VH-1 Does It Again!!

[Robbie]

I think VH-1 should end all commentary to anything associated with disco music shown on that network, and if they do want to show disco on their network, just show the real footage and not fabricated/"retro" imagery.

Seems that VH-1's "One Hit Wonders" Top 100 has now been broken down into episodes based on a different genre, and they did one on a very UNUSUAL topic--"Disco Divas".

The same ol' artists were included: Alicia Bridges, Weather Girls, Andrea True, Vickie Sue Robinson, Thelma Houston, etc. First off, I can't say that Andrea True is a "one hit wonder" because one year after "More, More, More" she had a Top-30 record with "N.Y., You Got Me Dancing".

One of the recurring themes that permeated throughout this show was the Media-induced "Disco Is Dead" which they tried to use on most of these artists.

True, I have to remind myself that VH-1 is only looking through commercial-colored glasses so they don't have any concept of the evolving of disco music after the pop culture decided they had enough of it and moved on to something else. Still, I get annoyed with programs like this because they don't take the music seriously.

[Outsider]

I had no way of seeing this show, but it's good that there was something on these artists (especially Andrea True). Since it was called "One-Hit Wonders", that would mean it focused on those particular artists who only had one hit (in this case disco artists), not disco as a whole. As for the "disco is dead" theme, I get the impression that the point was that the anti-disco crusade possibly prevented these artists from having more hits. But that's my opinion. I can't comment on the presentation for the obvious reason.

[Robbie]

Outsider--

You brought up a good subject as to the reason why many of these "one-hit wonders" didn't have any more hits. According to the VH-1 narrators (not really them per se, but the WRITERS), disco believed in disposability of a record and a particular song's potential for radio. Now this is something I find strange because when I think of artists like Loleatta Holloway and Alec Constandinos, these artists didn't even have a "mega hit" record, one you'd hear on a Top 40 station. Yet, I could probably name more than one or two records by these artists than any of the "one hit wonders".

[DanceMan]

I was really looking forward to that VH-1 show and then after I saw it, why did I bother?....For once, I thought VH-1 was getting their act together and would do some research beyond the Billboard pop charts....but they proved me wrong.

I mean, to call Thelma Houston a One Hit Wonder is insulting.....I still love her tenure at RCA - remember her version of 96 Tears? Alicia Bridges song is so good, it is her own fault that she wanted to step out of that "groove" - remember that Red album on Polydor which even rock people wouldn't by.....Had Gloria Gaynor not had "Never Can Say Good-bye" on the pop charts as well as "Survive" they would be calling her a One Hit Wonder as well.....I think they focused on Andrea True for the sensational value it added to the show as it hit more upon her "film" career then her music and never even mentioned that she was on the cover of the Ivory Soap Laundry detergent box - as the Mother of the pure, clean little infant......To me, a one hit wonder was more Sister Power, Sandy Mercer or Eloise Laws? I am hard pressed to remember many people whom I cannot conjure up more than one single or LP excursion.....

[Jeff H]

DanceMan--

I'm pretty sure the Ivory Soap model was Marilyn Chambers, not Andrea True. But you can be excused for getting your hetero porn stars mixed up!

[Jeff H]

This VH-1 show has been in rotation for a few weeks now; it's part of a new weekly half-hour series called "One-Hit Wonders," which focuses on a different topics each week. The second episode featured new wave acts like Men Without Hats.

I think the show is nothing more than a way for VH-1 to fill its schedule by repackaging stuff they've already aired. Most of the footage in the disco episode was already shown in the Top 100 Disco Songs countdown (which we all loved sooooo much ) and the "Where are They Now?" series.

And sure, WE know that Thelma Houston had more than one hit (not that any of the others were huge), but the show is made for the mainstream viewer, after all. I imagine a country music fan might have the same reaction if we called Faith Hill or somebody like that a one-hit wonder.

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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Jeff H on 2002-08-17 07:46 ]</font>

[Funky Dude]

I can't make any comments on that show as we don't get VH1 in Australia but our music channels on pay TV have a similar problem.

We have a channel called musicMAX which plays retro music and on Saturday nights it's discoMAX which they say plays disco all night. BUT most of the songs are from the bloody 80's and 90's and aren't really disco but techno, new wave and rap. And the 70's clips are mostly the TYPICAL top 20 stuff like "Stayin' Alive", "That's The Way I Like It", "Best Disco In Town" etc. which is alright the first few times but when you tape them all you get sick of musicMAX playing them and want them to play the rarer stuff. It's agony putting up with the 80's and 90's music videos on there as half of them look pretty bland and average especially the rap clips.

