SONG OF THE DAY
“Popcorn” by Hot Butter (Hot Butter, Musicor, 1972). Written by Gershon Kingsley.
MY TAKE/ WHY THIS SONG?
I move files around all the time on my hard drive, so Itunes can never find my files, and I periodically have to delete the library and start fresh. I’ve done just that today, and now I only have one song in my Itunes library right now. It’s this song.
I first heard it in the car on the way home from Grandma’s house during the last week of 2009. My dad went bonkers that it was on the radio, giving us the history of Moog music, FM radio, etc. I wrote it down, thinking that, at the very least, I can gain some insight into the beginnings of techno music. What a bizarre, little song…very catchy, but also sort of annoying. Vaguely familiar, like I’ve probably seen it parodied somewhere. For the first time I can remember, I can honestly say that I regret listening to this song more than one time.
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
– The song “Popcorn” was a famous early synthpop instrumental, originally recorded in 1969 by its composer, Gershon Kingsley, for his album Music to Moog By.
– In 1971 the song was re-recorded by Kingsley’s band, First Moog Quartet. Stan Free, member of the First Moog Quartet, rerecorded the instrumental with his band Hot Butter in 1972.
– Hot Butter’s version became the first primarily electronic-based piece of music to reach the American popular music charts, peaking at #9 on the Billboard Pop Singles and #4 on the Adult Contemporary Chart. The single had a great success in Australia where it reached #1 for ten weeks. It was also #1 in Switzerland, where it topped the chart for ten weeks and stayed for 17 weeks in the top ten. In Norway, it was #1 for nine weeks and featured for 21 weeks in the top ten. It was also #1 in Germany and reached #5 on July 22, 1972 in UK and #15 in Canada – October 1972. In France, this version of “Popcorn” is the 131st best-selling single of all time, with about 900,000 sales.
– The title refers to the short staccato or sharp “popping” sound used.
– “Popcorn” has since been covered by a great number of artists. It has since been covered by various artists, including DJ Voyager, Anarchic System with vocal version, a pre-fame Jean Michel Jarre (under the pseudonyms of The Popcorn Orchestra and Jamie Jefferson), Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, Unter Null, Richard D. James AKA Aphex Twin, M&H Band, Muse, DJ Fantomas, Gigi D’Agostino, Iranian artist Shadmehr Aghili, Afrosound, the The Time Frequency (TTF), Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Norrie Paramor & the Midland Radio Orchestra, Ronnie Aldrich, The Treble Spankers, the Boomtang Boys, Space Penguins, Bass Bumpers (fronted by the Crazy Frog cartoon), Liars, Finnish band Seidat, Swedish DJ Richi M, the Irish DJ Showey, South African Psytrance act Parana, Italian pop band La Strana Società , Japanese electronic artists Denki Groove, Russian Virtuoso Guitar Player Victor Zinchuk, and Spanish rock band Los Pekenikes. It has also been remixed by Hexstatic on the Pick ‘n’ Mix album. In 2003 Greek synthpop Duo Marsheaux released a darker mix of “Popcorn” as their debut single, which became a radio play hit in Europe. Most recently, alternative rock band Muse performed this song live in Teignmouth, UK during their two nights at The Den. The song featured prominent electric guitar along with heavy percussion and bass. Faith No More covered the song live in Argentina in The Second Coming Tour.
– In fact, more than 500 cover versions of the song exist, some of which add lyrics (lyrics have been added in at least six different languages).
– The song was also featured as the background music in the first version of the 1982 arcade game Pengo and the 1984 Mikro-Gen microcomputer game Pyjamarama. Many cover versions were made on popular home computers such as Atari, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amiga, often by anonymous artists.
– On the 17th of September, 2007, Electropop group Plemo released a free track on micromusic.net based on the original “Popcorn” melody. It includes samples from “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)” of the Beastie Boys.
– The song has never been covered by Kraftwerk, although there are mistagged copies of the song allegedly by them (most frequently the version by M&H Band) in circulation.