Something for the weekend
Even though this is a shameless steal of "The Jean Genie" it still sounds bloody marvelous.
The cheap "psychedelic" colour effects the BBC used back then reminds me of watching TOTP 'round my Grandparents house and my Granddad joking "Telly's on the blink again!" I guess he had to get some enjoyment out of being forced to watch the horrible racket we liked.
7 Comments:
Yeah but Jean Genie was a shameless rip of this and the barnet's gone full circle.
Love The Sweet - hugely underrated ,Brian Connolly is a lost icon
Funny about your grandad.
At a time when every movie on TV seemed to be made by MGM , and the movie credits were prefaced by the roaring lion , my father used to see the lion intro , say " Seen it " and walk away . I guess he didn't like TV that much.
brian/canada
'Telly's on the blink again' must surely join the pantheon of classic parental responses to TOTP such as 'What does he think he's wearing!' 'You call that music?' and 'Is it a boy or a girl?'.
Also "Why do they have to move like that?"
cheers
B Smith
A slight rip-off yeah but the siren, timpanis and glorious backing vocals(ah-ahhhh!) take this to another level.
Mat Wilson
Regarding the songs Blockbuster and The Jean Genie, Quote taken from Steve Priest's book, Are You Ready Steve:
"Blockbuster was a huge hit in England and Europe, but the same week that it was released, RCA made what I consider, a terrible blunder. David Bowie had written The Jean Genie. Only the lyrics were different from our song. I would love to find out who really came up with the idea first. There are times at a record company office, where an executive will play a demo of an artist on his stereo.
If they think that it's a hit, the volume will be cranked right up. It is very possible that either Mike Chapman or David Bowie was walking around the RCA building and that this happened. I believe that the similarity between the two is much too coincidental.
Because they released both songs at the same time, it is possible that we both lost sales. We went to number one for six weeks and Bowie stayed at #2. It was our only #1 on the charts in England. It became very frustrating that we were still not respected by the media."
Who really knows....but interesting you mentioned this!
Listen to The Yard Birds - I'm a Man and you will see that neither The Sweet or Bowie were first with this one.
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