A virtual representation of those records that you used to hide at the back of your collection, hoping that your close friends would never find them and ridicule you while secretly reveling in their awfulness
Regular readers of this blog (all four of you - hi out there!) know that I have a slight Christmas song fetish; see the previous GP entries for 'East 17', 'Freiheit' & 'Kirsty MacColl'. Pop songs, carols, whatever - I love them at any time of the year, so I thought I would post a selection of my favourite videos for the holiday season.
Jona Lewie 'Stop The Cavalry' (1980) - one of those Xmas songs that, with the exception of a single lyric and a smattering of sleigh bells, has little if anything to do with Xmas and indeed was a summertime hit in France!
The Waitresses 'Christmas Wrapping' (1981) - The Waitresses are better known for 'I Know What Boys Like' but this track is a staple of Xmas Compilations and has been covered by such luminaries as, um, The Spice Girls and Miranda Cosgrove.
Mike Oldfield 'In Dulci Jubilo' (1975) - is there anyone who went to primary/elementary school and did not have to play this on the recorder? Come to think of it, is there anyone who actually played the recorder after they left primary/elementary school?!
Greg Lake 'I Believe In Father Christmas' (1975) - sometimes mistaken to be an anti-Xmas song, this is actually anti-commercialisation of Xmas. Greg wrote (with thanks to Prokofiev) and recorded this separate from Emerson, Lake & Palmer although the group did release a version a couple of years later.
John & Yoko 'Merry Xmas (War Is Over)' - yes, it's another not-very-Xmassy Xmas song and a little cheesy but, hey, we can hopefully all agree with the sentiments...
Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to one & all. See you in 2010!
The daughter of acclaimed folk singer Ewan MacColl (the writer of the seminal 'The First Time Ever I Saw Her Face'), it's a shame that Kirsty MacColl is somewhat better known for her collaborative work e.g. The Pogues 'Fairytale Of New York' and The Happy Mondays 'Hallelujah', than as an artiste in her own right. However she released a string of singles and albums throughout the 80s and 90s until her untimely death in 2000 in a boating accident in Mexico (she saved one of her sons from the path of a speedboat allegedly driven by a member of Mexico's high society).
Outside of the aforementioned collaborations, she is best remembered as covering Billy Bragg's 'A New England' and The Kinks' 'Days' and for her early tracks 'He's On The Beach', 'They Don't Know' (covered by Tracey Ullman, an earlier GP entrant, with Kirsty on backing vocals) and this, her first hit reaching #14 in 1981. Fun Fact: this was released in the US as 'There's A Guy Works Down The Truck Stop...' as it was felt that Americans would not know what a chip shop was! I highly recommend hunting down a copy of her compilation 'Galore' or, if you to be comprehensive the box set 'From Croydon To Cuba'. R.I.P. Kirsty...
Bonus Clips: 'They Don't Know', Kirsty's first single:
as it's the holiday season, one of my favourite Xmas songs, 'Fairytale of New York':
and finally, just for an excuse to post the lovely 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face'. Here's a version by Peter, Paul & Mary, featuring the recently departed Mary Travers. R.I.P. Mary...
William "Cpt. James T. Kirk" Shatner has often been pilloried for his 1968 album 'The Transformed Man' which featured cover-versions of recent hits performed in his own inimitable style of dramatic interpretation, making every phrase sound as if it should be followed by an exclamation mark. For example, 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds': "Picture Yourself! In A Boat! On A River! With Tangerine Trees! And Marmalade Skies!"
However, old Bill appears to be able to laugh at himself and has continued to spoof his style in various commercials and at the 1992 MTV Movie Awards (where he performed all 5 of the Best Song From A Movie nominees). In 1995 in teamed up with Ben Folds to produce another album 'Has Been', the only cover this time being Pulp's 'Common People' which also featured Joe Jackson (of 'Different For Girls', 'Is She Really Going Out With Him?', 'Stepping Out' fame). For some reason, the dramatic reading actually works here either because the source material is so good or because the verses have little melody anyway. Funnily enough, 'Has Been' got pretty good reviews and became the basis for a ballet (choreographed by Margo Sappington, best remembered for 'Oh! Calcutta!') also called 'Common People'. Who said "Pop Will Eat Itself"?
Bonus Clips: Here's the aforementioned 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds':
... and just in case you thought this cheese was limited to Cpt. Kirk, here's one of Leonard Nimoy's contributions to popular music:
Truth be told, I have a soft spot for their entire debut album 'Eddie, Old Bob, Dick & Gary' which also included the seminal 'Wunderbar' and '3 Bells In A Row' along with this, their biggest hit (No. 6 Apr 1981).
Tenpole Tudor was originally formed in the mid-70s by Eddie Tudor (born Edward Tudor-Pole, his family allegedly being descended from the Tudors) who was briefly Johnny Rotten's replacement in The Sex Pistols and appeared in their film 'The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle'. After a couple of albums, Tenpole Tudor disbanded with Eddie eventually returning to his first love: acting. Nowadays, he is best remember as the host of the UK version of 'The Crystal Maze' having taken over from Richard O'Brien in 1993.
Bonus Clip: Here's the resolutely silly 'Wunderbar'....
