Picked up in a charity shop earlier this week, today’s offering, Woodpeckers
From Space, is a miserable slice of 80s Eurodisco from the Video Kids.
Most believe that the group was led by Dutch DJ and producer
Peter Slaghuis and also featured singer Bianca Bonelli. However the act had
already been about for several years, releasing the album Never Too Young to Dance in 1981, before Slaghuis and Bonelli were
picked to appear in the video for Woodpeckers From Space. The vocalists on the
track are actually Dick van Dam & Astrid Leuwener. Slaghuis would, under
the name Hithouse, go on to have several hits (his Jack To the Sound of the
Undergroundwas a UK top 20) before dying –
tragically young – in a car accident in 1991. Bonelli scored a minor Dutch hit
with her single Je Veux L'amour.
This dismal piece of crap was a hit in several European countries
and the Video Kids went on to release three further 45s and two more albums, The Invasion of the Spacepeckers in
1984 and Satellite in 1985. Written
by the Dutch production duo Adams and Fliesner a cover of Woodpeckers From
Space, by Café Society, was a No. 1
hit in South Africa in July 1985.
It’s simply dire: the rap is awful (in all fairness, English
wasn’t van Dam's first language), the lyrics are plain stupid and the
instrumentation is basic at best. I bet the estate of Walter Lanz had a field day suing them for stealing the Woody Woodpecker laugh (originally
voiced, incidentally, by Mel Blanc
who, as we all know, got in to trouble when he paired up with Pat Boone for his huge hit Speedy Gonzales). And seriously, what
is that thing on the front cover supposed to be? Clearly the designer had never
seen an actual woodpecker.
Anyway, have a listen for yourself and see what you think. I’ve
also include the B-side - Rap And Sing
Along – which is simply a truncated instrumental version of the flip.
This brings a whole new dimension to the word 'dire'. And probably 'lazy' as well. It takes a special kind of delusion to imagine that creating the above was in anyway not a huge waste of both oxygen and electricity. To me the question raised here is why ?.
What's even worse is that their follow-up single "Do The Rap" just mined the same territory yet again, as if they hadn't exhausted all the possibilities already. http://youtu.be/ckPnnC0rMjc
I think "Do The Rap" is the one I heard on holiday around the time with my parents, and thought to myself "What is this shit?"
This brings a whole new dimension to the word 'dire'. And probably 'lazy' as well. It takes a special kind of delusion to imagine that creating the above was in anyway not a huge waste of both oxygen and electricity. To me the question raised here is why ?.
ReplyDeleteSurely they listened to the playback ?
What's even worse is that their follow-up single "Do The Rap" just mined the same territory yet again, as if they hadn't exhausted all the possibilities already. http://youtu.be/ckPnnC0rMjc
ReplyDeleteI think "Do The Rap" is the one I heard on holiday around the time with my parents, and thought to myself "What is this shit?"
Oh dear god that's awful
DeleteThis sounds like a blatant attempt to rip off Baltimora's "Woody Boogie" - already a bit of a flavorless song, but it's got its Italodisco charms.
ReplyDelete