Carol Burnett definitely tapped in to that "revival house" trend, given all her spoofs of films from the 1930's to the '50's on her show. Only difference was, she saw those films when they were new, as a young'un. I also have to wonder if the whole business of TV stations and networks editing films for TV contributed to that rise of the revival houses, and eventually such channels as TCM.
I was thinking about this oddity a few weeks ago as well. By this point in 1981 disco seemed well and truly dead. D. E. A. D. dead. And then here crops up these I think Dutch wankers with this Beatlemania disco medley that for some inexplicable reason opens with a spot-on cover of "Sugar, Sugar" by The Archies. I mean, WTF? Was it being played by radio stations after listeners phoned them up asking to hear it again because they needed another listen to process that much crazy? Really though, what I think we're looking at here was the most-successful of the many John Lennon tribute cuts that came out right around this time (sorry, George & Elton). I actually hadn't had tons of exposure to many of the early Beatles cuts featured in this medley, apart from the news coverage and archival footage of the band that aired on TV for weeks after Lennon's death. So for me anyhow these song snippets seemed somewhat new and catchy in addition to being old and nostalgic and tinged with sadness. It was that weird nostalgia you have for someone else's youth, kind of a wish you were there feeling. And yeah, Capitol decided to rush-release their own Beatles movie medley, which I also liked but which wasn't nearly as well-assembled as this thing. Go figure. This wasn't even the end of Stars On 45, believe it or not. They released an ABBA medley in September that failed to crack the US Top 40 but got enough airplay in Phoenix I managed to catch it on tape. I actually think it's the best of the bunch, in part because most of the material was already disco, but also because their ABBA imitation is almost creepily spot on: And in 1982 they had a Top 30 hit with a Stevie Wonder medley. For a crazy gimmick it sure generated a lot of chart success. The charts were finally able to rebuff more of these bizarre knockoffs after early '82, as the tired dross that had typified the post-disco era on the radio gave way to techno pop and the New Romantics - among others - and the music business got on with creating something new instead of recycling something old ad-infinitum.
Didn't care much for the "It's not The Beatles, but an incredible simulation" covers inherent in that medley (I do remember when Beatlemania was playing at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway, and that was their slogan). It also bore the longest title in the history of the Hot 100 that I know of, officially known as: "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" Small wonder very few people refer to this title, though . . . It is also one of the two most successful Red Bullet exports to hit our shores. (The other? "Venus" by The Shocking Blue - which opening chord started this medley, ironically enough.)
And I just did likewise on the 1980-84 country #1's thread. However, as it's about a month or two ahead of this timeline with the Stars On 45 attempt to revive disco under another name, I'm keeping mum on this side of the tracks on what it is.
Since pop radio was dull and country wasn't really my thing, I was looking for other stuff to listen to and around this time started to raid both some old LPs my uncle had left behind when he'd moved out in '79 as well as even my mom's collection of old pre-rock records. Hey, desperate times. But when I saw in a magazine at the local Waldenbooks that RCA was going to be releasing this television program's soundtrack, I went hunting for it immediately: I had flipped for the PBS series the year before, but what really stuck out for me more than anything else had been the incredible soundtrack. Where could you get the music? I realized they'd been using existing cuts - of classical, electronic and other what we'd now call world music - but had no clue which cuts they were or by who. Suddenly that all changed. So someone or something named Vangelis was responsible for a lot of this. And there was this Tomita guy. But where were the other cool sequences from the program that weren't represented here? I'd recorded the show on cassette, so I could hear there were things missing from this LP. Still, mind utterly blown. I played this album relentlessly for at least the next 3 years. To this day I'm sure it's still in my lifetime top 10 in terms of the number of album playbacks. It took a couple of years, but eventually I'd find out who was responsible for some of those other soundtrack cues that weren't present here. I began my hunt for them later in 1981 with this Vangelis act. As it turned out, my timing literally could not have been better. I didn't know it, but I was about to stumble onto what was arguably the launch pad for the whole New Age genre, for better and worse. So, thanks pop charts, for being impossibly stanky boring crap in 1981. You drove me to find things that were vastly more interesting. Well done!
I know this is a tangent, but since you mentioned Cosmos . . . during Public TV fundraising drives within this period, they'd run a Steve Allen special parodying such shows, and one of them was that program. Allen of course impersonated Sagan, implying that the bulk of the show's budget went to turtleneck sweaters ("I have the neck of a turtle"), and showing various models made with Tinkertoys ("This is the molecular structure of the atom . . . and this is the molecular structure of nuclei . . . This is a horsey . . . this is a piggy . . . and this is a little puddy tat"). (He actually said the last like that, it's not a censorship thing as with a certain Nilsson album that damaged both his voice and his reputation.)