Another GP that popped into my head the other day as an earworm, this track from 1976 is quite interesting for the following reasons:
David Dundas is actually Lord David Dundas, the 4th Marquess of Zetland (wherever that may be)! His father, the 3rd Marquess of Zetland (also known as the Earl of Ronaldshay) was a British tennis player in the 1940s and played Wimbledon.
'Jeans On', Dundas' only big hit, started out as a commercial for Brutus Jeans (see also: 'I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing' by The New Seekers and 'Inside' by Stiltskin
'Jeans On' was sampled by Fatboy Slim for the track 'Sho Nuff'
Dundas went on to score the cult movie 'Withnail & I'
You know what? Nearly everything about this track is wrong, from the Lili Von Shtüpp inspired lead-vocal by Noosha Fox (check here if you've never seen Madeline Kahn's Lili in Blazing Saddles) to the use of a Peter Frampton-esque talk box. However, the whole turns out to somehow be greater than the sum of it's parts!
Fox were put together by the American Kenny Young, who had previously been responsible for co-writing 'Under The Boardwalk' and 'The Captain Of Your Ship', and Australian vocalist Susan Traynor who rechristened herself Noosha Fox on joining the band. 'S-S-S-Single Bed' was the last of their minor chart hits before Noosha went solo and the band split.
By the way, no - that is not Lol Creme on rhythm guitar although it really, really looks like him (I believe that it is actually Herbie Armstrong).
Bonus Clip: As mentioned above, Kenny Young also wrote Reparata & The Delrons' 'The Captain Of Your Ship'. It's one of my favourite girl group songs so that's an excuse to post it here!
Musical Youth were a Birmingham-formed UK reggae band that included 2 sets of brothers and spanned the ages 11-15 when 'Pass The Dutchie' was released. At the time, a 'dutchie' was said to be a patois term for a cooking pot i.e. a dutch oven. However, the song was actually a cover version of The Mighty Diamonds' 'Pass The Kouchie', which was about something else all together (Hint: the call & response verse in the original is "how do you feel when you got no herb").
'Pass The Dutchie' was a huge hit in the UK in the autumn of 1982 but subsequent releases provided diminishing returns and the group had faded from the public eye by 1985.
"Ba Dang Dang Biddley Biddley Biddley Bong!"
Bonus clips: Here's The Mighty Diamonds' 'Pass The Kouchie'.
I'm going to take a small side-step here and post a few songs which, while not truly my guilty pleasures per se, are IMHO the silliest songs by artists I'm otherwise extremely fond of. So to kick us off (and especially for you, Keef) here is a classic from ELO.
Now some may claim that there are other sillier ELO songs (and I do admit that 'The Whale' or the entire 'Time' album come pretty close), but I believe 'Don't Bring Me Down' is significant for 2 reasons:
1. It was apparently almost fully written and recorded one day in the studio by Jeff Lynne while waiting for the rest of the band to turn up. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise seeing as Lynne wrote a complete double-album 'Out Of The Blue' in about three weeks (are you listening, Axl Rose?)
2. This track heralded the end of ELO as an experiment between rock & classical orchestration. It was the first track they had recorded with no strings on it at all and in fact the strings section was summarily dismissed shortly afterwards (you can see them mucking around on a Moog in this video clip).
Coming from the disco-fied 'Discovery' album - or 'Disco? Very' as the ELO keyboard player Richard Tandy quipped, 'Don't Bring Me Down' was the highest placing single as a sole act (#3) ELO had in the UK, their only #1 being 'Xanadu' with Olivia Newton-John.
Bonus clip: What's that you say? You are dying to hear an a capella rendition of 'Don't Bring Me Down' with a somewhat cringeworthy choreographed routine? Well, here you go then...
Another one of those synth hooks I can't get enough of, 'Einstein A Go-Go' was one of only two chart entries (the other being 'Norman Bates') that Landscape had though they were together for long enough to create 3 albums. After disbanding, both Richard Burgess & John Walters went into production (the former producing the first 2 albums by Spandau Ballet, an earlier GP entrant) while Andy Pask wrote the theme to the long-running UK TV show 'The Bill'. Incidentally, Burgess is credited with coining the term 'New Romantic' so go blame him for that most ridiculous of genres!
"Shudlee boop deee woodlee diddlee oooooooooh, zeen" - and that was exactly how we spent a short period of 1985 running round the playground. Does anyone know whether the claim to be 'broader than Broadway' is a boast or an acknowledgement of Mr. Levy's girth? Anyway, this track became popular again about 8 years later when a Jungle remix appeared.
A true power-pop classic though I cannot recall a single thing about The Jags. Wikipedia tells me they were formed in London at the tail-end of the 70s and that this single scaled the heady heights of No. 17 on the charts in 1979. All other releases bombed and the band split by 1982. Shame really...
I've always had a soft spot for the Andy Williams easy-listening original but this ska'd up version works pretty nicely too. The Beat (or The English Beat as they were known in the US) were a late 70s/early 80s Birmingham based band who covered this and 'Tears Of A Clown' plus had a string of original singles such as 'Mirror In The Bathroom', 'Too Nice To Talk To' & 'Stand Down Margaret'. After a couple of albums, the band split to form General Public (best known for an instrumental version of one of their tracks playing during the climatic chase scene in 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off') and The Fine Young Cannibals (with Roland Gift). Incidentally, the teenage me would continuously mangle the title of this as 'Can't Get Loosed To Using You'(as Gary Davies also does in this intro!) which I guess would change the context entirely...
