vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Aug 31, 2010 21:38:07 GMT 1
Goombay Dance Band"Seven Tears", no. 1 , February 1982 "Sun Of Jamaica", no. 50, May 1982 Can you believe they kept the sublime "Just An Illusion" by Imagination off the top spot? Jeez. Really, this act is the wrong way around. Their big hit came after their little hit, only the little hit was reissued afterwards to become a slightly less little hit. The band was named after an obscure Caribbean bay and formed by Oliver Bendt, who, believe it or not, was not born with that name (Joerg Knoech) and changed it to that. Basically a poor man's Boney M, only with the Farian character acting as lead singer and fire-eater. Big in Europe, surprise surprise, but never really made it in Britain. Until for no apparent reason "Seven Tears" picked up some airplay and, in a cold spring, struck a chord with the plebs. Bendt had spent 3 years in St Lucia and brought some Caribbean sounds back to his native Germany. With Boney paving the way he had a ready-made market. "Sun Of Jamaica", his first hit, released in 1980 but missed the UK chart entirely; however it was number one in Germany for nine weeks (in four different runs, take THAT Frankie Laine). Several Eurohits later "Seven Tears" made it in the UK and "Sun Of Jamaica" was hurriedly re-issued. And flopped. The real follow-up was "Christmas At Sea", following at the end of the year, but Renee and Renato stole their thunder. No more would Bendt trouble the UK charts, despite near-constant touring since then and record-releasing throughout the 1990s.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 1, 2010 22:50:49 GMT 1
Dammit, had I known that it would trip to a new page, I would have swapped these two around. Dave & Ansel Collins"Double Barrel", no. 1, March 1971 "Monkey Spanner", no. 7, June 1971 Shouldn't really be here, given their follow-up was more successful than most artists' biggest hits, but they seem to be a forgotten number one act, let alone anyone remembering their other top tenner. Ansell [sic] Collins is a Jamaican keyboardist who worked with the legendary - and for once that word is apposite - reggae pioneer Lee "Scratch" Perry in the late 1960s; Dave Barker (born David Crooks) a session vocalist who had worked with various groups - including Winston Riley's Techniques - until fellow singer Glen Brown introduced Barker to Perry. Perry persuaded Barker to include toasting as part of his singing routine, and in the close-knit Jamaican recording community Riley thought Barker's vocals would go well with an instrumental sting he had written. Dave met Ansell, the two put down "Double Barrel" on Riley's Techniques Records. It came out at a good time. The original ska-based skinhead movement was at a peak, with Desmond Dekker and the Harry J Allstars having recently tasted chart success, and after T Rex had bagged the top spot for six weeks the population was ready for a bit of a change. Having had a worldwide hit - "Double Barrel" went top thirty in the States - it seemed a bit daft not to release a follow-up, and Riley and Collins teamed up to write "Monkey Spanner" as a second release. And another hit. It encouraged Techniques' parent label Trojan to try to sign up the duo, but they had already effectively split. Collins to keyboard for The Revolutionaries, Barker to emigrate to Britain to capitalize on his success, solo Trojan deal in hand. They probably broke at the right time; glam was about to dominater - indeed it took over the original bovver-booted skin audience (check out Slade in their guise as Ambrose Slade, imagine the colours changing and the boots getting more platform) and the "black" audience moved into northern soul, at the expense of reggae and ska. Still, both members continued in music; Collins as a performer and producer in Jamaica, Barker recording unsuccessfully under the original Dave & Ansel name, but his releases - including a cover of "In The Ghetto" - were unsuccessful. Barker later joined jazz-funkers Cargo and soul band Chain Reaction, and also appeared with The Selecter. Both are still going strong. Last year Barker featured with Jennie of the Belle Stars on Argentine reggae band (I can't believe I have just typed that) The Crabs Corporation's debut single "Let It Go"; Collins released a tribute album called "Sounds Of Reggae".
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 2, 2010 22:03:20 GMT 1
Baltimora"Tarzan Boy", no. 3, August 1985 "Woody Boogie", dnc, November 1985 One problem with having a summer hit is that the follow-up must needs be released somewhere around Christmas. With two disadvantages. One, it gets lost amidst the Christmas rush. Two, chances are it's a summery tune and totally out of place amongst the global warming. Such was the fate of Baltimora. A project of Milanese producer Maurizio Bassi, who saw(London)Derry medic-cum-dancer Jimmy McShane performing in a club and recruited him to be frontman for one of the more catchy chants of the era. And out of nowhere the low-budget duo were in the top five with legends like Madonna, Jagger, Bowie and UB40. It couldn't last. The selling-point of the single was the moronically appealing Tarzan chant and there was little chance of repeating that. Indeed the follow-up had a half-hearted attempt to incorporate a cartoon woodpecker's noise in the intro over a song that sounded otherwise identical - and it never made much of an impact on the audience. Bassi tried to regain some sort of success with anaemic cover versions - including "West End Girls" and "We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off" - but the duo never hit the chart again. Amazingly enough they made it to two albums, but after the flop of "Survivor In Love" they were dropped by EMI. Nevertheless the song became a hit in the US in 1993 after it was used on a Listerine commercial. Bassi remains in demand as a producer in Italy, most famously working with Eros Ramazzotti. McShane never recorded outside Baltimora - indeed he barely recorded WITH Baltimora, his involvement was to be the face of the act, he contributed some background vocals and lyrics to the albums - but his fate was a tragic one. McShane returned from a US tour in the early 1990s to find his partner had died in his absence of AIDS - a disease McShane never knew he had and one he was unknowingly incubating. Poor Jimmy died in 1995. He was just 37.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 6, 2010 20:20:38 GMT 1
