No. 30: Ida Maria, “Oh My God”

noah | December 22, 2008 4:00 am

It was all the way back in March that I first heard Ida Maria’s “Oh My God,” a twitchy, deceptively simple track from a be-banged Norwegian woman who was pleading with her audience to find a cure for her life, put a price on her soul, and build a fortress around her heart. The track walked the line between “nervy” and “nervous” in such a way that it perfectly captured the zeitgeist of 2008, a year that was marked by near-crippling anxiety emanating from even the most bravado-filled corners.

I’ve played this track countless times since first pushing “play” on the YouTube embed sent to me by someone who knows my musical leanings pretty well, and its tension hasn’t let up one bit; if anything, it’s been heightened by the yoked-dog syndrome afflicting nearly anyone who’s around a computer too much.

It’s probably also notable that the song has sometimes been performed as a duet, with a male seconding Ida’s pleas:

Somehow the track loses its urgency when its vocals are shared, though; the male voice adds a sense of pity to the proceedings, like the dude is hawking her insecurity for his own game. The whole point of the song, after all—as exhibited by the yelped “oh my Gods” that, over and over, close out the track over a blaze of guitars collapsing from exhaustion—is that the cure Ida’s looking for isn’t necessarily readily available, or at least not something that can last for longer than the 3:21 of catharsis this song provides.

Oh My God (official video) [YouTube] Ida Maria [MySpace] 80 ’08 (and heartbreak)

Tags: