vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Jul 25, 2010 12:53:33 GMT 1
Have a look at this. Famous for fifteen minutes. One hit wonder. So many acts have one hit and are then forgotten. No surprise there, you can catch lightning in a bottle once, the second time is much harder. Especially as many one hit wonders relied on novelty that was hilarious for about twelve seconds, but quickly palled. The real surprise is that record companies often do try to repeat the same formula. And sometimes it actually works; surely "In The Summertime" by Mungo Jerry was an obvious one hit wonder - but no, the follow-up single was also a number one (although I doubt even Mungo Jerry themselves remember it). Then there are others that become one hit wonders totally unexpectedly, in that they should have had follow-up hits, yet it never quite worked out. And sometimes acts are wrongly remembered as one hit wonders, when they DID have a follow-up hit, only it was more a tentative prod than a big smash. So, what were the forgotten follow-ups to big hits? Let's start with the very narrowest escape possible from one hit wonderdom. Nicole"A Little Peace", no. 1, May 1982 "Give Me More Time", no. 75, August 1982 Nicole Hohloch was born in the Saarland in 1964. An area that had swapped between France, Germany and autonomy over the previous 30 years. No wonder she sang a song about wanting a little peace. The German Eurovision entry for 1982, a British-hosted concert, and the first German winner, after runners-up finishes the previous two years. The song was written by Eurovision veterans Ralph Siegel and Bernd Meinunger, who had written the 1981 German entry for Lena Valaitis, and which in turn had just pipped Nicole to win the right to represent Germany; Hohloch had impressed Siegel who decided to collaborate with Meinunger specifically for her voice. Siegel and Meinunger continued writing Eurosong entries until 2003. Hoggers. Having won Eurovision, Nicole curried favour at the end by showing off and singing the song in loads of different languages. But being able to sing it in English meant that it was in a favoured position for release here. And so it was, becoming in a fortnight the 500th official number one single. It was also, at the time, the 500th best number one single. The song became a multilingual hit, but the follow-up...not so much. It was the end for Nicole in the UK, but she remained successful in Europe, which says a lot. She has been German artist of the year nine times, which also says a lot. Still recording, still releasing, still sounding exactly the same.
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Post by Earl Purple on Jul 25, 2010 23:13:23 GMT 1
Baby Jump sounded absolutely nothing like In The Summertime.
for those who haven't heard it or have forgotten it. I think it's a rather good song.
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Post by vastar iner on Jul 26, 2010 22:22:23 GMT 1
Ray Dorset of Mungo Jerry also wrote a second number one - "Feels Like I'm In Love" for Kelly Marie. Sometimes though two-hit wonders are not failed novelties, but proper acts for whom it just goes wrong... Slik"Forever And Ever", no. 1, January 1976 "Requiem", no. 24, May 1976 The unions had a weird control over Top Of The Pops in the 1970s, Tony Burrows effectively being blackballed after he appeared three times on the same show (White Plains, Brotherhood Of Man and Edison Lighthouse) as it looked like the charts were a session musician carve-up (which they were). Then there was the vexed question of miming. Some bands had their careers truncated by a bad performance (famously The Love Affair broke down in one of theirs, and The Walker Brothers were handicapped by John Walker missing a bunch of notes. So the industry decided to stick with the safer issue of miming. Can't do that, said the unions, you might have non-musicians performing. What you have to do, is bring the act that's going to mime along to the studios beforehand, and get them to play their songs for us to check they're good enough. What this meant was that even the boybands had to be capable musicians as a whole. Either do the Kenny trick of parachuting a band in to pretend, or do the Rubettes trick of grouping session musicians together. The former approach was generally easier, because the whole chemistry thing had already been worked out. The problem was when said band had their own ideas. Such was the problem with Glaswegian band Salvation. Talent-spotted by Bill Martin and Phil Coulter, the songwriters behind such hits as "Puppet On A String", "Congratulations" and most of the Bay City Rollers output, Salvation had their name changed to Slik and their rock edges smoothed into baseball shirts. Worse, they weren't even allowed to play on their singles. Lead singer James Ure turned up to the studio to lay down his vocals, and found to his surprise that the backing tracks had already been made. Slik were only there to mime someone else's work, and pass muster for the live shows and TOTP. Shame. "Forever And Ever" is one of the greatest achievements in 1970s music. And "Requiem" - see? All linked - begins with Manuel And His Music Of The Mountains' biggest hit. It was far too constraining for a band that, in various combinations, had already had a substantial body of live work behind them. Three singles and an album was all they could muster before they split from Martin and Coulter; the third single, "The Kid's A Punk", was an attack on a form of music the band was becoming more fascinated by. Ure indeed was in turn talent spotted by Malcolm McLaren when the Pistols ventured over the Scottish border, the svengali evidently thinking a clean-cut boyband star would be a shocking addition for his still-unreleased group. Ure had a better idea, just go full-on punk with the rest of Slik. They therefore did so, under the name PVC2, albeit without success. Possibly because Ure had kept in contact with now ex-Pistol Glen Matlock, and left Glasgow for London to form The Rich Kids. The remainder of the story is fairly mundane. The remainder of PVC2 formed The Zones, and then after their split Kenny Hyslop and Russell Webb joined The Skids (Richard Jobson, Stuart Adamson...). Easily the most successful of the ex-Sliksters, until Ure, who had discovered the magic of the synth and formed Visage with various scenesters, replaced John Foxx in Ultravox!, dropped the !, and hit paydirt with "Vienna". James Ure? Well, Midge, there was already a James in Slik (McGinlay, who left before PVC2) and so he just reversed the sounds. "Vienna" was a bit of a seller, but Midge would soon (co-)pen a bigger one...
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Post by Earl Purple on Jul 26, 2010 23:22:56 GMT 1
And so it was, becoming in a fortnight the 500th official number one single. It was also, at the time, the 500th best number one single. Are you really suggesting it was worse than all the #1s that preceded it, including St Winifred's School Choir plus some dreadful ones from the early 70s like Clive Dunn and many of the Donny Osmond ones (and little Jimmy's atrocity).
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Jul 27, 2010 7:11:04 GMT 1
Yes. Clive Dunn's was only ever meant to be a comedy bit of fluff, for example, none of those records was pretending to be something other than it was. And "Grandad" was written by a music legend. "Something Stupid" is close to being worse, only the strange quasi-Oedipal overtones perhaps saving it from bottom spot; something which was easily obtained by the even worse cover.
Although maybe it was better than JJ Barrie.
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Post by vastar iner on Jul 27, 2010 19:45:23 GMT 1
OK, we started with one of the worst number ones ever, let's go to one of the best number twos... The Casuals"Jesamine", no. 2, August 1968 "Toy", no. 30, December 1968 Pah. Those bloody Beatles. Not only were they hogging the number one spot as artistes, they did so as entrepreneurs as well. "Those Were The Days", the Russian folk song adapted for Mary Hopkin, and the second single on the Apple label, kept this classic from being a chart-topper. And it spent four weeks at number three behind Hopkin and the first single on Apple - "Hey Jude"... The Casuals were early reality TV stars, the Lincoln band having a go on "Opportunity Knocks" and winning. The big difference though between Hughie Green's vehicle and the Simon Cowell show is that Green would ONLY have professionals on his show; his idea was to give a break to a hard-working act that had spent the years tramping up and down the country, not some fame whore who wants everything on a plate. Having said that, they didn't turn success on television into chart stardom. Their single "If You Walk Out" missed the chart. So they went to Italy, and became successful doing Italian language versions of English records, hitting the top of the Italian charts with "Massachusettes". Decca Records signed them up as a cash cow, and released one of their covers, "Jesamine", in the UK on spec. It became a surprise smash. And, in a link to the first theme, it was written by a pair of pseudonyms; the manager of the first group to record it and a chap who was credited as Frere Manston - none other than Marty Wilde... A follow-up written by Chris Andrews (of stompy success Yesterday Man fame) was rush-released, but got caught up in the Christmas market and only just reached the top forty. And chart-wise that was it for the Lincolnshire band; the softer "Fool's Paradise" missed the chart, as did the even slower Smiley Smile pastiche "Sunflower Eyes", the Roy Wood-produced "Caroline" and "My Name Is Love". Their one album - "Hour World" - followed suit in flopping and the band was dropped by Decca. Worse, guitarist Howard Newcombe suffered a collapsed lung and the band's descent was accelerated. The band was picked up by Parlophone, making up for the £ label's role in stopping them from the top spot, perhaps, and released the Small Faces soundalike " Tara Tiger Girl", their best single since "Toy", but less successful. The 1968 sound was no longer relevant in 1972 and within a couple of years The Casuals were no more. The moving finger of fame had writ, and moved on...
