Mystery song

Paul, what do you mean by a plant?

Thanks, Jim!

This looks like another "Ready 'N' Steady" situation. For those not familiar with that one...on June 16, 1979, Billboard charted a song on the Bubbling Under chart titled "Ready 'N' Steady" by an artist called D.A. on the Rascal label (Rascal 102). For years Record Research hunted for any information regarding that record and came up with nothing. The song never appeared in any other trade at the time (not even the Record World 50-position Bubbling Under chart)! We figured that possibly Billboard "planted" it to see if another trade magazine would pick it up.

Paul Haney wrote:    We figured that possibly Billboard "planted" it to see if another trade magazine would pick it up.

Curiously, how do you handle situations like this at RR?
Technically, if it "charted", it should be in the books but
if it's in fact a bogus song you're perpetuating an
untruth. I realize that many reference sources plant the
occasional "easter egg" to snag plagiarists, but seems like
no matter what you do, cred is lost.

Speaking of mystery acts, this never charted anywhere to my
knowledge, but I remember seeing ads in Billboard in the
mid-ish 80s for a group called Lucious Daim & the Pretty
Vain. Ads were kind of vague, but ran for several weeks
only to get pulled after they printed several letters to
the editor accusing them of running an ad for a non-
existent artist.

Anyone know the story on this?


Edited by Hykker