Bonus Clip: Here's my favourite non-Guilty Pleasure Beat track. It's apparently about narcissism and not cocaine dontchaknow!
Another one of those odd early 80s UK sub-sub-genres, the short lived British Salsa revival. Modern Romance started off as a spin-off from 70s comedy punk band The Leighton Buzzards and had a couple of big hits namely 'Everybody Salsa' and 'Ay Ay Ay Ay Moosey' (yes seriously, I'm not making this up). They then released a cover of the popular standard 'Cherry Pink & Apple Blossom White' (featuring the 'trumpet stylings of John Du Prez, that's him in the Biggles outfit) before original lead singer Geoff Deane departed and the band took a more pop direction. 'Best Years Of Our Lives' was their biggest hit reaching the top 5 in 1982 before the band split in the mid-80s.
Interestingly enough, Geoff Deane wrote 'You Think You're A Man' for Divine before going on to be a TV writer and producer while John Du Prez teamed up with Eric Idle and co-wrote Spamalot. Morrissey allegedly once said of the group "There are indeed worse groups than Modern Romance. But can anyone seriously think of one?"
Bonus Clip: If you thought 'Best Years Of Our Lives' was ridiculous, take a look at 'Cherry Pink & Apple Blossom White'!
Ah, good old August Darnell, for Kid Creole is he, and his marvelous bunch of coconuts! Of course, undetermined parentage has been the source of many songs and films such as 'Billie Jean' and 'Mama Mia' but never quite as funny or tongue-in-cheek as this:
'You see if I was in your blood, then you wouldn't be so ugly!'
The band recorded on ZE Records (useless fact: the Z in ZE Records came from Michael Zilkha, the son of the owner of Mothercare) who have recently released a number of compilations entitled 'Mutant Disco' featuring not only Kid Creole but spin offs and luminaries e.g. The Coconuts, Coati Mundi, Cristina, Lio & Was (Not Was) - I highly recommend them if you like this sort of thing.
Wasn't New Romanticism an odd genre? Synthy New-Wave tracks played by men in make-up and pirate/Braveheart costumes - yeah, that's just what we need. Even odder, a short-lived revival known as 'Romo' was attempted in the mid-90s!
Anyway, my twin sisters each had a favoured band - one was mad for Duran Duran and the other for Spandau Ballet. Me? I could take 'em or leave 'em (though Duran Duran has a special place in my heart - more to be revealed at a later date) - both started out with some good singles but quickly devolved into insipid soul-lite ballads (the latter) or cocaine-fuelled nonsense (the former). Spandau Ballet, in particular, completely lost it from 'True' onwards. However, I always quite liked this track - and even 'Musclebound' and 'Chant No. 1' had a certain charm. But it was pretty much downhill from there. The Kemp brothers starred in 'The Krays' and Martin then went on to 'Eastenders'. Tony Hadley released a couple of solo albums and turned up in 'Chicago' and 'Jesus Christ Superstar'. Everyone stopped talking to Gary and the other 2 fell off the face of the Earth. Recently, though, they have announced their reformation but I guess they're not going to come up with anything like this again...
Bonus Clip: London band Cazals covered 'To Cut A Long Story Short' a couple of years ago and, apart from slightly speeding it up and playing the main riff on guitar, didn't really change much. Take a look for yourselves...
A number of the songs posted here were forged in my memory, not because they were huge hits but because they were played on a number of UK mid-80s music shows. Red Box are a good example: they only ever had 2 chart entries - this track followed their 1st (barely) hit 'Lean On Me' - but were featured continuously on 'The Chart Show', a presenter-less music video programme (a precursor to 'Pop Up Video' if you will).
Red Box were one of those obtuse mid-80s indie groups that a major label (in this case WEA) decide to try and make big. Their shtick was synth-pop tracks mixed in with a little world music and visuals containing semaphore, phonetics etc. Needless to say, they did not set the world on fire and apparently 'For America' was written as a riposte to a request from their record label to write something that would appeal to mainstream American radio!
File this one next to Transvision Vamp & Betty Boo in the 'high-concept group that Joel only liked 'cos he fancied the singer' drawer...
Westworld were formed by Bob 'Derwood' Andrews from Generation X and were fronted by American Elizabeth Westwood. 'Sonic Boom Boy' was the first of an ever diminishing run of singles before the group disbanded with Andrews & Westwood next resurfacing in the trip-hop band Moondogg.
OK, I'm back after an enforced absence due to real life! So, let's kick things off again with one of those Europop tunes with a brain-numbing synth hook I seem to love so much.
At the beginning of the 90s, the Pet Shop Boys started their own record label called Spaghetti Records. The first signing to the label was David Cicero, a 20-something New York-born, Livingston-raised singer. The PSB production and backing vocals are all over this effort which hit the heady heights of no. 19 on the charts in Jan 1992 - in fact this could be a PSB track if Neil Tennant decided to affect a Scottish brogue...
Yes, another musical but this one I didn't grow up with. I don't know if it was the subject matter or the fact that JCS is far more 'rock opera' than 'musical theatre' but this was the only Rice/Lloyd Webber musical (up to and including Phantom/Chess) that my parents neither took us to nor owned the soundtrack.
