Stars on 45 Medley

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“Stars on 45 Medley”

Single by Stars on 45 from the album Stars on Long Play
Released	1981
Format	45"
Recorded	1981
Genre	Disco
Length	4:05
Label	Radio Records
Writer(s)	John Lennon Paul McCartney Robbie van Leeuwen Jeff Barry Andy Kim
Producer	Jaap Eggermont

The "Stars on 45 Medley" was a song issued in 1981 by the studio group Stars on 45. Its official title (as on the record and in Billboard) was "Medley: Intro 'Venus' / Sugar Sugar / No Reply / I'll Be Back / Drive My Car / Do You Want to Know a Secret / We Can Work It Out / I Should Have Known Better / Nowhere Man / You're Going to Lose That Girl / Stars on 45". It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on June 20, 1981. It is (to date) the longest titled song to ever chart in Billboard, and is subsequently known by the shorter nickname, "Stars on 45 Medley". The reason for the long title was copyright requirements for the use of The Beatles' songs.

The origin of the single is the Netherlands where numerous bootleg disco singles were floating around and Willem van Kooten, the owner of one of the copyrights, decided to make a similar, legitimate record. He found singers who sounded similar to John Lennon and Paul McCartney and decided to make the single focus on The Beatles. The original version was a full album side (and appeared on the Stars on 45's first album, Stars on Long Play), then a 45 version was also released.

The song was also a huge success in the UK where it kicked off a craze for medleys, with a large number of records in the Stars on 45 mold reaching the UK Top 40 in 1981.

[edit] Songs

"Venus" is the 1970 Shocking Blue song, written by the band's Robbie van Leeuwen and later covered by Bananarama.
"Sugar Sugar" was originally recorded by The Archies (written by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim).
The next eight songs are Beatles songs (written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney).
The finale, "Stars on 45", was from the flip side of the single.

The album version of the song moved "Venus" and "Sugar Sugar" to Side Two into a different medley, and added several more Beatles songs as well as a 32 second instrumental extract from George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" and even a fleeting reference to new wave band The Sparks for a total length of about fifteen minutes. The album version was also released as "Stars on Long Play"; a detailed listing of the source material can be found there.

[edit] References

Bronson, Fred. The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. New York. Billboard Books, 2003. ISBN 0-8230-7677-6

Preceded by "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes	Billboard Hot 100 number one single June 20, 1981	Succeeded by "The One That You Love" by Air Supply
Preceded by "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes (first run)	ARC Weekly Top 40 number one single June 20, 1981	Succeeded by "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes (second run)