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Post by Jordan on Jul 27, 2010 20:04:48 GMT 1
Owl City more recently as well.
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Post by vastar iner on Jul 28, 2010 22:40:48 GMT 1
At least Owl City are (is) right at the start of their (his) chart career...one would think that more hits will follow. Then again I thought the same about this lot. Deep Blue Something"Breakfast At Tiffany's", no.1, July 1996 "Josey", no. 27, December 1996 What DID happen to them? It took months of nearly relentless plugging on VH1 for their debut UK single to become a hit, indeed its July chart debut saw it vaguely nudge the chart before storming back in September to peak 54 places higher than originally. Much to the ultimate chagrin of singer-songwriter Todd Pipes; his day job of teaching at a Christian school was terminated as the good people of Texas did not want their kiddies brought up by such a dangerous rock & roll star. The follow-up single perhaps should not have been released during the Christmas shuffle, but it was a weak, hookless effort, and frankly I'd totally forgotten it before looking it up. But there were more crucial factors involved. DBS were either lucky or unlucky with their timing; they had a hit at the last time it was possible for them to do so. The British music scene was on a decided shift. Britpop had peaked and faded, and now manufacture was about to destroy any vestige of musical spirit. "Breakfast At Tiffany's" (which singer/guitarist Todd Pipes originally wrote with another Hepburn [Audrey, not the band] film, Roman Holiday, in mind, nothing to do with the band with that name) hovered at 2 behind Bozone's first number one, which in turn was replaced by the Spice Girls, and really the charts have never recovered. What also didn't help was that the band got involved with a royalties battle over a contract signed with a Dallas trustafarian four years before, who, in return for flinging a few grand at them to record their first album "11th Song", was claiming 5% chunk of all income earned by the band for ever. On top of that, Interscope Records were souring on soft indiesh pop. They were all into the Bizkit. When DBS finally got to make their follow-up album "Byzantium", Interscope couldn't be bothered to promote it. Having settled their previous lawsuit, DBS sued again, to get out of their Interscope deal. The plus side was they won and retrieved the masters; the downside was they were without a label and the album remained unreleased in the States. Still, it didn't matter; DBS almost wilfully turned their back on fame and moved more into the industry themselves, Pipes and his bandmate brother Toby opening their own Texan studio, Bass Propulsion Laboratories (which has hosted the likes of Cat Power, Drowning Pool and DJ Shadow), Todd also going back to teaching and now recording with the nugazey Little Black Dress. Drummer John Kirtland formed his own still-extant label, modestly called Kirtland Records, and sometimes the three still get together with other member Clay Bergus (now a restaurant manager) as DBS. Indeed, in 2001 Bass Propulsion quietly issued the album "Deep Blue Something"...
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Post by vastar iner on Jul 29, 2010 19:54:55 GMT 1
Renée And Renato
"Save Your Love", no. 1, October 1982
"Just One More Kiss", no. 48, February 1983
So, let's go back to the inspiration for this thread. A theme from some of these two-hit wonders is that many follow-ups were pretty much identical to the original...this one even seems to have had the video filmed at the same time.