For the uninitiated, JCS is the story of the Passion but told from the point of view of Judas and raises some great talking points regarding free will, betrayal and eternal damnation without coming across as particularly sacrilegious. It is also far more grounded in rock and pop than the later bombastic ALW productions. Even as a kid, I was aware of the title song though not really sure what it was about - and of course in true playground style, the lyrics were modified to:
'Jesus Christ Superstar,
Came down from heaven in a Yamaha.
Did a skid, killed a kid.....
Knocked his head on a dustbin lid.'
The score has been recorded many times but my favourite is still the original concept album version featuring Murray Head as Judas and Ian Gillan (yes, him from Deep Purple) as Jesus. Here's the former singing 'Superstar':
I first came to JCS via the film version directed by Norman Jewison in 1973. Jewison had also directed the film version of Fiddler On The Roof and it was that film's Mendel (Barry Dennen) who suggested that JCS be the director's next film (Dennen having already played Pilate on both the concept album and Broadway). The movie was filmed in Israel (mostly at Avdat) using as little set dressing as possible. If you have not seen it, I highly recommend it. It is absolutely gorgeous to look at with some great performances featuring many of the original concept album and Broadway cast. You can watch the whole thing online via the usual streaming services.
Carl Anderson was cast as Judas in the film, having understudied Ben Vereen on Broadway and would go on to play the part on and off for the next 30 years (often opposite the movie's Jesus, Ted Neeley). Here is Carl with possibly my favourite song in musical theatre 'Heaven On Their Minds', which in 5 minutes tells you everything you need to know about the character and storyline:
Yvonne Elliman was Mary on the concept album and Broadway and also reprised the role for the movie. 'I Don't Know How to Love Him' was the other huge hit from JCS:
'King Herod's Song' is probably the one comedy moment in the entire score and was performed in the movie by Josh Mostel, the son of Zero Mostel. Zero. who had been Teyve in the original Broadway production of Fiddler, had been bitterly disappointed to lose the role in the movie version to Chaim Topol (the London West End Teyve). When he heard that Jewison wanted to cast Josh as Herod, he reportedly exclaimed "Tell him to get Topol's son!"
Rik Mayall gave a far more sinister portrayal of Herod, channeling the MC in Cabaret, in the 2000 filmed production of JCS. This movie was interesting due to the updating of the setting to contemporary times and portraying the Jesus figure as more politico/social reformer than Messiah. A different take but also recommended - you can stream the whole film at the usual streaming sites.
Bonus Clips: Here are just a few of the very many performances of JCS material out there on the Web. First up, a live performance of 'Gethsemane' by the 1996 London production's Steve Balsamo:
and finally a lovely unplugged performance of 'Everything's Alright' from a Volendam, Holland cast.
Note: the entire Volendam recording from 2005 is available here:
Another one of those 'earworms' that pop into your head when you least expect them and another group that made a fleeting appearance on the UK charts and then promptly vanished. I believe Kon Kan were Canadian and when I first heard this on the radio back in 1989 I could have sworn it was New Order thanks to the lead vocalist's uncanny Bernard Sumner impersonation. This track also features samples from Lynne Anderson "(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden" amongst others. Some time later I found the album this track came from in a used record store. Nothing else on there came anywhere close to this and in fact the album version was subpar to this single version...
This popped into my head today for absolutely no reason and I suddenly recalled how much I loved this track way back when - I'm no quite sure why but it was probably a combination of the 'We Will Rock You' beat, 'I Am The Walrus' style verse and "zhum zhum zinny zinny" (as transliterated by Wikipedia) loop. Sly Fox were an American duo who seemed to come out of nowhere and then disappeared just as fast. The only thing I remember is a fantastic, albeit mimed, appearance of this song on Top Of The Pops.
I think that 'The Riddle' was one of the, if not THE, first cassettes (remember them?) I ever bought with my own pocket money (although that honour may have gone to a cheapo Barron Knights compilation from Woolworth's - don't ask). Nik Kershaw had a handful of large hits in the mid 80's including the anti-nuke 'I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me' and 'Wouldn't It Be Good' from his first album 'Human Racing'.
This, the title track from his second album, was mostly well-known for having a typically 80s bizarre video plus a competition ran by his record company offering a prize to anyone who could decipher the lyrics, without bothering to ask Nik about them. Had they, they would have found the lyrics were, in Nik's words "nonsense, rubbish, bollocks, the confused ramblings of an 80s popstar"!
After a third album bombed, Nik continued to record but achieved more success as a songwriter for other artists - remember 'The One & Only' by Chesney Hawkes? That was him...
As I've previously mentioned, I have a thing for musicals that, like most of my early musical education, comes from my dad. He would regularly watch film musicals on TV and take us to many West End shows. 'A Chorus Line', however, was not one of them - both my parents loved it but I guess that the subject matter was not appropriate for their kids. This did not preclude them from playing the soundtrack in the car and the reason that this song in particular is a Guilty Pleasure stems from one particular incident.
