I think Paul liked their cover of Every Little Thing and signed them after their first album.
DBWI: Apple Corps fizzles out
- Thread starter Garrett_Cartoonist
- Start date
But Changed everything, and was a slap on the face to other records..they thought piracy would kill sales...after download, people wanted to buy their albums because people love to own those songs too, that was something others record companies never fogive to the Apple Corps, but showed that, people could spend money if the like the product, beatles got a revival thanks that.
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I'm the only one who's mentioned Apple Films. Aren't they a big film company?
Sorry we got sidetracked, getting Kubrick to Film LOTR, specially after lenon conviced his fellow beatles to better hire more professional actors and they just make the music, took a long to get it done, was a mess, but was such a beauty megahit needed to start big, getting the chance to the them trucker make film director James Cameron was such a coup.
Plus Ringo's talent in acting in their early films didn't hurt!
It's ironic given the acts that Lennon signed and allowed the freedom they did. I dunno how half of the songs on the Clash's Out of Control, even got on that album given how many of them seem almost directed at Thatcher and how she ran things (especially the major single, This is England.) Or signing Chumbawumba, a band who seemed to be almost having a betting pool which one was gonna give them a heart attack with their anarcho-punk shenanigans. Or Oasis and the sheer insanity of their constant feuding, one of the rare times that anyone in power at Apple Corps had to step in on an album (forcing the Gallaghers to lower the mixing and cut the songs down) which ended up saving Be Here Now and possibly the band itself, though the brothers did split off eventually.
Also, it forever amuses me that they signed the Buggles, a three-man act that was parodying the Beatles, though they did get Trevor Horn out of that deal.
I mean... it did kill sales for St. Anger since everyone listened to it and decided to not waste their money, which is why every interview or bit of backstage footage people can find of Lars Ulrich nowadays usually has him shouting expletives in Lennon's direction.
I mean, it WAS lucrative, not only because of Horn's production work, but also the Buggles' streak of successful sci-fi concept albums.
Man, what did they call Horn's set-up? The Wall of Synth? The Wall of Samples? I know they called it something cute as a reference to Spector's Wall of Sound.
We wouldn't have Apple Computing, because that trademark knockoff probably would have gone out of the business in the '90s had they not been snapped up at a pittance by the Apple empire.
The Wall of Noise! That's right! Oh... oh yeah! I remember the story now! Spector gave it that name because he was growing increasingly paranoid of Horn's success behind the scenes and started deriding him in the press.
"See, when people think of Phil Spector, they think of the Wall of Sound. Trevor Horn doesn't have a Wall of Sound. He's got a Wall of Noise."
Then Horn started unironically using the name like a badge of honor (which is why he and some other producers released an album called The Art of Noise in '84.) Ironic that a lot of later Spector-produced albums started aping that same style of production. It's no surprise that the main hero and villain in Phantom of the Paradise were pretty much based on Horn and Spector.
And we can't forget when Apple took interest in the lo-fi outsider music scene. For a long time they had this mail system where aspiring artists could mail their self-recorded tapes and demos to Apple and they'd be pressed as flexi-disks for Apple Magazine subscribers and for bonuses in their albums and a whole bunch of other methods. I may be mistaking, but didn't Daniel Johnston get his start that way?
Wasn't that The Buggles most ambitious concept album/rock opera at that time? I remember watching the film adaptation all the time when I was younger
I don't know about Johnston, but I know they managed to sign Loreena McKennit after she mailed them her demo tapes. She had been pretty much doing the same thing locally for a while to some solid success, so she tried with Apple Corps and got signed.
Oh, it was hella ambitious. They pretty much had to create sci-fi alternate versions of various musical acts, creating a mix of familiarity and distance at the same time. Being on the same record as the performers helped to make the fake acts like Queen Smile, Radio P.I.N.K. The London Blitz and especially the titular Buggles sound like the real deal. I still argue that it weren't for that album, Dennis DeYoung wouldn't have signed with Apple Corps as Kilroy and launched his own concept album, Kilroy was Here and probably would've stayed with Styx.
Yeah, Loreena McKennitt is pretty great. I know she, They Might Be Giants, and Ween are some of the most successful artists signed through the mail system, but none of them would have happened probably if not for Johnston being the first.
I'm pretty sure if Apple didn't make the concept album as beloved as it was, people would probably listen to music out of order and skip tracks way more frequently.
Here's a question for ya folks: Which version of the Darkness did you prefer? The Hawkins era or the Avidan era?
Honestly I like 'em both. Justin and Danny both have great voices and made great songs! What about this. Which singer of Yes do ya prefer: Jon Anderson or Morten Harket?
Oooh, that is tough. Like, Anderson is pretty much intrinsically a part of Yes and is amazing, but 90125 is pretty much one of the best albums Harket has done and while I can't see ever see it as an a-ha album, I also can't see Anderson ever doing vocals on it (despite him writing songs for it like Owner of a Lonely Heart.)
Which reminds me: How did he end up joining Yes in the first place?
I think it was something to the effect of Anderson and Wakeman were burnt out, Bruce Woolley and Geoffrey Downes of the were considered since the two bands had collaborated,notably on the Buggles' album Life. World. Yes. I think Downes might've been still in Asia at the time and there was some sort of weird mix-up in communications. Complete accident, they were looking to contact the lead singer of Asia, John Wetton, but someone heard "Get me the lead singer of Aha!" (It's been disputed who said it, but my money's on Ringo) and by sheer chance, they found a-ha, brought in Harket and Furuholmen, had Waaktaar do session work for some other bands working at Apple Corps, and kept Trevor Horn on production for the album. Anderson and Wakemen came back for the next album, but introducing the western world to Harket through Yes ended up doing great things for a-ha's debut album Hunting High and Low.
I imagine if it weren't for that, It's Always Sunny on TV wouldn't have used the similarly-titled single for their theme song and people's lasting impression of a-ha would've been like, I dunno, Take on Me. Don't get me wrong, the song is good, but I absolutely love The Sun Always Shines on TV and consider it a-ha's finest work.