Stars on 45
Stars on 45 was a Dutch novelty pop act that was successful in Europe, the United States, and Australia in the early 1980s. The group later shortened its name to Stars On in the U.S., while in the United Kingdom and Ireland it was known as Starsound (or Star Sound). The band, which consisted solely of studio session musicians under the direction of Jaap Eggermont, formerly of Golden Earring, recorded medley recordings made by recreating hit songs as faithfully as possible and joining them together with a common tempo and underlying drum track.
For the song, see Stars on 45 (song). For the English rock band, see Scars on 45.
Stars on 45
Similar acts and parodies[edit]
Before Stars on 45[edit]
In 1976, the Ritchie Family had scored their biggest U.S. hit with a similar medley named "The Best Disco in Town". This had incorporated various pop hits of the day, such as Silver Convention's "Fly, Robin, Fly" and Donna Summer's "Love to Love You Baby", recreated in an order, and segued by the title theme.
Four years before the release of the "Stars on 45", a similar medley named Rockollection was produced by the Frenchman Laurent Voulzy. Around the same time, Shalamar debuted with their single Uptown Festival, featuring a medley of Motown hits from the 60's. Dutch band Veronica Unlimited scored a big hit in 1977 in the Benelux countries and at home with the disco medley What Kind of Dance Is This. The band Café Crème played its Unlimited Citations (1977) by taking the original Beatles recordings, editing them into a sequence, overdubbing identical drum and bass parts, singing hit songs as faithfully as possible, and stringing them together, with a common tempo and relentless underlying drum track. The single, with its 45-word title,[9] was a hit throughout Europe (including Netherlands) and North Africa. The band acted playback on TV but played the medley live in a different place every night over more than 500 nights (almost two years) in multiple countries.[10]
After Stars on 45 (Volume 1)[edit]
The Top of the Pops chart of Thursday 13 August 1981 had seven medleys in the Top 40 (by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Tight Fit, Gidea Park, Lobo, Starsound, Startrax and Enigma) with "Stars on 45 (Volume 2)" and "Startrax Club Disco", a Bee Gees medley, jointly holding the number 27 slot in the chart.[11]
Beginning in the late 1980s, a British novelty group, Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers, had several hit singles using the same format as Stars on 45, only using primarily big band and 1950s-60s rock and roll songs. Initially, the group utilized remixes of original recordings by artists such as Bill Haley and His Comets, Little Richard and the Everly Brothers, but later used singer-impersonators in similar form to Stars on 45. Among their best known releases were "Swing the Mood" and "That's What I Like".