THE FIRM – “Star Trekkin”
Sometimes there is no gulf wider than the one between the 12 and the 13 year old boy. I remember meeting up with a friend – 18 months or so younger – in the school holidays and him absolutely bouncing with delight over this record, which made me shudder. For him this was priceless observational comedy; for me, a cringing reminder of the kind of thing I would have been into a summer or two before.
So ripe for reappraisal, then? Well, not really: this is rank. It’s the cheapest sounding record I think we’ll ever meet; the impressions are disasterous; the jokes were old then and are now so stained into the upholstery of Star Trek they barely register as jokes. Every now and then someone will throw out the insult “music for people who don’t like music”, for some record which commits the great sin of being pleasant or boring: “Star Trekkin’” isn’t really either of those things but it fits the diss better than most songs – more so than with any other comedy record we’ve encountered the music is a crushed, weak, thing: a disdainful, perfunctory vector for the poor gags.
I hope I’ll never have to hear it again without a drink to hand, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing of interest in “Star Trekkin’”. Wikipedia offers a way in by hinting that it’s the only filk record to top the charts, and the song is knowing and affectionate enough to come over as validation if you wanted it to be. But even as a non Trek fan* it seemed dumb to me, taking the most obvious drinking-game Trek tropes and working them ragged. What it reminds me of more, though, are fandom-driven internet memes – it’s stupider and less sophisticated than most of what gets passed around these days but especially with its plasticine video it has something of the have-you-seen-this oh-go-on-then spreadability of modern online pop culture. Of course back in 1987 there were precious few people online to spread anything much (though I bet they all liked Star Trekkin) and we had to rely on Radio 1 DJs to be our filters. Step forward the villain of this piece, Simon Bates, dropping his usual m.o. of tear-jerking populism to show that, hey, he knew how to have fun too. Bastard.
*and alright, yes, this is relevant to my hating the record: I disliked Star Trek. As a young Doctor Who fan I had happily taken sides and have broadly speaking stuck to them, for all the exotica-drenched charm of the original Trek series. At the time this song came out the Star Trek franchise was undergoing a rebirth, thanks to the successful films – the Next Generation series had been announced and I knew people who were excited for it. As for Doctor Who, it was at its lowest ebb – cancelled, then reprieved, then subjected to a run of stories that suggested the cancellers knew their jobs pretty well. “Star Trekkin” might have been an embarassment, but to admit liking Doctor Who in 1987 would have been far worse. A Who-based number one record seemed a distant prospect indeed…
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Another example: the “U.K. Squeeze”, so-called in North America because of the U.S. band Tight Squeeze, and so-called in Australia because of the Sydney band Squeeze.
Re #47 & #48 also two Stardusts – a notoriously woeful edition of Guiness British Hit Singles from around ten years ago credited 1977′s ‘Ariana’ and 1998′s ‘Music Sounds Better With You’ to the same act.
Whenever I see ‘The Charlatans UK’ and ‘London Suede’ I cringe (you may now josh heartily that hearing them has the same effect, if you wish).
Of course there are also two “Sugababes” – the original, brilliant group and the current horrendous troupe of imposters whose pitiful excuse for a new album has limped into the midweeks at a sturdy number eleven.
Thanks all, I had in mind the two “Show Me Love” singles by Robyn and Robyn S. Obvious really.
Wow–had no idea this made it to #1. It mainly was confined to “morning zoo” types of radio programs in the US, though it got plenty of airplay there. Just awful.
Tom, the Doctor Who equivalent (in mortifying embarrassment) would’ve been if “Doctor In Distress” had hit the top. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1yW8FrrXAA
And there are two Go Kart Mozarts – the UK one are sadly not on Spotify.
Of course, there were two Oasises too, the original being an easy listening supergroup; Mary Hopkin, Julian Lloyd Webber and Peter Skellern.
As discussed in a recent thread, there were also two Mel and Kims, potentially confusingly – and two separate acts called Kenny had teenybop hits in the early 70s. The two incarnations of Brotherhood of Man were essentially two different bands.
