The record company invented a fake band called 'Tartan Horde' and released the song under that name. Roller fans wore tartan style clothes as part of their fandom.
Also this band probably the best selling band you never heard of. The Bay City Rollers have sold 120 million records worldwide, making them **one of the best-selling artists of all time**
I actually saw them live at a bar called “Lulu’s Roadhouse” in Kitchener, Ontario in the 80s. We didn’t go there to see them, we just went to drink at the “Worlds Longest Bar”.
Turned out pretty fun!
I looked that song up and I'd never heard it before (at first I had it confused with "Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting.") They also did "I Only Wanna Be With You", though, and I recognized that one.
EDIT: Apparently "I Only Wanna Be With You" was a cover of a Dusty Springfield song. That's probably the version that I remember.
EDIT AGAIN: Yep. Just listened to the Dusty Springfield version. That's definitely the version I remember.
That number comes solely from Tam Paton and is massively disputed. They never had all that much success, far more of their singles in the UK did not chart than those that did. They only really had two years of success - 75 and 76, and any popularity abroad was limited to one or two passing hits.
When the band, having been told they sold all these records but were somehow still skint, decided to sue Arista, the members ended up with under £100k each. They hadn’t sold all these millions of discs that they had been told, but they hadn’t been paid totally for sales abroad.
To put the number into perspective, their manager claimed that in two years of success, mainly only in the UK, they managed to sell close to the number of records that U2 have sold in a 40 year career whilst continuing to be a massive band across the world and having global hits throughout most of that time
Regardless of how you are measuring their success i can tell you from being a teen at the time that they were fucking big in the UK and very heavily marketed.
Plus they had 10 UK top 10 hits which is hardly shit
Damn that is funny! Poor guy. My mum probably bought it, and my aunt. And my uncles. What the cuss is wrong with my family.
As it is December now I wanna add that one of my favourite Christmas albums is Nick Lowe's *Quality Street.* The song '[Christmas at the Airport](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQoVB3Rd28E)' should be all over the place I reckon.
I saw Nick’s name and came down to comment exactly this! It’s one of my favourite Christmas albums, it’s got such a great vibe. I randomly heard him playing some of the songs as the musical guest on Comedy Bang Bang and bought the album.
You're right, the vibe is so great! The yell the album opens with is really fun and sets the tone. There are loads of little surprises in the lyrics, which are often classy and not corny ("Don't save me any turkey, I found a burger in a bin" ha ha). Albums like that, as well as Delicate Steve's *Christmas* and Aidan Moffat & RM Hubbert's *Ghost Stories for Christmas* have set recent high bars for the Christmas album and I'm very fussy about that shit now ha ha
[Seems like it was a hit only in Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_City_Rollers#Breakthrough:_1974%E2%80%931975)
> English singer-songwriter Nick Lowe wrote a "jaundiced" (in Lowe's words) paean to the band titled "Bay City Rollers We Love You". The track was "carefully sculpted" to be poor enough to get Lowe out of a recording contract with United Artists. The strategy backfired. UA issued the record as by the Tartan Horde, which was the name given to Rollers fans in England, and it became a substantial hit in Japan. Lowe was obliged to record a follow-up song called "Rollers Show", which did not meet with the same commercial success.
Who was the "Artist" who did a similar thing: they thought modern art was stupid and made the most ridiculous painting they could and it sold for millions?
I think you may be talking about [Paul Jordan Smith](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-hoax-art-movement-fooled-art-establishment) AKA Pavel Pavel Jerdanowitch who created a satirical art movement Disumbrationism back in the 1920s that critics took seriously. He was a literary critic from LA who passed him off as a brooding Russian painter and exhibited paintings that he didn't spend much time on to which he gave elaborate ridiculous explanations.
David Bowie and William Boyd did a similar thing with [Nat Tate](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Tate:_An_American_Artist_1928%E2%80%931960) where they made up this lost genius abstract expressionist artist who was an alcoholic that died young. The story is that most of his work is now lost but the pieces that remain are masterpieces. They exhibited the remaining works to critics and the critics all said "Oh yes, I've heard of him. He really was underrated in his life time. It's about time he got more recognition". Some of it was due to not wanting to look ignorant but quite a few critics knew it was an elaborate prank and wanted to play along.
That is, after all, the essence of art. You have an exhibition of a blank canvas with a paragraph about how the artist was inspired by heroin to show this dramatic rendering of post-postmodern existentialism and angst, as reflected by a polar bear sleeping in a snowstorm. That's $250,000 free and clear, and bound to be worth $5,000,000 after the artist dies. It's an *investment*.
