"Friday On My Mind" Elliot Goblet (Avenue Records, 1989)

This 1989 cover of The Easybeats' 1966 classic should have been released in America. Seriously.



Elliot Goblet is a persona of Australian comedian Jack Levi. And why Apple and/or Amazon never used Elliot Goblet's voice instead of Siri and Alexa should be worthy of a federal investigation. 

Kellogg's Just Right Cereal

Kellogg's Just Right cereal was introduced in the USA in 1985. My mom bought a box and I remember us trying this, only getting a few bites in until we had to dump the rest of our bowls into the trash. It was nasty.

My peers in high school had the same opinion and we called it Just Sucks. The cereal was basically a fruitcake in a box. It had bran flakes, corn flakes, dates, raisins, almond bits and oats and pretty much targeted at the yuppie bunch.

This cereal had a massive ubiquitous TV advertising campaign for it (perhaps the largest I had ever seen for a cereal) and discount offers that moms of that time couldn't resist. But everyone under the age of 30 hated this commercial as much as the cereal because it was guaranteed to pop up at least 4 times an hour during daytime TV, it was nearly as bad during prime time and late at night too in 1985. It was everywhere on every channel.

But unbeknownst to the rest of us, this commercial would ironically be the launch pad for the career of one of the biggest pop stars of the '90s.


(For years, I thought Tori Amos' 1994 hit "Cornflake Girl" was her way of venting her angst over this commercial and the disgusting taste of that cereal that never seemed to go away. An interpretive sort of thing. But that wasn't the case. The interpretive venting over this disgusting cereal was probably Y Kant Tori Read.) 

Just Right cereal was discontinued in America in the early '90s, but it's still sold in Australia.

   

The Colonel Sanders Christmas Albums

Kentucky Fried Chicken holiday bucket and lid, circa late 1960s.

The 1960s and '70s will always be the heyday of the Christmas album loss leader. Tire companies were using Christmas records to entice customers. Department and grocery stores too. If it was round with grooves and played at 33 1/3 RPM, you were likely getting extra business with it.

Colonel Sanders was also bitten by the Christmas vinyl bug. And released his own series of Christmas compilation albums through RCA from 1967 to 1969.

1967

1968

There was even an Australian pressing of the 1968 edition!

Here's the 1969 edition (the last in the series.)

The Australian Womens Weekly Christmas Special (2013)

"I Was Only 19" The Herd feat. Redgum (2005)

In 1983, there was a major hit record in Australia nobody in America has ever heard at that time.

But one they should have. Sadly, it didn't get any American radio airplay or distribution.

The song was called "I Was Only 19 (A Walk In The Light Green)" by Redgum, an Australian folk group that described the Australian experience in the Vietnam War and it's aftermath in a way any American veteran of that war could easily relate.

The early '80s seemed to be filled with songs about the Vietnam War. From "Still In Saigon" The Charlie Daniels Band, "Goodnight Saigon" Billy Joel, the ubiquitous "Born In The USA" Bruce Springsteen (among many he wrote.) The Clash also recorded several songs about the Vietnam War. And of course, there was the just plain dopey "19" Paul Hardcastle.

Time warp to 2005.

Australian hip-hop group The Herd (no relation to Peter Frampton's late '60s band, of course) remakes "I Was Only 19". Their version included John Schumann, Redgum's lead vocalist in the song's bridge and, most surprisingly, in the song's final rap. He is also highlighted in the song's video.


The Herd's remake became another major hit in Australia. Their version went to #18 on Triple J Radio's Hottest 100 countdown of 2005 and got regular airplay on the network.

"Down Under" Men At Work (Original Version, 1980)

This is the original independent Australian self-release of "Down Under" by Men At Work. It was the B-side to their first local single titled "Keypunch Operator", released before the band signed with CBS Records.

This version of "Down Under" sounds almost entirely different from the worldwide famous hit version, which is upbeat and poppy. This original version is much slower, almost reggae in tempo.

Chris Gaines

In 1999, a greatest hits album dropped onto the record store shelves that left everybody puzzled in how to explain it without saying "You better sit down for this".....

It was from somebody named Chris Gaines. An Australian singer who did something no other Australian singer could do; look and sound exactly like Garth Brooks.

This of course, was actually a Garth Brooks album. The concept behind it was a planned, but never materialized movie called The Lamb starring Brooks as Chris Gaines, an Australian pop singer who's life, from the early press buzz at the time, seemed loosely based on the life of INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence (who died in 1997.)

Garth Brooks' fans literally thought he lost his mind. Country stars aren't supposed to do that.

But with all fairness, it did reveal Garth Brooks wasn't just a one trick pony. He could cross genres and do a very good job of it musically. Some say (and I still think) his biggest mistake was the Chris Gaines alter-ego. If he had just kept the Garth Brooks identity and said this was a pop-leaning album, he might have had another mega-platinum smash.

While the Chris Gaines album went double platinum (still very respectable in 1999), it was Garth Brooks' LEAST selling album.

In a way, it might have been a blessing. Garth Brooks was at the very peak of his fame and the endless touring, TV appearances, interviews and record company obligations to Capitol was getting too much for a now very wealthy man who was witnessing what everything was doing to his young family. Something had to give.

The songs range from classic Garth sounding numbers ("It Don't Matter To The Sun"), to an R&B vocal track that sounded like anything L.A. Reid and Babyface could have produced.

 
 ("Lost In You" - credited to Chris Gaines and not Garth Brooks, actually got airplay on Smooth Jazz radio stations in 1999/2000!)