. After 3 or 4 shots we tried Barbra Streisand and both just started cracking up so we knew then, that would have to be on the track.
 
We did try out a few other names but there weren’t too many.  Neil Diamond was a contender but just didn’t sound as good as Barbra Streisand.
 
We didn’t expect the track to be a success. I don’t think anyone hearing it on first listen would have predicted the success. I mean they’d be like be like, what is this, is this joke? I mean it was like comedy, so who knew that it’d be a success? I really never could have predicted that.”

MSD