The most unexpected Christmas number one ever. "Save Your Love" was only the third release on Hollywood Records, run by husband-and-wife songwriter pair John and Sue Edward, and the first independent Chrimbo chart-topper. John Edward was in the Mannish Boys with David Bowie back in the day, and wrote "Save Your Love" as a mickey-take - fitting, he created Metal Mickey as well - of the sort of Eurosong tat that occasionally proved popular. He had in mind to sing it a singing waiter he saw on New Faces, a chap called Renato Pagliari, to do the male vocals, and musical theatre chorist Hilary Lester to be the better half. Hilary and Renato were born.
If you look (dare you) at the Save Your Love video, you will note that Renée does not mime. That's because Lester had already quit the duo to go back to musicals (she still appears on stage, recently as part of the Rat Pack tribute tour) and random models (there are at least two) appeared in her stead.
I doubt if anyone enjoyed their one hit wonderdom more than Pagliari. Happy not to take himself too seriously, he used to spend six months on the cruise cabaret circuit, the remainder in his Italian restaurant in Tamworth, where if you were lucky he wouldn't sing to you. Daughter was quite the ice hockey player, incidentally. He parlayed his 15 minutes into something more substantial - singing the "Just One Cornetto" advert theme, guesting on Little & Large and The Generation Game and so on, and even doing "Nessun Dorma" at Villa Park, being a familiar enough figure without outstaying his welcome (hello Kerry Katona).
Sadly, a year ago today, Pagliari died of a brain tumour. Hilary turned up at the funeral along with Tony Christie and the great and good of Tamworth society. RIP Renato.
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Post by raliverpool on Jul 29, 2010 20:51:33 GMT 1
Another great read, interesting stuff about Deep Blue Something, but I don't know whether you should be applauded or not for missing out the joke that was around at the time about their follow up "Dinner at Pat Butcher's" missing the chart. Whilst I knew about Midge Ure's beginnings and career, I never knew that two of his fellow band mates went on to belong to The Skids.
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Post by Earl Purple on Jul 29, 2010 21:03:00 GMT 1
Renato had a good voice and it was totally wasted on that awful song.
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Post by vastar iner on Jul 31, 2010 11:34:22 GMT 1
Rick Dees & His Cast Of Idiots
"Disco Duck", no. 6, September 1976
"Dis-Gorilla", did not chart, January 1977
It wasn't just the UK that had DJs make novelty records and have big hits. The USA had their fair share too. Most successful was Rick Dees, who was not exactly enamoured with the disco records he was forced to play on his Memphis radio station, and so penned a mickey-take, with a friend of his called Ken Pruitt doing the duck noise. Dees claimed the song took a day to write but months to persuade anyone to release it.
Eventually it came out on the RSO label, after some local success; however, the one place you could not hear it was Dees' home town. He was banned from playing it due to a conflict of interest, and his rivals refused to play it because of promoting the competition. Nevertheless it gained ground nationally and, almost unfathomably, reached number one in the US in October 1976. Unusually it reached its peak in Britain before it did so in the States.
Almost in passing, Dees mentioned the song one day on his radio show, and was promptly fired. After gardening leave he joined a rival Memphis station and moved to California in 1983 from where he still DJs, you can hear his show on rick.com (a web address that must surely be worth a few bob).
As for the duck? Well, Dees was stuck with animals, tried to repeat the magic with something a bit more advanced in the evolutionary table, and had a bomb, although it did get to number 56 in the States. An album followed, with songs like "Bad Shark" (was he even trying?) and "Doctor Disco", the only surprise being that it actually made the Billboard 200 for a month. Otherwise, musically, the duck was soup. Dees has made comedy records on and off since then, and made the US chart a third time with "Eat My Shorts" in 1984. With admirable self-awareness, he even put out a compilation album called "Rick Dees' Greatest Hit"...
