I’m not really a heavy supporter of light opera, but what impresses me about that clip – of Gidon Saks in the title role of Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘The Mikado’ at Stratford in 1982 – is, for lack of a better word, the incredible voice acting.
May I present to you “Fugly Duckling”: “Our bottom line is fun! Were not going to be the next Metallica, so we go out there and kick ass having fun. We are the formula for the Ultimate All American Band, two of us are active duty air force, all four of us love Star Wars. We drink blue, we sweat white and we bleed red.”
Actually there was an All-American Band and none of them were active duty officers. I further like the patriotic ambition to align your metabolism to the colors of your nation’s flag. I drink black, I sweat red and I bleed gold!
Fugly Duckling live!
Robert Berry runs retroCRUSH.com – a website that has recently celebrated its 5th birthday on the 22th of June and is always worth a visit. Oh, and retroCRUSH’s got a podcast, too. Robert published a list of the 100 Worst Cover Songs ever and really collected 100 examples, most of them with YouTube clips. The title above is number 100 and it’s the plain truth – no photoshopping! You can hear a sound example here:
ABBA is the most famous pop group from Sweden ever, they sold 370 million records from 1972 to 1982. They were the first act from Continental Europe to score in the anglophone countries. And they were my personal entrance in popular music. And I had a crush on Anni-Frid. ABBA wasn’t really popular in my school, Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin would have been more trendy, so I listened to their music secretly. Though fashion may have changed a little their music is still perfect pop. I collected the best clips from YouTube for you. In no particular order:
Knowing me, knowing you
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“Knowing me, knowing you, there is nothing we can do. We just have to face it, this time we’re through. Breaking up is never easy, I know but I have to go. It’s the best I can do.” Both marriages were divorced. |
Take a chance on me
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One of their most successful singles and Elton John’s favourite ABBA song! |
Honey, Honey
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Not one of the best songs, but a wonderful cheesy video! Yes, we thought they dressed cool in the seventies. I can’t explain it myself. |
SOS
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Pete Townshend declared “SOS” the most perfect Pop song of all time! |
Waterloo
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This one started their success. Watch them winning the national heat for the Eurovision song contest 1974. |
Money, Money, Money
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Lasse Hallstrom, who directed all of the ABBA videos, acknowledged this clip as the best ABBA video he ever made. |
Mamma Mia
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This is the song which replaced Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ from the top spot of the UK’s single charts in January 1976. (Why this song also contained ‘Mamma Mia’ in its lyrics slumbers deep down in the British unconscious.) |
So long
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This is ABBA trying to prove they can play rock numbers too. It was their personal chart disaster and is the worst performing ABBA single – it failed to chart in the UK completely. It’s a real good song anyway. |
Related at the In-Sect: Vitas. Russian Superstar, Matthieu Chedid is ‘M’, God Bless Tiny Tim!, 10 Almost Sexy Album Covers, Pop Heroes: Wir sind Helden, Freddie and the Dreamers.
If you listened to the radio or watched television in the last 20 years, the propability that you do NOT know “Weird Al” is rather low. Just like Mr. Phelps marrying Rupert Everett, I’d estimate. Here you can see his first television appearance on the legendary “Tomorro Show” with Tom Snyder. Tom Snyder was famous to feature all kind of performers, all punk stars you can think of visited him for example. One of the most bizarre interviews was with Kim Fowley, manager of “The Runaways”, an all-girl punk band. “May I say, Kim,” Tom Snyder said to the heavily rouged Kim Fowley, “You look ridiculous tonight!”
You can see “Weird Al” performing his second single together with Jon “Bermuda” Schwartz, the man drumming on his accordion case. This was their first collaboration. Schwartz still plays the drums on every Yankovic track and maintains his website, too.
You can buy The Tomorrow Show – Punk & New Wave
I was really sad to hear that Freddie Garrity died last month. He and his “Dreamers” were one of the more curios formations of the Merseybeat boom in the sixties. (Though they were not from Liverpool, but from Manchester.) They did not write their own material and did not even play on some of their records. It was their pre-rehearsed, synchronised wacky dancing routines and the fun they made out of their stage show. Freddie, with horn-rimmed glasses and his skeletal Buddy Holly looks, sported a frantical dance style, hopping up and down and waving his legs and armes. Waving his legs? Sorry for that one.
They did not change anything in their routines when Merseybeat started to fade away. Like ‘Gerry & the Pacemakers’ they could not compete with younger bands like ‘The Who’, ‘The Kinks’ or the psychedelic version of the Beatles – so their success was limited.
They were important in the rock history anyway because of another reason: When the Beatles played “If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody” in Manchester Freddie and Co copied it and performed the Beatles arrangement the next day. This convinced the Fab Four to concentrate on their own composiotions in th e future.
Here’s an informative fansite and some nice clips at YouTube: Funny Over You, You Were Made For Me and their last tv appearance in 1999.
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