Incidentally, Vince at #43, the last kids’ disco I attended, a few weeks ago (with my school PTA hat on) certainly featured DJ Otzi, but was notable for my being nearly bowled over in the rush to the dancefloor when the intro to “Thriller” came on. The sound of high-pitched 10/11-year-old voices bellowing the chorus of “Sex On Fire” created quite an impression too. (At that equivalent age, if we’d had a school disco, I’d have been bellowing “School’s Out”.)
Moving regretfully on to “Star Trekkin’” – yes, the “we come in peace, shoot to kill” line was nicely satirical, but that was just one line. And the Klingons line was a fun smutty joke, but fairly old. The record was one you might chuckle at when you first hear it, but the more often you hear it the more drunk you’d have to be to find it funny. I caught it on the same 80s no. 1s run-through as Gavin at #41, and found it pretty cringeworthy, especially in the context of what surrounded it – mind you my 10-year-olds loved it.
Given the acclaim for Tony Thorpe’s previous appearance on Popular, has there been a greater divergence between ratings for two contributions by the same person?!
#46 The B-side to JKIAWM is worth a listen though, “Festive Frolics From Four Fellows” which is all about watching Julie Andrews on telly. Alas it’s not on Youtube.
No chart action in the States, but enough airplay that I was very familiar with this. Exposure on Dr. Demento’s radio shows helped.
Re: #50, Yes – Last.fm initially attributed the Swans tracks on my iPod to a doo-wop group of the same name. There’s a potential covers album there I reckon…
#55 Not sure there’s any point mentioning it, but I think he’s alluding to another record entirely which went #1 about a year later than this…
One of the responses that regularly amuses me here — probably because I have already been all the ages of man up to and importatly including SECOND CHILDISHNESS — is the outraged “The charts so belong to agegroup xx-yy” and concomitant huffpuff denunciation of records that appeal immensely to xx- and/or yy+ groups, as unacceptable intrusions into proper pop. Suppose a record is great if you’re seven but rubbish if you’re 15? Does that really mean it’s “really” rubbish? What about when you’re 35? 85? What is the league table of age-trumpage? At what age does objective and infallaible evaluation kick in, and when does it kick out? (I think I asked this question before, equally unclearly…)
(I find Star Trekkin mildly amusing.)
It doesn’t kick in, but while you can (and should) acknowledge these shifting reactions in a response to a record, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to make your current one the most important.
i.e. the fact of self-knowledge here is more useful than its specific application.
Actually I say “it doesn’t kick in”, but it seems to for some people. I remember Simon Reynolds announcing once that by the time you’re 30 you should know what you like and what you don’t. This seemed (and seems) a silly position but it probably reflects his own responses and experiences. As for me, I would happily revise the marks on Popular on a weekly basis, which is the main reason I don’t allow myself to.
two separate acts called Kenny
Ah, I wonder:
Both were on RAK, one being an irish guy called Tony Kenny, the other being an all-brit group that weren’t on “their” firsthit “The Bump”.
All sound suspiciously like the first guy.
re: Loaded.
I thought at first that the speech samples were from that Star Trek episode where they got invaded by hippies. Spock joined the sit-in on bongos, if I remember.
Indeed most people act like they know better now than they did before. I would say ‘I liked this because I was the right age for it’ but then what did my age have to do with loving some so-called sophistopop from the same time, or indeed those early house hits? It just comes to the facets and dimensions of a piece of music I guess, whether there’s enough in a song to appeal to a child, adolescent and adult alike (this seems a reasonably good marker of pop quality but not exclusively so…it would indicate an increase of facets and dimensions in a song but otoh grown-ups still seem to like ‘Popcorn’ or even 1994′s most monotonous and seemingly inane #1). As alluded to upthread, The JAMs would soon create something that could thrill a huge number of pop fans at least 20 years apart.
Oddly ‘Star Trekkin’ sounds ‘designed for kids (read ‘an audience not consciously concerned with musical sophistication’) but this wasn’t a kids show (I know there was an ST cartoon but I never once saw this on TV when I was growing up) so there’s no cash-in connection there unlike with Roland Rat or whatever. To put it another way, I didn’t like this because it was about Star Trek, but because I thought it was funny and somehow unusual (in ways that The Chicken Song didn’t).
