#themikeflowerspops — Public Fediverse posts

Listen to this track by nu-easy-listening sensations and pop song context re-positioners The Mike Flowers Pops. It’s “Wonderwall”, a hit song that swept the nation, eventually appearing on the 1996 record A Groovy Place. The single is based on an earlier version by a little band you might remember called Oasis. The initial joke at the time was that the Manchester Britpop outfit had been the ones to cover The Mike Flowers Pops original, a supposedly lost late-1960s hit, and not the other way around.

The song had a significant impact in Britain. This was at least in part because the Oasis cut was so familiar, and perhaps even overfamiliar by 1995. The quirky novelty of the Mike Flowers Pops take had the song championed by morning shows on British radio and television, celebrating its place in the zeitgeist. At one point in the proceedings, the song actually overlapped with the Oasis version in the UK top ten in December of 1995. The Oasis original had slipped down to number seven while The Mike Flowers Pops cover overtook it to score the number two spot. That must have endeared (scan for sarcasm …) the Gallagher Brothers to it, royalty cheques notwithstanding.

Hearing a shadowy and earnest pop song from one of the world’s biggest bands re-interpreted so incongruously is what made it so funny. But beyond the tendency for British charts to celebrate novelty songs in general, there are other layers to consider that helped to make this song so well-liked and successful to the record-buying public of the mid-Nineties.

First, the song’s arrangement and musicianship really is superb. Sure, Mike Flowers (actually born Michael Roberts) and his musicians mug for the camera a bit in the video. But musically speaking, they really went for it with varied textures of brass and flutes and layered backing vocals that make it a detailed and lush recording. The command of musical phrases, sonic tropes, and slight tweaks to the chord structure inspired by a bygone age legitimately serve the material.

On this level, it’s perfectly reasonable to think that this really was some obscure late-Sixties easy listening hit. It contains a level of musical precision that really sells it as a bona fide pop single that actually swings, man. Groovy. Novelty song or not, the musicians present this version of “Wonderwall” with great respect for the original Oasis song as a composition. It’s true that Flowers’ improbable haircut in the video is one of the stars of the show, pre-dating Jimmy Fallon’s “Tight Pants” schtick by decades. But, beyond the costuming, the comedy is chiefly found in undermining listener expectations, not in the playing or singing of it in contempt of its source.

Second, the song fitted in well with the Britpop age nearing the point of its apex by 1995. Of course in this case, there’s a twist. With an idealized 1960s in mind, instead of The Kinks and The Small Faces references, here we get Andy Williams and Englebert Humperdinck vibes instead. It all fed into the retro-cool aspects of what Britpop was all about with a bit of aural frommage thrown in for good measure. Generation X ate it up, applying as much of a generational propensity and appreciation for irony at it as it was giving out to us. Some critics didn’t get the joke. But really; who cares?

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Besides all that and third, there were legitimate forces at work here that went beyond the comedy. One of them was that the sounds and approach found on this tune were very familiar to audiences in their twenties and early thirties by 1995. Easy listening music was everywhere when Generation X were children. It was on the radio. It was in malls. It was on TV variety shows and on greatest hits compilation commercials. It was certainly ensconced in parental record collections, with James Last and Herb Alpert records seemingly issued by governments as some kind of cultural mandate.

Dogeared and scratchy albums followed us into the Nineties in the form of charity shop bin-delvers looking for forgotten gems to sample on hip hop and trip hop albums. As we edged closer to the 21st century, the strains of easy listening sounds and aesthetics became mainstays of downtempo comedown tracks, and as artifacts of our memories of late Sixties and early Seventies sounds, fashions, and lifestyles. This was the world our parents called their own. By the Nineties, that world had largely faded away. Being Generation X, we derided it. But we also loved it, and even missed it.

That’s the thing with this song. It was and still is hilarious. But that’s because it was so familiar. This was not just because of how ubiquitous the Oasis song was by 1995. The Mike Flowers Pops cover contained as much affection for a world long gone as it did smart-assery in response to the then-present one. What better way to sum up the character of a generation straddling the blurry line between a fading twentieth century and an emerging twenty-first?

For more about the history and impact of The Mike Flowers Pops version of “Wonderwall” and on the rise of lounge music at the end of the twentieth century, take a look at this article on backseatmafia.com.

