Rocktrospectiva: The Danceable "Long Play Album" Turns 45

Released this month 45 years ago, "Long Play Album" was the first album by the Dutch soundalike studio group Stars on 45, released on the CNR Records label in the Netherlands. In the US, the album was retitled Stars on Long Play, released on Atlantic Records' sublabel Radio Records and credited to 'Stars On'. In the UK and Ireland, the group was renamed 'Starsound' (on certain releases spelt StarSound or Star Sound) and the album itself was listed as Stars on 45 or Stars on 45 – The Album and released by CBS Records. In the Spanish-speaking countries, both the group and the album were launched under a fourth name: Estrellas en 45. Stars on 45 was released in the Soviet Union and large parts of the Eastern Bloc on the state-owned Melodiya label, credited to Stars on 45, the Russian title of the album translates as Discothèque Stars and in Czechoslovakia, on the state-owned Opus label as Stars on 45. In the Philippines, it was released under the title Stars on 45 Long Play Album (manufactured and printed in the Philippines.

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 U.K. and Ireland, it was always 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. 

The history began when Willem van Kooten, the managing director of the Dutch publishing company Red Bullet Productions, visited a record store and happened to hear a disco medley being played there. The medley combined original recordings of songs by the Beatles, the Buggles, the Archies and Madness with a number of recent American and British disco hits like Lipps Inc.'s "Funkytown", Heatwave's "Boogie Nights", and The S.O.S. Band's "Take Your Time (Do It Right)", as the rhythms of the various songs tended to complement and "dovetail" into each other.

When van Kooten heard that the medley also used a segment of "Venus", a 1970 US #1 hit by Dutch band Shocking Blue — a song for which he himself held the worldwide copyright — and knowing that neither he nor Red Bullet Productions had given the permission for the use of the recording, he realised that the medley in fact was a bootleg release.

The record turned out to be a 12-inch single called "Let's Do It in the 80's Great Hits", credited to a nonexistent band called Passion and issued on a nonexistent record label called Alto. The medley had its origin in Montreal, Canada, and it was later revealed that it was the work of one Michel Ali, together with two professional DJs, Michel Gendreau and Paul Richer. Gendreau and Richer both specialised in the art of "splicing", stringing together snippets of music from different genres, in varying keys and BPMs from different sound sources, at this time still predominantly from vinyl records. The first version of the medley was eight minutes long, and it included parts from some twenty tracks of which only three were by the Beatles: "No Reply", "I'll Be Back", and "Drive My Car". A later extended, 16-minute, 30-track mix of the same medley labeled "Bits and Pieces III" added another five Beatles titles: "Do You Want to Know a Secret", "We Can Work It Out", "I Should Have Known Better", "Nowhere Man", and "You're Gonna Lose That Girl".

With the bootleg recording obviously already circulating in dance clubs on both sides of the Atlantic, van Kooten decided to "bootleg the bootleg" and create a licensed version of the medley by using soundalike artists to replicate the original hits and therefore contacted his friend and colleague Jaap Eggermont.The Beatles soundalikes were established Dutch singers. John Lennon's parts were sung by Bas Muys of the 1970s Dutch pop group Smyle. Paul McCartney's and George Harrison's parts were sung by Sandy Coast frontman Hans Vermeulen, and Okkie Huysdens, who had worked with Vermeulen in the band Rainbow Train. Apart from the recreated songs, an original chorus and hook written and composed by Eggermont and musical arranger Martin Duiser called "Stars on 45" was added at intervals to help string differing sections together. The '45' in the title refers to the playback speed of a vinyl record single — 45 rpm; such singles were often simply called "45s". The female vocals in the chorus were performed by session singer Jody Pijper. Later recordings also featured uncredited vocals by Dutch 1970s star Albert West and Arnie Treffers of the rock revival band Long Tall Ernie and the Shakers. 

The Stars on 45 recordings were made before the birth of digital recording technology, which meant that each song was recorded separately and the different parts were subsequently manually pieced together with a pre-recorded drumloop, using analog master tapes, in order to create the segued medleys. The specific drumloop heard on most Stars on 45 recordings is often referred to as the "clap track", due to its prominent and steady handclaps.

The first such release was an 11:30 12" single, issued in the aftermath of the so-called anti-disco backlash, and was released on the (at the time) minor label CNR Records in the Netherlands in December 1980. The single was simply entitled "Stars on 45 Medley" by Stars on 45, with no credits on the label or the cover as to who actually sang on the recording. When Dutch radio stations began playing the four-minute, eight-track Beatles segment of the medley, placed in the middle of the original, 12" mix, an edited 7" single with the Beatles part preceded by "Venus" and The Archies' "Sugar, Sugar" was released, it hit the #1 spot of the Dutch singles charts in February 1981. A few months later, it also reached #2 in the UK, where it was released by the British subsidiary of CBS Records and credited to 'Starsound'.

