vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Feb 17, 2018 22:32:56 GMT 1
Did you know that the folk song "The Lincolnshire Poacher" topped the US charts?
It did so in 1950 - albeit with some different words...
Phil Harris was a bandleader who had a number of comedy songs under his belt. Indeed a one-reeler docu short about him won an Oscar in 1934. You may recognize the voice; he was Baloo the bear in the Disney version of The Jungle Book.
You can see him in action with it here:
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Post by suedehead on Feb 17, 2018 22:55:05 GMT 1
From a rather age "The Thing" to a more specific Wild Thing and a rather silly cover version.
The Goodies - Wild Thing
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Post by raliverpool on Feb 18, 2018 12:17:27 GMT 1
8 pages in, and I think it is time to post this definitive interpretation of the Elton John classic, where this version takes it back to its original Bernie Taupin lyrical meaning of having a trip whilst stoned in the most disturbing way possible:
William Shatner - Rocket Man
It's a cover Jim, but not as we know it, not as we know it, not as we know it ...
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Feb 20, 2018 19:49:51 GMT 1
^I once won a karaoke contest doing "Rocket Man" a la Shatner...
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Post by raliverpool on Feb 20, 2018 23:37:07 GMT 1
I won a Karaoke contest (probably because everyone was over earnest and trying to hard, by going in the opposite of my usual "Byron Ferrari" crooning direction, by covering this then very recently released hit, but in the speaking bits in the verses I used my voice impressions (which I could do pretty well) of Ren & Stimpy in the respective verses:
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Feb 26, 2018 22:10:41 GMT 1
I'm surprised the Trumpistas haven't tried to get this into the charts again...
Byron MacGregor was a news editor for an Ontario radio station. But the weird thing is this spoken-word encomium for the USA was not an original. Sort of. The text had been written by a chap called Gordon Sinclair as an editorial piece for a newspaper. After a radio station broadcast a recording of the text backed by "Bridge Over Troubled Water", MacGregor decided to cut it for release.
And astonishingly it did not just reach the Billboard top five. It actually got to no. 1 in both Cashbox and Record World. Billboard had Barbra Streisand at no. 1 at this time (9 February 1973). Our no. 1 was "Blockbuster" by The Sweet, which should have been a comprehensive answer to why the US was on its Tod.
Anyway, MacGregor's success p*ssed off Sinclair enough for him to record his own version...
...which made the top 40 of all three major charts. Making Sinclair, at 73 years of age, the oldest male soloist to have a hit single.
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Post by raliverpool on Feb 27, 2018 20:48:35 GMT 1
I was going to enter this in Haven's Hidden Treasures 17 to mess with people's minds/give them a laugh. Except I erased the fact that its featured vocalist has somehow scored a UK top 5 hit (thanks to a joint campaign by Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills & The S*n newspaper foe "Jump In My Car" (which explains why I ignored it)) so making it ineligible:
(PS: I think it is proof that Billie Piper has not been part of the best record by a NuWho Doctor's companion)
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Mar 1, 2018 22:55:33 GMT 1
Sometimes people put words to instrumental hits and try to score a success with them. Matt Monro's final chart hit, for instance, "And You Smiled", was a vocal version of Simon Park's "Eye Level".
But I'm never sure why you'd want to do that. Isn't the point of the instrumental that it's an instrumental?
Especially when it comes to Acker Bilk's glorious no. 1 "Stranger On The Shore" - which was not under that title when written...
This Roger Whittaker one is bizarre because it has a quarter of a million views on youtube. Other vocal versions by Andy Williams and The Drifters - both hits in the US, whereas this one staggered to 95 here, rubbing chart shoulders with Peter & The Test Tube Babies - have nothing like the same number of eyeballs.
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Post by raliverpool on Mar 3, 2018 12:56:49 GMT 1
As for putting vocals over instrumentals ... well I just have the urge to post:
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Mar 15, 2018 0:59:37 GMT 1
There has always been a tendency for otherwise critically acclaimed acts to have mad side projects. XTC had Dukes Of Stratosphear for instance. Blur spun off Me Me Me. And Sonic Youth decided to do an album with a pic of Madonna on the front and called themselves Ciccione Youth for it.
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Post by raliverpool on Mar 15, 2018 20:22:37 GMT 1
A Chic Organization production that did commercially just as its title suggested:
Please note this New York peroxide blonde sex symbol is vogue-ing in the video some 9 years before Madonna "invented" it.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Mar 25, 2018 10:41:27 GMT 1
The Bobbettes were one of the first girl groups of the modern era, and scored a no. 1 hit in the R&B charts with " Mr Lee", a self-written homage to a former teacher of theirs. You may know it from the ringtone round on Ministry of Mayhem. So how did they follow up this particular paean? Erm. Atlantic Records took fright at releasing this, so it came out on Triple X records instead. Until Atlantic sued and stopped it from getting any higher than the fifties.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Apr 3, 2018 22:27:46 GMT 1
Three huge names in rock music; Roger Daltrey, Nicko McBrain, and Steve Harris. The Who meets Maiden. Plus Andy Barnett of quondam next big things FM. Sounds like a British supergroup. Except that there are also the talents of, er, John McEnroe and Pat Cash.
A charity single, in aid of Armenian earthquake victims; and indeed it's quite a straight cover of the Led Zep classic. But it did not create the mainstream stir that could have made a huge charitable contribution...
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Apr 19, 2018 0:44:30 GMT 1
Singlode in basic English twentyfido. Rotatey disker fallolop on the machiney for the soundode trickly-how hi-de-fi into the earloppers. Deep joy. But no going huffalo dowder the charty, oh no, for it was not a palpably hit. Oh, folly, folly!
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Apr 19, 2018 23:49:11 GMT 1
The OCC has this as MC Dale & The Bar Codes. The record itself has The Bar-codes with Alison Brown. Although some of the CDs came with an MC Dale sticker on them. Who would be an historian? The sole hit single for Blancacasa Records, which may have been an offshoot of Casablanca.
RIP Dale.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Apr 20, 2018 18:07:03 GMT 1
Why the hell was I not aware of this until last night? This is all sorts of amazeballs. And it made the top 20. Although I have no idea who Mad Donna is/was/are/were. I am going with the theory that it is the real Madonna until she denies it.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Apr 25, 2018 8:38:19 GMT 1
So, you're three young punky girls, with a hook-up to a quondam Sex Pistol, and you get yourselves a deal. How do you make an impact with your debut single? Why, sing it in Swahili, of course.
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Post by ManicKangaroo on Apr 26, 2018 19:02:22 GMT 1
I have no idea who Mad Donna is/was/are/were. I am going with the theory that it is the real Madonna until she denies it. Madonna impersonator Michelle Chappel
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Post by Winged_Robi on Apr 28, 2018 11:44:32 GMT 1
Ariana Grande No Tears left to cry
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Post by raliverpool on Apr 28, 2018 18:45:03 GMT 1
Being some what topical, I could post the brand new Kanye West single (featuring T.I.) "Ye vs. The People" but quite frankly this pro current POTUS song seems like a bizarre attempt at self sabotage easily "trumping" the verbal diarrhea spouted by Morrissey in numerous interviews this year ...
So instead here is an Australian top ten hit by a satirical TV character performed by Australian actor and comedian Garry McDonald whose own national TV comedy variety show, The Norman Gunston Show featured among his show's supporting cast the poet Joe Dolce who deliberately did bad stereotypical characters of numerous nationalities in the show ... (& we know what he did late in 1980 with his Italian persona ...)
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