BUCKS FIZZ – “Making Your Mind Up”
In some ways Bucks Fizz’ Eurovision triumph is pop’s equivalent of England’s 1966 World Cup win. It encouraged a certain complacency in the victorious nation, who began to convince themselves that not only was the competition eminently winnable but that this famous victory had established a formula for more. For passion, grit and English physicality read bubblegum, camp and dollybirds having their skirts whipped off. There the parallels break down. The subsequent failure to win the World Cup has become something festering, a cultural fixation in its own right that Popular will collide with in due course. Not winning the Eurovision Song Contest has only recently started to niggle in English minds, and the response is often that it’s not worth winning.
Of course it helps that we have won it since Bucks Fizz – but only a bit. Bucks Fizz sunk their hooks deeper into British pop culture than any winner since Sandie Shaw: former band members have hung on to the twilights of their fame; “Making Your Mind Up” has given its name to the BBC’s Eurovision talent contest; as recently as Scooch we’ve tried disastrously to apply the Bucks Fizz model to our entries. Alright, alright, age is playing a part here: the Fizz victory – thrillingly close-fought – was the first ESC I watched, and the skirt-flinging seemed as daring a gesture as any pop moment I’d seen.
Even so it seems to me there’s something at least slightly new happening with Bucks Fizz – for all that the music owes more to bobbysoxers than New Pop. Their brazen good-natured cheapness points forward to SAW’s one-sound-fits-all pop as much as it harks back to 70s bubblegum, which tended to be thicker in detail and more clearly crafted. On “Making Your Mind Up” the most intriguing touch is the jabbing, hustling sax in the background, but it’s never allowed to distract from the single-minded jollity. There’s no shame in that: Bucks Fizz and their writers had a competition to win, and they went out and won it. But it means that when I hear “Making Your Mind Up” today I’m hearing its tactical nous more than any inherent joy.
5
Morning Richie. Morning everyone.
And first up in 2009 is a nice juicy half volley that can be dispatched easily enough. It’s fun (in very small doses), its formulaic, it’s more likable than it should be really.
What a remarkable transition – from flimsy pop-by-rote to agile, confident and sinuous pop in the space of a few months.
Others on the thread have already remarked on the many fine Fizz singles that followed this inauspicious beginning. August 1981’s “One of Those Nights” was the first evidence that we were dealing with one of the great New Pop acts of the era (tho I haven’t heard the b-side to Piece of the Action – sounds intriguing).
50 – they’re both better than Led Zep III???
Actually, Talk Talk group member Tim Friese-Greene produced Fantasy Island, no? (OK, I looked that up on Wiki…but it helps explain why “Fantasy Island” was so much better than anything else Tight Fit produced)
#20 and everyone else – have to say that, rivalled only by ‘you’re gorgeous’, ‘brown eyed girl’ is my official least favourite record ever made – for fifteen years i have had a bit of a prejudice against hugh laurie simply because he picked it on desert islands discs.but i will concede that van morrison did manage to bring off careless tumbling joyfulness on ‘like young lovers do’.
i quite like mymu. it’s undeniably woolworths (rip) but it’s got a real tinny energy that’s quite exciting and i like the fact that throughout it seems to be about to start speeding up absurdly and unstoppably like that bit in ‘are you being served?’
I like ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ because he says “Matthew” in it.
Sorta.
‘Making Your Mind Up”s success seemed very exciting to eight-year-old me; I had funny stirrings for Jay Aston and the tune was ultra-catchy – mind you, I think I could happily go another 28 years without hearing it.
51. Sir Geoffrey Boycott here.
Get down the pitch on the front foot. Spend some time at the crease as a pop star. Come through the county youth teams and serve your apprenticeship. A fly-by-night pop act can’t just be thrown together without solid technique and a good action.
Ripping off the skirts is all well and good, but you’re batting on a sticky wicket if you think it will get you into the record books. A good tune needs to be caught behind like a thick edge. Bucks Fizz dug in and saw off the quickies. But for the Fucks Bizz Spoonerism, they had a robust average in the hit parade.
We’ve all grown a bit around the middle with Cheryl and aren’t as quick between the wickets. Nonetheless, we can look back at that old helmet-less footage and be proud of a good innings.
Anyway, on to Brotherhood Of Man …
Songs featuring the name Matthew – I’ll start you off with “Karaoke Queen” by Catatonia.
