"Gonna Make You A Star" is a

pop/rock Pop rock (also typeset as pop/rock) is a fusion genre with an emphasis on professional songwriting and recording craft, and less emphasis on attitude than rock music. Originating in the late 1950s as an alternative to normal rock and roll, earl ...

recording by

David Essex David Essex (born David Albert Cook; 23 July 1947) is an English singer, songwriter, and actor. Since the 1970s, he has attained 19 Top 40 singles in the UK (including two number ones) and 16 Top 40 albums. Internationally, Essex had the most ...

. Written by David Essex and produced by

Jeff Wayne Jeffry Wayne (born 1 July 1943) is an American-British composer, musician and lyricist. In 1978, he released ''Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds'', his musical adaptation of H. G. Wells' science-fiction novel ''The War of ...

, "Gonna Make You a Star" was Essex's first number-one, spending three weeks at the top of the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

, in November 1974. It peaked at number 105 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart in the USA. The record featured prominent use of the

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

. In 2007, the song was released again by

Lee Mead Lee Stephen Mead (born 14 July 1981) is an English musical theatre, television actor and occasional singer, best known for winning the title role in the 2007 West End revival of '' Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'' through the BBC T ...

, winner of the '' Any Dream Will Do''

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...

TV competition, which was then shown in the spring of 2009 in the US on

BBC America BBC America is an American basic cable network that is jointly owned by BBC Studios and AMC Networks. The channel primarily airs sci-fi and action series and films, as well as selected programs from the BBC (such as its nature documentary ser ...

; Mead then starred in the title role for 18 months in

Andrew Lloyd Webber Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber (born 22 March 1948), is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 21 musicals, ...

's West End revival of ''

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat ''Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'' (often colloquially known as ''Joseph'') is a sung-through musical with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the character of Joseph from the Bible's Book of Genesis. Th ...

.'' British comedian Peter Kay had his character Marc Park release "Gonna Make You a Star" as his first single after winning the fictional ''Talent Trek'' competition in his 2000 Channel 4 spoof documentary series ''

That Peter Kay Thing ''That Peter Kay Thing'' is a series of six spoof documentaries shown on Channel 4 in 2000. It was written by Peter Kay, Dave Spikey, Neil Fitzmaurice and Gareth Hughes, and was directed by Andrew Gillman. The series was narrated by Andrew Sachs ...

''. Essex's song was also featured in his

jukebox musical A jukebox musical is a stage musical or musical film in which a majority of the songs are well-known popular music songs, rather than original music. Some jukebox musicals use a wide variety of songs, while others confine themselves to songs perfo ...

, ''

All the Fun of the Fair ''All the Fun of the Fair'' is a 2008 jukebox musical with a book by Jon Conway, based on the songs of David Essex. The title of the musical is taken from David Essex's 1975 album ''All the Fun of the Fair.'' The show had an initial provincial ru ...

.''

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References

1974 singles David Essex songs UK Singles Chart number-one singles Irish Singles Chart number-one singles Songs written by David Essex 1974 songs Song recordings produced by Jeff Wayne {{1970s-single-stub