Enjoy!

https://thedeletebin.com/2024/10/28/the-mike-flowers-pops-play-wonderwall/

#90sMusic #BritPop #coverVersions #noveltySongs #TheMikeFlowersPops

Listen to this track by nu-easy-listening sensations and pop song context re-positioners The Mike Flowers Pops. It’s “Wonderwall”, a hit song that swept the nation, eventually appearing on the 1996 record A Groovy Place. The single is based on an earlier version by a little band you might remember called Oasis. The initial joke at the time was that the Manchester Britpop outfit had been the ones to cover The Mike Flowers Pops original, a supposedly lost late-1960s hit, and not the other way around.

The song had a significant impact in Britain. This was at least in part because the Oasis cut was so familiar, and perhaps even overfamiliar by 1995. The quirky novelty of the Mike Flowers Pops take had the song championed by morning shows on British radio and television, celebrating its place in the zeitgeist. At one point in the proceedings, the song actually overlapped with the Oasis version in the UK top ten in December of 1995. The Oasis original had slipped down to number seven while The Mike Flowers Pops cover overtook it to score the number two spot. That must have endeared (scan for sarcasm …) the Gallagher Brothers to it, royalty cheques notwithstanding.

Hearing a shadowy and earnest pop song from one of the world’s biggest bands re-interpreted so incongruously is what made it so funny. But beyond the tendency for British charts to celebrate novelty songs in general, there are other layers to consider that helped to make this song so well-liked and successful to the record-buying public of the mid-Nineties.

First, the song’s arrangement and musicianship really is superb. Sure, Mike Flowers (actually born Michael Roberts) and his musicians mug for the camera a bit in the video. But musically speaking, they really went for it with varied textures of brass and flutes and layered backing vocals that make it a detailed and lush recording. The command of musical phrases, sonic tropes, and slight tweaks to the chord structure inspired by a bygone age legitimately serve the material.

On this level, it’s perfectly reasonable to think that this really was some obscure late-Sixties easy listening hit. It contains a level of musical precision that really sells it as a bona fide pop single that actually swings, man. Groovy. Novelty song or not, the musicians present this version of “Wonderwall” with great respect for the original Oasis song as a composition. It’s true that Flowers’ improbable haircut in the video is one of the stars of the show, pre-dating Jimmy Fallon’s “Tight Pants” schtick by decades. But, beyond the costuming, the comedy is chiefly found in undermining listener expectations, not in the playing or singing of it in contempt of its source.

Second, the song fitted in well with the Britpop age nearing the point of its apex by 1995. Of course in this case, there’s a twist. With an idealized 1960s in mind, instead of The Kinks and The Small Faces references, here we get Andy Williams and Englebert Humperdinck vibes instead. It all fed into the retro-cool aspects of what Britpop was all about with a bit of aural frommage thrown in for good measure. Generation X ate it up, applying as much of a generational propensity and appreciation for irony at it as it was giving out to us. Some critics didn’t get the joke. But really; who cares?

Subscribe to The Delete Bin

Besides all that and third, there were legitimate forces at work here that went beyond the comedy. One of them was that the sounds and approach found on this tune were very familiar to audiences in their twenties and early thirties by 1995. Easy listening music was everywhere when Generation X were children. It was on the radio. It was in malls. It was on TV variety shows and on greatest hits compilation commercials. It was certainly ensconced in parental record collections, with James Last and Herb Alpert records seemingly issued by governments as some kind of cultural mandate.

Dogeared and scratchy albums followed us into the Nineties in the form of charity shop bin-delvers looking for forgotten gems to sample on hip hop and trip hop albums. As we edged closer to the 21st century, the strains of easy listening sounds and aesthetics became mainstays of downtempo comedown tracks, and as artifacts of our memories of late Sixties and early Seventies sounds, fashions, and lifestyles. This was the world our parents called their own. By the Nineties, that world had largely faded away. Being Generation X, we derided it. But we also loved it, and even missed it.

That’s the thing with this song. It was and still is hilarious. But that’s because it was so familiar. This was not just because of how ubiquitous the Oasis song was by 1995. The Mike Flowers Pops cover contained as much affection for a world long gone as it did smart-assery in response to the then-present one. What better way to sum up the character of a generation straddling the blurry line between a fading twentieth century and an emerging twenty-first?

For more about the history and impact of The Mike Flowers Pops version of “Wonderwall” and on the rise of lounge music at the end of the twentieth century, take a look at this article on backseatmafia.com.