And as for Karel Fialka, don’t even go there.
# 56 – A five minute break and that’s all you take for a cup of cold coffee and a piece of cake…
“Matthew and Son” by Cat Stevens to state the bleedin’ obvious one.
Matthew Brought Me Flowers by Mandy More (the British 70s proto-Kate Bush, not the scary plastic one)
There’s probably a tune or two in Jesus Christ Superstar that mention Matthew.
i had odd little stirrings for Jay (NOT JADE) as well, bless her…
i think seven year old me chimed in with the rest of the “it WON therefore it must be good” school of thought at the time, i always feel sad that BARDO’s clearly superior number was beaten by some bird with a guitar in a nightie…
also, Erithian @ 42:
Israel, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Turkey, Ukraine, Greece, Finland, Serbia, Russia.
i make that 8 block votes, viz:
no, scando, scando, baltic, baltic, no, former soviet, no, scando, balkan, former soviet…
pink champale at 53: I’m glad someone else detests ‘You’re Gorgeous’ as much as me…whenever i think of my worst tracks of all time ‘You’re Gorgeous’ never fails to put in an appearance. Actually it probably is the absolute worst -compeletely appalling in every way.
Carsmile #61 – I wasn’t counting the “scando” bloc as such because they’ve been in Eurovision for a long time and besides are too few to have that great an influence even if they did vote for each other – and Swedes and Finns for instance aren’t necessarily bessie mates even though there’s a minority Swedish population in Finland. The Baltic bloc are also former Soviet republics of course. Somewhere there must be a Eurovision über-nerd who has a database of how each country has voted since the introduction of phone voting, and that would tell us a lot!
Another minus vote for “You’re Gorgeous” by the way.
“aren’t best mates” — ok (and i know i say this very time) but the yugoslav region of the so-called “balkan block” of course went through a BITTER CIVIL WAR since the soviet republics and etc declared their irrevocable differences and filed for divorce
Is it really because they ‘vote for their mates’ nationpalling?
Or is it more because they “share taste in music”
Indeed the nationpalling of nearby countries which may well share record release dates, radio stations, are local markets for more that one band (being the biggest band in Estonia isn’t going to be the most lucrative thing in the world unless you open up to a few more local markets). Nearby countries breed local scenes – which may or may not effect voting.
Bear in mind as well that there are a few obvious exceptions to the above. I don’t think anyone who saw Ruslana’s Wild Dances did not think that it was the winner straight off, and ditto with Lordi (not becuase it was necessarily so great, but it had a Europe wide metal audience primed for it).
sukrat #64 – of course that goes without saying, but the loyalties within each territory are too complex to go into here, and the voting pattern does suggest alliances. I’m not trying to suggest the evidence is conclusive – the abovementioned über-nerd would have to advise.
I think that Wogan is a bit rich slagging off the block voting in the East. I can’t remember him piping up when the Paddies won every year. I can even remember a year when Ireland went out with a firm intention to pick a song which they thought couldn’t possibly triumph. It was a couple of old lags on acoustic guitars warbling a gentle misty-eyed ditty about when they were young and discovering rock and roll.
It was complete crap.
It won.
When?
1994.
To be precise, “Rock’n’Roll Kids” by Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan. Ireland’s third consecutive win (they won again in 1996), and the Father Ted storyline that Ireland were desperate to lose and avoid the expense of hosting it again quite possibly derived from this particular entry. According to Wikipedia it won by the third biggest margin in the contest’s history, behind Katrina and the Waves and some woman we’ll be talking about this time next year.
Wikipedia also points out that the last eight contests have been won by a country winning for the first time. Tch, I must get a life…
Yes, there are a lot more countries in Eurovision these days. The odds of winning should be about 1-40 which makes our once every ten years demand seem a bit unrealistic.
A couple of years or so ago, someone performed a song called (or at least stating) “We will win Eurovision”. They didn’t and unless I’m mistaken, there was booing in the hall when they’d finished. I bet that’s never happened in Vienna on New Year’s Day!
From memory, I can remember one Swedish winner from circa 1984 that seemed to be a nostalgic song about ABBA’s victory a decade before. It went something like “Diggi Loo, Diggi Ley, What a great day for Sweeeeeeeden”
Though now that I’ve typed that down it does look like precisely the sort of thing that I’d dream.
