From Pink To Green Day

One is a solo artist whose UK chart career now spans almost 11 years, and now has a greatest hits album to celebrate the fact. The other are a band who have sold over 65 million albums worldwide and have their own broadway musical. But aside from a penchant for spiky hair and names destined for novelty versions of the Dulux Colour Chart, what exactly to P!nk and Green Day have in common? Ever the pop sleuths, we set out to find out.

First of all, cast your minds back to June 2001, when P!nk was still largely known as an RnB vocalist on the cusp of metamorphosing into the pop-punk stylings which she would go on to champion for the rest of her career. It was this Summer that, as part of the hype of the Baz Lurhman-directed mega-hit Moulin Rouge!, that P!nk was enlisted to collaborate that would not only bring together some of RnB's hottest vocal talents, but would give her her first UK Number 1 hit single. That single, of course was Lady Marmalade, and as well as constituting an unreconstructed diva-off, it effortlessly and sassily updated the blueprint set down by LaBelle in 1975

In addition to Christina Aguilera, Lil Kim and Missy Elliot (who, if we're all honest, only showed up to collect a few quid to introduce the video and then buggered right off), the track also featured Mya who had been undergoing her own career renaissance in 2001. Whilst also having a huge solo number 3 hit with the frankly-brilliant Case Of The Ex, Mya was also known for providing the vocal flourish behind this collaborative smash in 1998.

Pras Michel, also known as probably the sanest person ever to emerge from The Fugees, had his biggest "solo" hit with this genius reworking of the Dolly Parton/Kenny Rogers classic Islands In The Stream (which, lest we forget, was written by THE BEE GEES!). Far more successful, of course, was his tenure in The Fugees alongside Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean. Prior to attempting to become president of Haiti (despite not having actually lived there all that much prior to standing for election) Wyclef had carved out a respectable reputation as a producer and a solo artist clocking up such hits as Perfect Gentleman (about the life and times of a man who meets a stripper who is trying to pay her way through College), Gone Till November and this little gem with Claudette Ortiz of the short-lived City High: Two Wrongs. All this is grist to the mill, however, in light of our ultimate destination. So we want to pinpoint one particular stop on The Pop Web's Wyclef Jean Nostalgia Trip. That stop would be 911, Wyclef's duet with the RnB icon Mary J Blige.

Wyclef Jean & Mary J Blige - 911 by paleopale

Mary J Blige's own career has seen a bit of a mixed bag in terms of chart viablity and, indeed, quality. Despite undoubted highlights like Family Affair and No More Drama you've got the little-bit-dismal Just Fine. Blige's duet with U2, a cover of the band's seminal classic One we would argue falls somewhere in the middle (even if it is one of The Pop Web's guilty pleasures), even though it probably doesn't cater to hardcore U2 fans' tastes. 

U2, conveniently enough, provide the final stepping stone on our way across the babbling fjord that is pop. Back in 2006, the world was collectively recoiling in horror in the wake of the humanitarian disaster that befel New Orleans in the aftermath of the devastating Hurricane Katrina. One of the most prevalent opinions that could be made out on the political stage at the time was of the disbelief that then-president George W. Bush wasn't doing nearly enough to help New Orleans' citizens to recover from the disaster. Enter U2, who teamed up with (you've guessed it) Green Day to record The Saints Are Coming, the video for which posed the question: what would have happened if the US Armed Forces had had their attentions redirected from Afghanistan and Iraq towards helping Louisianna recover from the hurricane's effects? 

 
U2 - The Saints Are Coming by UniversalMusicUK

Powerful stuff, but, being the merciless scavengers we are, for our purposes it simply provides one more connection in the incestuous world that is dear old pop.

So there we have it, from P!nk to Punk Green Day. That wasn't so hard now, was it. And coincidentally, we're now in the mood for a trip to homebase to freshen up these walls a bit. We're thinking Banana Dream should be just the trick...