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Post by vastar iner on Aug 1, 2010 12:14:39 GMT 1
Of course, not all disco sucked... Lipps, Inc."Funkytown", no. 2, May 1980 "Rock It", did not chart, September 1980 Electro injected the ailing and fly-infested corpse of a dance movement that had never really been that impressive with a dose of futuricity and kept it jerking along for a bit longer. You just needed the right voice to go with your self-produced synth. At least that's what Steven Greenberg, who had tried and failed in Hollywood's music production world, reasoned. He produced a song called "Rock It" by playing everything himself and pressed up 500 copies to distribute as an advert for his services. They became a minor hit in his hometown of Minneapolis which encouraged him to go further. So he put out adverts and a secretary, Cynthia Johnson, who sang part-time with a group called Flyte Tyme, stepped foward. Greenberg liked her voice, so he got her recorded on demo tracks for touting around the stations, and Casablanca Records fell in love with it. Greenberg called the concept Lipps, Inc and Casablanca released "Rock It" as a single. It made the dance charts, but had no real impact otherwise. Never mind, they tried again with the other standout track, "Funkytown", and made a cheap video with a couple of models standing in as backing vocalists - indeed one of them stood in as Johnson herself, as Johnson is the one mostly on the right when the three are together (in the long-sleeved top) rather than the one with the Floella Benjamin hairdo. This time it succeeded beyond expectation; a chart-topper in the States, only held off in Britain by the woeful "Crying" by Don McLean (not the Crackerjack presenter) and the even more woeful theme from MASH, "Suicide Is Painless", which was the preferred option to listening to it. They followed it up with a re-issue of "Rock It", which missed the UK chart and only scraped as far as 64 in the Billboard, so as far as Britain was concerned Lipps, Inc was over. Their debut album "Mouth To Mouth" was a top five Stateside, though, and Lipps, Inc continued making dance-friendly records for the next few years with some hits in the dance charts (including an unlikely cover of Ace's "How Long"). Their run came to an end in 1985 as Jackson hype destroyed what little innovation there was in mainstream dance-pop, and rap came in with a pincer movement from the other side. Johnson's powerful voice was not wasted; she has been a member of Sounds Of Blackness since her Lipps, Inc run, and puts out some solo material. Greenberg moved into film-making, writing for musicals and now web design.
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Post by vastar iner on Aug 2, 2010 22:00:14 GMT 1
Talking of unlikely cover versions...
Pseudo Echo
"Funky Town", no. 8, July 1987
"Fooled Again", did not chart, November 1988
OK, a couple of oddities on this particular band's cover of the Lipps, Inc. song. Firstly, they change the title from one word to two. Secondly, perhaps as a result, or maybe the cause, they seem to use it as a metaphor rather than a literal location - take me to A funky town, rather than to Funkytown. But there you go.
You know how acts sometimes like to explore new directions? And sometimes it alienates their fanbase? Pseudo Echo are the archetypal example. Only they explored an OLD direction. The Australian band started off in 1982 as a synth group of schoolmates, influenced by the sound of Styx and the haircuts of A Flock Of Seagulls, and were so synthed up that they named after a synth setting they found in their synth manual. After various departures and tiffs the only consistent founder members were the core duo of Brian Canham and Pierre Gigliotti; both singers, the former also a guitarist, the latter a keytardist, joined by the Leigh brothers, James and Vince.
Their second album was a hughe Australian success, and while they were waiting for it to percolate through the international market and working on their third, Canham persuaded the band to record the track "Funky Town" as a sort of fill-the-gap project. It filled a gap all right, it became a top ten in the US and the UK, as well as a chart-topper back home for nearly 2 months. It looked like Pseudo Echo had the world at their feet.
Which was the problem. Touring around their one single, it took them ages to get back into the studio. By which time they had spent too much time listening to Def Leppard and Whitesnake and Poison and all those poodle perm cock-rockers who were having ginormous hits Stateside. It kind of turned off their support. From having seven Australian top tens on their first two albums, the third album "Race" made number 32...and the lead single from it flopped all over the world.
It killed Pseudo Echo; Canham retreated to production work (including drummer Vince Leigh's band Chocolate Starfish), Gigliotti into managing a department store, and the Leighs into the band Invertigo for a short while. By 2000, Canham and Gigliotti (who calls himself Pierre Pierre for some unfathomable reason) had reformed Pseudo Echo; they still pop up from time to time in Australia, especially on the 80s tours.