# 74; From memory it was Latvia or Lithuania and their weird song was a kind of football chant that involved repeatedly chanting “We are the winners! Of Eurovision!” They were all around 60 years old. It seemed, in the context of the show, like a piece of performance art rather than sheer hubris.
I think some of the posters on here have been unduly hard on Bucks Fizz. There’s nothing about this song that pretends to be any more than it is and the arrangement is likeably envigorating from the first moment. In fact it’s one of those songs that when it comes on I immediately think ‘Oh I like this’ and then realise what it is and feel slightly ashamed.
Plus, no one ever wore velour quite like The Fizz.
surely diggi loo diggi ley was the legendary “nul punkt” norwegian entry? john peel sent my sister a copy as some kind of prize for a letter she wrote him
oops as you were, DLDFL is a swedish winner, peel sent my sister “Aldri i livet” byFinn Kalvik (nor is the the only norwegian nul punktum)
Ultimate nul points entry (the very first) was Norway’s super-hammy rocker Mil Etter Mil by Jahn Teigen, three years before Kalvik. Memories of a skinny tie, aviator shades, veins sticking out like knotted rope.
It was a no.1 in Norway. “According to Wikipedia” Teigen started off in a band called Popol Vuh (not THAT Popol Vuh), and turned down an offer from Genesis to audition as a possible Peter Gabriel replacement.
But my fav Norwegian entry is 1968′s Stress by Odd Borre, a Jarvis Cocker lookalike, mainly because a song called Stress by someone called Odd Borre was never, ever going to win.
There are two bands called Popul Vuh? What are the chances of that happening?
“We Are The Winners” was hysterically funny and should have won.
‘Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley’ was Herreys, wasn’t it? Blonde lads in pixie boots.
The Norwegian in aviators and skinny tie was singing “Don’t drop that neutron bomb on me”, I think – topical but, strangely, unpopular.
“We Are The Winners” was fairly funny once
i have somehow all my rockcrit life known there were two bands called popol vuh — it’s the kind of stupid thing i remember (see above for the kind of stuff i remember incorrectly) — but i’ve no idea why i know this, or if the second one was this norwegian one, or if there were actually THREE bands called popol vuh!
(i actualy think given hippy-prog fascination with mysticism and the provenance of the name “popul vuh” it’s not that surprising it was hit on more than once) (cf also nirvana heehee)
We Are The Winners of Eurovision: Lithuania in 2006. It came 6th.
And for the Lineman above, the physically (if not vocally) very Jarvis Cocker-esque Odd Borre (though in this Youtube still he looks like the missing link between the Two Ronnie’s):
Thanks Pete. Bit of a young John Major thing going on with Odd as well.
I’d never heard the whole song before; structurally it’s positively a Macarthur Park compared to most Eurovision entries. And I like the way it includes the lyric “blah blah blah blah blah blah.”
(Seeing as that year’s winner had a chorus that went “La la-la la, la-la la, la-la la”, Odd wasn’t that far from the Euro zeitgeist).
Interesting reference wichita lineman makes in post 79 . I bumped into Jahn Teigen in Dublin at the ’95 contest, well not really bumped as he was sitting in the Foyer reading some silly Eurovision fanclub magazine from OGAE NORGE (quite appropriate considering the interests of most eurovision fans). I went into sad anorak mode and told him it was unfortunate that he was remembered for getting zero points when he finished second in 2 Norwegian national finals with songs that could well have won the contest, if selected. He agreed and told me all about his marriage to and separation from fellow songwriter/performer Anita Skorgan whose song had beaten him into second place in 1988.
All this from a man who used to dress up as a skeleton.
The only thing I am unhappy about the Eurovision Song Contest is that the use of English, in the Eurovision Song Contest increases year by year.
As a native English speaker I think this is unfair!
It’s certainly time to break the habit of “language imperialism”, in the Eurovision Song Contest, and use a song, sung in Esperanto instead!
This is a serious suggestion, as you can see from the Esperanto music which is already available at http://www.vinilkosmo.com/?prs=listen or at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8837438938991452670
There’s even cheesy Esperanto music available! See http://www.ipernity.com/home/56084
#51 – Matthew songs… Martin Stephensons “Me and Matthew” .. ?
and Making Your Mind Up is schlock pop, annoyingly catchy, and with the added gimmickry of the girls losing their skirts! How could it fail?