Owen Paul"My Favourite Waste Of Time", no. 3, May 1986 "One World", dnc, November 1986 Former Celtic apprentice Owen McGee quit football for music when he heard the Sex Pistols, the Weegie headed for London after a few years of desultory non-success. A one-off appearance on the Oxford Roadshow generated interest and after a flop single he hit it big with his second (written by Marshall Crenshaw, who made a guest appearance in the Yo La Tengo video for "Tom Courtenay" (and he really WAS in the touring production of Beatlemania, as John). His third - "Pleased To Meet You" - was such a flop that it isn't on youtube, his fourth bubbled under, and the next couple, and parent album "As It Is", missed the charts entirely. And then he quit performing. Disillusioned with the pop pap that he was being encouraged to write, he declared that he would do things HIS way. Which involved not being on a label. He produced an album for Japanese group BuckTick, and co-wrote Britain's 2001 Eurovision entry for Lindsay Dracass. Owen Paul would almost be forgotten, except for this embarrassing All About Evesque incident on the Beeb's "Pebble Mill At One", had it not been for inadvertently guesting on The Osbournes by being a bit too noisy for the Prince of Darkness, eventually ending in Oz and Shaz hurling meat at his gaff to try to shut down his par-tay. "But Mr Tariner," I hear you cry, "you are always going on about how artists can never make a living without airplay and hits. Mr Paul seems to have been able to buy a house in California based on the income from ONE HIT!!! Blimey, Johnny Hates Jazz must be supping on nectar by the gallon whilst being fed unicorn steak on the moon with The 411. You have been LYING to us all along, you cad, you bounder, you whey-faced poltroon!!" To which I reply "but soft. Owen Paul had other business ventures, you know." "Oh yeah? To make such money he must have been spectacularly successful. Like co-founding a bunch of highly profitable Planet Hollywood franchises with a friend." "Well, actually..." "Ahhh, I have misjudged you. But I am not beaten yet! You say artists cannot become famous because of the lack of airplay. That you have to have someone in the know on your side. Yet Paul made it - briefly - on his own!!!" "You haven't asked me what he's doing now." "OK, what is he doing now?" "Recording some of his own stuff, having returned to the studio after a 15 year absence, apparently for his own pleasure. But he also performs in a band called Ex Simple Minds." "He wasn't IN Simple Minds!" "No, but Ex Simple Minds features a former drummer of Simple Minds." "And?" "Just happens to be Mr Paul's brother." "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh...you've run rings round me logically. I will never, ever doubt thee again. And all your posts will be printed up and placed in a gilded shrine of pearl for the ignorant world, i.e. all of it that is not you, to behold and worship." "Well, I'm not stopping you."
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 8, 2010 21:38:44 GMT 1
Hm, I was going to go with Sly Fox next, as "Let's Go All The Way" was in the chart at the same time as Owen Paul, but follow-up "Stay True" seems only to be on torrents. So let's step a bit further back. The Mixtures"The Pushbike Song", no. 2, January 1971 "Henry Ford", dnc, April 1971 A prime example of how following a formula does not work second time around. Or, alternatively, does. The Mixtures were an Australian band, formed in 1965, and recorded a couple of tracks in an EMI studio when they had been brought in as session musicians. EMI was so impressed with their work that they released one track - "Koko Joe" - as a single. It was a local hit; Australia's sheer size meant that, like in the US, it could be difficult to break out nationally. The Mixtures had this problem and meandered around labels for a few years. Then something rather interesting happened. In 1968 Australia amended their copyright laws. Which encouraged the major labels to make further demands for royalties from radio stations. The radio stations countered that perhaps the payments should be going the other way. After all, playing a song on the radio meant that that song was being given free advertising. The negotiations turned acrimonious and in 1970 the majors announced they would stop sending promotional singles to radio. So what did the radio stations do? Boycott the majors. Which was perfect timing for The Mixtures. They had just signed up to local independent label Fable. And, with all sorts of popular records pretty much banned on the radio, Fable got its roster of artists to record soundalike versions. New Faces star Liv Maessen copied "Knock Knock Who's There". And The Mixtures copied "In The Summertime". The result? A very strange series of charts. Maessen became the first Australian to get a gold disc; The Mixtures suddenly had a number one hit. At one point Fable had the top three singles; a little later a quarter of the top twenty. And the biggest seller of 1971 - "Eagle Rock" by Daddy Cool. With such success, The Mixtures decided to copy their own single. "The Pushbike Song" was written by vocalist Idris Jones with his brother Evan, and became one of the first international hits entirely Australian grown. It was another number one in Oz, which was particularly sweet for Jones as he turned down the lead vocal on "Summertime" as he thought it too poppy, and thanks to an ad hoc distribution deal with Polydor nearly made the top in Britain, kept off by a record that might crop up in another theme I'm thinking about... So, copying the theme worked in Australia. Could it work in Britain? "Henry Ford" was rush-released to capitalize - perhaps too rushed, as "Pushbike" was still fairly high in the charts. As a result, despite a TOTP plug, the audience failed to buy it - perhaps they went out to buy "Pushbike" instead which had just plummeted headlong out of the top 30 but then refused to leave the chart. The other problem was that the band had had to come to Britain to record the album and, never having had the stablest of line-ups, essentially finished it with a completely different line-up to the Mungo Jerry line-up. Perhaps because of their antipodean absence, "Henry Ford" was not a homeland hit, although "Captain Zero" - co-written by Mick Flinn, the vocalist on "Summertime" and who was now resident in Britain, and Jones' Kiwi replacement Pete Williams - at the end of the year made the Australian top five. But then it all went wrong. The major label boycott ended. Worse, an American-copying consultancy suggested different playlisting practices. The result? Blandness. Whereas previously quirky local acts like Daddy Cool, Drummond and Spectrum could hit the top of the charts, from 1972 onwards Australian music was driven into oblivion. 1971 saw its top two selling singles by Australian acts on an Australian label and Australian acts top the chart for 22 consecutive weeks. 1972 saw only one Australian have a number one single (rock band Blackfeather - Oz still lacked colour telly until 1974) and that for just a fortnight. It finished off The Mixtures. They stayed around in various line-ups for a couple more years but never hit the Australian charts again. Most of the various Mixtures remained in bands; Flinn hit the top of the charts again in 1977 as a member of Pussyfoot (writing with, and producing, singer Donna Jones), and has since used the Mixtures name with fellow Mixture Fred Weiland. Jones has been a jingle writer and Williams a member of Brix. Drummer Jon Creech has had the most success though - he was Curly Monologue's regular drummer.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 9, 2010 21:05:25 GMT 1
