Hooked On singles

crapfromthepast wrote: GREASE MEGAMIX - John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John (1992?)

Ron, since you questioned it, the "The Grease Megamix" was from 1996.

Hi

A few conversational medley comments.....

I recall there was a stepping point in the medley craze, in 1979. The Supremes Medley that Disconet created was so popular in clubs that Motown had to release it. That same year, a White label DJ medley of oldies strung together over a generic beat was called "Bits & Pieces II"...that used the real 45's of the oldies. Then in '81 Stars On 45 recreated that medley as a production and obviously had the huge pop hit with it. If you ever wondered why the odd line-up of songs in that, the Stars On 45 recreated pretty much as the original medley was done. Even all the Beatles ones were together like that.

So that opened the floodgate.
Then the above mentioned hits were out, "Hooked On Classics" and "The Beach Boys Medley" were all over the radio. Both were well produced, but after that i was buying a lot of them that were real lazy, just random segments spliced together with no thought of "flow"...comes to mind a UK EMI 45 i bought and didn't see in the list up there; "Hollie-Pops" and the flipside "Hollie-Daze"...medley of the Hollies hits.
Another was a Dion/Belmonts medley, same thing, random snippets chopped together in the most jarring fashion.

One other mention as an aside; there is a reason most of even the big hit medleys are absent from CD's. The licensing requirements for them have changed for the more greedy (as we come to expect from our mega-corps).
I don't know every detail, but I believe you now have to pay the licensing fee for each song separately, thus making the cost prohibitive. Also a paperwork nightmare.
It gets worse if it's a foreign owned copyright too, can potentially complicate the process. Plus, whomever holds the mechanical licensing for the recording also wants to be paid (e.g. Stars On 45).
I had to ask about all of that because I spoke to a rep from a oldies label that attempted to license the Stars On 45, and said "forget it."
And sometimes a label can sneak something using a loophole, but those discs usually get pulled pretty quick.
I have the above mentioned "Keep On Dancing" dancing CD (which contains several hard to find ones!) and learned through Pat that is a record club issue. So that one slid by the radar a little.
Of course, all the above problems needn't apply on material that's in the public domain, such as classical music, and the track that started this thread. :-)

Happy medley listening, all.
MM


   

To Roscoe:

The Beach Boys Medley was edited by John Palladino (he received label credit on the 45).

Andy

I tried to make the 45 version from the LP "Hooked On Swing" (US RCA Victor issue.) But I couldn't make it. Because there is not the sound at 0:26 or 0:37 on the LP. This is the mark at 0:24 on the commercial 45.

As the run time info:
"Hooked On Swing"
The commercial 45 actual running time is (3:42), the listed time is "3:40" on the record label. (RCA PB-13219)
The LP actual running time is (6:32), the listed time is "6:34" on the LP record label. (RCA AFL1-4343)

"Hooked On Classics"
The commercial 45 actual running time is (3:50), the listed time is "3:48" on the record label. (RCA PB-12304)

abagon's run time info for the larry elgart song "hooked on swing" was never entered into the db....thanks for the edit you did awhile ago for me aaron, it matches perfectly!