If you think explaining difficult concepts of life would be difficult to children, try explaining the brief but undeniable popularity of Stars on 45.
“But Dad,” they’ll say. “What’s Stars on 45?”
Sit down and we’ll tell you a story…
Once upon a time in the disco era, a Dutch record producer happened to hear a medley of songs in a record store…
“What’s a record producer?”
They promote the artists and their music, and try to seek out new talent and ideas. Or at least, they used to in the pre-reality show era. Now they just point at The Voice winners and tell aspiring singers to sing with more overwrought emotion and to make their eyes more blue while they do it.
“What’s a record store?”
You used to be able to buy music in a relaxed environment and you’d listen to whatever was in the store’s PA system as you bought.
So, anyway, he heard this medley that involved the Beatles and the Archies and…
“The Archies? Is that like the Riverdale guy and his friends?”
Uh, sort of. Anyway, he heard these songs under a disco beat and he thought to himself: “Self, if there was any way I might be able to further homogenize this and make a bit of money off of it, I could make a bit of money off of it.”
And then he went off the rest of his day, with this being in the Netherlands it probably involved wooden shoes or windmills or dykes, as my knowledge of the country would have me believe.
Anyway, he took some of the greatest music the world has seen in that century, borrowed the hook from the early 70s song ‘Hallo Bimmelbahn’ by the German band Nighttrain, which had already been borrowed by Boney M in their song ‘Gotta Go Home’ at around the same time, brought in a click track and anonymous chorus singers and released some long, long singles.
“Well, he must have gotten permission to repurpose these great Beatles songs, right? Like, Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison must have had something to say about this.”
Oh, my children. You know little of how the music industry works… Even if they weren’t happy about it, they couldn’t do anything. In order to maintain the copyright all they had to do was make the song title ridiculously long. Which is why the song has the longest title in Billboard chart history: Medley: 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/ Nowhere Man/ You’re Going To Lose That Girl/ Stars on 45.
Hey… come back here. I need to tell you some other things about this while I still remember them.
“We just had lunch and came back a couple seconds ago. What did you want to say?”
It was the most boring album title in the history of albums. Long Play Album. That album looked a bit like a newspaper, with the titles of the songs they … used… listed in order. You know, in case you lost your place or didn’t know them.
Side B had a disco medley because those who weren’t frustrated enough to destroy their disco albums were really holding out hope that the anti-disco backlash was just a fad. And they also included some Roy Orbison and the Everly Brothers songs in there. Because if you liked disco, chances are you also liked late 50s and early 60s pop and soul.
Anyway, this album sold a lot and because of its popularity, there was a follow up album that included some Abba songs and even later, a Weird Al Yankovic parody called ‘Polkas on 45’.
“It must have been a bit of an unexpected surprise to the original producer of Stars on 45. But people in the music industry must have hated the idea of repurposing many years of Beatles songs, mixing them with the Archies.”
They ended up winning the Conamus Export Prize for the Netherlands for stimulating the economy. Which should tell you all you need to know about Europe before the European Union.
“Is this why you’re counting out the beats per minute and splicing together an 11-minute song from Nickelback with a click track as we speak? You want to win the next Conamus Export Prize?”
Ummm… I think it’s time for you to go to bed. I have some… things to do here. Anyway, kids, this was part of my lecture series: nothing in 1981 made any sense and it’s a miracle any of us who were alive then made it out OK.