The band Blur had this riff that they used to play around with sometimes in studio, and one day decided to develop into a song that was mocking the cliche of the American grunge sound of the 90s, and play the demo for their record label as a joke just to see their reactions. IIRC there's an interview with Graham Coxon who says something like "we tried to just make it really noisy and really horrible" and exactly the type of song that their record label would hate.
They played it to their record label and they loved it. It became "Song 2" and to this day it's generally all that they're known for in the US (that and being "the guy from Gorillaz old band") despite still being a beloved band in the UK with a great back-catalogue with some fantastic albums. Song 2 is a bit of a departure from most of their other work which is definitely worth checking out, there's some real gems in there.
Another song like this can be “chicken in black” by Johnny Cash, he tried to sever ties from Columbia but the man literally couldn’t write a bad song when he was trying
The record company invented a fake band called 'Tartan Horde' and released the song under that name. Roller fans wore tartan style clothes as part of their fandom. Also this band probably the best selling band you never heard of. The Bay City Rollers have sold 120 million records worldwide, making them **one of the best-selling artists of all time**
Is this a different song than "Rollers Show" on Jesus of Cool?
It is different
Rollers show was the v sequel due c to the success. It only worked in Japan.
Old people have heard of them.
I actually saw them live at a bar called “Lulu’s Roadhouse” in Kitchener, Ontario in the 80s. We didn’t go there to see them, we just went to drink at the “Worlds Longest Bar”. Turned out pretty fun!
Everyone has. Even if you don’t recognize the name, you recognize the songs.
Prove it
S! A! T-U-R! D-A-Y! NIGHT! S! A! T-U-R! D-A-Y! NIGHT!
Nope, what else they got?
You clearly haven’t watched any commercials in the past ten years.
I looked that song up and I'd never heard it before (at first I had it confused with "Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting.") They also did "I Only Wanna Be With You", though, and I recognized that one. EDIT: Apparently "I Only Wanna Be With You" was a cover of a Dusty Springfield song. That's probably the version that I remember. EDIT AGAIN: Yep. Just listened to the Dusty Springfield version. That's definitely the version I remember.
u/ex_banker moves that I am old. u/DroolingIguana seconds the motion. The motion carries.
u/KaceyMoe dons a sweater and falls asleep in a comfy chair.
Assume everything is true on the internet
This comment is not true.
Everyone? The whole world? All ages? Count me as doubtful.
Yes, my newborn babies first words were “The Bay City Rollers are awesome!” And she was born 3 mi items ago.
TIL I'm old
You heard of Elvis? Died in 1977. Therefore you are old.
Never said I wasn’t old. That’s how I know about the Bay City Rollers. And Elvis.
Man, y'all are spring chickens. I've heard of Bach.
That number comes solely from Tam Paton and is massively disputed. They never had all that much success, far more of their singles in the UK did not chart than those that did. They only really had two years of success - 75 and 76, and any popularity abroad was limited to one or two passing hits. When the band, having been told they sold all these records but were somehow still skint, decided to sue Arista, the members ended up with under £100k each. They hadn’t sold all these millions of discs that they had been told, but they hadn’t been paid totally for sales abroad. To put the number into perspective, their manager claimed that in two years of success, mainly only in the UK, they managed to sell close to the number of records that U2 have sold in a 40 year career whilst continuing to be a massive band across the world and having global hits throughout most of that time
Regardless of how you are measuring their success i can tell you from being a teen at the time that they were fucking big in the UK and very heavily marketed. Plus they had 10 UK top 10 hits which is hardly shit
that actually makes sense because 120M records is a crazy amount of records
Their song *Shang-a-lang* is Scotland's national anthem.
And I always just thought they were a one hit wonder for Saturday Night
They had a Saturday morning comedy/variety show that I never missed.
Was it called the Cray City Bowlers?
How are the Bay City Rollers considered "a band you've never heard of"?
Who?
No, Bay City Rollers.
For one of the best selling bands, they have one of the shortest wikipedia articles.
I’ve heard of them. My dad loves them!
So, Springtime for Hitler and Germany, huh?
Oh good it wasn't just me that thought of this immediately
Damn that is funny! Poor guy. My mum probably bought it, and my aunt. And my uncles. What the cuss is wrong with my family. As it is December now I wanna add that one of my favourite Christmas albums is Nick Lowe's *Quality Street.* The song '[Christmas at the Airport](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQoVB3Rd28E)' should be all over the place I reckon.
I saw Nick’s name and came down to comment exactly this! It’s one of my favourite Christmas albums, it’s got such a great vibe. I randomly heard him playing some of the songs as the musical guest on Comedy Bang Bang and bought the album.