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Post by vastar iner on Aug 3, 2010 21:37:44 GMT 1
Windsor Davies & Don Estelle"Whispering Grass", no. 1, May 1975 "Paper Doll", no. 41, October 1975 The list of Carry On stars who made the charts is surprisingly long. Big Bernard Bresslaw, that master of multiracial mammoths, had a top ten with "Mad Passionate Love" (with a smidgeon of then-fashionable chipmunking), sung in the gormless manner of his "Army Game" TV series character Private Popplewell - and had a top five with the cast of that series. Another Bernard, Cribbins, had a brace of top tens, one of which gave the Fairbrass brothers their name. Barbara Windsor tried to hit the charts during the Carry On heyday but missed - she had to wait until teaming up with Mike Reid in 1998, who in turn returned to the chart for the first time in 25 years since his top ten "The Ugly Duckling" (and which would be an inclusion for this thread had I found a follow-up on youtube...). Other stars - Kenneth Williams (usually as Rambling Syd Rumpo), Hattie Jacques (with on-screen twin Eric Sykes), Bill Maynard (see The 75 Club) and Frankie Howerd and June Whitfield (with a less than dirty cover of "Je T'Aime"), amongst others - tried, and failed, to become pop stars. The most successful of the big stars was Jim Dale, who had a number 2 hit with "Be My Girl" before joining the Carry On gang (Dale was one of those nearly men in entertainment achievements - nearly a number 1 hitmaker in the UK, nearly one in the US as well - he wrote "Georgy Girl" which The Seekers took to runner-up spot in the Hot 100 - and nearly an Oscar winner as he was nominated for this latter track, before he finally nailed a major award, a Tony in 1980 for the title role in "Barnum", followed 21 years later by a Grammy for his spoken word versions of the Harry Potter books), although the first Carry On number one was in 1962 when Joe Meek recruited budding actress Wendy Richard for Mike Sarne's "Come Outside". Windsor Davies though may have had the biggest seller for any Carry On star. OK, he only appeared in a couple, and "Carry On England" was the second-worst, but they were starring roles rather than the bit parts that Richard and other Carry On hitmakers like Rik Mayall/Nigel Planer played. It has to be said that his hits owed little to his Carry On appearance; they came from his role as the brutal sergeant in the comedy "It Ain't Half Hot Mum". It was an obvious crossover. A show about the entertainment troops in the war, so there was lots of scope for musical numbers to be at least mentioned. And in those pre-DVD or even pre-VHS days one of the few ways to cash in on such programmes was to release records. They all did it; the likes of Hancock and Steptoe have album hits to their name, and the idea EMI had for IAHHM was to have Don Estelle, "Lofty" Sugden in the show (four feet nine in his stockinged feet), and possessor of the most beautiful and clear tenor voice, sing an album of World War 2 favourites. To tie in with the programme more, EMI added the show's anti-hero Sgt-Major Williams (Davies) to shout out various bits of encouragement and, more often, excoriation. For a promotional single they went with "Whispering Grass", a song that had been made famous by The Inkspots in 1940, and written by father/daughter pairing Fred and Dot Fisher (ironically Fred was born in Germany). It provided an unexpected hit, and warranted a second single. "Paper Doll", with the Mike Sammes Singers (see Whispering Jack Smith) was chosen as the follow-up; it was not quite so successful. A third single ("Cool Water", the Frankie Laine classic) missed the chart, so Davies & Estelle remained two-hit wonders. Nevertheless the project continued with the release a couple of months later of the album "Sing Lofty", which made the top ten and sold 80,000. The duo were friends off-screen as well as on and teamed together for appearances outside IAHHM, but Davies became the bigger star, headlining the sitcom "Never The Twain" and remaining in demand as a character actor. Estelle did make another single - a cover of "The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine" with fellow Rochdaleite and MP Cyril Smith (I swear I am not making this up) - but otherwise faded into the obscurity of shopping centre personal appearances selling home-made CDs and his autobiography. And occasionally turning up on television, one of his last appearances being in the League of Gentlemen. The octogenerian Davies is still with us, but pretty much retired; his last television appearance was in "My Family" six years ago. Estelle sadly died seven years ago yesterday, aged 70.
