Ra Ra Rasputin

About

Ra Ra Rasputin refers to the song "Rasputin" by European pop disco group Boney M. that sensationalizes the life of Grigori Rasputin, friend and advisor of Tsar Nicholas II in early 20th-century Russia. It grew popular online in 2016 after several animated videos using the song went viral.

Origin

"Rasputin" was released by Boney M. in 1978 on their album Nightflight to Venus.^[1] The song went number 1 in Germany, Australia, and Austria, number 2 in the UK and Switzerland. The music video, shown below, has over 78 million views.

Spread

The song was popularly covered by Finnish folk metal band Turisas, who began covering the song live before recording their version due to the positive reception from fans. The video for the track gained over 10 million views (shown below).

The original song appeared in the video game Just Dance 2. On October 24th, 2011, nastyhobbit uploaded a video of several people trying the game's dance that gained over 2.3 million views (shown below).

The track began gaining online fame in 2016. That year, several popular animated videos for the song went viral. On March 14th, 2016, Never was and the random videos uploaded an animation of a man playing Just Dance 2 with the Turisas version that gained 1.3 million views (shown below, left). On May 19th, OfficialBillyBones uploaded a version with General Grievous that gained 1.8 million views (shown below, right).

The most popular animated video of the song was released on April 5th, 2016, when Pace Audio used the footage from a Slightly Left of Centre video^[2] and paired it with a sped up version of the song. The track gained 14 million views (shown below, left). On October 9th, they released the same animation with the song at normal speed, gaining over 9 million views (shown below, right).

The song has since appeared in several other popular animations that featured different characters dancing. Many of the videos feature one character dancing and he is flanked by two bobbing heads. This style was popularized by YouTuber scotch, who published such a video on November 7th, 2016.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References