a primer to music pop culture from the eighties to the noughties

Author: vanElden Page 6 of 8

Straight Up The Charts

We already came across several pieces where the artist overruled their label when it came to song selection, video choices or track length, only to be proven absolutely right by commercial success. Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up” – which she only was allowed to record under the premise that she would also do two other songs she did not like chosen by the studio – fits right into the category.

Written by Elliot Wolff, a friend of her mother’s, the quality of the demo version was so bad that it went straight into the trash. But Abdul, who was primarily working as a choreographer at the time, fished it back out and recorded it in her bathroom (including, on the master tape, a performance of her neighbours who must have misheard the lyrics – they went for “Shut Up!” instead of “Straight Up”).

When the song went through the roof – to the label’s surprise – Abdul’s choreographer talent paid off, as the video had to be hastily put together – only to win a whopping four MTV Music Awards that year.

My personal favourite bit about the song is when my significant other performs her karaoke version of it. She’s been practising it ever since childhood and it never fails to turn my knees to jello.

Pioneering Mental Health

The Technics SL-1200 MK 2 record player was introduced in 1979 as a replacement of the previous model and like it’s predecessor was meant to be a high-quality player for the home market. But it’s complicated design ensured that it was relatively resistant to feedback and dampened vibrations, and it soon became the de-facto standard turntable for both discotheques and radio stations the world over. And when resourceful disc jockey’s figured out that it would continue to spin at the correct speed even when tampered with the technique of scratching was born.

Together with rapping and break-dancing the art became one of the pillars of Hip-Hop, which was rapidly gaining traction and it’s performers started to call themselves “turntablists”, to be distinguished from the standard “disc jockeys”, whose job only is to play and mix records.

Many such turntablists scourged record stores to find rare old vinyl containing wacky, bizarre and outlandish samples for their craft. Such as The Avalanches in Melbourne. They used these to produce “Frontier Psychatrist”, or what a critic called “sheer giddy pleasure of turntablist art”. It was their first commercially successful song and when the video was added, featuring musicians and actors re-enacting the music and voices to the best of their ability, they had already ensured a place in the best videos of the 2000’s shortlist when the decade had only just begun.

Note: As the 1st of August is a holiday in Switzerland where we’re based we will continue our programme on Tuesday the 2nd. Happy weekend everyone.

The 50ies Are Calling

Before Apple (Computers, not the Beatles’ record label) sold their first portable computer under the name “Mac Portable” it was known internally as the “Love Shack”, after The B-52’s signature song from 1989. It’s a funny, harmless song into which people keep interpreting things that just aren’t there. It really is just about a simple shack where people are having a big party with everyone invited.

The video was shot by Adam Bernstein, who also did a few episodes of “Breaking Bad”, in Upstate New York at the house of a friend. Some of the party attendants were just real friends of the band members, but you can also spot drag queen Rupaul, unknown to the general public at the time.

It was a world-wide hit except for Japan. Even though “The B52’s” were named after the hairstyle of the singers it turned out sharing a name with an American bomber was not a particularly popular choice there.

Covert Covers

Like several of the songs we have talked about “Wicked Game” by Chris Isaak is another one that took a while to really set off. Even though it was released as a single from his studio album “Heart Shaped World” it only become a hit when David Lynch included it in his film “Wild at Heart”.

Most notably though it has been covered a lot, by bands such as R.E.M., HIM, Pink, Céline Dion, Zucchero or – my personal favourite – Les Reines Prochaines. And many more.

Supermodel Helena Christensen, on the contrary, is pictured quite uncovered in the video (the better known one of two).

Hit Me, Britney

I remember a day in what must have been about 2000 or 2001 in a gloomy Bonnie Prince Pub, when my fellow drinking mates and I – all students at ETH proud of their good taste in music – finally admitted (after sampling copious amounts of the liquid on tap) that despite their catering to the masses, secretly we did like the Spice Girls. We did not change the station when Christina Aguilera came on. We adored Britney Spears.