#67 Steve, the ST cartoon was in the 70s and was the most boring humourless kiddie-unfriendly thing I can remember from that era.
@ 66…(Just what is it that you want to do?
We wanna be free
We wanna be free to do what we wanna do
And we wanna get loaded
And we wanna have a good time
That’s what we’re gonna do
Away baby let’s go
We’re gonna have a good time
We’re gonna have a party)
Quoth Peter Fonda from the film “The Wild Angels”.
Yeah, I know..
The episode of STrek where they sang some song that basically consisted of whatever, followed by “Yayyyy Brother!”
#67 Star Trek in the mid-80s was essentially a kids programme, wasn’t it – repeats on BBC2 (?) at lunchtimes/early afternoons, opposite Pebble Mill At One. I definitely associate it with being ill off school or rainy holiday days.
I don’t think I ever even watched it. I liked the films. By the 90s I loathed ST generally esp. the new shows (changed my mind later, always enjoy TNG more than I expect to when I catch the odd repeat).
There was an ardkore tune that sampled the opening fanfare of the original theme but I have no idea what it is. In my memory, because they were on the same pirate show tape my brother had acquired, I confuse it with another track that sampled Richard Nixon’s “Pat doesn’t have a mink coat…” comment. Better than it sounds!
Re 64/65: Danny Kelly isn’t someone I’d quote too often but I remember him saying in his NME days that you don’t grow out of music, you grow into music. Embarrassment at 12 about something you liked aged 11 is a moody teenage response. I hated being called “Bobby” by the time I was 13 because I thought it made me sound like a little kid; by the time I was 17 I wished people called me Bobby again (and still do, but no one does).
My tolerance for some types of music – pre-rock, novelties, MOR – has increased dramatically since I turned 40. I always assumed that would be the age when I ‘got’ jazz, but instead I ‘got’ Lt Pigeon and Guy Mitchell.
Re 66: The first guy was sacked as ‘Kenny’ but Mickie Most retained the hit name – that’s definitely not him on The Bump or the utterly great Fancy Pants (with the deepest bassman voice ever). Wonder what happened to Tony Kenny? A falsetto to give even Paul Da Vinci the fear.
Oh, on my own here but I really loved Star Trek (the original series) and pretty much no other sci fi ever. It was deffo programmed for kids. In my mind I associate it with The Monkees – similarly eccentric caricatured characters, and funny to boot.
Bobby it is! Nobody called me Steve until I went to college, much to my moody adolescent chagrin.
Glad someone mentioned Doctor Demento. I’m fairly certain this was never in danger of cracking #1 here in the states (and it certainly got nowhere near a dancefloor – imagining a DJ playing this is truly hilarious), but I did have an old cassette tape of this song that I taped off the aforementioned radio show. In fact, I think that same tape also featured the Beastie Boys riff ‘Squirrels’ and that song about fish heads (fish heads, fish heads/eat them up, yum!).
Maybe it was a result of my mother being a big Star Trek fan, but this has always given me a chuckle (not a big one, mind you). I grew up with repeats of The Animated Series on Nickelodeon, so I at least understood the jokes at the time, even if they were a bit lazy.
As far as a Doctor Who equivalent, wasn’t ‘Doctorin’ The Tardis’ just a bunch of Doctor Who sound effects played over Gary Glitter? I’m not sure either show was destined for greatness in pop music, although Information Society did a pretty good job.
Billy @ 57: and there was a third Oasis – well sort of as it was spelled Oaysis -’92 hardcore act.
Erithian @ 58: I thought most of the lines were very funny if you were a fan of the series as they all seemed to hit the nail on the head re what each of the characters seemed to say in every other episode eg “you cannot change the law of physics – if I give her anymore she’ll blow”, “it’s life Jim but not as we know it”. I can still raise a chuckle at it.
Tom @ 71 I could be wrong but I seem to remember the original “Star Trek” being on a weekday evening at around 5.30-6.00 on BBC 2 in the early/mid 80s although not sure if it was still shown at that time in 1987.It was the last time I remember watching I’d previously been scared to death by it as a very young kid in the early 70s when it was on in the evening.