In June 1981, the single went to #1 in the US, where it was released by Radio Records, a sublabel of Atlantic Records. The track list for the 7" edit of the "Stars on 45 Medley" in the US was the names of all the songs that make up the medley as it appears on the actual record label:

• Medley: Intro "Venus"
• Sugar, Sugar
• No Reply
• I'll Be Back
• Drive My Car
• Do You Want to Know a Secret
• We Can Work It Out
• I Should Have Known Better
• Nowhere Man
• You're Going to Lose That Girl
• Stars on 45

This single with its 41-word title continues to hold the record for a #1 single with the longest name on the Billboard charts, due to the legalities requiring each song title be listed.

Shortly thereafter, Eggermont created the first Stars on 45 album, Long Play Album, issued with an equally anonymous album cover and featuring a 16-minute side-long medley of the Beatles titles. The Stars on 45 Long Play Album (US title: Stars on Long Play; UK title: Stars on 45 — The Album) also became a massive seller worldwide, topping both the UK and Australian album charts, it was a Top 10 hit in most parts of Europe and also reached #9 on Billboard's album chart in the US. The popularity of the album even resulted in it being given an official release in the Soviet Union, where it was issued by state-owned record label Melodiya under the title Discothèque Stars. The "Stars on 45 Medley" single was later awarded a platinum disc for one million copies sold in the US alone.

 

Long Play Album Track List: 

 

Side 1 

 

1. Beatles Medley  (Stars On 45)

• "Stars on 45" (Eggermont, Duiser)
• "No Reply"
• "I'll Be Back"
• "Drive My Car"
• "Do You Want to Know a Secret"
• "We Can Work It Out"
• "I Should Have Known Better"
• "Nowhere Man"
• "You're Going to Lose That Girl"
• "Ticket to Ride"
• "The Word"
• "Eleanor Rigby"
• "Every Little Thing"
• "And Your Bird Can Sing"
• "Get Back"
• "Eight Days a Week"
• "It Won't Be Long"
• "Day Tripper"
• "Wait"
• "Stars on 45" (Eggermont, Duiser)
• "Good Day Sunshine"
• "My Sweet Lord" (Harrison)
• "Here Comes the Sun" (Harrison)
• "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (Harrison)
• "Taxman" (Harrison)
• "A Hard Days Night"
• "Things We Said Today"
• "If I Fell"
• "You Can't Do That"
• "Please Please Me"
• "From Me to You" (omitted on the US version)
• "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"
• "Stars on 45" (Eggermont, Duiser)

Side 2

1. "Medley" (a.k.a. "Boogie Nights and Other Hits") (Stars On 45)

• "Stars on 45" (Eggermont, Duiser)
• "Boogie Nights" (Temperton)
• "Funkytown" (Greenberg)
• "Video Killed the Radio Star" (Downes, Horne, Wooley)
• "Venus" (van Leeuwen)
• "Sugar Sugar" (Kim, Barry)
• "Cathy's Clown" (Everly, Everly)
• "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" (Sedaka, Greenfield - omitted on the US version)
• "Only the Lonely" (Orbison, Melson)
• "Lady Bump" (Levay, Prager)
• "Jimmy Mack" (Holland–Dozier–Holland)
• "Rainy Day" (Cook and Greenaway, Macaulay)
• "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini" (Pockridge, Vance - omitted on the US version)
• "Stars on 45" (Eggermont, Duiser)

2. "Do You Remember" (a.k.a. "Rock 'n Roll Medley"), performed by Long Tall Ernie and the Shakers 

• "Do You Remember" (Britnell, Treffers)
• "Lucille" (Penniman, Collins)
• "Bird Dog" (Bryant)
• "Runaway" (Shannon, Crook)
• "Do You Remember" (Britnell, Treffers)
• "Bread and Butter" (Turnbow, Parks)
• "That's Alright" (Crudup)
• "Rip It Up" (Marascalco, Blackwell)
• "Jenny Jenny" (Johnson, Penniman)

3. "Golden Years of Rock & Roll", performed by Long Tall Ernie and the Shakers 

• "Golden Years of Rock & Roll" (Britnell, Treffers)
• "Sherry" (Gaudio - omitted on the US version)
• "Wooly Bully" (Samudio)
• "Golden Years of Rock & Roll" (Britnell, Treffers)
• "Buona Sera" (Sigman, DeRose)
• "Slippin' and Slidin'" (Penniman, Bocage, Collins, Smith)
• "Nut Rocker" (Tchaikowsky, Fowley)
• "Golden Years of Rock & Roll" (Britnell, Treffers)
• "At the Hop" (Singer, White, Medora)