It was my friend Simon's bar-mitzvah and my dad had been asked to give 2 girls from school a ride to and from the function. Although I knew these girls, they were not part of my social circle. Anyway, en route my dad decides that we need some music, grabs the 'A Chorus Line' soundtrack and first song on side 2 starts: Dance: Ten; Looks: Three. Now for the uninitiated, this song is about a female dancer who is not getting any job offers and thus has some, um, surgical enhancements and it has a chorus that mostly utilizes the phrase 'Tits & Ass'. Well, this hormonal adolescent just about died and wished the car seat would swallow him up whole! We never spoke about this again...
Bonus Fact: When 'A Chorus Line' debuted, this song was not getting the audience reaction the creators had anticipated. They realised that it had been printed in the playbill under it's original title 'Tits & Ass' and therefore the audience has been expecting the setup! (Another example of this is in the mostly obscure Heather Brothers musical 'A Slice Of Saturday Night' where the song 'P.E.' has nothing to do with Physical Education...)
While Pamela Blair's original performance on the cast recording is stellar, here she is from the original Off-Broadway run at The Public Theater in 1975. The song actually starts at 2:45; the video quality is awful but the audio is amazing for being almost 50 years old (Note: NSFW lyrics obviously).
Bonus Clip: Here's Audrey Landers performing the same song in the fairly awful 1885 movie version of "A Chorus Line'
Another one to file in the 'I think I only liked it 'cos I fancied them' file! Betty Boo (Alison Clarkson) first appeared as a member of the all-female rap crew She Rockers and then guested on The Beatmasters 'Hey DJ'. Her first solo single was the classic(!) 'Doin' The Do' which was followed by this and the album 'Boomania'. After her second album flopped, Betty Boo effectively disappeared. Alison, however, did not - she turned her hand to songwriting and has written hits for the likes of Hear'Say, Girls Aloud, Dannii Minogue & Sophie Ellis-Bextor.
This much maligned album was always a Guilty Pleasure of mine but it seems to have been reappraised my the critic community on its 25th anniversary re-release in 2008. Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark were the first band I was ever a fan of. In 1981 they released of 'Architecture & Morality' which included the hits 'Souvenir', 'Joan Of Arc' & 'Joan Of Arc (Maid Of Orleans)' and sold by the bucket load. It took the band 2 years to produce a follow and when 'Dazzle Ships' was released in 1983 to say their audience was a tad confused is probably an understatement. Gone were the choral loops and heavily melodic Mellotron-laden tracks of 'Architecture & Morality' and their singles, replaced by far more chaotic singles such as 'Genetic Engineering':
and 'Radio Waves':
If that wasn't enough for most of their fans to start scratching their heads, interspersed amongst the songs on the album were tracks of musique concrete and short wave radio tape collages such as 'ABC Auto Industry' - check this live performance from 'The Tube' and note the audience not quite sure what to do at the end (and the misspelling of Frankenstein's monster!):
and 'Time Zones':
'Dazzle Ships' was a critical and commercial failure at the time and OMD reverted to a far poppier sound with 1984's 'Junk Culture' and the likes of 'Locomotion'. Although the inclusion of 'If You Leave' on the soundtrack to 'Pretty In Pink' gave the band their biggest US hit, the band would not have another Top 5 entry until 1991 and by then OMD just consisted of Andy McCluskey, the rest of the band long since departed. Recently, the original lineup has reformed, toured the entire 'Architecture & Morality' album and performed with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic!
Bonus Clips: Here's Owen Pallett of Final Fantasy performing the first 4 tracks of 'Dazzle Ships' on solo violin!
and here's a new video created to accompany the unreleased track 'Dazzle Ships (Parts I, IV, V & VI) from 2014 (Parts II, III & VII were included on the album as the 1st track on Side 2).
If you're in the UK you'll probably be more familiar with Bananarama's cover version. If you're a tween you might recognise this from 'Goodbye' by Kristinia DeBarge (who, being the niece of El DeBarge, is related to another Guilty Pleasure here). However, this is the original version and, yes you've guessed it, originally started out as yet another session recording by a fake band.
The story goes that the songwriters and musicians were in the studio recording a bunch of 'good' songs. Mercury Records agreed to release one and, not wanting to waste any of the already recorded tracks as B-sides, turned to a fragment of a song that they has written about 8 years previously. Needing to make the track longer, they created a chorus by basically throwing in a few Na-Na's and Hey's where they didn't have lyrics and that was that.
Embarrassed by the result, they attributed the track to the fictitious band 'Steam'.
Of course, what happened next was that DJs flipped over the record, making what had been intended to be the B-side a hit and thus ensuring that the throwaway chorus became the only part of the song anyone remembers! A touring band was quickly put together as the creators wanted no part in it (and judging by the stellar lip-syncing job in this performance, it was probably just as well). A couple of follow-up singles and an album flopped and Steam dissipated (geddit?!) Now beloved by baseball fans around the US who would probably be surprised to know that there are verses too...
My only excuse for this one is that I had an absolutely mega crush on Wendy James at the time and so I convinced myself that her group was the best thing since sliced bread - they weren't. On retrospect, TV were a pretty good singles band (see this track, 'Baby I Don't Care', 'Tell That Girl To Shut Up' etc.) but their albums were complete pap. They split after a couple of years, Wendy had an entire album written for her by none other than Elvis Costello and is now fronting something called Racine. Ah well, this takes me back to my excitable adolescent days which I've just realised is now over 20 years ago. Sigh...