I really wonder if there are any music video clips for these following songs:
Kay Gees - Hustle With Every Muscle 1975
Commodores - Let's Get Started 1976
Love & Kisses - I Found Love 1977
Deodato - Skyscrapers 1973
Temptations - Glass House 1974
Miami - Party Freaks 1974
Olympic Runners - Get It While You Can/Keep It Up 1978
Isaac Hayes - Chocolate Chip 1975
Double Exposure - Ten Percent 1976
Katmandu - The Break 1979
etc...

I guess a lot of these artists didn't make music videos for their lesser-known tracks.

[DanceMan]

On 2002-08-17 07:36, Jeff H wrote:
DanceMan--

I'm pretty sure the Ivory Soap model was Marilyn Chambers, not Andrea True. But you can be excused for getting your hetero porn stars mixed up!

When I met Andrea at the Starship Discovery disco back in '77, she was the one who told me she was on the cover of the Ivory Soap box - maybe she was the baby?!....I later heard that she was the Gerber baby....but everyone is laying claim to that one....maybe Andrea just needed some more legit things to tack onto her video resume....?

[DanceMan]

On 2002-08-17 09:39, Funky Dude wrote:
I can't make any comments on that show as we don't get VH1 in Australia but our music channels on pay TV have a similar problem.

We have a channel called musicMAX which plays retro music and on Saturday nights it's discoMAX which they say plays disco all night. BUT most of the songs are from the bloody 80's and 90's and aren't really disco but techno, new wave and rap. And the 70's clips are mostly the TYPICAL top 20 stuff like "Stayin' Alive", "That's The Way I Like It", "Best Disco In Town" etc. which is alright the first few times but when you tape them all you get sick of musicMAX playing them and want them to play the rarer stuff.

back up a minute, Funkster, where oh where is a video of the Best Disco In Town? I never saw that one....the only Ritchie Family I saw from the orignal line-up (the better vocalists of the two trios)was African Queens and a later one from the latter line-up, "American Generation" where they were swinging baseball bats...there was also one on RCA of "I'll Do My Best" and some outtakes from Can't Stop the Music movie musical......the only reason Jacques Morali changed the original group was that the Frenchmen said "let them eat cake" - they did - and they were fired for a more svelte trio.....

[Funky Dude]

Danceman wrote:
back up a minute, Funkster, where oh where is a video of the Best Disco In Town? I never saw that one....the only Ritchie Family I saw from the orignal line-up (the better vocalists of the two trios)was African Queens and a later one from the latter line-up, "American Generation" where they were swinging baseball bats...there was also one on RCA of "I'll Do My Best" and some outtakes from Can't Stop the Music movie musical......the only reason Jacques Morali changed the original group was that the Frenchmen said "let them eat cake" - they did - and they were fired for a more svelte trio.....

musicMAX plays a low quality film clip of the Ritchie Family doing "Best Disco In Town Pt 2". These are great clips, it's just that musicMAX plays the same set of clips every Saturday night and I've already taped all of those clips 4 or 5 times. musicMAX mainly plays disco clips that made the Aussie charts and "Best Disco In Town" happened to hit big on the Australian pop charts in 1976. They do play a few clips that I don't hear on radio such as "Your Sweetness" by Barry White and "Is It Love You're After" by Rose Royce but their archive is pretty limited with what 70's disco they have. Maybe they should think about importing some disco clips from Soul Train, Don Kirshner and American Bandstand however the cost of getting the rights is bloody expensive. Also Top Of The Pops offers a lot of different disco clips LIVE in the studio. I'm a collector of videos of most genres of the rock and disco spectrum and I've got quite a number of rare disco video clips and live TV show performances. Anyhow I haven't watched discoMAX on musicMAX in a while so I'll have to watch it next Saturday night and see if they throw anything new in that I haven't taped, although I have to go through the agony of putting up with the bland techno/rap video clips of the 80s and 90s (not all of them are bland) and those shitty boy band clips.

[Outsider]

On 2002-08-17 13:57, DanceMan wrote:
When I met Andrea at the Starship Discovery disco back in '77, she was the one who told me she was on the cover of the Ivory Soap box - maybe she was the baby?!....I later heard that she was the Gerber baby....but everyone is laying claim to that one....maybe Andrea just needed some more legit things to tack onto her video resume....?

You really have met Andrea? That was fucking cool. You're so lucky to have met her. Awesome, totally awesome.