Glenn Close put her backfield in motion last night to EU’s “Da Butt,” causing a good portion of the Washington area to go berserk. “It was a classic song by the great Washington, DC, go-go band EU,” she said. “Shoutouts to Sugar Bear, the Backyard Band, and the whole DMV.”
Glenn Close, everyone! #Oscars pic.twitter.com/akwOxvRS6s
— The Academy (@TheAcademy) April 26, 2021
Well, bad news: The whole thing was a work, the Los Angeles Times reports, revealing that “Close’s twerk-tastic performance was part of a scripted bit designed for laughs.”
But really, who cares? The bigger takeaways here are: 1) lots of people still recognize a 33-year-old single by a DC go-go band; and 2) The weirdest Oscars in recent memory showcased some music from the DC area. Perhaps salutes to Washington music are even a burgeoning trend at awards shows—the 2019 BET Awards opened with a salute to go-go, after all.
The story behind “Da Butt” is less of a celebration of DC music, as Sarah Godfrey wrote in her indispensable oral history of go-go-‘s biggest national hit. The song was confected in New York for the School Daze soundtrack, and only a few members of EU actually performed on it. (It was originally intended to be recorded by Cameo.) Still, the record’s success followed Chris Blackwell’s ill-fated attempt to take go-go national with the movie Good to Go a few years earlier, and EU is still playing. The term “Experience Unlimited” was even trending on Google Monday morning.
Even if Close’s dance was a set-up, that’s a win for DC’s culture at a time when arguments against its statehood focus on what critics say the city lacks. We’ve still got “Da Butt,” and everyone knows it.
Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.
