She's got it.

February 24, 2014 10:12 PM

"Venus" by the Shocking Blue

Take Me High
Summertime

posted by vapidave (25 comments total)

"Love Buzz," by Shocking Blue. By Nirvana.
posted by entropicamericana at 10:37 PM on February 24, 2014 [10 favorites]

Looking at the three videos you get a capsule of their range of outfits/styling/music from, I guess, 1964 to 1975 or so. Big change, neat to see.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:38 PM on February 24, 2014

always liked Mighty Joe as well
posted by philip-random at 10:43 PM on February 24, 2014

Never marry a railroad man — if you do, forget him if you can.

I have learned much from the Dutch!
posted by Wolof at 10:52 PM on February 24, 2014

Well. I always thought the singer on "Venus" was a guy. Damn. Mariska Veres.
posted by pracowity at 11:13 PM on February 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Holy crap, they did the original of Love Buzz? My estimation of both bands went way up.
posted by msalt at 11:18 PM on February 24, 2014

More Shocking Blue:

Demon Lover
I love Voodoo Music
Blue Jean
Harley Davidson / Get It On
posted by msalt at 11:26 PM on February 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Discography, etc.
posted by timsteil at 11:26 PM on February 24, 2014

This was a catchy tune, and, characteristically for "Dutch Invasion" bands, it was a stylistic melange of somewhat unlikely musical elements thrown together into one number. I made a post on Dutch rock a few years back that of course featured this song prominently.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 12:20 AM on February 25, 2014 [3 favorites]

Heavy: The Butterfly and I
posted by bonefish at 12:36 AM on February 25, 2014

Now, the oldies station plays the Bananarama version.

Even the remix by Don Pablo's Animals is 24 years old now.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:45 AM on February 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

I made a post on Dutch rock a few years back that of course featured this song prominently.

That post came a bit before I joined up so I missed it. I don't follow 'this' tags so I may be wrong, but I don't see Dutch band Solution covered there.

Originally called Soulution, they started out as a kind of Soft Machine clone, passed through a Traffic phase (one album was produced by Jim Capaldi) and finished up as a sort of euro-soul-disco act.

I rather liked their third album Cordon Bleu (1975), recorded in the UK and produced by Gus Dudgeon. Even so, as Flapjax suggests, to Anglophone ears things sound just a bit 'off'.

Cordon Bleu (full album)

Individual tracks:
  Chappaqua
  Third Line
  A Song for You
  Whirlygig
  Last Detail
  Black Pearl
 
posted by Herodios at 4:14 AM on February 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

"Love Buzz," by Shocking Blue. By Nirvana.

Holy shit, learn something new every day if you're not careful i guess.

I had gone my entire life thinking this was an original composition by them, and one of the better ones at that.

Turns out a wikipedia search would have told me the truth, but it just never even occurred to me.

Similarly, the laid back(cover) and climax of a movie(original) versions of "I ain't no miracle worker".
posted by emptythought at 4:18 AM on February 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

That post came a bit before I joined up so I missed it. I don't follow 'this' tags so I may be wrong, but I don't see Dutch band Solution covered there.

Nor Supersister!
posted by MartinWisse at 4:40 AM on February 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

Since it hasn't been mentioned, Inkpot:
Put some love in your heart
like you put the ink in the inkpot
Learn it, and you will enjoy it baby
to put the ink in the inkpot
posted by activitystory at 7:22 AM on February 25, 2014 [2 favorites]

Well. I always thought the singer on "Venus" was a guy. Damn. Mariska Veres.

I thought the same thing, if it's any consolation.

(Also, for a time in my teens I thought the chorus was:

I'm your fetus
I'm your fire)
posted by Iridic at 8:12 AM on February 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

I did a project once that involved reading a lot of Russian-written histories of rock music. Now one of the odd characteristics of these books was that even when the authors were aware of bands in the west, their historiography tended to lean on the very few rock releases from Melodiya, the official Soviet record label. As a result, the chapter on glam rock made passing mention of David Bowie and T. Rex, but was mostly pages of discussion and analysis of The Shocking Blue.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 9:00 AM on February 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

and speaking of Love Buzz, Prodigy take the Shocking Blue original, throw down some big beats etc, change the title and voila ...
posted by philip-random at 9:51 AM on February 25, 2014

Not that odd, considering that this was largely the only legal way you could get western music in the USSR and while people were much aware of western rock, obviously it was very much more underground. Therefore if you do a Russian history of rock, you'll have a much different context.
posted by MartinWisse at 9:51 AM on February 25, 2014

Speaking of Shocking Blue, I always confuse Mariska Veres with Jerney Kaagman, but of course that's Earth and Fire.

And of course no post on Dutch rock could be complete without Q65.
posted by MartinWisse at 9:59 AM on February 25, 2014

OK, so, I'd never heard of Shocking Blue and didn't know Bananarama's "Venus" was a cover. So I'm watching this, thinking, "Could this be a joke? That acoustic guitarist looks a little bit like Christopher Guest. Is this something like The Folksmen?"

I'm actually still not sure.
posted by straight at 10:15 AM on February 25, 2014

(But I do know you can't fly to heaven on the wings of a gun.)
posted by straight at 10:37 AM on February 25, 2014

Her last live performance of Venus, the comments say this was from November 2006 (if so she died about a month later from cancer. )
posted by stagewhisper at 10:54 AM on February 25, 2014

You can tell Shocking Blue's version was the original because Bananarama's is complete and utter shite.
posted by msalt at 11:42 AM on February 25, 2014

The definitive version of Venus is the demo of the Yamaha PSS-50.
posted by SpiffyRob at 1:11 PM on February 25, 2014 [3 favorites]