P!nk - Mya - Pras Michel - Wyclef Jean - Mary J. Blige - U2 - Green Day

From Hanson to Marilyn Manson

Sometimes, in the great interconnected world of pop, you hit a roadblock. Sometimes, two artists seem so far apart that you just think you're never going to get there. Sometimes, you think that the web is broken, or, at the very least, that there are some roadworks and the diversions lead you through a single track road to the point where you just can't face pulling over to let another tractor past so you give up and go home. Sometimes, you just get far too carried away with your mixed metaphor.

This is not one of those times.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are proud to announce that we have discovered a link between golden-haired, toothy "family-band" legends Hanson...

And the gothy, metal-plated toothed, walking freakshow Marilyn Manson...

"But how?" we hear you cry! We won't lie, readers, it was looking like it was going to be a long and tortuous journey. At least, it was until we saw on the horizon, the bright lights of...

Yes, the grand city of Tulsa, Oklahoma helped to make this one an unexpected doddle. The city (famous of course for its booming oil industry, its concentration of art deco architecture and the "prayer tower" of Oral Roberts University) is the place which the Hanson brothers call home (well, at least in their early years. For all we know, they might live in California or live quite happily in their condos in Boca. We just don't know/we're too lazy to find out).

Tulsa's legendary status on the world stage was cemented way prior to Hanson roller-blading their way onto the pop scene in 1997, however. In 1963, Gene Pitney immortalised the city in his paean Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa which reached number 5 in the UK pop charts. Give it a listen, if for no other reason than the frankly ludicrous orchestration which kicks off in the background which at the start suggests Gene managed to confuse Tulsa with Hawaii.

Gene Pitney had never had a number 1 hit in the UK, until the wonderful Marc Almond swooped in in the early part of 1989 with a devastating quiff and leather jacket combo to duet with Pitters on Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart. Despite an absolutely amazing vocal performance by both men, the song remained unreleased in the US, allegedly because the lyrics seemed... well... a little bit too gay to be radio friendly. Which is ridiculous... Clearly. I mean, just look at the last 10 seconds of the video. You really mean to tell me that people got camp from that?! Ridiculous.

Anyway, Marc Almond, will probably most likely go down in pop history as being the vocalist of the amazing 80s synthpop duo Soft Cell. The Cell had a litany of brilliant singles (of which our personal highlight is Say Hello, Wave Goodbye) but their place in the pop pantheon is principally earned by their wonderful reinterpretation of the Northern Soul classic Tainted Love, which, incidentally, is by far the most inventive use of fire-breathing dancing galactic bodies that we've ever seen in a music video.

At this point, it's a breeze. As much as we'd love to permanently strip it from the record books, Marilyn Manson decided that he would give Tainted Love a whirl in the name of a movie soundtrack and, in the process, earned his highest charting single to date in 2002. We think that the less that is said about this cover version the better, but in the interest of journalistic integrity (which, of course, we have in spades...) we'll just let the video speak for itself.

Subtle, isn't it?

Anyway, there you have it. The bright lights of the big city of Tulsa have proven to be a shining beacon in the marshy terrain of the pop web. It really is an amazing world, isn't it? When you can go from the downright-amazing MMMBop, to the downright-less-than-amazing Beautiful People and pass Gene bloody Pitney on the way. Brilliant.

Hanson - Gene Pitney - Marc Almond - Soft Cell - Marilyn Manson

So until, next time, we'll leave you with undoubtedly one of the best songs of the 1990s. But don't thank us...

Thank Tulsa

"Oh, we're halfway there"

To commemorate The Pop Web's migration to its brand new domain (bookmark www.thepopweb.co.uk) we invited our twitter followers to suggest the first "Web-surfing" challenge in our new home. Mikeinlight didn't disappoint when he suggested this:

Bon Jovi to Sigur Ros. Good luck.

Well, Mike, we're pleased to announce that we've gone and cracked it. In spectacular fashion if we do say so ourself.

                                   
                        







Ch-ch-check it out after the jump.