And from one act who benefitted from some rather nationalist airplay policies to one who named themselves after it... Kon Kan"I Beg Your Pardon", no. 5, March 1989 "Harry Houdini", dnc, July 1989 In Canada, 30% of all airplay must be of Canadian origin. Perhaps that explains Celine Dion's career cos eff all else can. But this policy is known as "Canadian content", or, for short, "Can Con". Reverse that and you get the name of this synthy samplist act. Kon Kan was put together by producer/DJ Barry Harris, who recruited singer Kevin Wynne (and later Kim Esty for the female parts) to front his mix of remix. Wynne only lasted for the first three singles and album, Harris using samples and sessionists for albums two and three, but as they were unsuccessful that was it for Kon Kan. Post-group, Harris has been hugely successful as a remixer over the years; he teamed up with Chris Cox as Thunderpuss and produced material by Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson and Mary J Blige, and after he dissolved that duo in 2003 moved on to solo remixing and other projects - he was in charge of the music of the US version of "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy". Harris also produced some solo work for Esty. Harris is still successful in North America, his recent remix of Simone Denny's "Drama Queen" being a top 5 on the Billboard dance chart. Wynne moved more into the industry side of things; he moved into management, working on global distribution deals, and eventually started a CD production company (manufacture, packaging and so on) called CD-Rep that is still going strong. Wynne has an autobiography out soonish...
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 11, 2010 12:00:00 GMT 1
The power of advertising...The only way you are going to get people to buy your records is to get them to hear them. The classic way of doing this is through the radio; hence the disproportionate influence of the Radio 1 playlist. A-listed records are scheduled to be played so often that the average Radio 1 listener will hear them twice per week. Potentially millions of different listeners. So an exponential increase in possible sales compared to word-of-mouth. The other way is of course television. Once upon a time a Top Of The Pops appearance could propel an outsider into the top ten; no more. The only television outlet these days is Fix Factor, with a very carefully circumscribed set of songs chosen for promotion. And look at the effect. TOTP was a democratic show, whatever people were buying was played, and with fewer outlets and a more generous helping of airplay for less-known acts the chart was truly democratic. Popular songs at the top. Nowadays the power of the buyer has gone. It is all in the hands of Simon Cowell. And the plebs lap it up. One other way to get publicity was to get your song on an advert...every time Corrie comes on, you've got a shot at reaching millions of those who would not normally buy records. And it could be ultra-successful. At least in the short term. Acts who got airplay for their one song would not get it for the follow-up and so their chart careers would be truncated. The power of advertising is shown by a number of examples. Some had the hit in reverse, so to speak; their biggest hit coming at the end of their career, usually well after it, because of the use in an advert. Bobby Vinton, Percy Sledge and The Bluebells can all testify to that. Sam Cooke would as well had he not been shot dead in mysterious circumstances. For others, the advert was the start...and, practically, the end... David Dundas"Jeans On", no. 3, July 1976 "Another Funny Honeymoon", no. 29, April 1977 Possibly the poshest person ever to hit the chart. Dundas is a genuine Lord, the second son of the 3rd Marquess of Zetland, and even posher than the Hon. Susan Frances Harmar Nicholls who appeared in Crossroads in the 1960s (which spawned her one-off hit) and later went on to be Nadia Popov in Rentaghost (and apparently successful in the aforesaid Corrie). Dundas was a jobbing actor and soundtrack composer who had moved into jingle writing after Capital Radio had been impressed with his film work. His break was co-creating "Jeans On" for Brutus Jeans, with the advert-phobic BBC refusing to play it until they replaced "Brutus" with "old blue". This is the same BBC who re-titled Top Cat "Boss Cat" to avoid promoting a cat food with the former name, even though the programme referred to Top Cat and TC passim. So probably didn't work. Dundas co-wrote the song with Roger Greenaway, who had performed in the 1960s as one half of David & Jonathan with Roger Cook (not that one); they would have made this list had their hits been the other way around, their second hit - the rather splendid "Lovers Of The World Unite" - outperformed their version of "Michelle". Greenaway had form in advertising, with Cook they had written "I'd Like To Buy The World A Coke", which, with the BBC-friendly title "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing", had been one of the biggest sellers ever. Dundas' third single - "Where Were You Today" - was on a C&A advert but without radio play the punters didn't get the connexion. After a few more desultory attempts Dundas moved back into jingle writing, and hit paydirt with a handy royalty he received from Channel 4; it was he who composed the four-note sting with the blocks flying into the shape of the 4 logo (called "Fourscore") and he earned getting on for 50k per year from that alone. Dundas also composed the score for cult film "Withnail And I", so at least he made it to an extensive music career. Unlike some others. Robin Beck"First Time", no. 1, October 1988 "Save Up All Your Tears", dnc, March 1989 You can blame Coke for this one. Beck had emigrated from Brooklyn to Daytona to look for singing work when still a teen, and had local success with Florida band Deep South. She eventually got roles in disco musicals (oh God) and had one shot at stardom in the late 1970s, but her debut album - title track single "Sweet Talk", a