"Popcorn"
This melody is well known to us from childhood thanks to the episode with the construction site in the cartoon "Just you wait!", As well as the splash screen of the "Sportloto" lottery. Today we will talk about its history and how it influenced the musical culture of different countries!
The author of the melody is the composer Gershon Kingsley, known in America for his arrangements for Broadway musicals, Hollywood films, TV shows and commercials. He recorded Pop Corn in 1969 while working on Music to Moog By, an eclectical collection of synthesizer cover versions of The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel and... Beethoven!
In Europe and America, the first experiments with synthesizer music began in the second half of the 60s, after the American engineer Dr. Robert Moog presented the public with the first monophonic analog synthesizer in 1964. Paul Beaver and Miki Dolenz were among the first to use it when recording the 4th album of The Monkees "Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd" in 1967.
Two years later, Moog was used by The Beatles during a session at Abbey Road Studios. The synthesizer belonged to George Harrison and was used on his initiative. The sound of Moog can be heard on the tracks: “Maxwell's Silver Hammer”, “I Want You (She's So Heavy)”, “Here Comes The Sun and Because”.
“The first time I heard about the Moog synthesizer was in America. I wanted to buy it as soon as Mr. Moog invented it. It was huge - with a hundred levers and two keyboards "
The melody owes its name to its short and abrupt staccato, reminiscent of the sound of popping popcorn. However, according to some critics, Gershon Kingsley put a deeper meaning into it - it was supposedly about pop music and how puffy it is, that is, “corny”. However, in 2005, Kingsley denied these rumors:
“I listened to the sound of the popcorn machine over and over and it occurred to me that I could create a melody out of it. I spent the next day experimenting with my Moog synthesizer, looking for a catchy sound. As a result, I completely created the entire composition on one synthesizer. That's how Popcorn came about."
(from an interview with Gershon Kingsley)
In 1971, Kingsley re-released "Popcorn" in the name of his new group, the First Moog Quartet, which he had formed the year before, to the new sound he had discovered. On October 30, 1970, the First Moog Quartet became the first group to play synthesizer music at Carnegie Hall! Meanwhile, one of the members of the First Moog Quartet - Stan Free decided to form his own Moog group called Hot Butter...
Hot Butter
It was in the performance of Hot Butter that the melody Pop Corn gained worldwide fame and became the second synth composition to reach the American pop chart (three years earlier, "Minotaur" by Dick Hyman & His Electric Eclectics had been there). It peaked at number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 4 on the Easy Listening chart. But "Puffed Corn" had even greater success outside of America, leading the national charts in Germany - 3 weeks, Norway - 6 weeks, France - 7 weeks, Australia - 8 weeks, and in Switzerland as many as 10!
In foggy Great Britain, the reception was more restrained - the 5th line of the chart, in Canada - the 15th.
In Italy, several cover versions were created for the composition at once: by La Strana Società (2nd place in the chart), The Popcorn Makers project (also 2nd line!), And also by Mister K (#7). But the version of Hot Butter was also noted there, taking a modest 19th place.
In France, a remake of the Anarchic System group was the first with words, another barely noticeable cover was released by the Pop Corn Orchestra project, under the pseudonym of which, by the way, the same Jean-Michel Jar was hiding. However, none of them managed to repeat the success of Hot Butter, whose record sold 900,000 copies and, according to the results of the century, took 131st place in the list of the best-selling records of France of the twentieth century!
In West Germany, the original instrumental arrangement of "Popcorn" was recreated by the famous James Last Orchestra. In America, the melody was performed by the Tom Spencer Orchestra, its arrangement was included in the Soviet jazz collection Parade of Orchestras of 1975, which was reissued in 1980.
A year later, the Hot Butter group will release another album "More Hot Butter", also consisting of electronic Moog versions of famous hits, and this will successfully complete its creative activity.
Other versions
In 1973, the British electronic group Elektrik Cokernut (aka Electric Coconut), who also actively experimented with Moog, would release the version known to us from the cartoon "Just you wait!" (10th series, episode with the construction site, 1976).
In 1987, the synth-pop project M&H Band released a version of "Corn", adapted to the sound of the 80s, which is also very popular in our country. True, for some reason its performance is traditionally attributed to Jean-Michel Jar.
In 1993, the Polish-German multi-instrumentalist Edvard Simoni will present an electronic arrangement of "Popcorn" superimposed on a dance rhythm. His version will be used in one of the episodes of the television series "Caution, modern!".
In 2003, Italian DJ Gigi D'Agostino created a trance version of "Corn", including it on his album "Silence E.P. Underconstruction 1".
In 2007, the Finnish artist Frederik recorded the song "Porno on pop" (the title of which is literally translated as "Porno is Pop"). A curious rock version of "Corn" was presented by the British band Muse - it was included in the album "Futurism" and as a B-side of the single "Resistance".
Film and Television
To this melody (already performed by the Meshcherin ensemble of electric musical instruments), every Sunday morning on the first channel of Soviet television, the Sportloto lottery was drawn. It is curious that in the American Detroit, to the tune of "Popcorn", the draws of the Michigan Lottery were held on the WDIV channel.
The melody was also used in the 1977 Soviet film "Three Merry Shifts" directed by Dmitry Mikhleev. You can hear it in the American comedy Drown Mona (2000), although it was not included in the official soundtrack.
In the 25th issue of the humorous program "Gorodok", in the "Advertising" section, "Popcorn" also sounded.
The American children's TV show The Muppets has a parody episode "Pöpcørn" with a Swedish chef dancing to the sound of popping corn - at the end of the episode, an exploding microwave bombards the entire kitchen with popcorn.
Currently, the melody "Popcorn" is used in the "Test Purchase" program during a comparative assessment of the cost of goods in different regions. A remix of this melody is used in the “Tear Off” section of the “All Inclusive” program of the Russia-2 TV channel.
Computer games
Game lovers know the tune "Popcorn" from the arcade game Pengo (1982), the soundtrack to Digger (1983) and the opening tune to the 1984 game Pyjamarama. As well as the game of the same year, Trollie Wallie.
Crazy Frog
On August 22, 2005, the German electronic group Crazy Frog released a dance version of "Popcorn", which became, among other things, the most popular ringtone. A funny CGI video clip of underwater life was created with the participation of Kaktus Film Studio and Eric Wernquist of TurboForce3D.
The single topped the charts in Belgium, Spain and New Zealand, but had the greatest success in France, where, dropping the hit of the same Crazy Frog "Axel F" from the first line, it topped the chart for 7 weeks! Three months later, he was certified diamond and also gold in Australia.
The further fate of Gershon Kingsley
Following the album "Music to Moog By", Gershon Kingsley released the album "First Moog Quartet", containing recordings of his live performances made during the world tour. Some of these compositions were even more experimental and contained interpolations of human speech. With the advent of new electronic musical devices, Kingsley continued to experiment with the Fairlight and the Synclavier (the first digital synthesizer).
Gershon Kingsley and his collaborator Jean-Jacques Perry, with whom he has produced many collaborations under the Perry-Kingsley name, are today known as the pioneers of electronic music and the creators of the composition "Baroque Hoedown" used by The Walt Disney Company in its theme parks for light parades, as well as "The Savers" for the game show The Joker's Wild. Kingsley also created a screensaver for the Boston television channel WGBH-TV.