Great 20th Century Embarassments: The Mid-90's Swing Revival (A confessional thread)

Glam-era stuff was all about 50s revivalism (see: Bowie-as-Ziggy's cover of "Round and Round" by Chuck Berry, T. Rex's success with a revamped rockabilly/blues approach in the modern day, Roxy Music as simultaneous 30s/50s/2001 fusion, etc. etc.)

Alvin Stardust to thread!

xp

COLLEGE.

What was Kid Creole reviving with his Coconuts? I don't remember.

I also saw Swing Kids in the theater w/my friend Eric because we were big into bad movies--saw Cop and a Half twice!

Sweet kinda had a 50's thing going... it was pretty powerpoppy but there were saxes and a sort of Bo Diddly lyricism going on.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BIG RUDE JAKE?

Music: Feh, esp. the ex-punker vocalists who usually just didn't have the requisite chops (or anti-chops) and always sounded hoarse.
Dance: Nice. I guess.
Clothes: Dee-licious.

Alvin Stardust goes way back, he was having hits in the UK pre Beatles as Shane Fenton, but hit paydirt in 73 with My coo-ca-choo. Which was classic rock and roll refracted through a glam prism much like other glam veterans Gary Glitter, Mud and Wizzard were doing.

His son is Adam F, hip hop/drum n bass producer who's worked with Missy Elliot, De La Soul and LL Cool J amongst others.

-- f--gg (gffcnn...), March 23rd, 2005.

nerdfuck?

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Specifically, Mick's ace cover of "Love Me Tender"

Is it remotely possible that Sha Na Na might have been good?

>What was Kid Creole reviving with his Coconuts? I don't remember<

All kindsa stuff. But those Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band and Cory Daye albums revived swing WAY better than the swing revival did.

Right, again, they were *influenced* by certain *aspects* of '50s music, just like most of the other glam stuff named here. But (unlike Sha Na Na or the Stray Cats, say), no way would they ever be mistaken for a '50s band. (Suzi Quatro actually had rockabillified moments that I'd say sounded more '50s than the Sweet ever did, when you get down to it. And to my knowledge, they never did anything as blatantly '50s as, say, "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" by Queen. Though their high-register squealing -- just like Sparks and even the Bee Gees I guess -- maybe harked back to a certain Lou Christie/Frankie Valli tradition.)

when eg mclaren was running his shop as a shrine to teds (eg b4 it became SEX) no one much thought to note the idea crossed into glam, but part of the reason may be that in the UK at that time it wz hard to actually FIND and HEAR stuff from the 50s

I vividly remember an episode of Talk of the Nation with Ray Suarez devoted to the swing/lounge revival, and the guy who wrote "Buckle Down Winsocki" back in the early 40s called in with instructions on how to make a good martini. He then said it was great how kids were getting into this music again, because for a while there, it seemed like popular music was all about shock tactics. He speculated on the process of forming a rock band: "How can we get ourselves attention, oh, I know, let's look in the dictionary and name ourselves after some sort of tropical disease..." Suarez tried to cut him off, but he wasn't having any of it.

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