Bonus Clip: 'Tell That Girl To Shut Up' was originally written & released in 1979 by Holly & The Italians, a short-lived LA band fronted by Holly Beth Vincent, who at the time was living with one Mark Knopfler. Dire Strait's 'Romeo & Juliet' is about their breakup...
I'm posting this mostly to demonstrate that the 'novelty' record transcends all genres so here is a reggae example. This is hilarious but only if you can understand the lyrics. Smiley Culture was a British MC/DJ who first hit the charts with the great 'Cockney Translation' (reference near the end of this song) with great lines such as "Cockneys have names like Terry, Arfur and Del Boy/We have names like Winston, Lloyd and Leroy." 'Police Officer' was his follow-up and was apparently mostly autobiographical. For those outside the UK, a 'producer' in this context is the producing of car documents (license, insurance etc.) You can find the lyrics here so sing along!
I can't believe I almost totally forgot about this one. I was only reminded when it came up in an obituary on Steven 'Swells' Wells. Swells was a journalist for the NME back when I first started reading it in the late 80s. He was incredibly opinionated, shouty, frustrating to read and absolutely brilliant. Almost every UK music journalist since has, as my friend Mark Beaumont will readily admit, tried to emulate him. He sadly passed away this week after a fight against Hodgkin's lymphoma. You can read his final column for the Philadelphia Weekly here.
One of Swells' favourite things was winding people up. So, of course, when a pop song featuring helium vocals by two American teenagers and lyrics consisting of schoolyard insults was released, he would wax lyrical in the pages of the NME resulting in vitriolic letters from readers who were more interested in the likes of the Manic Street Preachers, Blur, Travis etc. I would sardonically proclaim its brilliance but as a matter of fact it's pure genius - and the fact that Celeste is incredibly cute doesn't hurt either! Swells and others managed to get D&C on the main stage at the Reading Festival where, despite being bottled with all kinds of unmentionables, they put on a great show by all accounts.
RIP Swells - Ooh stick you, your mama too and your daddy!
Bonus Clips: Their other charting single, 'U.G.L.Y."
... and getting bottled onstage at The Reading Festival 2000
Cripes! This must have been the cheapest video in history to produce - it looks like they spent more on the balloons than the video itself. Racey were a British group formed at the tail-end of the 70s whose songs were written and produced by the songwriting team of Chinn/Chapman (well-known for other glam rock and pop hits of the era by Sweet, Mud, Suzi Quatro etc.). Apparently, this song was originally written for Blondie. Racey only had a handful of hits, of which this was the biggest, before disappearing. However, another of their album tracks was a huge hit for another artist after a lyric re-write...
Bonus Clips: 'Kitty' was a track on Racey's 1979 'Smash & Grab' album.
Toni Basil's version was retitled from a female perspective (allegedly about her crush on Micky Dolenz from The Monkees on the set of the movie 'Head' - one of my faves) and added the ubiquitous cheerleader chant and thus 'Mickey' was born.
...and I may as well include this, Toni's first single 'Breakaway' (not the same song as that covered by Tracey Ullman - this one was written by Ed Cobb who also wrote 'Tainted Love') released in 1966 and had an experimental video directed by Bruce Conner, with Toni credited under her birth name of Antonia Christina Basilotta (Warning: NSFW due to some nudity. The music video starts at 3:48).
Most people know Tracey Ullman as a comedienne, actress and/or responsible for their first exposure to The Simpsons. However, at the beginning of her career she had a simultaneous career in pop. Signing to Stiff Records, she mostly recorded cover versions of girl singers/groups including 'They Don't Know", "Sunglasses", "Move Over Darling" and this one, her debut. The boss of Stiff felt that only records above a certain tempo would be hits and so purposefully sped up the track during mastering resulting in Tracey sounding more akin to Minnie Mouse on helium! Still a great track with a classic video...
Bonus Clips: 'Sunglasses' video featuring Ade Edmondson
... and here's Tracey's version of Kirsty MacColl's 'They Don't Know' which has backing vocals from Kirsty and a cameo from none other than Paul McCartney in the video!
It may be the nostalgia but does it seem to anyone else that the 1970s were just more fun pop culture-wise? I mean, could you see a band forming a concept around sailors on shore leave, as this lot did? No, today you get Fall Out Boy instead...
Granted this sounds an awful lot like an attempt to recreate Roxy Music's 'Virginia Plain' even down to the lead singer's vocal inflections, but this is one top tune nonetheless. Other poptastic facts about Sailor:
They were fronted by one Georg Kajanus, born Prince Georg Johan Tchegodaieff from Trondheim, Norway
Kajanus invented the Nickelodeon, a musical instrument made of pianos, synthesisers and glockenspiels (I believe it is the monstrous dual keyboard you can see in the video)
Bonus Clip: Sailor's only other Top 10 entry in the UK charts was the follow-up single 'Girls, Girls, Girls'
Another Guilty Pleasure of mine - musicals (yes, I like musicals and bubblegum pop - I swear I'm straight)! I've liked almost every musical I've ever seen, and I've seen a fair few, including everything that Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd-Webber have been involved in - with the possible exception of Phantom, which I've never been that fond of, but I digress.
