music_collector

Kiss you all over....Is that the song Adam Sandler sang in Happy Gilmore?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQdgwVEXM-g

Trollheart

I don't know. I refuse to acknowledge the existence of Adam Sandler.

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Trollheart

Case No: THDAMMXXII-XI/XXIII/07=16

Casefile:
Who? Men at Work
What? “Down Under”
Where? Australia
When? 1980

Sometimes a band just catches the zeitgeist, flourishes for a while and then everyone loses interest and off they go. Perhaps not into obscurity, but certainly in the public eye, no longer important or worth worrying about. It seems to me that Men at Work gained their fame through something which was noted in the episode of The Simpsons (yes, them again) where they went to Australia and an American diplomat noted that for a short while, Australia was in vogue, with films like Crocodile Dundee and Young Einstein catching the public’s attention, to say nothing of the return of Mad Max, the post-apocalyptic action hero who first made Australia cool, but that they (sniggers) thought it would last. Of course, it did not. Everyone kind of loves Australia, sure, even now - how can you not love such an easy-going, friendly country? - but to a large extent, nobody really cares about it now. Its time as a cultural phenomenon has passed. Everyone else has lost interest and moved on to other things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeeBH294v6I
But Men at Work found their time right in the middle of that “sweet spot” of Australiana, if you will. Formed in 1978, it took a mere two years before their first major hit, "Who Can it Be Now?" taking them all the way to number one in the USA while their second made their name all across the world with the quirky “Down Under”. Both came from their debut album Business as Usual, which you might (and I do) consider an odd title for your first outing, but there it is. The album sold tremendously well, reaching Platinum status in the UK and SIX TIMES Platinum in the US (that’s six million copies sold), strangely doing better than it did at home, where it only (!) sold 200,000 copies, certifying it as a paltry quadruple Platinum. Pfft. Hardly worth getting up in the morning for!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY7S6EgSlCI
It did equally well on both sides of the Atlantic - and indeed, the Pacific - hitting the number one spot in the UK, USA and back home Down Under - as well as Canada, New Zealand and, um, Norway, feeding into the Australian craze that was going on at the time, with even bands like Icehouse and Mental as Anything doing well in the charts, and again vanishing once the fad petered out. But Men at Work weren’t going down that easily. Well, yes they were, but not without a fight. Their second album, Cargo, released in 1983, produced another hit single, “Overkill”, which, while it just barely failed to scrape into the top twenty in the UK, again hit the heights in the US, reaching no. 3, again oddly though, doing less well in their home territory, where it got to number five. The album itself did very well, taking the number 3 slot in the US, number 8 in the UK and of course the top spot back home. It certainly shifted the units too, going triple Platinum in both the US and Canada, Platinum in Australia but only Gold in the UK. It seemed, to use an obvious metaphor, the shine was beginning to wear off Men at Work.

Before we go into their history and demise though, let’s look at the controversy surrounding their biggest hit. It was assumed - certainly by me at any rate - that “Down Under” was a cheerful, somewhat irreverent song about Australia, but looking into the lyric reveals a darker undertone. According to the lyricist, frontman and singer Colin Hay, the song was about the Americanisation of Australia, its loss of cultural identity and the danger of its losing its history and individuality. This is, apparently, underlined in the video for the song by the members of the band carrying a coffin across the desert, signifying, so he says, the death of Australian culture. Well, who knew? The final lines in the chorus “Better run, better take cover” also refer to the threat to Australia from outside influences.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SECVGN4Bsgg
As it goes, the song was not even meant to be a hit, having originally been released as the B-side of their first single, “Keypunch Operator”, which was recorded before they had a contract. Reminds me of the “mistake” hit when “Black Boys on the Corner” was released with “Whiskey in the Jar” on the B-side, and we all know that story! Unfortunately, greed and lawyers know no time limit, and in 2007 it was revealed - somewhat innocently, on a quiz show - that “Down Under” used part of the children’s song “Kookaburra” in its melody, leading to the awakening of the Selfish Giant, who decided that they needed to be paid, even though Larkin Music, who held the copyright of the 1932 (!) tune - its composer long dead - didn’t even know about its inclusion until they were alerted. Two years later the legal wheels were in motion, and after a protracted legal battle which ran for two years, Men at Work lost their case.