When she’s making headlines these days, it sadly tends to be because of her long and difficult struggle with conservatorship, and not for being “The Princess of Pop”. Having started her career in early childhood – winning gymnastic competitions and talent shows alike – her first breakthrough happened in 1992 when she was cast as a member of the rekindled “Mickey Mouse Club” alongside Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, and Ryan Gosling. After the show was canceled it took a few years before she returned to the big stage, but boy, did she have an impact, when she finally did so with “…Baby One More Time” in 1998, still at the tender age of sixteen.

The song was named by Rolling Stone Magazine as “the greatest debut single of all time” as recently as 2020. The video has been voted the best of the entire 1990s and one of the most influential in the history of pop music. And a whole generation of young men had their hormones thoroughly shaken up. But unlike other videos where young women cater to the sexist ideals of men the video was Britney’s own product from A to Z. The dancing? Her idea. The wardrobe? Her choice. The knotted T-Shirt? Her final touch. The music… well, that’s another topic (the song had been offered to both “The Backstreet Boys” and “TLC” before, but they were not interested).

And the “love interest”? Was her cousin Chad.

Her career had only just started. She would produce a row of other really big hits over the years, but they would become less and less successful in time. It’s hard to have an even bigger hit when you start at that level.

From Civil Rights to Live Aid

Some songs come into this world, delight us for a breathtaking moment and fall back into sweet oblivion in as little time as it took them to appear. Others take on a life of their own, gain new meaning against the backdrop of a changing zeitgeist and reinvent themselves repeatedly over decades. Marvin Gaye is a particular master of (co-)composing the latter, as exemplified by the Motown signature song “Dancing in the Street”.

Released in 1965 by Martha Reeves, the song was originally simply inspired by people cooling themselves off during a hot summer in the streets of Detroit by opening fire hydrants. However, it was soon picked up as a civil rights anthem by young black demonstrators demanding equality. But it’s metamorphosis would not stop there, many different famous versions would be recorded over the years:

Shortly after the initial release the British “The Kinks” were recording their own version, branded as being far too boring by critics. A year later The Mamas & The Papas followed suit and they would end up finishing their famous (and last) live performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 with the song. Grateful Dead, Little Richard, Van Halen – the list of artists covering the song is long and contains many famous names. Since we’re so far focusing on Music Videos we’re going with the 1985 version by David Bowie and Mick Jagger here.

As part of the big “Live Aid” famine release cause of that year the two English rock stars originally planned to sing the song together – live, from two separate stadiums: Wembley in London and John F. Kennedy in Philadelphia. Unfortunately while both of these two were certainly great musical artists, they happened to be slightly less brilliant data transmission engineers and when they realised that one of them would have to be not-quite-so-live due to the two seconds delay of the (at the time quite revolutionary) satellite transmission involved neither of the two was prepared to give in and be “that guy”, so it did not happen.

They ended up recording the song in Abbey Road studio and – certainly helped by the popularity of the Live Aid movement – it would become the most successful of the many recorded versions of this song, reaching top spot in the charts of many countries.

This Is Not A Rick-Roll

If you paid close attention to this week’s selection of artists you might have noticed that they all shared a common detail: a leading letter “r”. And so we’ll round out the week with rrrrrolling royalty:

You might only know the song from the practice of “Rickrolling” – likely the first worldwide Internet prank – where an unsuspecting victim is baited into clicking onto a link behind which something completely different is suspected, only to be doted on by a merry Rick Astley, dancing happily around the London Borough of Harrow. However, by the time the song thus gained a second life it had already been Ashley’s signature song and a huge success for two decades.

The singer initially was not too sure what to think of himself becoming a meme just when he was coming back to perform after a ten-year hiatus, but he soon embraced the jolly prank and has not only made his peace with it, but played into the phenomenon himself on a couple of occasions.

