| "Venus" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Shocking Blue [1] | ||||
| from the album At Home | ||||
| B-side | "Hot Sand" | |||
| Released | October 2, 1969 | |||
| Format | 7" vinyl | |||
| Recorded | 1969 | |||
| Genre | Rock, psychedelic rock | |||
| Length | 3:06 | |||
| Label | Pink Elephant, Metronome, Colossus, Poplandia, Joker, Yugoton | |||
| Writer(s) | Robbie van Leeuwen | |||
| Producer | Robbie van Leeuwen | |||
| Certification | Gold (RIAA) | |||
| Shocking Blue [1] singles chronology | ||||
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"Venus" is a 1969 song by the Dutch band Shocking Blue which the group took to number one in the U.S. and five countries across Europe in 1970. When covered by girl group Bananarama, the song returned to number one in the U.S. and topped the charts in six other countries around the world in 1986. The composition has been featured in numerous films, television shows and commercials, and covered dozens of times by artists around the world.
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Released in late 1969 as a single from the album At Home, Shocking Blue's single reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on February 7, 1970. RIAA certification came on January 28, 1970 for selling over one million copies in the U.S., garnering a gold record.
The song's lead vocals are performed by Mariska Veres. The song's music and lyrics are written by Robbie van Leeuwen, the band's guitarist, sitarist and background vocalist, who also produced, along with record producer Jerry Ross.
Van Leeuwen used "The Banjo Song", an arrangement of "Oh! Susanna" on a 1963 album by The Big 3, as main inspiration; the bassline, riffs and melody are almost exactly the same. However, The Big 3 never claimed plagiarism.
"Venus" was remixed and re-released by dance producers The BHF (Bisiach Hornbostel Ferrucci) Team in May 1990, scoring the group a Top 10 hit in the UK and Australia 21 years after the release of the original. The remix featured a hip house rhythm and samples. An instrumental version was also released independently under the producer's alias "Don Pablo's Animals". The instrumental version (credited only to Don Pablos Animals - without referencing Shocking Blue) became the highest charting version of the song. [2] The single began with a sample from James Brown's 1988 hit "The Payback Mix (Part One)". This release of "Venus" peaked at #4 on the UK Singles Chart[2] and #8 in Australia in 1990.
| Chart (1970) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 1 |
| Belgium singles chart | 1 |
| French singles chart | 1 |
| German singles chart | 2 |
| Italy singles chart | 1 |
| Spanish singles chart | 1 |
| Japan Oricon Singles Chart | 2 |
| Dutch Top 40 Single Chart | 3 |
| UK Singles Chart[3] | 8 |
| "Venus" | ||||||||||
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| Single by Bananarama | ||||||||||
| from the album True Confessions | ||||||||||
| B-side | "White Train" | |||||||||
| Released | May 30, 1986 | |||||||||
| Format | 7" vinyl, 12" vinyl | |||||||||
| Recorded | January 1986 | |||||||||
| Genre | Pop, disco, new wave | |||||||||
| Length | 3:51 (Album Version) 3:40 (Single Version) |
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| Label | London Records | |||||||||
| Writer(s) | Robbie van Leeuwen | |||||||||
| Producer | Stock Aitken Waterman | |||||||||
| Certification | Gold (RIAA) | |||||||||
| Bananarama singles chronology | ||||||||||
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"Venus" had been a part of Bananarama's repertoire for several years before they actually recorded it. The team's three members, Sara Dallin, Siobhan Fahey, and Keren Woodward, had the idea of turning the song into a dance music tune, but they were met with resistance from their producers at the time, Steve Jolley and Tony Swain. Bananarama brought the idea to the production trio of Stock Aitken Waterman, and it became Bananarama's first collaboration with them.
Dallin, Fahey, and Woodward had nearly completed recording their third album, titled True Confessions, with Jolley and Swain. Stock, Aitken and Waterman also resisted the idea because they believed that "Venus" would not make a good dance record. After persistence by the women, SAW relented, and the result was a worldwide smash. Bananarama's "Venus" went to number one in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Mexico, and South Africa. It hit number two in Germany and Hong Kong and was a top ten success in Italy, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Netherlands, Sweden, Colombia, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and their native UK (#8 on UK Singles Chart). It also went to number one for two weeks on the U.S. Dance chart.