But what of the band behind the music? That’s, after all, what we’re here to discuss. Well, it seems success hit them rather harder than expected. Their manager was unable to deal with having to look after a suddenly global phenomenon, had no real experience in the record industry and some of the band members, perhaps not unreasonably, wanted him fired. He was, however, a friend of Hay, and instead the singer fired them. Ouch. Their third album bombed utterly, released at a time when the world was beginning to wake from its love affair with Australia, roll over and shuffle its feet going “Christ is that the time? I have, uh, a meeting to go to” and desperately looking for the phone to call a taxi, wondering what the hell it had drunk last night?

The band soon broke up, but reformed in 1997 and toured, however it was clear this was a band who were going to survive on their reputation and flog their hits for all they were worth. They never recorded another album, and after the disastrous lawsuit over “Down Under/Kookaburra”, flautist Greg Ham died of a heart attack, Hay attributing his death to stress brought on by the case, which he also blamed for the death of his own father. Hay remains involved in music, but the death of Ham sounded the final knell for Men at Work. Although Hay put together various bands under that name, there were none of the original members (other than himself) in those bands and you can say he was just using the name. Men at Work had finally, it seemed, laid down their tools and, like good Australians and navvies everywhere, had knocked off and gone down the pub.

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Plankton

Colin had a small part on Scrubs, which was kinda funny.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL8LBifGHqI

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Trollheart

That's brilliant. I must watch that show again some time.

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Plankton

It did have it's moments.

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Trollheart

Casefile:
Who? Sade
What? “Smooth Operator”, “Your Love is King”, “Paradise”
Where? England
When? 1984 - 1988
Why? For the new flavour of the month, she seemed to disappear pretty quickly and I wonder why that was?

Sade was born Helen Folosade Adu in Nigeria, but lived in England from age four. Her first album, 1984’s Diamond Life, spawned two massive hits singles, with “Smooth Operator” reaching number 19 in her (as such) native UK, doing much better on the other side of the Atlantic, where it got to number 5. “Your Love is King”, on the other hand, did the opposite, only reaching number 54 in the US while breaking the top ten in the UK, getting to number 6. Nevertheless, due to more success in America, “Smooth Operator” became her breakthrough single, and the album got to number 2 in the UK and 6 in the USA, achieving quadruple platinum sales in both territories, and indeed in Australia too. Sade was gushingly touted as the next big thing, most reviews (including me) ignoring the fact that though she had shortened her name she had also given it to her band, so that it wasn’t her album but their album. She was seen as the focus though, and not surprisingly. You may remember her, but can you name a single member of her band? No. Neither can I.

She is also a songwriter, having penned or co-penned all but one track on all six of their albums. The follow-up came the next year, and Promise yielded another single that was more successful in the US, “The Sweetest Taboo” going to number 5, while at home it barely scraped into the top 30. Seemed people were already tiring of the new sensation (shoutout to Michael Hutchence). The album was however phenomenally successful both sides of the pond, taking the number one slot for the first time, so while the singles-buying public weren’t having it, those who bought albums were still on their Sade kick. The third album, Stronger than Pride, showed this still to be the case; while the singles pretty much stalled around the top twenty or thereabouts, the album continued to take high slots in the US and UK, 7 in the former and 3 in the latter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1ljpLQ1V6Y
By the release of their fourth album, 1992’s Love Deluxe, the love affair was ending. The first single from the album, “No Ordinary Love”, held its own but it would be the last time a single from the band would chart. The album also did well, 3 in the US and 10 in the UK, but while it remained in double figure platinum sales in the US, album sales in the UK had been steadily dropping since the first release, with the previous one a single platinum; this could only manage a paltry gold. Add to this the fact that Sade herself then became pregnant with her first child and so the band took an extended hiatus of seven years, there was never going to be any comeback for them, was there?