Enjoy!

https://thedeletebin.com/2024/10/28/the-mike-flowers-pops-play-wonderwall/

#90sMusic #BritPop #coverVersions #noveltySongs #TheMikeFlowersPops

Listen to this track by nu-easy-listening sensations and pop song context re-positioners The Mike Flowers Pops. It’s “Wonderwall”, a hit song that swept the nation, eventually appearing on the 1996 record A Groovy Place. The single is based on an earlier version by a little band you might remember called Oasis. The initial joke at the time was that the Manchester Britpop outfit had been the ones to cover The Mike Flowers Pops original, a supposedly lost late-1960s hit, and not the other way around.

The song had a significant impact in Britain. This was at least in part because the Oasis cut was so familiar, and perhaps even overfamiliar by 1995. The quirky novelty of the Mike Flowers Pops take had the song championed by morning shows on British radio and television, celebrating its place in the zeitgeist. At one point in the proceedings, the song actually overlapped with the Oasis version in the UK top ten in December of 1995. The Oasis original had slipped down to number seven while The Mike Flowers Pops cover overtook it to score the number two spot. That must have endeared (scan for sarcasm …) the Gallagher Brothers to it, royalty cheques notwithstanding.

Hearing a shadowy and earnest pop song from one of the world’s biggest bands re-interpreted so incongruously is what made it so funny. But beyond the tendency for British charts to celebrate novelty songs in general, there are other layers to consider that helped to make this song so well-liked and successful to the record-buying public of the mid-Nineties.

First, the song’s arrangement and musicianship really is superb. Sure, Mike Flowers (actually born Michael Roberts) and his musicians mug for the camera a bit in the video. But musically speaking, they really went for it with varied textures of brass and flutes and layered backing vocals that make it a detailed and lush recording. The command of musical phrases, sonic tropes, and slight tweaks to the chord structure inspired by a bygone age legitimately serve the material.

On this level, it’s perfectly reasonable to think that this really was some obscure late-Sixties easy listening hit. It contains a level of musical precision that really sells it as a bona fide pop single that actually swings, man. Groovy. Novelty song or not, the musicians present this version of “Wonderwall” with great respect for the original Oasis song as a composition. It’s true that Flowers’ improbable haircut in the video is one of the stars of the show, pre-dating Jimmy Fallon’s “Tight Pants” schtick by decades. But, beyond the costuming, the comedy is chiefly found in undermining listener expectations, not in the playing or singing of it in contempt of its source.

Second, the song fitted in well with the Britpop age nearing the point of its apex by 1995. Of course in this case, there’s a twist. With an idealized 1960s in mind, instead of The Kinks and The Small Faces references, here we get Andy Williams and Englebert Humperdinck vibes instead. It all fed into the retro-cool aspects of what Britpop was all about with a bit of aural frommage thrown in for good measure. Generation X ate it up, applying as much of a generational propensity and appreciation for irony at it as it was giving out to us. Some critics didn’t get the joke. But really; who cares?

Subscribe to The Delete Bin

Besides all that and third, there were legitimate forces at work here that went beyond the comedy. One of them was that the sounds and approach found on this tune were very familiar to audiences in their twenties and early thirties by 1995. Easy listening music was everywhere when Generation X were children. It was on the radio. It was in malls. It was on TV variety shows and on greatest hits compilation commercials. It was certainly ensconced in parental record collections, with James Last and Herb Alpert records seemingly issued by governments as some kind of cultural mandate.

Dogeared and scratchy albums followed us into the Nineties in the form of charity shop bin-delvers looking for forgotten gems to sample on hip hop and trip hop albums. As we edged closer to the 21st century, the strains of easy listening sounds and aesthetics became mainstays of downtempo comedown tracks, and as artifacts of our memories of late Sixties and early Seventies sounds, fashions, and lifestyles. This was the world our parents called their own. By the Nineties, that world had largely faded away. Being Generation X, we derided it. But we also loved it, and even missed it.

That’s the thing with this song. It was and still is hilarious. But that’s because it was so familiar. This was not just because of how ubiquitous the Oasis song was by 1995. The Mike Flowers Pops cover contained as much affection for a world long gone as it did smart-assery in response to the then-present one. What better way to sum up the character of a generation straddling the blurry line between a fading twentieth century and an emerging twenty-first?

For more about the history and impact of The Mike Flowers Pops version of “Wonderwall” and on the rise of lounge music at the end of the twentieth century, take a look at this article on backseatmafia.com.