Yes, 1985/86 it was on BBC2 at 6. Also in that slot, slightly before or after, were the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films. Fun for all the family! I mean it! We can’t have been the only family to wait with baited breath for the inevitable “He’s dead, Jim”, or to mimic the swoosh of the doors on the Enterprise, or the whistle of the communicator… I’ll stop right here.
I think all bases have been covered on this one. “Star Trekkin” is either for small children or very pissed up adults. That’s quite a demographic when you think about it.
Whilst we are discussing one uber-famous TV Jim (Kirk), may I pay tribute here to another; Jim Phelps, who really does have an impossible mission now, alas. His mini-recorder has gone up in smoke for the last time. Great, great series. Peter Graves RIP.
Wichita at 77: and the fact that early in most episodes when a landing party had been beamed down to a planet if there was an unknown actor in the group you knew that this character would be dead in a few minutes.
And sort of fitting for this thread there were 2 acts called Space – French electronic group who had a hit in 1977 with “Magic Fly” which in 1987 was about a year from getting revived on the dancefloors and a group who had some hits in the late 90s and who were quite popular with some of the students when I finally got to university in the late 90s. I remember it vaguely annoying me that this bunch had nicked the earlier act’s name.
3 acts AndyPandy – the KLF’s Jimmy Cauty did an ambient album under that name – was meant to be a team up with The Orb’s Dr Alex Paterson but Dr AP pulled out and wouldnt allow his stuff to be used, so the released work is (kind of aptly!) very sparse.
# 79 – AP is so right about those landing parties:
“Captain’s log, stardate, blah-blah-blah. I have decided to send a delegation onto the planet surface to investigate. Myself, First Officer Spock, Doctor McCoy and Ensign Phillips…”
Hey, tough break, there, Phillips!!!
The recent Star Trek film was pretty awful in my view (I felt very burned by all the critics who praised it), but it did have a good joke about the disposability/doom of red-shirted away-team members in the Trek universe. Kirk, Sulu and an unheralded red-shirt Olson jump from space into the atmosphere to land on a drilling platform that they wish to destroy. Olson speeds ahead of the others (out-cowboying Kirk, which is no mean feat), misses the platform, and is immediately flambeed by the drill beam underneath. Haw haw. I checked wiki just to see that I’d remembered the plot point right. It says just: Kirk and Hikaru Sulu perform a space jump onto the drilling platform, disabling it.
That’s the spirit!
Ha! The disposable red-shirts of the Enterprise, yet Kirk still has a crew of 400 (oft quoted in several early episodes). I remember an episode where an away-team investigate some underground cave network, and are stalked by some lava-blob creature that only strikes when its victims are alone. Star Trek and Scooby Doo fused for one marvellous moment, into that “No, don’t split up! That’s what it wants you to do!” audience reaction. High red-shirt body count. Spock mind-melds with the creature in a tense denoument. Cracking stuff.
Still think the single sucks.
There, and I was expecting a really geeky conversation on the lines of “You know, Dr. McCoy never actually says It’s worse than that, he’s dead Jim: The closest he comes to it is…”
Kinda disappointed really, in an vaguely embarrassed way.
So, undeterred, I thought I’d search the googles to see if Dr. McCoy ever really did say it, and after browsing some fascinating articles using “It’s worse than that, he’s dead Jim” as a headline*, I discovered the holy grail**, as follows:
“The phrase “He’s dead, Jim” was a classic line from the television series, spoken by Dr McCoy to Captain Kirk, in at least five different episodes (if you must know: ‘The Enemy Within’ (about a dog), ‘The Changeling’ (about Scotty), ‘Wolf in the Fold’ (about Hengist), ‘Spectre of the Gun’ (about Chekov), and ‘Is There in Truth no Beauty?’ (about Marvick))…
“The “It’s worse than that” part of the quote did not originate with Star Trek itself, but with the 1987 song ‘Star Trekkin’, by The Firm, which was a huge novelty hit set to a simple ‘London Bridge is falling down’ tune.”
I’m so relieved — I can smirk happily about compulsive Trekkies after all.