Well, shows what I know, doesn’t it? Again. Returning in 2000 with their fifth album, Sade again racked up a triple platinum album stateside and even a platinum back home! Seems people did miss them after all. Or maybe it was new fans. Either way, they were back, and the album made number 3 in the US and 18 in the UK, with the lead single, “By Your Side”, not only scoring in the UK by returning them to the top 20 (the US weren’t interested, other than dance charts, but not the main one) but also was nominated for a Grammy. The second single, however, bombed. But Sade had done what might have seemed at the time the impossible, and come back after seven years away with the world again at their feet. Could this be repeated? Would you even try? Well, she did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TYv2PhG89A
Soldier of Love hit the shelves (oh, look it up!) in 2010, a full decade later, and lo and behold! screamed to the number 1 spot in the US and 4 in the UK, though reducing album sales in the US for the first time to a single platinum while the UK went back to awarding a mere gold. The singles, however, were another matter: of the three released from the album, not a single one charted significantly on either side of the water. Even so, Sade have sold millions of records and, despite seeming to have disappeared off the main pop radar, continue to be as popular as ever, their last tour netting them 50 million. A seventh album is planned, though when that will be released is not at this time known. In the meantime, Sade, as distinct from her band, has contributed a song to the Disney movie A Wrinkle in Time and one to the movie Widows. She has been awarded an OBE and a CBE (Officer/ Commander of the British Empire) and has won four Grammys and a Brit Award. Some smooth operator!

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Trollheart

Casefile:
Who? Kajagoogoo
What? “Too Shy”
Where? England
When? 1983

At one point this band were the “new thing”, in the same way bands like Sigue Sigue Sputnik (whatever happened to them? We’ll find out in due course) and A Flock of Seagulls claimed the crown, mostly due to silly haircuts and even sillier names, but to my mind, Kajagoogoo had one hit - admittedly a massive one - and then more or less suffered the fate of all, or most, of these bright new things, as everyone forgot about them. I think everyone knows what happened, as in, the solo career of Limahl, their lead singer, but what about the band? When he left, did it continue with another singer? Did it break up? Is it still going without him? Well, this is where we find out. But first, how did they come to be?

Formed in 1978 as Art Nouveau, Christopher Hammill, who would become known as Limahl as he rearranged the letters of his surname, wasn’t even with them at the time. When he joined up in 1981 they renamed themselves Kajagoogoo, god knows why. Oh, Wiki knows why: says it was because it sounded like what babies say when they first make sounds. Right. Attract all the teenage mothers, huh? In 1982 Limahl met Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran, then a struggling band yet to have a hit, and signed with EMI. A year later they had their first hit single, which took them all the way to the top, the insipid “Too Shy”, perhaps surprisingly also breaking the US with the song, which went to number 5 there.

Riding high on their newfound success, Kajagoogoo released their first album, White Feathers in 1983 and it went to number 5 in the UK though the USA had had enough with the one single, thanks very much and it barely scraped into the top forty ‘cross the pond. Kajagoogoo are perhaps the epitome of too much fame too soon, and Limahl was soon knocking heads with the other band members, who disapproved of his lifestyle (whatever that was; maybe he liked to stay up after ten o’clock, the little tearaway!) and summarily fired him from the band. Our Limahl was not a happy bunny, claiming that he was the one who had made the band famous, which bears some examination I suppose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkpG4XApJ28
As Art Nouveau, and without our Chris, the other guys had done nothing. John Peel had gushed about their only single, but John Peel couldn’t push them into the charts, especially without a recording contract. While it might be fair, or unfair, to say that Limahl was instrumental in their hit single, I don’t know that, as they all share a songwriting credit and let’s be honest here: though he’s not shown as a songwriter, you’d have to think that the presence of Nick Rhodes impacted upon the song, and he may have offered pointers or even written parts of it without being given credit, whether he may have wanted it or not. Still, Limhal with his stupid coloured mohawk hair was certainly the focal point of the band, and if you were to ask anyone today who remembers them if they can name any of the guys, I would bet good money that they would either name him, or say, oh that guy who did “Neverending Story”, wasn’t he in that band? I can almost guarantee the four others in the band have been entirely forgotten about.

So was he the one who made them famous? Or was he just the face of Kajagoogoo? Who knows, or cares, but at any rate the lads gave him the push, and on he went to have a hit single just to spite them, and, to be fair, it’s remembered long after “Too Shy” has been mostly relegated to the bargain basement of history. Sure, it’s more Giorgio Moroder’s song, but everyone remembers it as being Limahl’s. It’s also an undeniable fact that the three hit singles they had - yeah, they had three, believe it or not - all came from Kajagoogoo’s debut album with Limahl behind the mike. “Ohh to Be Ah” - another stupid name, if you ask me - went to number 7 while the slightly less silly “Hang On Now” fell outside the top ten, only making it to 13. Again, the US displayed a surprising amount of taste and laughed at both. Babies on both sides of the Atlantic refused to return calls for comment.