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Post by Earl Purple on Aug 3, 2010 23:23:02 GMT 1
Funny though they may have been as comedians this totally sucked.
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Post by vastar iner on Aug 4, 2010 22:17:26 GMT 1
Yeah, I think it would have worked better as a straight song, but it probably wouldn't have sold. But if you didn't like that, I'm not sure this other army-based sitcom-linked hit is an improvement... Clive Dunn"Grandad", no. 1, November 1970 "My Old Man", did not chart, May 1974 The decline in music from the 1960s to the 1970s might be summed up by the first record above. On 21 November 1970, Jimi Hendrix had his one and only - posthumous - week at number one with "Voodoo Chile". The next week, Clive Dunn's "Grandad" crept in at number 48. Destined for the Christmas market? Perhaps - but a strike at EMI delayed production for a fortnight, and the Christmas market was locked out by Dave Edmunds, who replaced Hendrix at the top of the charts, and remained there for seven weeks. Until dethroned by Dunn. Almost depressingly, the song was written by one of the legends of sixties music. Herbie Flowers. Who? You may not have heard of him, but you have heard him. The most famous bassline in music history, from Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side", was played by Flowers. A studio bassist who had a sideline in composing - he had previously written Blue Mink's top 5 hit "Melting Pot" and bassed most of their singles, as he did for CCS, T.Rex, Sky, Bowie (including the number one "Space Oddity"), Elton John, Harry Nilsson, Rolf Harris ("Two Little Boys") and loads and loads of other acts. As indeed he still does, albeit concentrating on jazz. You can even book a lesson with him. "Grandad" was a bit of a fluke, he was stuck for a hook for a song for Dunn when a friend announced his arrival by ringing his doorbell. Ding-dong. That was it. Flowers naturally played the bass on the record - he also played the euphonium... But why was Flowers writing a song for Clive Dunn in the first place? Apparently they met at the afterparty of the Ronnie Corbett edition of "This Is Your Life". Flowers was introduced as a songwriter to Dunn, who said, OK then, write one for me. Dunn was one of the youngest of the Dad's Army stars, only just turned 50, but who had been stereotyped as an old man previously (he had been a curmudgeonly caretaker in sitcom "Bootsie And Snudge", featuring Alfie Bass of "The Army Game", see, it's all linked) and had missed the chart with a recording of the theme of that programme. He wasn't the first choice for Lance Corporal Jones - that was Jack Haig, later to be "it is I, Leclerc" in "Allo Allo", but who was otherwise engaged on kids' telly - but he slotted in the role a treat. Flowers just took the geriatric nature of Jones and put him in mufti. Seldom has a label tried to remove a one hit wonder with such fervid effort. There were no less than three immediate follow-ups in similar vein, and an album, but all missed the chart. The fourth release was another sing-the-theme-toon effort from Dunn's latest vehicle "My Old Man"; a programme spun from a Ronnie Barker one-off, where an old man had been evicted from his slum in favour of a tower block. Dunn's wife Priscilla Morgan played his daughter in it... It was not a success, and Dunn revamped the Grandad character for a children's TV series that ran for years with the most egregiously coached studio audience ever. He still tried to have further hits over the next few years, all in vain. Dunn retired from acting in the 1990s to run a bar in Portugal, where he lives in total retirement. 90 years old and having outlived the entire supposedly younger Warmington-on-Sea platoon, barring Ian Lavender...