disco number which had Irene Cara on backing vox - flopped. Returning to New York, she got involved with jingling and landed the role for a Coca Cola soundtrack. Naturally, it was released as a single, and unfathomably topped the chart. One wonders what would have happened had the genius Irn Bru parody emerged earlier. Beck never followed up with the same success, probably because the initial song was vile and the follow-ups even viler. All you need to know about those is that they were big in Germany. Like David Hasselhoff. Thank God we won the War. Still recording, still putting out material, albeit having resorted to starting her own label (Her Majesty's Music Room) to issue her own stuff (although she has done backing work for many - Patti Austin, Melissa Manchester, Cher and Deep Purple for starters), and was back in the top ten in 2006 when Sunblock re-mixed "First Time", which was bought by congenital morons. Stiltskin"Inside", no. 1, May 1995 "Footsteps", no. 34, September 1994 Levi's though were generally the best at re-promoting things to the chart. After relying on sixties classics, in the 1990s they decided to push a more modern sound, and wanted a Pixies-type quiet then loud record for their Amish-themed swim-fit video. Indeed the first choice for the commercial was Pixies spinoff The Breeders' song "Cannonball" but in the end they went for a group formed specifically by songwriter Peter Lawlor to perform his advert piece and named for the elf whose name translates as "wrinkled foreskin" (look it up). And Lawlor created his own label, White Water Records, to release the song, as, in yet another instance of the outstanding stupidity of the record industry, the majors turned it down as they thought it would not be a hit (amusingly the catalogue number was LEV 1). Put together in such an ad hoc manner, it's perhaps unsurprising that they didn't last into their second album. Lawlor continued writing, including the Premier League handshake theme that never gets heard at St Andrews cos we're usually singing "Keep Right On", various BBC idents and the BBC's 2000 Olympics theme; he has done spacey soundtracks for adverts for the likes of Mercedes and Orange. Singer Ray Wilson (formerly of the band Guaranteed Pure) went off to front Genesis for a while and retains the Stiltskin name for live performances. Drummer Ross MacFarlane drums for Sharleen Spiteri and the Proclaimers (now there's a combo). Random Leninesque alert: Wilson's cousin bastardized the Stiltskin name for his own nom de disque, and as Ian Catskilkin is a member of the fantastic Art Brut. This therefore links me to Rose Elinor Dougall in six steps (me - univ with Matt Pinsent - Olympics - Stiltskin - Art Brut - Indelicates - Pipettes). Next step evidently is marriage.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 11, 2010 23:20:26 GMT 1
And a quick trio of others who got a Levi's leg-up:
Smoke City
"Underwater Love", no. 4, April 1997
"Mr Gorgeous (And Miss Curvaceous)", dnc, June 1997
Acid bossa nova (indeed their next single was a Brazilian anthem subtitled Joga Bossa), the influence from their half-Brazilian singer Nina Miranda. Two albums and lots of adverts, but because of what the band thought was intolerable pressure from their label to churn out hits, they split. All continued with various collaborations, Miranda chiefly in the band Shrift, but also with Nitin Sawhney and Robert Miles, Chris Franck (her partner) as a remixer and producer under the name Da Lata, often in world music projects with people like Femi Kuti and Senegalese singer Baaba Maal, and Marc Brown as KV5. Miranda and Franck later married and they have a child; they currently record under the name Zeep.
Pepe Deluxé
"Before You Leave", no. 20, May 2001
"Girl", dnc, July 2003
Finnish electro. Woo! DJ Slow, aka James Spectrum (Jari Salo) and JA-Jazz, primarily involved as remixers (including Tom Jones' "Burning Down The House"), but who occasionally put out their own stuff. Nearly ended up being used for Lee's Jeans but Levi got there first. Still record together, last album came out in 2008.
Lilys
"Nanny In Manhattan", no. 16, February 1996
"Returns Every Morning", dnc, May 1996
OK, I'm cheating with this, as they hit the chart two years after their first UK was first released, but what the hey. Lilys are the closest the US gets to The Fall, in that it's a one-man (Kurt Heasley) project with an ever changing line-up around him, and the music is often as spikily challenging, but more in a late sixties and feedback-heavy vibe than Mark E's grumpy old man ranting. Probably the most obviously one hit wonder band ever, as their other UK singles were all limited editions...they're (he's) 8 albums in and still going.
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Post by Earl Purple on Sept 12, 2010 0:13:10 GMT 1
Pepe Deluxe had their most successful year in my chart in 2007! 3 hits that year including a #1 with "The Mischief Of Cloud 6"
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 13, 2010 20:45:21 GMT 1
It had to happen... Joe Dolce Music Theatre"Shaddap You Face", no. 1, February 1981 "If You Want To Be Happy", dnc, May 1981 Yes, there was a follow up. And yes, it bombed. Apart from in Germany, of course. Joseph Dolce is not an Italian, or even an Italian-Australian, but an American, from sunny Ohio, jobbing songwriter and performer. However he emigrated to Australia in his thirties in 1978. His first song was a protest song against the ill-treatment of the Vietnamese boat people. Bit of a contrast. Dolce decided to create Giuseppe, a "comic" persona, based on his Italian-born grandparents, with an annoyingly small ukelele. And "Shaddap You Face", inspired by an atavian admonition, proved to be a gigantic hit in Australia. For eight weeks. Some idiot decided to release it in the UK, and it kept "Vienna" off the top of the charts. If someone were to release the names and addresses of everyone who bought SYF rather than Vienna I would be grateful as I have some friends who paint houses. Fortunately Britain showed enough sense to make him a one-hit wonder, although Europe, the land of Nicole and Johnny Hallyday, gave him a few others, including the touching and tender ballad "You Toucha My Car, I Breaka Your Face". Gradually though he moved away from the idiotic towards the more serious, and with his girlfriend Lin Van Hek wrote the song "Intimacy" for the Terminator sountrack. This brought him back towards the world of film - he appeared as lead actor in a low-budget film - and gained sufficient connections to launch an Australian version of The Secret Policeman's Ball. Since then, he has continually composed, performed, acted and compered, and with van Hek has formed folkish band DIFFICULTWOMEN.
