In the unlikely event Adele or someone of that ilk is readIng this thread, ‘Arena’ would be a barnstorming show stopper for anyone with the pipes to pull it off.
― Dan Worsley, Tuesday, 20 October 2020 11:54 (three years ago) link
As would ‘The Moon is Blue’.
Their version of "Baby I Love You So" is still the greatest.
Colourbox are still highly regarded are they not?
― stirmonster, Tuesday, 20 October 2020 12:03 (three years ago) link
At my bar mitzvah 30+ years ago, March 1988, we got some hack party DJ, and he asked 13-year old me what songs I wanted him to play. I made him a list, but I could tell he didn't really care, since as I remember it most of the stuff he played was pretty predictable, generic family gathering party stuff or pop radio of the day. I did, however, specifically request that he play "Pump Up the Volume," and not just that song, but a specific edit/mix I'd heard somewhere. I was only 13, and nowhere near the snob I'd become, so god knows why I requested a specific mix. Anyway, the night goes on, the party is winding down, and then I hear that familiar programming pattern: finally, it's "Pump Up the Volume," and me and my friends go nuts on the dance floor.
It was the wrong mix, though.
True story.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 20 October 2020 12:54 (three years ago) link
Agreed Dan, I was stunned that those two songs haven't been covered, or used on adverts/films (unless they have). I think what got me was seeing this live performance of Moon Is Blue, packed festival crowd, going nuts, then a decade later almost totally forgotten, unlike say The Smiths, Echo Bunnymen, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IOUJa7bv4A
Stirmonster, I think they are in those of a certain vintage but I'd say under 40s don't have a clue, in the main. This 'Baby I Love You So' is great. Are there other songs I'm missing? Love how Theme is so wildly different to Arena, and PUTV something else entirely. Martyn Young deserves much more acclaim than he has, guy was a stone-cold genius.
― NI, Tuesday, 20 October 2020 13:07 (three years ago) link
You should probably add Tarantula to your list of their great songs
packed festival crowd, going nuts,
tbf this is a TV audience who have will have been encouraged to react wildly before the taping, and before each act's mimed performance
― Covidiots from UHF (sic), Tuesday, 20 October 2020 19:40 (three years ago) link
Ah ok, were Colourbox not much of a draw back then? I know 'Theme...' was a club hit, round my way at least, but that's a few years later than that clip.
Does baffle me that the Cocteau Twins, for example, had a constant low buzz of hype all through the past decades, but Colourbox fell off the map, mediawise, in the early 90s.
― NI, Tuesday, 20 October 2020 19:43 (three years ago) link
and the cover by This Mortal Coil.
as well as
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp8dMveAYZc
and on a more PUTV tip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4UasSnTKWE
― Gerneten-flüken cake (jed_), Tuesday, 20 October 2020 19:48 (three years ago) link
Ian did mention Theme tbf, but the version on the 12" that segues out of Philip Glass is The One imo.
Searched "music convoy," from the logos on the truck, and it turns out to be a German TV show with typically one song each by four bands per episode. Including other big-time hitmakers like Troy Tate, Slickaphonics, David Knopfler and Götz Alsmann & The Sentimental Pounders. Presumably each episode saw the truck parked in a different German street.
― Covidiots from UHF (sic), Tuesday, 20 October 2020 20:01 (three years ago) link
Ha, what?! Honestly thought you'd made "Götz Alsmann & The Sentimental Pounders" up. Looks like a second stage at Glastonbury or something, not... that.
How big actually were Colourbox in the mid-80s? I have no clue at all. Like, where would they place on a festival line-up compared to Bunnymen, Ride, Sonic Youth, Smiths, etc
― NI, Tuesday, 20 October 2020 20:20 (three years ago) link
In truth not very big outside indie circles. No chart singles and album only made #67.
― Dan Worsley, Tuesday, 20 October 2020 20:42 (three years ago) link
Which makes the runaway success of PUTV even more astonishing.
― Dan Worsley, Tuesday, 20 October 2020 20:43 (three years ago) link
Stirmonster, I think they are in those of a certain vintage but I'd say under 40s don't have a clue, in the main.
i guess this is true.
'The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme" was MASSIVE at student discos when i was a student so i feel they would probably have been a bigger festival draw than one might imagine.
I don't think the runaway success of PUTV was really related to Colourbox at all. The vast majority of people who bought it probably had never heard of them and never heard of them afterwards either. i think it was astonishing it was such a big hit but it was really about the timing of when it came out and an audience for that kind of record had been building and building, it's just that nobody really knew that until PUTV was released.
― stirmonster, Tuesday, 20 October 2020 21:01 (three years ago) link