Look Right Through

Album: Single Release Only (2013)
Charted: 1
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Songfacts®:

  • Morgan Geist is an American DJ from Wayne, New Jersey who arrived at EDM music through an interest in the electronic sound effects he noticed in progressive rock songs. He formed the house and nu-disco duo Metro Area with Darshan Jesrani in 1998 and also releases solo material under the name of Storm Queen.
  • This song was first released on October 19, 2010, where it proved popular on Europe's party islands and turned into an online hit. In 2012, the Defected label issued a series of remixes, and on November 3, 2013 more remixes were released in the British Isles by the Ministry of Sound. Marc "MK" Kinchen's remix was hugely successful in the United Kingdom, where it entered at #1 on the singles chart.
  • Damon C. Scott (he uses his middle initial to avoid confusion with the ventriloquist Damon Scott, who won Britain's Got Talent in 2007) is the vocalist on this track. He was discovered my a producer named David Levy, who heard Scott singing on the 86th Street subway platform in New York City. Levy had him record some tracks, and later introduced Scott to Morgan Geist, who enlisted him to sing on this track and a few others.

    In our interview with Scott, he explained, "I'd go over to his studio in Queens, New York, and he would pay me 50-60 bucks, and I would just sing down certain tracks."

    When the remix went to #1 UK in 2013, Scott didn't know about it until he got a call from a booking agent in England, who brought him over to perform some shows. Once the song's popularity faded, Scott returned to America and once again started singing in the subway. He didn't get any royalties from the song because his vocals were a work for hire. He also didn't have any name or face recognition because he's not in the video and the track is credited to Storm Queen (he's not allowed to perform under that name). In England, he could sing this song and get lots of attention from onlookers who recognize the voice, but in America he finds himself is a tough spot as a busker with a #1 hit on another continent. Scott did also contribute vocals to DJ-producer Chris Malinchak's cuts "No Secrets" and "These Dreams."
  • "When I sang on 'Look Right Through' in 2010 it was just another song," Damon C. Scott told us. "It had no special significance to me and it had no special significance to him, either. I did it in two takes and I never thought it sounded the best it could have. I thought it was kind of horrible that he wanted to use that take. He said, 'Don't even worry about it. I'm just putting this stuff down. I probably won't even make back the money I'm giving you right now.' When he said that, I said, 'You know, you shouldn't think that way about the stuff I'm doing with you, because I'm on an upward trajectory. I'm someone going somewhere, so anything I do is going to be worth more than what you think in the long run.' He said, 'Okay, we'll see.'"
  • Kinchen admitted to Billboard magazine that when Simon Dunmore of the UK dance music label Defected approached him with an opportunity to remix the track, he wasn't convinced. "He said, 'Do you want to remix this? Jamie Jones just did a remix of it,'" Kinchen explained. "That's really why I picked the record to mix it, because Jamie did it. I don't like the original at all. The vocals are really good; the track is cool on an underground level but it wasn't my thing."
  • The 2012 release came with a video directed by Nils Clauss that follows both a prostitute and a man selling roses on the street. The following year, another video was made to accompany the hit remix. This one was made by Laurie Lynch of the Rokkit production company and shot at the Cadogan Hotel in Knightsbridge, London. This one finds a man in a tiger mask trying to impress the ladies with his dance moves.

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