And so Kajagoogoo soldiered on without their golden boy, bass player Nick Beggs now the singer, and their next album, Islands, was released in 1984. It struggled up to the number 35 spot but ran out of steam, and while its lead single, “Big Apple” (surely a blatant and transparent attempt to win back the yawning American audience?) got to number 8, it was the last hurrah for the band. Subsequent singles bombed, though a remixed version of “Turn Your Back on Me”, which had made only number 47 here got all the way to number 2 on the US Dance charts. It is vaguely possible - though by no means certain - that the rebranding of the band to the shorter Kaja might have had some part to play in that. Either way, they decided that was the way to go back home, too, and their third album, Crazy Peoples Right to Speak (surely that’s missing an apostrophe?) was released under the name Kaja. It made no difference and nobody cared, the album not even rising as far as number 100.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir_hgbRJTsI
Disconsolate after the failure of their third album (second with Limahl) the band realised it didn’t matter whether they were called Kajagoogoo or Kaja - or indeed, Googoo, though one wonders if the Goo Goo Dolls might have had something to say about that): their time was over and they quite rightly cashed in their chips and parked the van, all going their separate ways as to the horror and dismay of absolutely nobody the world over, Kajagoogoo broke up.

But you can’t keep a crap band who think they still have some life in them after one poxy hit single down, not unless you keep going till the hammer is covered in blood and brains, and they got dragged, um, back up by the Devil in 2003. Let me explain. You’ll like this. In an example of perhaps the very worst of commercialised music crap paired with reality show and with lots of Ben Franklins no doubt being waved around, VHI had the idea for Bands Reunited, which purported to attempt to track down the separate members of bands who had split, fool, cajole, or otherwise tempt them to reunite and play as a band again. The show suffered a lot of criticism and ran for two years, with varying levels of success. An interesting aside tells of when the producers tried to convince Motormouth himself, Morrissey, to reform The Smiths. It doesn’t say what happened, though it was, as Simon Cowell would say, a no. I doubt it was that polite, or short.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WN0T-Ee3q4
Anyway, back to Bands Reunited. I suppose Limahl, realising that the movie had in fact tricked him and the story had actually come to an end, and nobody really cared about him other than that one song, thought what the hell, why not? And he joined the rest of the band in a spirited - possibly - performance of “Too Shy” and “Hang On Now”. Unfortunately, but perhaps inevitably, Limahl was still a prick and the band still hated his guts, so there was no tearful reunion and the boys caught separate taxis to different banks to deposit their gains, which might be said by some to have been gotten by ill means. It would be another five years before they would all be together again.

In 2007, then, the three remaining members of the band wrote a song and then decided why not do an album, but this was postponed and the next year Limahl was back, as was drummer Jeff Strode, who had, well, strode off into the sunlight after the VHI thing. Sorry. On their website, the band enthused about it being just like old times. I wonder if they meant kicking the **** out of each other? At any rate, the world waited and ignored them possibly. Let’s put it this way: other than hardcore fans, if they had any, and possibly the babies who wished to have serious words with these guys about exploiting their tender years, I doubt anyone held their breath waiting for the new Kaja album. Oh no wait: they were back to using the name Kajagoogoo. Still doubt anyone cared.

Gone to the Moon took off in 2008, but rather than slipping the surly bonds of Earth and touching the face of God, it sputtered, farted and plunged back into the atmosphere, burning up on entry. Look, to be fair, I don’t know: there are no chart details about it, but surely that in itself must indicate it did poorly. If that’s not enough evidence, then the words of Nick Beggs in 2017 sound as if they tell the story: "We did something about nine years ago, and that was good. It was almost like a kind of revisiting of it for old time’s sake and I felt that we did quite a lot of good with that. But in terms of moving forward, there’s no point in revisiting that project."

