The Mike Flowers Pops

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The Mike Flowers Pops (also known as The Mike Flowers Pops Orchestra) is a British music band fronted by Mike Flowers and supported by his companions "Sounds Superb Singers" and "The Super Stereo Brass". There were between 13 and 14 of them on stage at any time. The band is known for easy listening/lounge music covers of both older and contemporary popular music.

[edit] Emergence

The band became famous in Britain in 1995 when they released a cover of the song "Wonderwall", originally by the band Oasis. Mike had taken a job for Kevin Greening to cover 'hits of 95' for his Saturday Radio 1 show. "Wonderwall" was his first week's project. Chris Evans heard the song and made it single of the week on his Radio 1 breakfast show telling the nation that this was the original version of the song. The single was released under the London Records label while the Oasis original was still in the charts, and itself reached the top ten. The Mike Flowers Pops' single reached number two in the Christmas chart of 1995, beaten to the number one spot by Michael Jackson with "Earth Song". Oasis had previously refused to let other novelty acts parody the song, but were said to have enjoyed Mike's tape so much they let the group cut it. The B-sides of the single featured the songs "Son of God" and "Theme From Memory Man".

The Mike Flowers Pops toured festivals in Europe as well as British universities following the success of "Wonderwall", drawing relatively small but enthusiastic audiences. At the end of 1996 they toured Britain with Gary Glitter on his last 'Who's in the Gang' tour before Glitter's misdemenours came to the attention of the public. They played to huge audiences including Wembley Arena and Birmingham NEC.

[edit] Other Music

Other releases by the The 'Mike Flowers Pops' have included "Light My Fire"(1996), "Please Release Me"(1996), an album A Groovy Place (1996) and Don't Cry For Me Argentina (1997). Although the band has not received any consistent or widespread popularity since 1995, it has found a small but loyal fan-base. Flowers himself even makes fun of this saying things such as, "1998 was quite a big year for me, I appeared on Blue Peter AND Through the Keyhole".