So, take one half of the most successful partnership in modern musicals and add the two guys from ABBA and you've hit musical paydirt, correct? Well, not quite. While quite popular in the UK and Europe, Chess bombed on Broadway. In retrospect, a convoluted plot involving Soviet-US politics set against the exciting(!) world of chess was probably not a crowd-pleaser. I saw it in the West End with the original cast. It was a very 80s staging with banks of video screens and a giant tilting and rotating chess-board floor but l thought it was great and would regularly play the Original Cast Recording.
Truth be told, this is not one of the best songs from Chess. In fact, listening to the original concept album the other day, a lot of it does seems horribly dated. However, I did know all the words and did a passable impression of Murray Head back in the day (BTW, Murray is the brother of Anthony Head of Buffy/Gold Blend/Free Agents fame). I caught the end of the PBS: Great Performances concert film of Chess last night starring Josh Groban and IdinaMenzel - try and catch a repeat of it this week (it's on in the Tri-State area at 1am on Friday morning).
Shameful fact: my schoolfriend Mark (sorry, Mark) and I used to perform a duet of 'I Know Him So Well' - I believe I did the Barbara Dickson part. Oh, the flashbacks - I'm off to have a scalding shower...
Bonus Clip: here's Raúl Esparza performing at the Kennedy Center in DC in 2018.
I always had a soft spot for a-ha. They sure knew how to make good videos and 'Hunting High & low' was one of the first albums I bought on vinyl rather than on tape - I believe I went halves on it with my sister Michelle as she was in love with Morten Harket.
Anway, this track was from their second album and, much like the Bucks Fizz song posted some time back, strikes me today as an odd choice for a single as it's all over the place: slow/fast, quiet/loud. You can't dance to it either - not that I've tried! Incidentally, another Norwegian band, The Kings Of Convenience, do a great acoustic cover version of 'Manhattan Skyline'.
Bonus clips: Take on Me: Literal Video Version - Ever wish songs just sang what was happening in the music video? Well now they do.
and here's a better audio version of The Kings Of Convenience cover of 'Manhattan Skyline':
Another bubblegum classic. The 1910 Fruitgum Co. were the most successful Kasenetz-Katz band having hits such as 'Simon Says', 'Indian Giver', 'Goody Goody Gumdrops' and this one, which I first came across as a cover by the Welsh indie-pop band The Pooh Sticks (whose whole career is basically a Guilty Pleasure!). This clip is marvelous - just look at the great tambourine work by 'percussion guy' Bruce (it's all in the wrist, you know...)
Bonus clips: Just because I love this song, here's 'Goody Goody Gumdrops', with more sterling tambourine from Bruce:
... The Pooh Sticks version:
... and my next favourite 'tambourine guy', Tim Kubart from Postmodern Jukebox! Spot him in the background from 0:45 in this video:
Posting The Rubettes the other day reminded me that for no discernible reason a number of UK bands in the mid 70s to early 80s seemed to be living about 20 years earlier and 4000 miles due west. However, I'm rather fond of these for nostalgic reasons as i) they mostly gave good show and ii) my dad absolutely love them and would sing along enthusiastically whenever they were on the telly. So, let's take a look at a few of them:
Showaddywaddy are probably the most widely known example. Originally from Leicester, they appeared to base themselves on Sha-Na-Na and had a penchant for wearing colour co-ordinated Teddy Boy jackets. They were extremely popular having 23 chart hits (most of them cover versions) and a No. 1 with 'Under The Moon Of Love'. Here's their version of Dion & The Belmonts' 'I Wonder Why'.
Darts were another revival band, this time from London and had great pseudonyms such as Griff Fender, Horatio Hornblower, Thump Thompson and Hammy Howell. I had all their albums at one point or another, even if Den Hegarty (the bass vocalist with the mad googly eyes) did scare the bejezus out of me as a kid - he went on the work on the great UK kids show Tiswas.
Darts had split from a previous band called Rocky Sharpe & The Razors - in fact you can see their version of 'Come Back My Love' here. The remaining members regrouped as Rocky Sharpe & The Replays and had their biggest hit with 'Shout! Shout! (Knock Yourself Out!)'. However, here's their debut 'Rama Lama Ding Dong'.
Finally, here is Coast To Coast and their version of '(Do) The Hucklebuck'. I recall almost nothing about this lot except that their follow-up was 'Jump The Broomstick' and it looks like their lead singer has come straight from the set of Eraserhead!
They don't make 'em like this anymore - take a look at the band choreography on this! Yet another studio concoction recorded by session musicians, the fantastic lead vocal on this was by a guy who went by the name of Paul Da Vinci (GP crossover alert: Paul was also responsible for most of the vocals on Tight Fit's 'Back to the Sixties Part 2'). He, however, decided not to become part of the band that was put together after the song charted and so it's mimed here by his replacement Alan Williams. This is allegedly the most popular recording by a British group in France...
Bop-Shoo-Waddy
Bop-Shoo-Waddy-Waddy
Bonus Clips: The exceedingly similar sounding follow-up to 'Sugar Baby Love' was 'Tonight' which reached No. 12 in 1974. This one does have Alan Williams on lead vocals...
... Paul Da Vinci also had a few solo singles. Here's one from 1974 (with an allegedly live lead vocal)...