We’re, however, not presenting this as a prank, but as what it really is: A video of the 80ies you ought to know, even had it not become a meme. And would encourage you to watch it through to the end for once in your life. It’s a flashback into a care-free time not likely to occur again anytime soon, and just watching the happy faces of the protagonists does seem like a good reason to prank someone into observing it.

The common detail of this weeks selection of videos really was of course that they all had some sort of direction in the title. Or was it?

Just A Jump To The Left

So far, we’ve been presenting music videos that were specifically created for the song they were accompanying. Today, we’re going to deviate from that just a bit and have a look at an important bit of pop-cultural history where it’s kind of the other way around:

“The Time Warp” is the most well-known of the songs that make up the 1973 musical Rocky Horror Show, a tribute to horror B movies and bad science fiction by Richard O’Brien that worked so well on the stages of London that it was transformed into a movie, appropriately named Rocky Horror Picture Show two years later.

Alas, test screenings didn’t go well in most places. It did get a very loyal fan base at cinemas with traditional Midnight screenings though, such as the Westwood Theatre in Los Angeles or the Waverly Theater in New York City. The same crowd started showing up time and again, occupying the same spaces every viewing. And as they knew the movie in-and-out they started their own little performances, first by shouting quips at the actors on screen, such as “Buy an Umbrella!” at a soaking wet Susan Sarandon standing in the rain. Then others actually brought said umbrella, to be opened just before the tempest hits hardest. Other props followed, like rice to toss during the wedding. Then people started to dress up as characters from the movie, standing at the right position in front of the theatre screen and lip-syncing their lines…

And so from then on to truly experience the movie you’d have to watch it in a crowd of collaborating viewers with know-how. Generations of faithful followers have been putting up elaborate choreographies during showings to this day, making it the longest-running theatrical release in film history. And while the movie sports a fair number of references to earlier pop-cultural phenomenons itself, the attics of these fans of course have been depicted in other movies as well, with “Fame” springing to mind, or, more recently “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”.

We haven’t even started about the tremendous influence the film had on the long road to acceptance for the LGBTQ+ community… Turns out it wasn’t “just” a jump to the left.

This Time Run That Way

Yesterday we talked about a terrible chimera produced by mixing two genres. In order to soften the impact a little let’s have a look at an example where doing that went just fine:

Originally released by Aerosmith in 1975, “Walk This Way” was a fairly successful rock song, one of a number of hits that gained them some traction. But it wouldn’t be until ten years later, when Run-D.M.C. covered the song, creating a cornerstone for the subgenre of “Rap Rock” (which would have a good go up to the early noughties, when it kind of trickled out), that the song really came to shine. While half of Run-D.M.C. had never even heard the name “Aerosmith” and none of them knew the song or lyrics in it’s entirety, they just so happened to freestyle over the first few seconds of the song during their shows. But when Rick Rubin pulled out the song while working on their album “Rising Hell” and proposed to do a proper cover he met quite some resistance.

They were in a for a surprise themselves, when the song – which they had not intended at all to become a single – eventually started to get lots of airplay on urban and rock stations. In the end, it would mark a comeback for Aerosmith as well, who at that time were at the brink of being disbanded, but were able to follow up with a number of multi-platinum albums.

If you have followed the course and done your homework, you should by now spot the reference to Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” at the beginning.

The Love-Child of Country and Techno

Two weeks ago we learned about a high point of Swedish music videos. This week we’re having a look at the other end of that scale.

We do not even need to go into Hegelian dialectic to realise that sometimes when you mix two things a beautiful new synthesis may result. Unfortunately, the opposite is true as well: take the worst of two musical genres and you might just end up with a frightening chimera. I honestly tried my best to do proper research and put some kind of spin on it. But you know what? It’s simply utter trash. And that’s all it is.

Highly successful trash, to be fair though. It held number one for over 13 weeks in Switzerland’s hit-parade, for example. So if nothing else this internal education gives an answer to whether really “everything was better in the olden times”, at least when these olden times happen to be just about 30 years ago. Hell, no, it wasn’t.

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