"When I was seven they said I was strange"

September 2009, now we come to think of it, was a fairly tumultous month in the world of pop. It saw the demise of one great pop institution and what-should-almost-certainly-have-been the demise of another. But aside from the temporal coincidence of their respective "line up changes", there is a richer vein of material which connects The Sugababes...

 (Please note, conclusive research from thepopweb laboratories has determined that THIS is the definitive line-up of the Sugababes, even if Heidi clearly had to rush out from clown college in order to attend this particular "bash")

...and Chas & Dave.

 Find out how they're connected after the jump...

"Heeee-re in my heart..."

Observant readers of The Pop Web will have noted our sister project "Every 1" which reviews and contextualises every UK number 1. In honour of this quest, we thought we would try and take on a connecting challenge which spans a huge swathe of the history of the UK number 1. The first UK number 1 was achieved by Al Martino with "Here In My Heart" in November 1953. 50 years later, this song was the UK number 1:



Christina Aguilera - Dirrty

Yes, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the UK number 1 was a song with a video featuring bare-knuckle boxing and all manner of hedonistic activity (interestingly, the video for Dirrty was only banned in Thailand after it was revealed that at one point in the video Christina was standing in front of a wall which contained grafiti advertising child prostitutes). Apart from the accidents of history which placed them at these milestones of the UK chart, what else connects these two?

Well... Al Martino, in addition to his singing career, also had a part in the Godfather as the singer Johnny Fontaine.

"Starring" alongside Al was none other than Diane Keaton. But before we hear the hundreds of voices of complaint, bear with us, we haven't turned into a "connect the movie star" blog, the good folks at imdb have already sorted that out for us. Diane Keaton, in addition to being an actress has also tried her hand at directing and crucially, made a brief foray into the world of the music video and directed this 80s classic:



As we've discussed elsewhere, we wouldn't want you to go away thinking that "Heaven Is A Place On Earth" is the unchallenged pinacle of Belinda Carlisle's career but, needs must, and this is the link that the chart web has provided. Belinda Carlisle's career was driven in part by the songwriting genius that is Rick Nowles who, in his time has wrote several absolute smashes (e.g. this, this and this). If that amazing collection of writing credits wasn't enough, he also co-wrote one of the strongest ballads for the Queen of Pop:



Power Of Goodbye by Madonna takes us on to our home stretch. In 2002, the stars (and their schedules) aligned and Madonna teamed up with Britney Spears on Me Against The Music



It's a shame really, you'd think with two of pop's most entertaining and compelling women on a record they'd be able to come up with something a little less... well... a little less "third single off the album", wouldn't you? Sadly, in the world of pop 1 + 1 doesn't always equal 2 so there you go. Anyway, you can probably see where we're going now, can't you? Yes. Well, if not, this picture should give it away...

Britney's career set off in the Mickey Mouse Club in 1993, as Christina Aguilera reached the end of her tenure (Justin Timberlake was also knocking around but forget about that for now). Christina and Britney's career have operated in remarkable parallel with one another in one sense (i.e. the "sense" of most tabloid media), and with completely no correlation in another (i.e. in an actual comparison of the two's chart career). The comparison between Britney and Christina may have been a little fair at the start of their career but as time has gone on, the two have actually traversed fairly discrete routes. In any event, that's an article for another day. The journey is complete. Number 1 at the start of year 1, and Number 1 at the start of year 50, united by The Pop Web.

Al Martino - Diane Keaton - Belinda Carlisle - Rick Knowles - Madonna - Britney Spears - Christina Aguilera

Oh, but before we forget, can we just emphasise that whatever else Christina has relased throughout her career, in our view she's never been much better than she was on this.

"The vids are alright"

Cast yourself back to the early "noughties". Before the iPod/iTunes was in any way, shape or form a "force" in the sale of popular music. When Big Brother was, in real terms, as big as it was ever going to get. And when Robbie Williams and Eminem were two of the biggest pop stars in the world (although let's just set aside that whole "Robbie trying to crack America" bit, for argument's sake).

