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The King Of Rock 'n' Roll
"The King of Rock 'n' Roll" is a single by English pop band Prefab Sprout, released by Kitchenware Records in March 1988. It was the second single taken from their album of that year, ''From Langley Park to Memphis''. It remains the band's biggest success in their native UK, reaching No. 7 on the UK Singles Chart, where it spent 11 weeks. Composition Paddy McAloon wrote "The King of Rock 'n' Roll" in February 1985 as a companion piece to another new song he wrote at that time, "Cars and Girls". The lyric was prompted by an ''NME'' article about an Edwyn Collins gig where Collins covered Kevin Johnson's "Rock and Roll (I Gave You the Best Years of My Life)". McAloon's dislike for songs with 'rock 'n' roll' in the title compelled him to write one of his own. The song's lyrics concern a washed-up 1950s star who is only remembered for his one-hit novelty song, which is sung in the chorus ("Hot dog, jumping frog, Albuquerque"). McAloon has described "The King of Rock 'n' Roll" as a ...
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Prefab Sprout
Prefab Sprout are an English pop band from Witton Gilbert, County Durham who rose to fame during the 1980s. Formed in 1978 by brothers Paddy and Martin McAloon and joined by vocalist, guitarist and keyboard player Wendy Smith in 1982, they released their debut album '' Swoon'' to critical acclaim in 1984. Their subsequent albums, including 1985's ''Steve McQueen'' and 1990's '' Jordan: The Comeback'', have been described by Paul Lester of ''The Guardian'' as "some of the most beautiful and intelligent records of their era". Frontman Paddy McAloon is regarded as one of the great songwriters of his time and the band have been credited with producing some of the "most beloved" pop music of the 1980s and 1990s. Nine of their albums reached the Top 40 in the UK Albums Chart and one of their singles, "The King of Rock 'n' Roll", peaked at number seven in the UK Singles Chart. The band's other popular songs include "When Love Breaks Down" and "Cars and Girls". In recent years, Padd ...
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Novelty Song
A novelty song is a type of song built upon some form of novel concept, such as a gimmick, a piece of humor, or a sample of popular culture. Novelty songs partially overlap with comedy songs, which are more explicitly based on humor, and with musical parody, especially when the novel gimmick is another popular song. Novelty songs achieved great popularity during the 1920s and 1930s. They had a resurgence of interest in the 1950s and 1960s. The term arose in Tin Pan Alley to describe one of the major divisions of popular music; the other two divisions were ballads and dance music. Humorous songs, or those containing humorous elements, are not necessarily novelty songs. Novelty songs are often a parody or humor song, and may apply to a current event such as a holiday or a fad such as a dance or TV programme. Many use unusual lyrics, subjects, sounds, or instrumentation, and may not even be musical. For example, the 1966 novelty song "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa! ...
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Grey's Monument
Grey's Monument is a Grade I listed monument in the centre of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It was built in 1838 to commemorate Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (also known as Earl Grey), who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1830 to 1834. It was erected to acclaim Earl Grey for the passing of the Great Reform Act of 1832 which brought about parliamentary reform. The monument is in total and consists of a statue of Earl Grey on a pedestal standing on top of a Roman Doric column. The column was designed by local architects John and Benjamin Green, and the statue was created by the sculptor Edward Hodges Baily. The monument was paid for by public subscription. It gives its name to the Tyne and Wear Metro station nearby, Monument Metro station. History Context Grey's Monument was erected to commemorate Charles Grey (the 2nd Earl Grey). Earl Grey represented Northumberland in Parliament from the age of 22. He was made First Lord of the Admiralty in 1806, and later Lea ...
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Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service in the United Kingdom. At the time, the only other channels were the television licence, licence-funded BBC One and BBC Two, and a single commercial broadcasting network ITV (TV network), ITV. The network's headquarters are based in London and Leeds, with creative hubs in Glasgow and Bristol. It is publicly owned and advertising-funded; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), the station is now owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation, a public corporation of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, which was established in 1990 and came into operation in 1993. Until 2010, Channel 4 did not broadcast in Wales, but many of its programmes were re-broadcast ...
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AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan, he founded ''All Music Guide' ...
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American Bullfrog
The American bullfrog (''Lithobates catesbeianus''), often simply known as the bullfrog in Canada and the United States, is a large true frog native to eastern North America. It typically inhabits large permanent water bodies such as swamps, ponds, and lakes. Bullfrogs can also be found in man made habitats such as pools, koi ponds, canals, ditches and culverts. The bullfrog gets its name from the sound the male makes during the breeding season, which sounds similar to a bull bellowing. The bullfrog is large and is commonly eaten throughout its range, especially in the southern United States where they are plentiful. Their presence as a food source has led to bullfrogs being distributed around the world outside of their native range. Bullfrogs have been introduced into the Western United States, South America, Western Europe, China, Japan, and southeast Asia. In these places they are invasive species due to their voracious appetite and the large number of eggs they produce, havi ...