Enjoy!

https://thedeletebin.com/2024/10/28/the-mike-flowers-pops-play-wonderwall/

#90sMusic #BritPop #coverVersions #noveltySongs #TheMikeFlowersPops

The Mike Flowers Pops Play “Wonderwall”

Listen to this track by nu-easy-listening sensations and pop song context re-positioners The Mike Flowers Pops. It’s “Wonderwall”, a hit song that swept the nation, eventually appearing on the 1996 record A Groovy Place. The single is based on an earlier version by a little band you might remember called Oasis. The initial joke at the time was that the Manchester Britpop outfit had been the ones to cover The Mike Flowers Pops original, a supposedly lost late-1960s hit, and not the other way around.

The song had a significant impact in Britain. This was at least in part because the Oasis cut was so familiar, and perhaps even overfamiliar by 1995. The quirky novelty of the Mike Flowers Pops take had the song championed by morning shows on British radio and television, celebrating its place in the zeitgeist. At one point in the proceedings, the song actually overlapped with the Oasis version in the UK top ten in December of 1995. The Oasis original had slipped down to number seven while The Mike Flowers Pops cover overtook it to score the number two spot. That must have endeared (scan for sarcasm …) the Gallagher Brothers to it, royalty cheques notwithstanding.

Hearing a shadowy and earnest pop song from one of the world’s biggest bands re-interpreted so incongruously is what made it so funny. But beyond the tendency for British charts to celebrate novelty songs in general, there are other layers to consider that helped to make this song so well-liked and successful to the record-buying public of the mid-Nineties.

First, the song’s arrangement and musicianship really is superb. Sure, Mike Flowers (actually born Michael Roberts) and his musicians mug for the camera a bit in the video. But musically speaking, they really went for it with varied textures of brass and flutes and layered backing vocals that make it a detailed and lush recording. The command of musical phrases, sonic tropes, and slight tweaks to the chord structure inspired by a bygone age legitimately serve the material.

On this level, it’s perfectly reasonable to think that this really was some obscure late-Sixties easy listening hit. It contains a level of musical precision that really sells it as a bona fide pop single that actually swings, man. Groovy. Novelty song or not, the musicians present this version of “Wonderwall” with great respect for the original Oasis song as a composition. It’s true that Flowers’ improbable haircut in the video is one of the stars of the show, pre-dating Jimmy Fallon’s “Tight Pants” schtick by decades. But, beyond the costuming, the comedy is chiefly found in undermining listener expectations, not in the playing or singing of it in contempt of its source.

Second, the song fitted in well with the Britpop age nearing the point of its apex by 1995. Of course in this case, there’s a twist. With an idealized 1960s in mind, instead of The Kinks and The Small Faces references, here we get Andy Williams and Englebert Humperdinck vibes instead. It all fed into the retro-cool aspects of what Britpop was all about with a bit of aural frommage thrown in for good measure. Generation X ate it up, applying as much of a generational propensity and appreciation for irony at it as it was giving out to us. Some critics didn’t get the joke. But really; who cares?

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Subscribe to The Delete Bin

Besides all that and third, there were legitimate forces at work here that went beyond the comedy. One of them was that the sounds and approach found on this tune were very familiar to audiences in their twenties and early thirties by 1995. Easy listening music was everywhere when Generation X were children. It was on the radio. It was in malls. It was on TV variety shows and on greatest hits compilation commercials. It was certainly ensconced in parental record collections, with James Last and Herb Alpert records seemingly issued by governments as some kind of cultural mandate.

Dogeared and scratchy albums followed us into the Nineties in the form of charity shop bin-delvers looking for forgotten gems to sample on hip hop and trip hop albums. As we edged closer to the 21st century, the strains of easy listening sounds and aesthetics became mainstays of downtempo comedown tracks, and as artifacts of our memories of late Sixties and early Seventies sounds, fashions, and lifestyles. This was the world our parents called their own. By the Nineties, that world had largely faded away. Being Generation X, we derided it. But we also loved it, and even missed it.

That’s the thing with this song. It was and still is hilarious. But that’s because it was so familiar. This was not just because of how ubiquitous the Oasis song was by 1995. The Mike Flowers Pops cover contained as much affection for a world long gone as it did smart-assery in response to the then-present one. What better way to sum up the character of a generation straddling the blurry line between a fading twentieth century and an emerging twenty-first?

For more about the history and impact of The Mike Flowers Pops version of “Wonderwall” and on the rise of lounge music at the end of the twentieth century, take a look at this article on backseatmafia.com.

Enjoy!

