“Hey Hey My My Yo Yo,” the second studio album by Danish dance-pop duo Junior Senior, hit record stores in Scandinavia and Japan in 2005. Since then, it’s been readily available as an import — and, of course, as an illegal download — to American listeners curious to hear the follow-up to 2003’s “D-D-Don’t Don’t Stop the Beat.”
Nonetheless, Rykodisc VP of label operations Billy Fields is confident that consumers will spring for Ryko’s new North American release of “Hey Hey My My Yo Yo,” out Aug. 14. “It’s true that a small, select group of hardcore Junior Senior fans — the ones who go to the band’s Web site and communicate with them via MySpace – know that the music’s been out,” Fields says. “But everyday fans have no idea that the record’s been out. This is a brand-new record to them.”
On the album, “Hello/Hip Hop a Lula” is a bouncy delight, with props given to Little Anthony & the Imperials’ “Out of Sight, Out of Mind.” “We R the Handclaps,” features backing vocals by Le Tigre, while Take My Time” sports the unmistakable vocal stylings of the B-52’s’ Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson.
Despite this emphasis on the casual Junior Senior listener, Ryko-which licensed “Hey Hey My My Yo Yo” thanks to its longstanding relationship with Crunchy Frog, the band’s Danish label-isn’t ignoring fans who’ve already acquired the new album. The American release arrives bundled with a seven-track EP featuring new material recorded within the last few months. “We just wanted to do something impulsively that didn’t have a certain direction,” the band’s Jeppe Laursen says. “It’s just a thing of the moment.”