Loved the Stars On 45 Medley and the semi-craze that ensued for about a year afterwards with other medleys by them, The Beatles, Beach Boys and Elvis. I have no problem whatsoever with early 80's Pop (the late 90's is when it got bad for me), but even I have to admit this song and others were a cool change of pace to hear on the radio, as medleys were not very common in general. In fact, the last medley I can think of offhand that was a major hit peaked at #11 in 1990. I won't mention the title/artist so as not to spoil the surprise when we get there.
...Yeah, that was the billing oddity I was talking about, having the different name in Britain (Elsewhere in English-speaking world??? And on the Continent and the rest of the non-Anglosphere?) - I kind of saw listings at the time indicating this, but didn't really get it confirmed til' this modern era. " Starsound " sounds to me like s lesser version of the kind of crammed;together pseudo-words, blurbese, that I've noted Continental issues of English+language tending to have on their eevrs, " Superhit ' or " DiscoDkul Sensation! ", like that. - tho it also seems to me like " ____Sound " is more a U.K. usage. The version of " Stars On 45 " that's been posted here is not the same as the U.S. Radio Records 45 version! I think it might be a slight latter-day remix....and, possibly, it might be a slightly longer version as far as including a couple more Beatles songs - But most of all, this has the introductory 45 seconds or so, in which we get, breaking the 6/s concept!, a bit of Sparks' " Beat The Clock ".........Preceded by an original bit of song, the " Stars On 45 Theme ", which on the U.S. 7" is completely lopped from the record, only occurring at the end as "a wind-up! FURTHERMORE, the bit of the " Theme " at the beginning of this version includes this verse about (the first line as a matter of fact) " you can booo-gie at the dis-co " + One can see why that line got chopped off in 1981 " post-disco " Reagan America, " AM radio length ' aside! It makes the record quite different, to open with the " boogie " line, then work.out to the finish, rather than starig with the " Intro Venus " bit then into " Sugar Sugar " and then the Fabs...proceeding backward through the Sixties...........
...The Abba medley opens with quite obscure Pilar songs, even relative to their lower level of popularity Stateside - How recent was " Winner Takes If All " then? Actually, perhaps because of the disco-yness, it strikes me that it does not include " Waterloo ", " I Do X5 "... " Dancing Queen "!
"Stars on 45" Don't remember this song back in '81 at all. If it did come on the radio, I might have just thought my parents were playing one of those "oldies" stations. I don't think I heard it properly until a year or so on a podcast. Not impressed. re: "Bette Davis Eyes" being inspired by the arthouse revival, it could have just been that in the early 80s, TV stations were still playing lots of '30s and '40s movies on weekend afternoons to fill up the hours. As a kid at this time, I got to see all the Universal horror movies, plus tons of Erroll Flynn, Tarzan movies, '50s sci-fi, Godzilla, etc. this way.
Suzi Quatro falls into that category as well and scored a top 10 with Chris Norman and “Stumblin’ In” 1n 1978
For better or worse, this served as my introduction to most of these songs...no regrets. Nice bit of nostalgia which I will most likely never ever hear again,
Stars on 45 is a guilty pleasure for me. In a year accused on being too sappy and filled with yacht rock dreck or too many country crossovers, it has a sense of joy missing from a lot of other things clogging the upper reaches of the chart. I think it's disappeared from a lot of folks memory banks since the hit version is rather hard to find on CD - hence no real recurrent airplay after radio stations dropped vinyl at the end of the eighties. Only 2 stateside comps carried it last time I checked around a decade ago. The European imports of the Stars On stuff never get it quite right due to American version of the Stars On album differing from its overseas counterparts. Venus and Sugar Sugar if I recall right weren't even part of the Beatles medley on it. Instead they were from a different one on the second side. Anyways, it was a fun song to my then 6 year old ears and I would feed the jukebox quarters at restaurants all over town that summer to hear it, Bette Davis Eyes, and my sisters pick - I Love You by the Climax Blues Band. That's another tune that was obscure to find on disc as well since the band hated it and felt it wrecked their career.
...Speaking of Golden Age of Hollywood referencing, we are, J believe, not far from a Top Ten Pop and Number One.AC, I believe, by an artist who, not spoiling, bears the name of a " MY FAIR LADY " character...
In defense of the 'Stars On Medley', my 11 year old self was intrigued enough to seek out the actual Beatle versions of those songs (not the easiest thing to do in those days) which led to a lifelong fandom that I can now share with my not quite three year old daughter. Still no excuse or good reason to include 'Sugar, Sugar' though
Except the song was written in '73 or '74, so it wasn't inspired by anything happening in the '80s. Carnes or her producer might have been attracted to the tune because of the subject matter, but given their age they were likely more in tune with the revival house phenomena of the early '70s than watching old Bette Davis flicks on TV in 1980. And actually by 1980 that was kind of fading away, especially on TV - the older flicks playing on TV by 1980 tended to be color films from the '50s onward. TV stations didn't like to air a lot of black and white films - they definitely took a ratings hit. During this era a lot of old black & white TV shows also disappeared from regular syndication for the same reason - it's one of the things that prompted Ted Turner to try colorizing the extensive library of older films and programs he bought when he took over MGM. As Turner himself said at the time: “All I’m trying to do is protect my investment in MGM,” said Turner, who earlier this year paid more than $1.2 billion for the studio’s 3,650-title library of movies. He has announced plans to color such seminal black-and-white films as “Casablanca,” “The Maltese Falcon” and the John Garfield-Lana Turner “The Postman Always Rings Twice.” Turner reiterated his stand that colorization is necessary because television advertising rates for black-and-white movies are lower than those for color movies. He insisted that colorization is a financial issue and not, as the protesters argue, an aesthetic one.