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Howard The Duck (film)
''Howard the Duck'', known in Europe as ''Howard: A New Breed of Hero'', is a 1986 American superhero comedy film directed by Willard Huyck and starring Lea Thompson, Jeffrey Jones, and Tim Robbins. Based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, the film was produced by Gloria Katz and written by Huyck and Katz, with George Lucas as executive producer. The screenplay was originally intended to be an animated film, but the film adaptation became live-action because of a contractual obligation. Although several TV adaptations of Marvel characters had aired during the preceding 21 years, this was the first attempt at a theatrical release since the '' Captain America'' serial of 1944. Lucas proposed adapting the comic book following the production of ''American Graffiti'' (1973). After multiple production difficulties and mixed response to test screenings, ''Howard the Duck'' was released in theaters on August 1, 1986. Upon its release, the film was a critical and commerci ...
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John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (30 August 1939 ā€“ 25 October 2004), known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey (DJ) and radio presenter. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004. Peel was one of the first broadcasters to play psychedelic rock and progressive rock records on British radio. He is widely acknowledged for promoting artists of multiple genres, including pop, dub reggae, punk rock and post-punk, electronic music and dance music, indie rock, extreme metal and British hip hop. Fellow DJ Paul Gambaccini described Peel as "the most important man in music for about a dozen years". Peel's Radio 1 shows were notable for the regular "Peel sessions", which usually consisted of four songs recorded by an artist in the BBC's studios, often providing the first major national coverage to bands that later achieved fame. Another feature was the annual Festive Fifty countdown of his ...
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Steve McQueen (album)
''Steve McQueen'' is the second studio album by English pop band Prefab Sprout, released in June 1985 by Kitchenware Records. The album was released by CBS in the United States as ''Two Wheels Good'' in anticipation of legal conflict with the estate of American actor Steve McQueen. The album cover references Steve McQueen's lifelong passion for Triumph motorcycles and the 1963 film '' The Great Escape''. On 2 April 2007, it was reissued as a "legacy edition" double CD, featuring a remastered version of the original album and a bonus disc featuring acoustic versions of the songs recorded in 2006 by the band's frontman, Paddy McAloon. Recording On an episode of the BBC Radio 1 programme ''Roundtable'', musician and producer Thomas Dolby, a panelist on the programme, spoke favourably of Prefab Sprout's "Don't Sing", a track from their 1984 album '' Swoon''. The band subsequently contacted Dolby, who met with frontman and songwriter Paddy McAloon in the latter's County Durham home. ...
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Melody Maker
''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born composer, publisher Lawrence Wright; the first editor was Edgar Jackson. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" (and IPC Media sister publication) ''New Musical Express''. 1950sā€“1960s Originally the ''Melody Maker'' (''MM'') concentrated on jazz, and had Max Jones, one of the leading British proselytizers for that music, on its staff for many years. It was slow to cover rock and roll and lost ground to the ''New Musical Express'' (''NME''), which had begun in 1952. ''MM'' launched its own weekly singles chart (a top 20) on 7 April 1956, and an LPs charts in November 1958, two years after the ''Record Mirror'' had published the first UK Albums Chart. From 1964, the paper led its rival publications in terms of approac ...
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One-hit Wonder
A one-hit wonder or viral hit is any entity that achieves mainstream popularity, often for only one piece of work, and becomes known among the general public solely for that momentary success. The term is most commonly used in regard to music performers with only one hit single that overshadows their other work. Some artists dubbed "one-hit wonders" in a particular country have had great success in other countries. Music artists with subsequent popular albums and hit listings are typically not considered a one-hit wonder. One-hit wonders usually see their popularity decreasing after their hit listing and most often do not ever return to hit listings with other songs or albums. Music industry In ''The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders,'' music journalist Wayne Jancik defines a one-hit wonder as "an act that has won a position on henational, pop, Top 40 record chart just once." This formal definition can include acts with greater success outside their lone pop hit and who are ...
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David Wild
David Wild (born December 16, 1961) is an American writer and critic in the music and television industries and a contributing editor at ''Rolling Stone'' magazine. His published books include ''Friends: The Official Companion'' (1995), ''Seinfeld: The Totally Unauthorized Tribute'' (1998), '' Friends 'til the end'' (2004), and others. Wild hosted the television series ''Musicians'', which aired on Bravo! in 2001. His writing credits for television include over two dozen series and specials. In 2001, he was nominated for an Emmy for his work on ''America: A Tribute to Heroes''. Wild has written for the Grammy Awards since 2001, and became a producer for the show in 2016. Wild is an alumnus of Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an .... Wild was a freq ...
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