Artist: Stars On 45
Genre(s):
Pop
Discography:
Disco Collection
Year: 2002
Tracks: 10
The narrative of Starsound, world Health Organization started the medley craze in 1981, began two years sooner in a disco in Montreal, where peerless of the resident DJs was Michel Gendreau. Into his nightspot walked Michel Ali, world Health Organization had with him a tape created from a bootleg white-label recording originating in Holland of a potpourri of Beatles songs called "Lets Do It in the 80s Great Hits" and credited to an unknown mathematical group named Passion. The record used excerpts from the original Beatles records as well as snippets from the Archies' "Sugar Sugar," Shocking Blue's "Venus," and the initiation to the Buggles' major hit "Video Killed the Radio Star." The bootleg was hapless caliber, the tape measure contained more noise than music, and it was badly produced, merely Gendreau believed it was a just idea, although he was reluctant to play it at extremum time. This was the very former '70s and discotheque had been king of the dancefloor for various years, with modern tracks created by the Bee Gees, Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, and a host of modern producers with new groups and singers. The last thing the disco-going patronage precious was a series of Beatles and former sixties real.
Ali began working with well-grounded railroad engineer Paul Richer to make a cleansing agent version of "Let's Do It in the 80s Great Hits," and in order to fulfil Gendreau's fears near oldies, they added some recent hits, including "Low-down Town" by Lipps, Inc. and "Working My Way Back to You" by the Detroit Spinners. By starting with current hits, then introducing the Beatles tracks, the dancefloor would not empty as was feared, merely the dance would retain as the sixties hits were rig to the same definable pound as the flow hits. One of the sixties hits used was "Genus Venus" by Shocking Blue, the copyright of which was owned by a Dutch record party, Red Bullet Records, and when this was brought to the attention of its director back in Holland, Freddy Haayen, world Health Organization, although outraged that his data track was parting of the pastiche, realized the electric potential commercial-grade viability of the potpourri idea and or else of contacting his lawyers, he contacted record producer Jaap Eggermont, erstwhile of the band Golden Earring, and asked him whether it would be possible to create a legal version. Eggermont knew sufficiency about copyright to take in that it would be a otiose exercise to access the original rights holders, so he brought in concert a group of session singers to re-record the vocals as close as possible to the originals, using Bas Muys from the Dutch chemical group Smyle as the voice of John Lennon, Hans Vermeulen from Sandy Coast as George Harrison, and Okkie Huysdens as Paul McCartney. The tracks that had been victimised on "Let's Do It in the 80s Great Hits" and the recut variant -- "Dough Sugar," "Urania," "Funky Town," and "Video Killed the Radio Star" -- were likewise retained, and a linking small-arm was written to acquaint the song with the tag assembly line "The Stars on 45 keep on turning in your mind," song dynasty by Jody Pijper to a pumping discotheque beat that continued throughout the pastiche.
It was originally released on a 12" unmarried only and ran for 16 minutes. When wireless stations crossways Europe began redaction it themselves for worthy daylight play, Eggermont took the "Stars on 45" foundation and added just the first base verses of "Venus" and "Clams Sugar" and a further trey transactions of the Beatles pastiche, cathartic a 7" single that swept the creation and began a craze that lasted throughout the unanimous of the early '80s. Depending on the territory, the group was either known as Starsound (as in Europe) or Stars on 45 (in the U.S.A.), and the title of the single that finally went on general sale was the longest ever claim to strive the charts, as the individual song publishers insisted on their track forming portion of the title, which became formally "Intro Venus/Sugar Sugar/No Reply/I'll Be Back/Drive My Car/Do You Want to Know a Secret/We Can Work It Out/I Should Have Known Better/You're Going to Lose That Girl/Stars on 45," although it was often cut plainly to "Stars on 45." The exclusive was a big achiever, peaking at number iI in the U.K. (with most of the sales on the 12" format) and leaving all the way to number one, sandwiched by deuce separate runs of Kim Carnes' biggest-selling off of the class, "Bette Davis Eyes," in the U.S.A.