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Post by vastar iner on Aug 5, 2010 20:00:36 GMT 1
Girl Thing"Last One Standing", no. 8, July 2000 "Girls On Top", no. 25, November 2000 It's a complete myth that the record industry is looking for the Next Big Thing. If it were, it would be throwing everything at the charts, on the basis that anything could be the Next Big Thing. Acid skiffle, whalesong garage, Mini Viva, whatever, any random collection of sounds could hit the public's tastebuds and take off. No, the industry is looking for the Last Big Thing. As soon as anything is successful, the industry can't think of anything else to release. That's the only explanation for anyone ever thinking it might be a good idea to make a Pigeon Detectives album. Girl power is surely an obvious example. The industry had, for years, been trying to find a female equivalent of Take That (another act who had been pushed regardless of ability to fit a niche; they had failed as a gay group, failed as a normal group, it was only as a Barry Manilow tribute act that they eventually hit success). They had come and gone; Milan (featuring Martine McCutcheon), Sydney's Girlfriend (i.e. they were from Sydney and called Girlfriend, rather than called Sydney's Girlfriend, which would have been a better name, and after they failed they became GF4 and failed again), Boy Krazy...all with big campaigns behind, all failed. The Spice Girls came a bit out of nowhere. And dominated the charts in such a way that the industry did not copy them immediately; the failures of Bad Boys Inc et al in trying to topple the Thatters (which is why Bozone were held back, and they in turn passed the baton on to W***life) meant that labels were watching and waiting for the first signs of flagging, before flooding the market with their own "creations". Girl Thing were the archetypal example. They had been created by Bob and Simon Herbert, who had created the Spice Girls. Look at the formula. 5 of them, all with distinct personalities (one of them, had pink hair, woo) and with the same girl power attitude. Taken from the usual fame-hungry sources. Auditions in Manchester and London brought out Michelle, a Blackpool pleasure beach dancer. Nikki, another dancer. Linzi, a Mancunian clubbist. Anika, who had been in three Dutch girl groups before. And, because you can't get anywhere without a stage school brat, Jodi, a gymnast from the Sylvia Young school, who was a dangerously jailbaity 16. RCA, who had turned the Spice Girls down, would not make the same mistake. They promoted the flying Hades out of their ersatz girlpowerists. Just as the Spices' run was up, with just one more number one to come. Indeed the overpowering media campaign was such that other girl bands hung fire; they made the cover of the then-still-somewhat-relevant Smash Hits before their debut single, and even a feud with the Spice Girls was created (criticism from Mel C that they were Spice Girls rip-offs; surely not, I mean, that first video was SOOOO different, leading to the pink-barneted Michelle to claim that they were totally different, which is obvious). So before they even hit the chart the backlash began. The multi-millions spent on them saw them just scrape the top ten. The follow-up didn't come close. They did have an album out, aimed at the European and Japanese markets, but it was not exactly successful. And within a year Girl Thing were no more. They soon dispersed into desperately trying to retain a foothold of fame. Michelle presented on Nickelodeon for a few years (funny, one of Girlfriend moved into kids' telly, as did one of Precious, and so did Lolly, and the girl in River City People) before becoming a mum and a dance teacher. Linzi is taking singing lessons (a few years late) and a backing vocalist for a Pink Floyd tribute band (that sounds a bit Royston Vasey). Nikki is still a professional dancer. Anika is still a singer, under the name Kiana, and tried again on a Dutch Pop Idol equivalent. And Jodi? She was so desperate for fame that she ended up in Hollyoaks, married a Westlife and is in ANOTHER girl band that, amazingly coincidentally, won a slot supporting, er, Westlife. Maybe I should have said her surname was Albert?
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Post by Earl Purple on Aug 5, 2010 20:08:02 GMT 1
Wasn't "Sound of the Underground" orgiinally Girl Thing's song? Not sure, I don't know that genre of music that well.
And the Pigeon Detectives were not too bad, but then I'm one who doesn't think britpop should have been murdered around 1998-1999 because it represented what was good in music, and there has been loads and loads of great pop-rock music in the last decade that went pretty much unheard by people who might have liked it.
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vastar iner
Member
I am the poster on your wall
Posts: 17,431
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Post by vastar iner on Aug 5, 2010 20:41:42 GMT 1
"Sound Of The Underground" was originally an Orchid song - the group that featured Jenson Button's erstwhile gf Louise Griffiths. It's a bit of a cheat, though, as the Girls Aloud version almost certainly was the Orchid version with a bit more oofle dust on it. The Girl Thing song that became successful later was this one...
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