Bring yourself back to reality. How things have changed. Eminem, despite reaching number 1 in 2009 with his comeback album "Relapse" only managed to shift a quarter of the units which "The Eminem Show" managed to sell in 2002 and a fifth of "The Marshall Mathers LP" in 2000. Similarly, the album's lead comeback single, the distinctly mediocre "Crack A Bottle" only managed to reach number 4 and the album failed to produce a single with the kind of momentum seen in the early part of the decade.

Similarly, Robbie's career has seen him fall from being one of the most successful UK pop stars, having sold more albums in the UK than any other solo artist in history and having won more Brit awards than any other artist in history (yes, yes, we know, even Belle and Sebastian won one, but we were running short of stats). Then... well... this happened.


Robbie Williams - Rudebox
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But aside from seeing their stars wane with frightening symmetry in the latter part of the last decade, Robbie and Marshall have an enduring connection which, between them, spans decades and, remarkably, avoids the Bee Gees completely.

In early 2003, Eminem set up his own record label and unleashed his first protege on the unsuspecting world.

Chilling.

"Fiddy's" debut hit was the admittedly 'alright' "In Da Club" which featured Marshall himself in the video. The track was pretty much everywhere in 2003 and even caught the attention of Beyonce. At the start of her fledgling solo career, "Be" had her own stab at "In Da Club" which took great care to translate any profanities into something more friendly like "sexy little bug".

Beyonce is, of course, no stranger to collaborations and indeed in the aforementioned 2003, produced the single which absolutely cemented her viability as a solo artist.


Beyonce feat. Jay-Z - Crazy In Love
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I defy anyone to declare that this track is anything other than amazing. Jay Z, of course, turned up to lend his future wife a helping hand with the whole thing, despite never once removing that ludicrous hat :(

Jay Z has a bit of a reputation for turning up on other people's records and coincidentally making them amazing (c.f. Rihanna's "Umbrella" which, let's face it, is probably the best song of the 2000's if we're being honest). In September 2009, he continued this "collaborative streak" by teaming up with Alicia Keys on the spellbinding "Empire State of Mind (Part 1)"



Sadly, Alicia's forays into the world of the duet, have produced slightly more mixed results. On the one hand you've got the perfectly competent "Gangsta Lovin" tie-in with Eve (who, in contrast to later years, was actually not bad in 2002). On the other, you have this racket with Jack White



Passing over this nightmare as fast as we possibly can, Jack White, as part of the White Stripes covered Dusty Springfield's classic "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself". The whole thing may have reflected Jack and Meg's deep-seating love for a belting 60s soul vocal, or it may have just all been a cover to have Kate Moss writhe around in her undercrackers. We'll probably never know.

Dusty, however, brings us firmly into the home straight of this tangled web we've weaved (see what we did there?). In 1987, Dusty had gone eighteen years (18!) without a top ten hit. Enter, the Pet Shop Boys, who recruited Dusty to sing on this ABSOLUTE SMASH.



Ignore the miming. This is the only time they ever performed the track "live". Beggers; choosers.

Actually, sorry, before we go any further, can we be permitted a little time to enthuse more about this song? It's actually amazing. And not just for the lines:

At night the people come and go

They talk too fast and walk too slow

Chasing time from hour to hour

I pour the drinks and crush the flowers.

Pop music just doesn't get much better than that.

The Pet Shop Boys, quite frequently, have a midas touch whenever they stick their nose into anyone else's career. If you want evidence just look at Girls Aloud's The Loving Kind and, probably the best song Robbie Williams has ever produced which features Neil Tennant on backing vocals



Again. Amazing.

So there we have it, two of the biggest stars of the early noughties and the "not quite so big stars" of the late noughties linked by that inherent connectivity of the UK pop charts.