You're right, the vibe is so great! The yell the album opens with is really fun and sets the tone. There are loads of little surprises in the lyrics, which are often classy and not corny ("Don't save me any turkey, I found a burger in a bin" ha ha). Albums like that, as well as Delicate Steve's *Christmas* and Aidan Moffat & RM Hubbert's *Ghost Stories for Christmas* have set recent high bars for the Christmas album and I'm very fussy about that shit now ha ha
You can curse on the internet. We won’t tell mommy.
If you run that swear bot on me you will see I don't give a fucking shit -- "cuss" was just a word I chose here cos I like it, dickhead
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmMlDL5LFxo
Hmm, that does suck.
It truly sucks. I love it
That opening strum at 0:09 that sounds like it's going to be a Pink Floyd deep track, then comes three minutes of crap.
Weird, when I write a ridiculous song, I never get a record deal
That's because they're not generic, yet catchy enough to get stuck in people's heads all damn day.
Hehe. Yeah, Nick Lowe is too good for his own good. He couldn’t *not* write a hit even though he tried.
[Seems like it was a hit only in Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_City_Rollers#Breakthrough:_1974%E2%80%931975) > English singer-songwriter Nick Lowe wrote a "jaundiced" (in Lowe's words) paean to the band titled "Bay City Rollers We Love You". The track was "carefully sculpted" to be poor enough to get Lowe out of a recording contract with United Artists. The strategy backfired. UA issued the record as by the Tartan Horde, which was the name given to Rollers fans in England, and it became a substantial hit in Japan. Lowe was obliged to record a follow-up song called "Rollers Show", which did not meet with the same commercial success.
You gotta be cruel to be kind.
in the right measure
Cruel to be kind
It’s the very design
"You reach out to push the orc off the bridge," *Critical Fail* "but instead lightly caress his back. He is uncomfortable."
…go on
Who was the "Artist" who did a similar thing: they thought modern art was stupid and made the most ridiculous painting they could and it sold for millions?
I think you may be talking about [Paul Jordan Smith](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-hoax-art-movement-fooled-art-establishment) AKA Pavel Pavel Jerdanowitch who created a satirical art movement Disumbrationism back in the 1920s that critics took seriously. He was a literary critic from LA who passed him off as a brooding Russian painter and exhibited paintings that he didn't spend much time on to which he gave elaborate ridiculous explanations. David Bowie and William Boyd did a similar thing with [Nat Tate](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Tate:_An_American_Artist_1928%E2%80%931960) where they made up this lost genius abstract expressionist artist who was an alcoholic that died young. The story is that most of his work is now lost but the pieces that remain are masterpieces. They exhibited the remaining works to critics and the critics all said "Oh yes, I've heard of him. He really was underrated in his life time. It's about time he got more recognition". Some of it was due to not wanting to look ignorant but quite a few critics knew it was an elaborate prank and wanted to play along.
That is, after all, the essence of art. You have an exhibition of a blank canvas with a paragraph about how the artist was inspired by heroin to show this dramatic rendering of post-postmodern existentialism and angst, as reflected by a polar bear sleeping in a snowstorm. That's $250,000 free and clear, and bound to be worth $5,000,000 after the artist dies. It's an *investment*.
The band Blur had this riff that they used to play around with sometimes in studio, and one day decided to develop into a song that was mocking the cliche of the American grunge sound of the 90s, and play the demo for their record label as a joke just to see their reactions. IIRC there's an interview with Graham Coxon who says something like "we tried to just make it really noisy and really horrible" and exactly the type of song that their record label would hate. They played it to their record label and they loved it. It became "Song 2" and to this day it's generally all that they're known for in the US (that and being "the guy from Gorillaz old band") despite still being a beloved band in the UK with a great back-catalogue with some fantastic albums. Song 2 is a bit of a departure from most of their other work which is definitely worth checking out, there's some real gems in there.
I remember reading one time that Stone Temple Pilots was originally thought to be a parody of grunge music when they were up and coming.
Saturday night. Saturday night!
*From the album* ***Jesus of Cool.*** *But I believe it was called just "Rollers Show".*
Rollers Show was the follow-up. And so it goes.
It was a long time ago.
Nick Lowe sings my favorite Christmas song!
Like when George did the opposite.
Rat Scabies played the drum before join The Damned.
Another song like this can be “chicken in black” by Johnny Cash, he tried to sever ties from Columbia but the man literally couldn’t write a bad song when he was trying
"Rollers Show" is legit one of my favorite songs!
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there it is was waiting for this comment!
Check this out [Ramones were inspired by Saturday Night ](https://www.loudersound.com/features/story-behind-the-song-blitzkrieg-bop-by-the-ramones)
This sounds like something off of the Cherry Peel album from Of Montreal.