- Nov 27, 2003
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Success, it’s fickle and depends on a lot of hard work and an even bigger dose of sheer luck to become a legend. Still, you can’t knock it, why complain when you achieved what you set out to do?
But a lot of times, artists end up hating the song that made them big, or to put it more eloquently: they hate what that song became. As people knew them for THAT song and ONLY that song and the other songs were irrelevant to the fans. To such a degree that they’d walk out of the venue after that said song was played. Some bands resorting to NOT playing their biggest hit, making it that the audience HAD to listen to the other material. Such as Nirvana did with “Smells like Teen Spirit” and Radiohead with “Creep”
But now imagine scoring that hit-you-can’t-get-away-from with a song that you didn’t even write.
So I figured it to be fun to talk about those times where artists scored their biggest hit with a COVER and never got away from that one.
This is David Johansen, of the New York Dolls, who in the mid-eighties had a brainwave. With so many hair metal bands which aped the New York Dolls' style, it was time for him to change. Johansen started donning a three-piece suit, styled his hair into a Pompadour, and adopted a more suitable name for his career change. Buster Poindexter was born.
And he already had a song in mind with which he planned to launch Buster Poindexter into the world. A song he first encountered while on Holiday in Montserrat. A song, he was told, had been on the number one spot in the charts for TWO consecutive years.
So, recognizing a hit when he heard one, Johansen went into the studio and recorded “Hot-hot-hot” and it indeed gave him the hit he thought it was when hearing the original. The music video was also memorable in showing Buster Poindexter talking about the New York Dolls and the “Outrageous clothes he wore back then.” Sadly, that music video is no longer on Youtube.
But the song had been number one on the charts in Montserrat for two years for a very good reason, much like the title suggested, it was like an ongoing inferno and became too big for Johansen to contain. He was flown all over the world to appear in chart shows, where it was a prerequisite that he’d perform “Hot-hot-hot”
And then he found out that the song became a staple at weddings and Karaoke parties, and he was getting tired of it.
These days Johansen still performs as Buster Poindexter and he also still performs that song, realizing that personal issues aside, it still is that song that made him big, and as I said before, you can’t knock it if you find success.
But a lot of times, artists end up hating the song that made them big, or to put it more eloquently: they hate what that song became. As people knew them for THAT song and ONLY that song and the other songs were irrelevant to the fans. To such a degree that they’d walk out of the venue after that said song was played. Some bands resorting to NOT playing their biggest hit, making it that the audience HAD to listen to the other material. Such as Nirvana did with “Smells like Teen Spirit” and Radiohead with “Creep”
But now imagine scoring that hit-you-can’t-get-away-from with a song that you didn’t even write.
So I figured it to be fun to talk about those times where artists scored their biggest hit with a COVER and never got away from that one.
This is David Johansen, of the New York Dolls, who in the mid-eighties had a brainwave. With so many hair metal bands which aped the New York Dolls' style, it was time for him to change. Johansen started donning a three-piece suit, styled his hair into a Pompadour, and adopted a more suitable name for his career change. Buster Poindexter was born.
And he already had a song in mind with which he planned to launch Buster Poindexter into the world. A song he first encountered while on Holiday in Montserrat. A song, he was told, had been on the number one spot in the charts for TWO consecutive years.
So, recognizing a hit when he heard one, Johansen went into the studio and recorded “Hot-hot-hot” and it indeed gave him the hit he thought it was when hearing the original. The music video was also memorable in showing Buster Poindexter talking about the New York Dolls and the “Outrageous clothes he wore back then.” Sadly, that music video is no longer on Youtube.
But the song had been number one on the charts in Montserrat for two years for a very good reason, much like the title suggested, it was like an ongoing inferno and became too big for Johansen to contain. He was flown all over the world to appear in chart shows, where it was a prerequisite that he’d perform “Hot-hot-hot”
And then he found out that the song became a staple at weddings and Karaoke parties, and he was getting tired of it.
These days Johansen still performs as Buster Poindexter and he also still performs that song, realizing that personal issues aside, it still is that song that made him big, and as I said before, you can’t knock it if you find success.