#90sMusic #BritPop #comedy #coverVersions #noveltySongs #TheMikeFlowersPops

Listen to this track by nu-easy-listening sensations and pop song context re-positioners The Mike Flowers Pops. It’s “Wonderwall”, a hit song that swept the nation, eventually appearing on the 1996 record A Groovy Place. The single is based on an earlier version by a little band you might remember called Oasis. The initial joke at the time was that the Manchester Britpop outfit had been the ones to cover The Mike Flowers Pops original, a supposedly lost late-1960s hit, and not the other way around.

The song had a significant impact in Britain. This was at least in part because the Oasis cut was so familiar, and perhaps even overfamiliar by 1995. The quirky novelty of the Mike Flowers Pops take had the song championed by morning shows on British radio and television, celebrating its place in the zeitgeist. At one point in the proceedings, the song actually overlapped with the Oasis version in the UK top ten in December of 1995. The Oasis original had slipped down to number seven while The Mike Flowers Pops cover overtook it to score the number two spot. That must have endeared (scan for sarcasm …) the Gallagher Brothers to it, royalty cheques notwithstanding.

Hearing a shadowy and earnest pop song from one of the world’s biggest bands re-interpreted so incongruously is what made it so funny. But beyond the tendency for British charts to celebrate novelty songs in general, there are other layers to consider that helped to make this song so well-liked and successful to the record-buying public of the mid-Nineties.

First, the song’s arrangement and musicianship really is superb. Sure, Mike Flowers (actually born Michael Roberts) and his musicians mug for the camera a bit in the video. But musically speaking, they really went for it with varied textures of brass and flutes and layered backing vocals that make it a detailed and lush recording. The command of musical phrases, sonic tropes, and slight tweaks to the chord structure inspired by a bygone age legitimately serve the material.

On this level, it’s perfectly reasonable to think that this really was some obscure late-Sixties easy listening hit. It contains a level of musical precision that really sells it as a bona fide pop single that actually swings, man. Groovy. Novelty song or not, the musicians present this version of “Wonderwall” with great respect for the original Oasis song as a composition. It’s true that Flowers’ improbable haircut in the video is one of the stars of the show, pre-dating Jimmy Fallon’s “Tight Pants” schtick by decades. But, beyond the costuming, the comedy is chiefly found in undermining listener expectations, not in the playing or singing of it in contempt of its source.

Second, the song fitted in well with the Britpop age nearing the point of its apex by 1995. Of course in this case, there’s a twist. With an idealized 1960s in mind, instead of The Kinks and The Small Faces references, here we get Andy Williams and Englebert Humperdinck vibes instead. It all fed into the retro-cool aspects of what Britpop was all about with a bit of aural frommage thrown in for good measure. Generation X ate it up, applying as much of a generational propensity and appreciation for irony at it as it was giving out to us. Some critics didn’t get the joke. But really; who cares?

Subscribe to The Delete Bin

Besides all that and third, there were legitimate forces at work here that went beyond the comedy. One of them was that the sounds and approach found on this tune were very familiar to audiences in their twenties and early thirties by 1995. Easy listening music was everywhere when Generation X were children. It was on the radio. It was in malls. It was on TV variety shows and on greatest hits compilation commercials. It was certainly ensconced in parental record collections, with James Last and Herb Alpert records seemingly issued by governments as some kind of cultural mandate.

Dogeared and scratchy albums followed us into the Nineties in the form of charity shop bin-delvers looking for forgotten gems to sample on hip hop and trip hop albums. As we edged closer to the 21st century, the strains of easy listening sounds and aesthetics became mainstays of downtempo comedown tracks, and as artifacts of our memories of late Sixties and early Seventies sounds, fashions, and lifestyles. This was the world our parents called their own. By the Nineties, that world had largely faded away. Being Generation X, we derided it. But we also loved it, and even missed it.

That’s the thing with this song. It was and still is hilarious. But that’s because it was so familiar. This was not just because of how ubiquitous the Oasis song was by 1995. The Mike Flowers Pops cover contained as much affection for a world long gone as it did smart-assery in response to the then-present one. What better way to sum up the character of a generation straddling the blurry line between a fading twentieth century and an emerging twenty-first?

For more about the history and impact of The Mike Flowers Pops version of “Wonderwall” and on the rise of lounge music at the end of the twentieth century, take a look at this article on backseatmafia.com.

Enjoy!

https://thedeletebin.com/2024/10/28/the-mike-flowers-pops-play-wonderwall/

#90sMusic #BritPop #coverVersions #noveltySongs #TheMikeFlowersPops