The Stars On 45 Medley was fun for what it was and I liked it enough to buy the album. (Hey, I was only 9). I remember being slightly disappointed that the the snippets of "Sugar Sugar" and "Venus" were not included in the Beatles Medley unlike the single version.
Also, in those days most people had access to just a few TV channels, and many of them aired regular afternoon movies that sampled generously from the 30s and 40s. I recall seeing a fair number of old films back then after the cartoons ended. Nowadays, with everyone having so many entertainment choices, people are not as likely to stumble onto something by accident like back in the ol' days.
True in the '70s, not so much by '80. I remember old B&W movies airing when I was little, but by 1980 they'd largely disappeared from Phoenix TV, or at least had been relegated to the margins. I remember a station airing Things To Come around 1980 and me being enthralled they were airing something that old. Of course, it was only 45 years old at that time. To put that into perspective, Star Wars is 42 years old.
In the late 1950s, Hollywood started offering syndicated movie packages to local TV stations - primarily stuff from the 1930s & 1940s. TV stations, particularly independent TV stations, snapped up as much as they could because they needed product to broadcast in order to sell commercial time. That is why, all through the 1969s & 1970s, you would see “Late Late Show” movies and “Creature Feature” type of shows. The release of the Universal Studios horror movies (Dracula, Frankenstein, etc.) lead to a revival of those characters and had quite a cultural impact on children growing up in the 1960s - everything from The Munsters to Dark Shadows to Count Chocula. I grew up watching the same movies my Dad watched as a kid & teenager - we used to watch them together. I’m sure most people my age have at least a casual knowledge of some the actors & actresses of that era because they watched a lot of those movies on TV (my personal favorites were William Powell & Myrna Loy in the “Thin Man” movies). But, by the late 1970s, that type of programming faded away due to the availability of more syndicated TV reruns. Instead of showing Hitchcock’s “Notorious” on the “Late Late Show,” you got 3 hours of “Gilligan’s Island” and “Gomer Pyle” reruns. My kids & grandkids have no knowledge or interest in those movies.
Yeah, it was drying up when I was a little kid in the '70s. I saw a few old films, but not many, and mostly confined to little theater blocks on a local independent station on the weekends. They had one program called World Beyond, where they showed old sci-fi and horror films from the '50s and '60s. Mostly color flicks, but occasionally you'd get an old black and white classic. As we transitioned from the '70s to the '80s the old B&W flicks pretty much disappeared, probably for the reasons Ted Turner cited - you couldn't get as much for advertising on them. I'm glad I saw a few old B&W genre classics while I did. In bigger cities than Phoenix - like LA and New York - it's possible that, given the larger number of channels, there were more stations screening more obscure stuff well into the 80s. We only had the 3 VHF network affiliates in Phoenix, plus a PBS station and one independent, straight thru until the early 80s, when we gained first a second then a third independent on UHF, and for a time a low-power UHF music video only station. Cable with all of its options was slower to penetrate Phoenix too, simply due to the sheer size of the place - even back then metro Phoenix was like 40 miles across. That's a lotta cable to run. Our neighborhood didn't get cable until I think 1985, possibly even later, and we weren't in the boonies. Similarly, we had less variety on radio as well, and fewer tightly genre-targeted stations than big cities like LA and NYC. Phoenix stations tended to play toward broader audiences. That having been said, the Phoenix market was the thousand pound gorilla of Arizona radio, and stations there had repeaters all over the state. So what did get played penetrated far beyond the more cosmopolitan metro area. I've always thought Phoenix radio itself looked to LA for inspiration - lots of people in Phoenix went to the California coast for vacations, would hear stuff there and bring it back with them. LA was only about a six hour drive away, which probably sounds crazy to folks in the UK or on the East Coast of the US, but by standards out in the Western US where cities are 300 miles apart is a fairly reasonable drive. Texas for example was at least 12 hours away if not more, and big Texas cities like Dallas even farther. They might as well have been Manhattan.
I actually saw Beatlemania in 1979 at the Warner Theatre in DC and liked it. But, I knew going in that it was just a Beatles tribute band with lots of cool multimedia presentations to accompany the show. Not an “incredible simulation” but a fun afternoon. I still have the program & ticket stub.
