Saturday Fever

With its infectious bassline, earworm synths, sparkling key riffs, and rattling drum machines, Jivaro’s Saturday Fever is a bubblegum classic, with all the carefree and joyful energy typical of South African music in the late 1980s. Taking into consideration the context at the time —weakening of the apartheid government,  years of protests, and violent repression — you can see why South Africans took refuge in these joyful rhythms. But bubblegum wasn’t all fun and escapism: by the late 80s, musicians began disguising their political messages in the sunny sounds of bubblegum, which makes you wonder what Jivaro meant with the lyrics “We’ve been working out of this/For the past few years/But things go so slowly/There is potential with promises/What next is coming/cause we need happiness/What next is coming cause we want to celebrate.”