Song of the Day: Ane Brun, “Big in Japan”

Song of the Day posts one cool cover every morning. Catch up on past installments here.

Last week’s feature on Icelandic singer Ólöf Arnalds led me to delve deeper into Scandinavian singers. The lofi.tv Vimeo channel has a ton of great cover videos, including a bedroom version of Iron Maiden’s “The Trooper” that’s worth checking out. It was there I stumbled upon Ane Brun. She’s a Norwegian-born, Sweden-dwelling songwriter who – fun fact – is currently touring as one of Peter Gabriel‘s backup singers.

Alphaville had two hits. One of them, “Forever Young,” is enjoying a big resurgence as the basis for Jay-Z’s latest hit “Young Forever” (and by “basis,” I mean it’s like 3/4 of the song). The other is “Big in Japan,” not to be confused with the Tom Waits song of the same name. Alphaville’s debut single, the tune climbed to top of the charts in Switzerland, Germany, and Sweden. Oh, and on the super-prestigious Billboard Hot Dance Club Play list.

German alt-goth hit Guano Apes brought it back in 2000 with an aggressive rock cover. Ane Brun’s version is a whole lot quieter than that. She first recorded it for the soundtrack of Swedish documentary Stor i Japan. No prizes for guessing what that means. Check out a video of her performing it and download the MP3.

Check out more Ane Brun at her website or MySpace.