It was inevitable that this achiever would be followed by an expanded album envision, and less than a calendar month after the single had been released, a long-player was ready that included an expanded Beatles surgical incision with the songs "Slate to Ride," "Eleanor Rigby," "And Your Bird Can Sing," "Get Back," "Eight Days a Week," "It Won't Be Long," "Clarence Shepard Day Jr. Tripper," "Good Day Sunshine," "Here Comes the Sun," "Piece My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Collector of internal revenue," "A Hard Day's Night," "Things We Said Today," "If I Fell," "Please Please Me," "From Me to You," and "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and many of the sixties oldies from the original bootleg, "Sherry" (Four Seasons), "Cathy's Clown" (Everly Brothers), "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" (Neil Sedaka), "Only the Lonely" (Roy Orbison), "Light-headed Love Songs" (Wings), "Jimmy Mack" (Martha Reeves), "Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again" (Fortunes), and "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" (Brian Hyland). Although the album stopped up at number 9 in the U.S.A., it did fifty-fifty better than the single in the U.K., loss all the way to number i for five weeks in May and June and terminated the class as the tenth best-selling album of 1981.
The next project, centered round the hits of ABBA, victimization the voice of Claudia Hoogendoorn as both the ABBA female singers Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. In the U.S.A., a second medley had already been released featuring more Beatles excerpts, just the freshness was already wear off and disdain the success of the beginning potpourri, the irregular one stalled at turn 67. In Britain, however, the medley cult was just beginning and "Stars on 45, Vol. 2" followed the first volume to the runner-up military position. A second album was released, highborn the same as the individual, and expanded with 17 excerpts of drink down hits from the sixties and 1970s, ranging from mortal tracks ("Pappa Was a Rolling Stone," "Dance to the Music," "Reach Out I'll Be There") to fun pop hits ("Sugar Baby Love," "Do Wah Diddy Diddy," "CA Dreaming"). It also featured a Supremes medley and an compartmentalization of instrumental intros including the "Hotshot Wars Main Title Theme," "Kung Fu Fighting," "Layla," "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy," "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough," "Baker Street," and "The Eve of the War."
By the fall of 1981, a bandwagon had well and rightfully been developed and many groups were cathartic their possess medleys of their former hits, including the Beach Boys, the Hollies, and even the Beatles themselves under the title "The Beatles Movie Medley" (victimisation the original vocals this time). Lobo hit the charts with a Harry Belafonte Caribbean medley, Startrax covered the Bee Gees, Gidea Park did the Beach Boys, and the Four Seasons and Tight Fit hit with "Back to the 60s," a potpourri like to the original corn liquor that started it all. Even the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra got in on the act with "Drug-addicted on Classics," a potpourri of notable classical pieces. Starsound themselves used Tony Sherman as a Stevie Wonder soundalike on "Stars on Stevie," Peter Vermeij as Mick Jagger on "The Greatest Rock n Roll Band in the World," Peter Douglas as Frank Sinatra on "Stars on Frankie," and regular Patricia Paay, Yvonne Keeley, Sylvana caravan Veen, and Ingrid Ferdinandusse as the Andrews Sisters, although the latter two did not in reality do whatever of the telling.
A third album featuring the Rolling Stones and Stevie Wonder medleys was released in the spring of 1982, just by then it was all all over and the album peaked at a miserable number 94 for just one workweek. The potpourri was being parodied by artists such as Chas & Dave with their selection of olde worlde music hall and London songs, "Stars Over 45," Ivor Biggun with "Bras on 45," and Weird Al Yankovic with his potpourri "Polkas on 45." The sitting musicians all went their classify ways and Starsound or Stars on 45 was leftfield as just a memory of a furore of medleys that swept the cosmos in 1981. The first two behind still be heard at clubs, more than a quarter of a century afterwards, especially the cheap type where a DJ needs a pastiche to animate up the dancefloor, and Starsound has managed to retain its believability for longer than Jive Bunny & the Mastermixers, wHO revived the medley arrange eight-spot eld later to even greater simply fugacious effect.
