Singer's Tidbits
***By now I'm sure everyone has heard Ace of Base's remake of "Cruel Summer". It hit radio around the middle of June and got a quite a bit of airplay on most mainstream pop stations. A single was released and around here you could buy it for $1.99 (on CD) at any Wal-mart, Musicland, etc. It has two versions, a regular pop version and a faster dance version. The version seems like a major waste of time because it sounds EXACTLY like Bananarama's version, except for a 5 segment where "baby, don't you leave me, oh, don't you leave me" which didn't add much. It was interesting to see how popular the song "Cruel Summer" is and how many DJs credited or mentioned Bananarama's original version when playing Ace of Base's new version. Ace of Base even called their new CD that was released in late June "Cruel Summer". It just shows that a washed up group like Ace of Base has to leach off the popularity of older songs just to sell any of their CDs. If you saw the video (if Ace of Base had one), please email me and tell me the premississ of it. Thanks!
***The "Victory" single has hit stores today! It samples Bill Conti's "Alone in the Ring" which Bill created for the Rocky movies. The song involves Puffy and Notorious B.I.G. rapping the verses and Busta Rhymes rapping the chorus. The single includes the radio version of the song (the album version censored, which should be interesting saying that the album version relies on the chorus of "We got the real live sh*t from front to back, All my ni**as in the place, where the f*** you at, where my b*tches be at, where the f*** my b*tches at, where my ni**as be at." ), the drama mix, and get this, a new remix of "Been Around the World"! Again it hit the Sam Goody chain of stores today (includes On Cue, Musicland, Disc Jockey, Media Play, Circuit City) and is priced at $3.99 ($2.99 Circuit City). Since it is a hacked single (no parental advisory sticker), it should be at your local K-mart, Wal-mart, Shopko, Target, etc. next week at $1.99. A must buy! The video may be delayed a bit from the success of P-Diddy's last single "Been around the World", but should hit MTV w/in the next two weeks. Email me what you think of it!
***"Victory" (see below) is being released as Puff Daddy's next single, so beleive me, you'll be hearing the song soon! Also, he is going to make a rock version of the song, similiar to "It's all about the Benjamins". So far he 4 groups/artists are being considered, including Trent Reznor and Anthrax.
***"Cruel Summer" in a new movie? Yep, "Cruel Summer" is in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion! This is a great movie, me being a 21 year-old male college student, I didn't think this movie would be my type, but it rocks. I recommend it. Along with "Cruel Summer", there are tons of other great 80's songs like "Every one Wants to Rule the World" (from "Real Genius", another great 80's movie) and "Karma Chameleon" by Boy George. If you want "Cruel Summer" on CD, check out the Soundtrack. I'm also considering making a CD with lots of great Karate Kid songs (inc. Cruel Summer) at a reasonable price if I get the money around, so check back!
***I'm sure you all know Bill Conti is the man behind all the Karate Kid soundtracks, he also did some of the instrumentals on the KKII and KKIII soundtracks. He also made a instrumental called "Alone in the Ring" (I imagine for a "Rocky" movie) which Puff Daddy embodied and used exerpts from in his song "Victory". The song includes Busta Rhymes and the Notorious B.I.G. and it comes off real well. It's on P-diddy's No Way Out CD.
***Peter "Glory of Love" Cetera has a new CD out and at least one single off of it. Haven't heard any of it yet.
***ever wonder who the hell Peter Cetara is, well he was the lead singer of the group "Chicago" for their first 17 albums!
***Dennis de Young (sung "This is the Time" on KK II) later became the lead singer and keyboarder of the group "Styx".
***Bananarama's "Cruel Summer" was in the movie KK which was released to theaters on 6/22/84, and the song itself was hit the charts one month later, but why wasn't the song on the soundtrack? At first, I figured because they were such a big act, but Bananarama only had released one song before "Cruel Summer" and that song flopped!
***It is sad to see that the first KK sdtrk had no real big song off of it, it seems that since Karate Kid was supposed to be so similar to Rocky, and Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" was such a great success for one of the earlier Rocky soundtracks, that maybe Bill was banking on Survivor to make another movie hit for KK, but it obviously backfired w/ "Eye of the Tiger" staying #1 for three weeks and "The Moment of Truth" peaked at a measly #63.
***you have to laugh looking back at the 3rd soundtrack, with such great artists such as Glenn Meideros (remember that lame song "The Girl ain't Worth it" w/Bobby Brown!) and Winger! It seems like maybe they were embarrassed by the artists, because only the song titles were listed on the outside of the cassette, to read the artists you had to open the cassette and unfold the tape leaflet. The best song from III is the Pointer Sister's version of "Summer in the City", which is pretty cool.