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 14, 2010 22:31:37 GMT 1
And from one dodgy national stereotype that hit the top of the charts in 1981 and had a successful follow-up in Germany to another... Aneka"Japanese Boy", no. 1, August 1981 "Little Lady", no. 50, November 1981 I can remember this being announced as number 1 on TOTP and I was really disappointed, I was hoping it would be the Human League...in retrospect it came right out of nowhere and vanished with alarming rapidity in an era when songs tended to stick around a little more. It went from 19 to 21 via 1 in less than two months... Mary Sandeman was a traditional Scottish folk singer who wanted to try to break into the mainstream; she persuaded producer Neil Ross to do a demo for her. Ross gave her a Bob Heatlie song "Japanese Boy", which confusingly used the pentatonic scale more familiar from Chinese music. Sandeman did not want to sully her precious traditional reputation with pop pap and opened the phone book at random to try to get a suitable name; eventually she saw an Anika and spelt it in a more Japanese-looking way. The b-side though was the Rabbie Burns song "Ae Fond Kiss", perhaps to spread the gospel... Ross traipsed down to London with the demo, found a sympathetic ear in Hansa Records, and with Sandeman all geisha-ed up became a surprising overnight success. Hansa were so chuffed that they stumped up for an eponymous album, which flopped, and a follow-up single, which also flopped, but at least which made several European top tens. Germany and Austria seemed to like the cod-Italian and Japanese sound, fondly remembering forty years before? A third single - an anthem for backing singers, "Ooh Shooby Doo Doo Lang", saw a radical change of image and some more Euro success. But, chartwise, that was it for Aneka, and a couple of total flops later Aneka reverted to Sandeman. Ross had licensed the release of the Aneka project to Hansa, but he had his own label as well, REL, specializing in the tartan tourism type releases - 20 Bagpipe Greats, the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, that sort of thing. Indeed he has continued to release Sandeman's more traditional output over the years. None of which has bothered the charts, although songwriter Heatle did - he teamed up with Shakin' Stevens to write him a handful of hits, including "Merry Christmas Everyone". Disappointingly, the Japan song "Cantonese Boy" is not a parody. I would have bought that...
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 15, 2010 20:18:22 GMT 1
OK, I've held off long enough...time for my favourite. Jackie Lee"White Horses", no. 10, April 1968 "Rupert", no. 14, January 1971 Awwww. Back to the womb again. Jackie Lee is a Dublin-born singer who had worked as a lab technician in London, auditioning for roles, until she struck lucky and joined Ronnie Aldrich's Squadronaires in 1955. She later went on to join The Raindrops (check the link for the worst introduction ever) in the early sixties, alongside Vince "Edelweiss" Hill and songwriter Les "What Do You Want" Vandyke, and soon-to-be-husband Len Beadle, and even came close to representing Britain in the 1962 Eurovision Song Contest. However despite strong singles such as "There Goes The Lucky One" the Raindrops never made the official charts. Lee became a soloist after the raindrop sound dried up, and EMI tried to launch her as a newcomer under the pseudonym Emma Rede. It didn't work. Lee became a session singer, backing Tom Jones on "The Green Green Grass Of Home", Jimi Hendrix on "Hey Joe" and Engelbert Humperdink on "Release Me", amongst others, and being a sexy singing banana. Her first chart success though came from an unlikely source. A Germano-Yugoslav collaboration about horses. A children's programme, the sort that would be repeated interminably for years during summer holidays (see: The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn), basically about a girl (played by the late Helga Anders) who stayed with her Lipizzaner-breeding uncle one summer and the theft of one of his horses by gypsies. The series was a great influence on Nicolas Sarkozy. When it was dubbed into English, the Beeb decided to get a different theme, and called in Michael Carr (who also wrote "Kon-Tiki") - sadly, one of his last efforts, he died soon afterwards - and Ben Nisbett to knock one together. Nisbett invited Lee to sing it, she laid down two tracks to be harmonized together, the Beeb loved it, and hey presto, Lee had a top ten on her hands. Although Philips tried to disguise it; Lee was billed simply as Jacky in another attempt to relaunch her. The song itself has become almost a tweepop anthem, Trixie's Big Red Motorbike (the originators of twee) covering it for a Peel session, and its gorgeous melancholia forming the philosophy behind bands like Talulah Gosh and The Darling Buds. It gave Lee a bit of a reputation for themes. She sang the theme for Barbarella (although it was never used for the film after a falling-out between the film director and arranger), the theme for the rather risque "That Loving Feeling", and was drafted in to sing the theme for Inigo Pipkin, another unwillingly melancholic theme because George Woodbridge (the actor behind Inigo Pipkin) died and - a first for kids' telly - they worked it into the programme, the programme then becoming Pipkins (and spawning one of the all-time greatest, campest and most outrageously rude kids' TV characters in Hartley Hare. Her other chart success though came with the Rupert The Bear theme. She had an advantage as she had been married to the songwriter, Len Beadle, but the marriage had fallen apart by then - still, professionalism survived. It wasn't meant to be released as a single, but there were so many enquiries about it that it was re-recorded for vinyl and rush-released and, although it didn't get very high, it did spend nearly five months in the top fifty. It was almost the last thing Lee would record. A handful of singles followed, including a Poland Song Festival runner-up, but none charted. In 1973, having been singing almost constantly for 20 years, Lee had to have an operation on damaged vocal chords that effectively ended her career. Lee is now happily married and living in Canada. Incidentally, if you want to scare yourself, check out the original Rupert titles here. Disembodied animal heads and some... thing at 29 seconds. It's a wonder we didn't grow up demented. Or did we?
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Post by Earl Purple on Sept 15, 2010 20:21:52 GMT 1
Dolce decided to create Giuseppe, a "comic" persona, based on his Italian-born grandparents, with an annoyingly small ukelele. It's spelt ukulele. I'm not out playing mine tonight though...
