Post here when you learn a song you thought was beloved everywhere is really only beloved where you live.

TIL When In Rome's "The Promise" was strictly a hit in the US. That seems so bizarre to me, especially because they're such an English group. It only peaked at #58 on the UK chart and then faded into oblivion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HI_xFQWiYU

oops this should probably be on ilm

Too late fpd

Long noble history of Anglo groups with big US careers that nobody gives a fuck about over here

I thought everyone in the world loved Madness until I went to university and met people who weren't from North London.

Pre-pandemic, in the North Yorkshire market town where I live, the single most sure fire cross-generational floor filler at bars and parties was always Billy Ocean’s “Red Light Spells Danger”. Tried playing it at a big party in Nottingham, in the middle of a vintage vinyl set: no reaction, no dancing.

Anybody who doesn't respond to that song is a wrong un

See also Love Really Hurts but Red Light is a kinda pseudo Northern Soul banger of the highest order

Red Light Spells Danger has almost NO presence in the US. I'd never heard it until a few months ago. But Billy Ocean didn't even start releasing albums over here until 1980.

Billy Ocean has had a weird career, there's a definite split between the 70s and the 80s stuff, a legit comeback really

Caribbean queen was European queen?!?

yeah have you never heard that story?

i am gonna mourn my team's defeat today by having a Billy Ocean hour now

No never heard the story! I also noticed Billy Ocean and the Walker Brothers were labelmates at the same time (GTO). Is that how Scott got Billy to sing on Track Three?

This is one of the very few western songs you can guarantee most people in China know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbLT12eg-lw

xp OK now i'm learning something, had no idea about Song Three :O

No never heard the story! I also noticed Billy Ocean and the Walker Brothers were labelmates at the same time (GTO). Is that how Scott got Billy to sing on Track Three?

Well spotted. Could be.

Still not sure how Dave MacRae went from Matching Mole to the Goodies to arranging "Nite Flights" though.

Bill Oddie on record as a big Fusion fan

thanks to this thread for introducing me to "red light spells danger," wow

(xp) Pretty sure I've read him singing the praises of Parliament/Funkadelic too - he might have even have claimed them as inspiration for "Funky Gibbon". Or am I having some kind of fever dream?

no that's the stuff i was referring to, i read a similar piece about his inspirations, god bless the grumpy twat

I thought Oddie had said “On the Corner” era Miles Davis was an inspiration for Funk Gibbon.

Talking of Northern Soul type material, it's kind of insane to me that the Four Seasons never even released "The Night" as a single in the US - releasing three total flops instead.

Having said that, they had a track record of sticking classic songs on b-sides.

"The Night" is another huge tune in my town, as is Al Wilson's "The Snake".

Just refreshed my "Red Light" memory and got actual shivers of recognition, so it's got to be worth an embed. The sound of peak time North Yorkshire!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW66keO8Iew

solid platinum classic

oh yeah "The Snake", is that not universal?

on a semi-related note was DJs playing the Hawaii 5-0 theme (which i think might be Northern Soul adjacent?) at the end of the night something just i grew up with or does it have a history?

ok another semi-related question is "Oops Upside Your Head" and especially the sat on the floor rowing dance a big deal outside the UK?

also this thread is making for a great Saturday evening playlist at Chez Vague

Everything you need to know about the specific origins of the Oops Upside rowing dance, as related by James Hamilton in Record Mirror in June 1980:

https://jameshamiltonsdiscopage.com/1980/06/07/june-7-1980-bobby-thurston-stacy-lattisaw-odyssey-starship-orchestra-johnny-guitar-watson/

beautiful, thank you!

Al Wilson’s “The Snake” wasn’t a hit in the UK, so it probably doesn’t work so well outside of areas with a Northern Soul tradition. Actual Northern devotees loathe it, though; apparently it’s an inferior cover version.

oh yeah "The Snake", is that not universal?

I'll save you the audio/visual evidence, but former US president Donald Trump has extensively quoted the lyrics to that song during the drums & space sections of his anti-immigration speeches for the last several years.

pretty sure the plot is basically an expansion of an old possibly Yoruba proverb tho

He cites it as a 'good old song' or something

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/insects-floods-and-the-snake-what-trumps-use-of-metaphors-reveals/

this is a great counter-example to my usual feeling of terrible fans putting me off music tho

But enough about him.

The '90s Dance group Anything Box apparently were/are _HUGE_ in Houston.

Q: was "Welcome to the Monkey House" an enormous club banger outside of anywehre but the Cedar Tree disco in Rugeley?

xp I'm familiar with Anything Box from clubs in the southeast US, but I have no idea where their homebase of support is. Maybe a little everywhere but huge nowhere?

From James Hamilton's columns:

June 2, 1984:

Alan ‘Gibbo’ Gibson, now at Toronto’s CN Tower for four months before heading into the Orient again on the Bacchus circuit, reports still huge in Birmingham are Tin Tin ‘Kiss Me’, Roni Griffith ‘Breakin’ Up’ and Animal Magnet ‘Welcome To The Monkey House‘ (whether in English or Spanish), three of his biggest records there two years ago!

June 30, 1984:

Trevor ‘Redeye’ Hughes, back in action around Telford, reports Shropshire’s current biggies are the 18 month old Tin Tin ‘Kiss Me (US Remix)‘ (WEA Curve), 3 year old Animal Magnet ‘Welcome To The Monkey House‘ (EMI) and of course 5 year old Sister Sledge — the first two of course have a reputation in the Midlands already, but are also now huge for Nick Davies on his Sunday “alternative” nights at Watford’s New Penny.

November 23, 1985:

Alan ‘Gibbo’ Gibson, between globe-trotting for Bacchus International (over the next few months he’ll be jocking in Korea, Singapore and Indonesia), is briefly back in Birmingham at The Millionaire where he finds little change as the real monsters remain Animal Magnet ‘Welcome To The Monkey House‘, Roni Griffith ‘(Best Part Of) Breakin’ Up‘ and the inevitable Tin Tin ‘Kiss Me’ .