The collaboration on "Venus" led Bananarama and SAW to work together on the group's follow-up album Wow! the following year.
A new mix of the track appeared as b-side to the 1989 limited release "Megarama '89" in Germany and France. Bananarama has since re-recorded the track for their 2001 album Exotica and it was later remixed by Marc Almond, with re-recorded vocals, and included on their 2005 album Drama.
The music video for the song received extensive play on MTV and video channels across the world, and presented Bananarama in various costumes, including a she-devil, a French temptress, a vampiress, and several Grecian goddesses. In one sequence of the video, The Birth of Venus, the painting by Sandro Botticelli, was reenacted. The video marked a pivotal shift towards a more glamorous and sexual image for the girls that contrasted with the tomboyish style in their earlier work. Choreography by Bruno Tonioli. Music video directed by Peter Care.
Bananarama
Additional personnel
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Despite the fact that the heavily controlled Soviet mass media totally ignored much of Western popular culture, the Shocking Blue song quickly become a popular hit in 1970s Russia, especially among street youth akin to Western hippie and "hooligan" subcultures. Due to the song's simple arrangement and danceable rhythm, "Venus" was adopted and performed by thousands of underground amateur performers, both those who accompanied themselves on acoustic guitar and full contemporary bands who performed it with electric guitar at dance parties. Thus, the English language song of a Dutch band become a prominent phenomenon of Russian urban folklore and was considered by many an unofficial "anthem of the generation".
The English language in the song, however, was only very loosely approximated, and the song was not even known by its title, "Venus". A countless number of variants of Russian lyrics existed for this song, but traditionally it was performed using gibberish or scat singing phonetically inspired by the sounds of original English lyrics which had become hardly intelligible after being passed along via repeated duplicate copying on cheap, low-end tape recorders. In the Russian variant, the first line of the chorus, "She's got it", was usually pronounced as "Shizgarah" ("Шизгáра") [sheez-ga'-rah], and it was this word which became a commonly adopted name of the song in the U.S.S.R., even among those who could understand the original English text.
In modern times, few disco clubs and a musical show on Nashe Radio are named "Shizgarah" after this song.
Also, "Shizgarah" ("Шизгара") is a novel of Russian writer Sergey Soloukh portraying the life of young Soviet hippies in 1970's (http://lib.ru/ZHURNAL/SOLOUH/shizgara.txt).
The Canadian teenage drama series program Degrassi: The Next Generation, which is known for naming each installment after an 1980s hit song, named a two-part installment after this song.
| Preceded by "I Want You Back" by The Jackson 5 |
Billboard Hot 100 number one single (Shocking Blue version) February 7, 1970 (one week) |
Succeeded by "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)"/"Everybody Is a Star" by Sly & the Family Stone |
| Preceded by "Higher Love" by Steve Winwood |
Billboard Hot 100 number-one single (Bananarama version) September 6, 1986 (one week) |
Succeeded by "Take My Breath Away" by Berlin |
| Preceded by "Rumors" / "Vicious Rumors" by Timex Social Club |
Billboard Hot Dance Club Play number-one single (Bananarama version) August 9, 1986 - August 16, 1986 |
Succeeded by "Ain't Nothin' Goin' on But the Rent" by Gwen Guthrie |
| Preceded by "I Wanna Be a Cowboy" by Boys Don't Cry |
New Zealand RIANZ Singles Chart number-one single (Bananarama version) September 12, 1986 - September 26, 1986 |
Succeeded by "Slice of Heaven" by Dave Dobbyn |
| Preceded by "Touch Me (I Want Your Body)" by Samantha Fox |
Australia ARIA Singles Chart number-one single (Bananarama version) September 15, 1986 - October 27, 1986 |
Succeeded by "You're the Voice" John Farnham |
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