... and finally, 'Back to the Sixties Part 2' from Tight Fit
B*Witched were an Irish (Really? You couldn't tell? The Riverdance in the bridge didn't give it away?) pop group which contained the twin sisters of one of the guys from Boyzone and whose first 4 (yes, that's FOUR) singles all went to No. 1 in the UK charts.
This was their debut release and the silliest, from the Irish brogue inserts to the ridiculous lyrics, proving that the double entendres in Bubblegum was alive & well in the 21st century:
No, there's no other excuse for this one except that it is a top, top pop tune. Of course, by the end of summer 1997, I was sick to the death of it being playing non-stop almost everywhere I went. However, with the passing of time, it has taken on Guilty Pleasure status. This possibly has more to do with the Dust Brothers production than with Hanson themselves - I honestly couldn't tell you another one of their tracks...
Tony Christie is a singer with a huge voice, kinda like a Yorkshire version of Tom Jones. He had a number of hits in the early 70s, was the original Magaldi on the Evita concept album and also tried out for the UK's entry into the Eurovision Song Contest in 1976, the same year as Brotherhood Of Man (who went on to win).
After that his popularity in the UK waned though he continued to be big on the continent. However, interest in his career has taken off in recent years. First, he was used as lead vocalist on The All Seeing I's 'Walk Like A Panther' in 1999, then 'Avenues & Alleyways' was used as the theme to a so-so British gangster flick 'Love, Honour & Obey' (which featured a version of the song sang by such luminaries as Ray Winstone, Jude Law, Johnny Lee Miller and Denise Van Outen - see a clip here). Next, Peter Kay chose 'Is This The Way to Amarillo?' for 2005's Comic Relief Song.
'Avenues & Alleyways' is a great song and was originally the theme to a not-that-well-known 1971 Gerry Anderson (him of Thunderbirds, Terrahawks et al.) detective series, though I first heard it in the aforementioned film and it has been a Guilty Pleasure of mine ever since. Plus I love this clip - the audience looks like they've wandered into the wrong studio! Also, anyone who has ever seen my dad sing may see a lot of similarities here...
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Bonus clip: For no other reason that I think it is just a brilliant song (nothing guilty here), here's the Peter Kay video to 'Amarillo'. Pop Quiz: Can anybody outside the UK name one of the 'celebrities' in this clip? All together now - "Sha La La, La La, La La La"...
If you're under 40, you're probably more familiar with the Amazulu version which was a huge hit in 1986, but this 1970 original version is just great! Plus, check this great clip (which I'm sure was not filmed in Montego Bay) - don't you just love the way the backing singers pop out from behind the bushes?! This was the only hit Bobby Bloom had, although he also co-wrote 'Mony Mony' and was tragically shot in 1974 at the age of 28.
Probably best known for cheese such as 'You Make Me Feel Like Dancing' and 'When I Need You', Leo Sayer was actually critically-acclaimed when he hit the scene back in 1973 with this, his debut single. The fact that he dressed in full Pierrot get-up was more of a benefit than a hindrance back then! I've always liked this song, which he usually performed excellently live as this clip shows - even if the scat section goes slightly off the rails. Those in the US are probably more familiar with the pretty faithful Three Dog Night version. Leo always seems willing to poke fun at himself as shown by his appearances on The Muppet Show and his legendary rant at being denied clean underwear on Celebrity Big Brother, so good on you Leo...
Bonus Clips: My friend Ruth has kindly requested that I add 'When I Need You' so here it is - with added Muppets as it's about the only way I can stomach it at the mo :-) ...
... here's the cover by Three Dog Night from 1974. Note: they change the last line of the chorus to "I must let the show go on" which apparently Leo Sayer was not happy about...
... and let's finish with some more Muppets 'cos there should always be an excuse to post more Muppets!
I loved this as a kid. Why? I haven't got the foggiest clue now - it's as cheesy as a ripe old bit of stilton. Anyway, the only thing I can remember about this lot was that, much like Boney M (watch out for them coming up soon), they were German via the Caribbean. Fun Fact: this blog post makes 3 in a row for Guilty Pleasures UK No. 1s from the spring of 1982 as this was preceded by 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' and followed by 'My Camera Never Lies' - I guess 1982 has a lot to answer for...!
Bonus Clip: Another GP entrant, Adam Ant, also had a No. 1 in June 1982 with 'Goody Two Shoes', and Musical Youth hit the top of the charts on October 1982. I believe this year has by far the most entries in this blog!
More than any other, this record started my interest in electronic music. There are allegedly over 500 different versions out there but this is still my fave - though now I think of it, I believe the version I had as a kid was a generic cover version from one of those very cheap 'Top Of The Pops' compilation albums with a scantily clad strumpet on the cover. Everything you could wish to know about this song (& more) can be found here.
Hot Butter were fronted by Stan Free who had been in The First Moog Quartet with the composer of Popcorn, Gershon Kingsley. His cover version was a worldwide hit in 1972.
Bonus Clips: Gershon Kingsley's version from his 1969 album Music to Moog By, as featured on Top of the Pops with the audience trying to work out how to dance to it...
... and THIS I believe is the version we had in the house at the time, from Top of the Tots also released in 1972.(Note: this is the entire album)