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 16, 2010 20:33:40 GMT 1
OK, I'll tell the singer from Bloc Party. From one kids' TV programme to another: The Archies"Sugar Sugar", no. 1, October 1969 "Jingle Jangle", dnc, March 1970 Ah, Veronica, you can play my organ any time. The Archies - Archie Andrews himself on vocals and guitar, Reggie Mantle on bass, Jughead Jones on drums, Veronica Lodge on keyboards and Betty Cooper as Bez - were a 1940s comic brought to life in the late sixties in animation form, with bubblegum pop along the lines of genre-naming band 1910 Fruitgum Company. The artistes behind the actual record though had a decent pedigree; Ron Dante was a long-standing session singer, and had been a member of The Detergents, who had a parody Stateside hit with "Leader Of The Laundromat" (and you can see Dante mime to "Sugar Sugar" here), and he was accompanied by session vocalist and songwriter Toni Vine (who co-wrote The Mindbenders' hit " A Groovy Kind Of Love" with Carole Bayer Sager), songwriter Andy "Rock Me Gently" Kim - who co-wrote "Sugar Sugar" with Jeff Barry - and Ellie Greenwich, evidently not taking offence at Dante's Detergent incarnation; Greenwich co-wrote the original "Leader Of The Pack", as well as THE greatest single of the 1960s...Why did The Archies make music? Nam. And hippies. And yippies. Basically a CBS executive thought television had become too violent and decided to put something a bit more innocent on there. And what could be more innocent than the middle-class teens of Riverdale? As part of their variety animation - and presumably so they could reuse stock footage of them miming - CBS brought in expert uberpromoter Don Kirshner. He had discovered Bobby Darin, sold a production company to Columbia for millions, ran the Screen Gems division (and its Colpix record label), culminating in being the man behind The Monkees - the pre-fab 4. He found dealing with human beings a bit too testing, both Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork had legit musical backgrounds and demanded so much creativity that the project fell apart (Nesmith later invented MTV). So he was happy enough to turn to cartoons. Kirshner worked with the cream of the session world, and got the aforementioned to write and perform for, and as, the "band". Hal Blaine and Joe Osborne provided the music, as they had for so many of the sixties artistes, so the chance of success was high. As it was, several Archies singles (on Kirshner's own Calendar Records) had failed before RCA picked up the release rights and could provide the financial muscle Kirschner lacked - and ironically the sugar references were adopted by the hated hippies as a drug anthem. The follow-up in Britain, featuring Dante singing in a falsetto voice, was a US top ten, but missed the chart in the UK. Ron Dante did a little better, indeed for a while he had two hits in the top ten at the same time, as his Detergent bandmates wrote the song "Tracy" that Dante performed with fellow sessionistas under the name The Cuff Links. Wine had agreed to perform for a flat fee, rather than a royalty; when this was not upped, she herself upped and left, replaced on later recordings by Donna Marie. The group had a few more US hits, none in Britain, but the cartoon phase waned quickly (it was all Partridge Family now) and by 1972 the Archies were finished. Wine went back to sessioning and obscurity. Kim became a hugely successful songwriter, and Dante ended discovering, producing and performing with Barry Manilow. Kirshner used the financial power the Archies gave him to promote rock concerts, before selling up and retiring before the seventies were out.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 19, 2010 21:09:32 GMT 1
More kids' TV spinoffs... Monsoon"Ever So Lonely", no. 12, April 1982 "Shakti (The Meaning Of Within)", no. 41, June 1982 A seriously great couple of records, a mixture of indie and sitar, featuring the precocious vocals and stage presence of Sheila Chandra, who turned 17 when "Ever So Lonely" was in its third chart week. Also the classic example of not being able to capture the magic a second time; like a number of others above, the first single was sufficiently different to make an impression, the second was just the same again. Without creating a new paradigm for record buying there was no real possibility of sustained success. Alas... After the one Monsoon album, Chandra returned to full-time education to get her degree, and songwriter/collaborator Steve Coe continued with production and songwriting work. Post-university Chandra teamed up with Coe again for solo material and released a number of albums on Coe's own label. She then moved away from Indian fusion into new age, and recorded three more albums for Peter Gabriel's label Real World, and has worked on numerous other projects. Despite all this output, Chandra's only other chart appearance - and her biggest hit - came when Jakatta bastardized "Ever So Lonely" and took it into the top ten... The real reason for including Chandra though is because she had first become famous as an actress in "Grange Hill", playing Sudhamani Patel in the first three series. Naturally the Grange Hill Cast would be a prime candidate for inclusion in this theme; their first hit single - the abysmal "Just Say No" (how many of the cast do you remember?) - making the top five, and follow-up single "You Know The Teacher (Smash Head)", spiv* Gonch and scally Ziggy's "tribute" to the fearsome Mr Bronson (played by perennial Nazi impersonator Michael Sheard), missing the chart. (If the Grange Hill Cast were ever dropped on a desert island, which ones would be in charge? The ones with the Gonch.) Trouble is, the video for the latter - and there WAS one, according to Just Seventeen - appears to have been wiped from the face of the earth. The "Just Say No" campaign was the culmination of the greatest Grange Hill storyline of all time, when Jackie destroyed Zammo's stash of heroin (to those who were not schoolkids in the 1980s this is going to make no sense), so to raise awareness of drug abuse even further they adopted a Nancy Reagan catchphrase and had a hit. Allegedly Ro-land was on the blow in the White House itself. Anyhoo, note the irony of John Alford telling people to just say no... John Alford was one of the many members of the cast who ended up with some sort of chart career, although his cover of "Only You" (which astonishingly was a top ten) was more a criminal record than his later conviction for drug dealing. Other Grange Hillers who had songs out include: Michelle Gayle (in ver Hill, part of Fresh & Fly with tomboy shoplifter Ronnie Birtles (played by Tina Mahon), post-Hill with the rather excellent "Sweetness" as part of a credible pop career, then she married Mark Bright) Paula Ann Bland (Claire, who got suspended for snogging Stewpot in the broom cupboard, how times change), who recorded a version of "The Locomotion" ( photographic proof) that bombed, she went on to pose for Mayfair) Lindy Brill (Cathy Hargreaves), a loser in the Eurovision heats in 1983 Sean Maguire (aaaagh, played Tegs Ratcliffe, who had one of those will they? storylines with Justine Dean, before he sugared off into his pop career and la belle Justine fell for a St Joe's pupil, who then amusingly died, thus giving rise to Ray's line "ullo Justine! 