And how come no one analyzed the ‘London Bridge’ connection…
* ranging from the failure of e-democracy in Scottish elections, the likely whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, the future of the Anglican Covenant, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) detectors, and the history of Routemaster buses, to (unsurprisingly) a CETI message board, (as well as some quite disturbing photographs)
** (from something called “The Annotated Pratchett File v9.0″)
Punctum @ 39 – surely two different Tony Thorpes though? – ie one a black Londoner who became known in 1988 with an early-ish acid track with the Moody Boys and the other the white guitarist of Rubettes fame who now teaches at Blackburn College and plays and promotes a blues night in my town, Rawtenstall, Lancs.
I’ve always wondered about that. The reason I get confused is that at least two other former Rubettes, or Rubettes associates, were closely involved with the KLF. I thought it was rather cool that their guitarist might have gone on to be a UK Acieed pioneer but, as you’ve just confirmed, it’s a different Tony Thorpe altogether. Ah well…
I’ve long considered “Star Trekkin” to be the most irritating Number One of all time – so it was with some surprise that, on playing it again yesterday, I felt the corners of my mouth twitching upwards. Viewed from a safe distance, its gleeful determination to be as annoying as possible on every level now seems almost admirable. I hadn’t spotted the proto-toytown-techno connection before, but there is something happy-hardcore-ish at its core, and even the faint rudiments of a banging donk.
The mantle of Most Irritating Number One Ever duly passes to a certain chart-topper from the second half of 2009.
I’m not pushing my luck by playing “Star Trekkin” a second time, though. Once in 22 years is quite enough.
A fair number of candidates there, it has to be said, Mike…
#82 – That joke about the disposable crew member was done before in the spoof Galaxy Quest (which is great if you haven’t seen it)
“I’m not even supposed to be here. I’m just “Crewman Number Six.” I’m expendable. I’m the guy in the episode who dies to prove how serious the situation is. I’ve gotta get outta here!”
Oh I really enjoyed “Galaxy Quest”. Wasn’t that the one where they landed on a planet where all the aliens looked cute and cuddly, but as soon as you upset them they bared ultra-sharp teeth and brutally tore their victims apart? I was reminded of that planet at the time of the last Lib Dem leadership contest.
Punctum @86:There was something almost as bizarre as a Rubettes guitarist making an early Acid Track though -
Barry Blue was behind Cry Sisco’s “Afro Dizzi Act” which was one of biggest, most all-pervasive (and from over 20 years hence one of the most evocative of that time) tracks from the M25 acid house parties of 1989.
And then there was Rob Davies from Mud, going all Balearic in the summer of 1988 with Electra’s cover of “Jibaro”… but more of him when the times comes, eh?
#91: Beyond the hits (and maybe including some of his hits – “Hot Shot” is, to put it mildly, bizarre) Barry Blue’s done some pretty out there stuff in his time. But then of course he also produced and mentored Heatwave and therefore Rod Temperton, who did a great lost single for BB in 1987: “Change It Up.”
@82/89 A phenomenon known to Trek fans (my wife is one) as the “expendable ensign”, since that is always the rank of the crew member who dies.
# 84 – And how come no one analyzed the ‘London Bridge’ connection…
I for one never analysed it because I associated the tune, such as it is, with “I am the Music Man” as was outlined by someone else further up-thread.
“I Am The Music Man” was another campfire favorite at the same summer camp. We had a pretty limited range.
in response to a comment much earlier, the Firm’s 1982 single Arthur Daley’s e’s alright…the b side was indeed the posh version, credited to the firm’s solicitor, Devious Des
Back in 1998, nine year old me and a host of other kids were being entertained by a clown in the summer holidays in Devon. He was singing both this and Black Lace’s ‘Superman’. You could feel a slight sense of bewilderment across all our faces as clearly none of us had any idea what these songs were – even then they predated our births. I wonder to this day if that clown’s setlist remains in the 80s, or whether he’s moved onto, I dunno, Mr Blobby or something, bemusing a whole new generation of kids.
It’s enjoyable, harmless fun to me, maybe because I’ve never been overexposed to it. This also coming from someone who avoids Star Trek like the plague and instead a massive Doctor Who fan!