Flashback: 'Swing The Mood' - Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers
14th October 2024
Eight straight weeks at the top for 'Die With A Smile'! Crazy. This means we'll flashback thirty-five years to 1989 when the #1 song was 'Swing The Mood' by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers, whoever the hell they are?! I've genuinely never heard of this one before, and it's kind of giving novelty song vibes. I mean, just look at this album cover:
What on earth is going on here? Is this the 80's version of Crazy Frog? Let's take a listen.
Okay, so it's basically just a medley of old songs. And it's not even that good? I'm honestly a little flabbergasted that something this derivative got to #1 (in 13 different countries!!), but then again so did Crazy Frog. Jive Bunny is not quite as annoying as Crazy Frog was, but he still kinda sucks. And is also very visually unappealing.
The people behind Jive Bunny are a bunch of DJs which makes sense considering that 'Swing The Mood' is essentially just a DJ mix. Although you'd think it would be... I dunno... slightly catchier? The songs sampled are all pretty good in their own right, but when combined into 'Swing The Mood' it's just not doing much for me.
The songs appearing in 'Swing The Mood' are mostly from the 50's and although the NZ charts don't go back that far, you can pretty safely assume that if they did, several of these songs would have been #1's, so in a way it's nice that they sort of became #1's through this. We've got 'Rock Around the Clock' and 'Shake Rattle and Roll' both by Bill Haley and His Comets; 'Tutti Frutti' by Little Richard; The Everly Brothers' 'Wake Up Little Susie'; Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog', 'Shook Up', and 'Jailhouse Rock'; and 'At The Hop' by Danny and the Juniors.
All fun songs, but somehow combined into one by this stupid ass Jive Bunny they leave me cold.
See you next week when we'll see if anybody can manage to topple Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars from their throne at the top of the charts.