'Ow's the funeral?"), they tried for ages to get Maguire to stick but it didn't work; note the contrast with girl groups Natalie Poyser (Becky Stephens), a member of proto-Atomic Kitten group TSD, she played some character I vaguely remember as being involved in some dreary storyline about a refuge; one member of TSD continued downwards on the slope of credibility and became a member of Steps And a few extras - in a pretty visual example of how much music owes to the Sylvia Young School For Desperate For Fame Kids With Pushy Mums - had post-Hill careers: Naomi Campbell had a minor hit via the Monsoonish route with "Love And Tears" (a surprisingly excellent record, rather adventurous and well-constructed) Sophie Lawrence and Letitia Dean both forged mercifully brief assaults (and I use that word advisedly) on the singles charts, off the back of their EastEnders careers. Lawrence's [url= single was produced by the Cowell atrocity, [url= Dean's a one-off as part of a storyline about a talent show (you couldn't make it up). Still, better than fellow extra Anthony Costa, him from Blue and Slimfast And finally Lindy Layton fronted the marginally more successful Beats International before going solo and later co-forming DJ duo Hardknox (a bit of a shift in sound). Still involved in the dance scene and is an ad hoc member of the Dub Pistols* Grange Hill had a long line of spivs, from Pogo Patterson via Jimmy Maclaren and Gonch through to Ray, and probably loads of others afterwards...
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 22, 2010 22:20:25 GMT 1
The Flying Lizards"Money", no. 5, August 1979 "TV", no. 43, February 1980 One of those one-man projects that ended up with a group name. The Lizards were essentially Irish experimental artist David Cunningham, who was at the forefront of the post-punk new wave when punk wasn't even post. Virgin Records was looking for the next big thing after the Pistols imploded; Johnny Rotten was signed up to a solo deal and he explored dub reggae as part of PiL, Malcolm McLaren was signed up as a sort of talent scout, and he promptly touted his new discovery Annabella Lwin, but Virgin also signed up others that might have filled the vacuum, such as Nash The Slash, OMD and the Lizards. They weren't that stupid, Virgin; they had received a copy of Cunningham's self-recorded "Summertime Blues", and whereas the other labels to whom Cunningham had sent it turned it down flat, Virgin realized that it was so cheap to record they couldn't possibly lose money. So they signed Cunningham up to two singles. The first being the demo and which sold a couple of thousand, easily making back its £250 printing and pressing cost. But the follow-up single - a mixture of manic, frantic experimentation, founded on a piano-stuffed-with-telephone-directories-and-rubber-bands-and-god-knows-what-else basis, fronted by the bored sloaney vocals of Deborah Evans (a friend of Cunningham's from the Maidstone College of Art who provided the vox for the debut single) and recorded on a budget of £20 - piqued the viewing public and once it made the top five the contract was extended. Given an increased budget, Cunningham sought out other musicians to complete the projected album. He already had Julian Marshall, who had provided the piano for the debut hit, and signed up a couple of members of the Portsmouth Sinfonia, an orchestra of people who could play instruments, just not the ones they were given - and a bunch of other female "vocalists". The album was not that big a hit, but it charted, unlike every other Flying Lizard project. After third album "Top Ten", all Moneyesque cover versions, missed the chart, Cunningham retired the Flying Lizards name and continued under his own identiy, mainly production work for others including Jayne County and Michael Nyman. Cunningham has since moved in the art world circles, creating installations with exploration in sound. His "Listening Room" was exhibited at the Sydney Bienniale and he has also exhibited at modern art museums like the Ikon in Birmingham and the Camden Arts Centre. Cunningham also owns and runs the Piano Records label, which released "Grey Scale" and is still active, releasing Cunningham's solo or collaborative work as well as some other fluxus or dada-inspired musicians. Evans is now a psychotherapist and occasionally does voiceover work, as well as running the Outside In charity.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 27, 2010 21:00:03 GMT 1
Edelweiss"Bring Me Edelweiss", no. 5, April 1989 "Starship Edelweiss", dnc, November 1992 As referred to in theme 1, Drummond and Cauty of the Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu wrote a book about how to have a number one hit the easy way. Surprisingly few people decided to follow it. One chap that did was Austrian producer Martin Gletschermeyer, who teamed up with fellow deej Walter Werzowa, remixer Matias Schwager, yodeller Maria Mathis and jazz singer Mercedes Hall to muck around with Abba's "SOS". They actually took it to the JAMMs who told them they could self-release. They did, and did indeed have a number one hit with it; although it stalled at 5 in the UK, it reached number 2 in Germany, and topped the charts in Austria, Switzerland, Sweden and New Zealand. The band caused a bit of controversy; the dwarf-dancing-with-a-giant-codpiece was banned in Britain, and their Top Of The Pops performance attracted complaints from the moronic fringe. I also remember a Piers Morgan expose in The Mirror - announcing that those dastard Austrians had ripped off "SOS". True follow-up "I Can't Get No Edelweiss" flopped and Werzowa left Austria for the States; he went on to compose the Intel four-note jingle. Gletschermeyer revived the Edelweiss name a few years later for some more hits, collaborating with the Austrian DJ outfit the Bingoboys, who had had some success with "How To Dance", as well as getting Mathis back on board, who had been performing in the interim with her brother on the Austrian folk scene as Chari & Wari. It was a surprising success; "Raumschiff Edelweiss" was an Austrian number one, and a top ten in Germany and Switzerland, although it made no impact on the British charts. The project came to a sad end when bandmember Thomas Schlögl, Captain Kork in the Spaceship video, committed suicide. Plans for a follow-up were shelved and Gletschermeyer put Edelweiss back on the shelf for a few years. He tried again in 1997 with a variation on the Wedding March, but it flopped even in Austria... Mathis is still active as a singer and released the album "Fire In The Night" back home in 2007. Klaus Biedermann of the Bingoboys is still producing under the name EAV but I can't find any trace of the others.