Eminem - 50 Cent - Beyonce - Jay Z - Alicia Keys - Jack White - Dusty Springfield - Pet Shop Boys - Robbie Williams

Can we use this vital information to suggest ways in which Eminem and Robbie Williams might be able to revitalise their careers. We suggest the following measures:

1) Don't release anything which in any way resembles Rudebox (although She's Madonna wasn't that bad)

2) Don't include any raps which ask the questions "Why you so nasty?"

3) Try not to do a comeback performance which reignites all those "drug addiction" rumours:

The end.

Tern, Tern, Tern

POP FACT!!!

Not since 1986 have an act which derive their name from an animal from the avian family reached the UK number 1 spot (The Housemartins, for those interested). Before that, we have to go all the way back to 1965 when The Byrds reached the top spot with "Mr Tambourine Man". What we can, at first sight, conclude from this, is that the UK pop charts seem to favour other types of living species (insects and kittens, especially of the atomic variety) over the humble bird. That all changed in 2010, however, when Owl City ascended to the top spot with "Fireflies". This remarkable feat, in itself, should be evidence enough of the pop web's ability to conquer decades of shifts in musical taste and an inherent avian bias in the UK pop charts.

But Owl City and The Byrds are connected to one another by an even richer vein of tradition, one which unites some of the most important figures in modern music.

You see, in reaching number 1, Owl City prevented these giants of composition from achieving top-seller status.

 

 Yes, unbelievably, Jedward's masterful reinterpretation of Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" failed to reach the UK number 1 spot thanks to being outsold by the aforementioned City. Of course, Jedward in their own right, owe their success not only to Ice's paradigmatic rapping, but also a little bit to Freddie Mercury* and, crucially, David Bowie. Evidence for Bowie's influence over the modern pop landscape is perhaps nowhere better typified by Lady Gaga's make-up in Poker Face.

Time hasn't always been so kind to Davie, however. There's simply no getting away from the fact that he was at least 50% responsible for this number 1 "hit" in 1985



The remaining 50% of the blame, of course, lies with Mick Jagger who, it is fair to say, has had better days than this. Indeed, Jagger, being at the helm of the Rolling Stones, has enjoyed royalty check after royalty check from artists who've thought it would be a good idea to piggyback off the Stones' songcrafting abilities to boost their own profile. One such act, who, if we're honest, could probably afford to chuck the odd quid Jagger's way, is Guns N Roses. "GNR" tried their hand at "reinterpreting" the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy For the Devil" to decidedly mixed results (insofar as I think it's amazing but at least one person I've spoken to has disagreed - c'est la vie).

"The Guns" of course are somewhat prolific "coverers", of course, having attempted to "make their own" (TM Simon Cowell) songs by such diverse artists as Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan**. "The Roses'" cover of "Knocking On Heaven's Door" brings them into connection with a whole host of people and events including, not least, Gabrielle (c.f. "Rise") Crucially, however, ol' Bobby provides the final link in our flighted chain, as he wrote "Mr Tambourine Man" and, indeed "All I Really Want To Do" which provided The Byrds with two of their biggest hits.

What, therefore, can we conclude from all of this?

1) The British record-buying public seem not to like birds, on the whole (perhaps they've watched a few too many Hitchcock movies - we just don't know).

2) In the 80s/90s Guns N Roses would probably have covered Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport if it involved a lucrative movie tie-in (given the recent reunion, this is still a possibility readers. The campaign starts here).

3) Jedward are, at least in some sense, the spiritual successors to everything David Bowie was trying to chuck out in 1985 (thank God for Lady Gaga and her makeup etc. etc.).

So, there we have it once again, Byrds of a feather, quite literally, flock together.

OWL CITY - Jedward - David Bowie - Mick Jagger - Guns N Roses - Bob Dylan - THE BYRDS

*Please note, the rest of Queen forfeited their rights to have any credit for the original "Under Pressure" or, indeed, anything else the band produced as a direct result of this monstrosity.

**By diverse, I of course mean, "not really that diverse at all"