Kajagoogoo did tour and promote the album, and EMI flogged every last pound sterling or dollar out of their, ahem, back catalogue, even going so far as to release a “greatest hits” package. Yeah. But the rebirth of Kajagoogoo was not to be, and the world was to be deprived of the chance to relive their misspent youth by remembering a one-hit wonder. As so often happens, the world had moved on, the band had not, and there really is only so long you can dine out on the same tired single success before the restaurants stop taking your credit cards. I don’t know, but I think it would be safe to say that a very large percentage of those who went to the gigs were only waiting for “Too Shy”, and, actual fans apart, shrugged at the rest of the largely unknown so-called catalogue.

A short note, then, on the anagrammed one. Apparently he was a punk originally (who woulda thunk it, with hair like that?) but I bet he was banned from all the best Punk clubs - like the Spit and Snot and the What the **** You Lookin’ At, Pal? No self-respecting anarchist would want to breathe the same air as the lead singer of that puffy band Kajawotsit, now would they? Nevertheless, he played in a band called Vox Deus, then another band called Crossword and finally, ensuring that not even the Bovver Boot would admit him through the back door, here’s a fiver, no questions asked, he hitched his wagon to one of the spawns of Satan himself, Mike Nolan who, despite their later chart success, will I think always be remembered as one of the two blokes that pulled the skirts off those birds from Bucks Fizz at the Eurovision.

Things were not going very rock and roll for the ex-Punk. And then he joined Kajagoogoo, as detailed above, changing his name (well, making an anagram of it) and being booted out (well at least there was some punk cred there!) after one album and one hit single. He then embarked on a solo career that really is remarked only by one hit single and the Moroder song, which was a huge hit. He released his debut album Don’t Suppose in 1984 to colossal yawns. I wanted to quip that the title was a sort of shrug or plea - don’t suppose you remember me/don’t suppose you’re still interested, are you? - however he says himself it was more a George Michael Listen Without Prejudice idea: don’t make your mind up without checking the music out. Right.

Anyway he had a hit single from this album, when “Only for Love” got to number 16, though his big hit would and will always be the theme from The Neverending Story, a movie which, to be fair to him, has really only been kept alive by the song being repeatedly played. I mean, it’s an all right movie, but just another kids’ fantasy thing in the end, and like Avatar, which everyone remembers for the fantastic 3D effects, nobody really cares about it today. The song has become timeless though, and on it he duets - as such - with Beth Anderson, though she did not feel the need to come and sing with him personally, and so recorded her vocal in the US of A. There’s no story about how Limahl got the gig, but I like to think it went something like this.

Moroder: “Ah, yes, you were with that band, what was it - Kajagaga?”
Limahl: “Googoo.”
Moroder: “You’ll need to be able to speak better if you want to sing my song, son!”
Limahl: “No, I was saying the band name was Kajagoogoo.”
Moroder: “What did I say?”
Limahl: “Gaga.”
Moroder: “How dare you sir! I’m not senile yet!”
Limahl: “Look, you want me to sing this or not?”
Moroder: “I don’t know. What was your song again, that big hit?”
Limahl: “Too Shy.”
Moroder: “Oh well, if you don’t have the self-confidence to take on my song, perhaps I'll look up that Oakey chap from the Humanity League…”
And so on.

But I digress. Bolstered by a new interest in him due to really, nothing else but singing another guy’s song and capitalising on the popularity of a second-rate movie, Limahl rather unwisely went on to release two more albums, Colour All My Days (which it did not, unless it was coloured his bank account in the red) in 1986 and Love is Blind in 1992. That may have been, but the audience were not: their eyes were wide open and they knew a desperate attempt to hang on to very fleeting and fading fame when they saw it. None of his albums did anything and he spent the next ten years trying to relive the past.

As already mentioned, in 2003 he rejoined the reformed Kajagoogoo for the VHI show Bands Reunited, but this was less than a roaring comeback, the next year he tried again, on a show literally called Comeback (he did not) and finally in 2005 on yet another of those types of shows, this time going under the name of Hit Me Baby One More Time. After that, as detailed above, he reunited with the band for some tours before they finally broke up forever. They were however featured in the TV show American Horror Story, though whether they performed, lip-synched or whether it was footage I don’t know, and though Limahl released two singles in 2020, one of which, with staggering and surely misplaced confidence, was a Christmas one, he mostly remains on tour in revivals of eighties bands and sounds, trying to recapture his brief moments of glory. In many ways, perhaps sadly, perhaps hilariously, and almost certainly fittingly, Limahl seems determined to continue to write and star in his very own Never-ending Story.

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