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Post by Shireblogger on Sept 29, 2010 12:58:22 GMT 1
I haven't commented often on this thread, but it is ceaselessly fascinating.
I always put Mungo Jerry and the Mixtures next to each other when I made early 70s compilation tapes, but I never released the similarity was so deliberate.
White Horses (the tv show) combined two terrible late 60s / early 70s children's tv characteristics, namely stories about animals and badly dubbed continental European productions. Suffice to say that I always watched it as far as the end of the beautiful theme song, and then turned off the tv set and did something better instead. Never knew the title tune was a hit though, probably because my interest in pop music barely overlapped with my children's tv years.
I adored Monsoon, and despite being a Grange Hill adict in the late 70s, I'd never twigged that link either.
Keep them coming vas.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 29, 2010 21:48:39 GMT 1
Thanks shireblogger. This is actually quite an easy theme for which to find examples. So I'm trying to keep it down to those that are a bit more interesting, or are so obviously one hit wonders that it was a surprise that someone even bothered with a follow-up. And I have a bias towards the past, as people will remember the more modern stuff, the archaeology is the thing that interests me. Inspired by your post, though, I can tie in both theme tunes and Grange Hill in one easy entry... The Simon Park Orchestra"Eye Level", no. 1, November 1972 "Theme From Man About The House", dnc, November 1973 The link with theme tunes is obvious from the follow-up...the link with Grange Hill is that Alan Hawkshaw, who wrote the theme for "Man About The House", also wrote "Chicken Man", the theme for "Grange Hill" (and, in a bizarre mix-up, the theme for "Give Us A Clue"). Alan is the father of Kirsty Hawkshaw, vocalist with Opus III (the inspiration for Moon Monkey, a Trevor and Simon creation, who had a hit with Donovan...everything is linked &c). Anyhoo, less well known amongst the younger chart-obsessed watchers is that the biggest-selling one-hit-wonder ever - until the Teletubbies came along - was also a television theme. "Eye Level" was the theme for the Dutch-scened detective series "Van Der Valk" and bombed on its first release, stalling at number 41. A re-issue based on a successful second series sent the tune to number one for a month. Simon Park himself was a remarkably young orchestra leader, still in his mid-twenties; he was something of a musical prodigy, having earned a Masters in music from Oxford. He moved into the library music world on graduation, producing the sort of soothing background music for the testcard (still more worth watching than most television nowadays) and stochastic public information films/school-type progs/anything that needed music. Some of his more dynamic pieces were recorded under the name Simon Haseley for no evident reason. Naturally this included television themes, and he was commissioned to work on a theme outlined by library music company De Wolfe in-house writer Jack Trombey. Trombey himself had been inspired by a nursery rhyme from his native Netherlands (his real name being Jan Stockaert), and Park worked it into a piece that somewhat unexpectedly ended up at the top of the charts; the first television theme song to do so, unless one counts (as one should) Mr Acker Bilk's "Stranger On The Shore". What most people missed, however, was the b-side was infinitely better; the quite wonderful "Distant Hills", another television theme, but this time for the semi-reality "Crown Court" - a TV series based in Fulchester (yes, really) Crown Court, where actors played out fictional crimes and a real jury would vote on conviction. (And quite some actors; as can be seen in the clip, the likes of Patricia Routledge, Bob Hoskins, Derek Griffiths, Ben Kingsley and Colin Firth appeared in various roles, and Richard Wilson was a regular barrister.) This was the standard television programme we watched either when off sick from school or when the hollygogs did not coincide with those in London...interestingly one episode I remember is based on the infamous 100 Club incident when a punk girl's eyesight was damaged by a flying glass, allegedly thrown by Sid Vicious (in CC the verdict was not guilty). The follow-up "Man About The House" theme (which we can link in Kevin Bacon factor to lots of indie groups via this band) was a pretty blatant cash-in by Columbia and it bombed - let's face it, it may have been fine as a theme tune, but as a single it did not really work. And that was it for Simon Park and his orchestra as far as charts were concerned, although he did continue to produce library music for De Wolfe, under the SPO name and also using the name International Studio Orchestra, on both De Wolfe and its imprint Rouge, all the way into the 1980s. Library music itself seems to have vanished, even pages from Ceefax are redundant, but the library discs themselves have become expensive collector's items; by their nature they were not aimed at a mass-market, very few copies were pressed and printed up, and even their covers are often masterpieces of graphic design ( here's a rather large example of one of Park's pieces, described as "exciting, dramatic sounds for electronic synthesizers", from 1982). I can't find anything Park has released in the last 20 years or so, so perhaps he has retired? Postscript: there was a vocal version of "Eye Level", sung by Matt Monro, but called "And You Smiled"; it was aimed at the Christmas 1973 market but it barely scraped the thirty. The last hit single for bus-driver Terry Parsons, who got his break when a BBC chap heard him singing on his route. Monro was given his stage name by none other than Winifred Atwell...everything is linked...
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Post by raliverpool on Sept 29, 2010 22:29:23 GMT 1
I. Just. Love. This. Thread.
A trip down memory lane and a laugh with a few anorak facts thrown in. What more can you ask for.
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