Bruce & Bongo

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Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Singles
Hot
  DE 1Template: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / NR1 link 03/17/1986 (15 weeks)
  AT 1Template: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / NR1 link 04/15/1986 (14 weeks)
  CH 7th 04/27/1986 (7 weeks)
Heigh Ho - Whistle While You Work
  DE 29 06/23/1986 (8 weeks)

Bruce & Bongo was a British pop duo that reached number 1 in the German and Austrian single charts in April 1986 with the single Geil .

biography

Bruce Hammond Earlam (born January 13, 1955) and Douglas Wilgrove (born March 19, 1955) are behind Bruce and Bongo. Both were stationed in Germany as soldiers of the British Army and were confronted with the various uses of the word " geil " while learning the German language . This gave them the idea of recording a dance song with the inflationary use of the word. Disc jockeys , monkeys and Boris Becker , who celebrated his first success at Wimbledon at this time, are sung as cool . In the end, the performers describe themselves as awesome.

The song was considered offensive by a larger part of the population when it was published. So the playing Bavarian Radio and some television stations not single because the text sounded too obscene. For this reason, Thomas Gottschalk , who worked for the radio at the time, invited the artists again from an appointment. The record was briefly on the list of media harmful to minors .

Bruce & Bongo use early sampling techniques on the song . The melody of the chorus (cf. also the chorus of the Falco hit Rock Me Amadeus, which was released last year ) is based on a trumpet call by the British Army, a keyboard riff resembles a folk song melody. The title was included on their album The Geil Album , which sold over 500,000 times. Willem released a German cover version of the song at short notice . The ZYX Records label released two cover versions: a 1: 1 replayed version by Paul Mc Douglas (produced by Tess ) and a parody entitled Doof by the interpreter Moos on account (an artist initiative from Mönchengladbach, consisting of Günther Seidel and Thomas Mentsches) , whereby Seidel simply exchanged the word “geil” in his text for another four-letter word , namely “stupid”. The purpose was to show how easy it was at that time to produce a hit just by using a stimulus word. Accordingly, the B-side of the cover version was called The Path to the Millionaire Hit - Instructions for Use .

Bruce & Bongo also pursued the concept of simple fun numbers on their successor single. Heigh-Ho (Whistle While You Work) was a cover version of Frank Churchill's dwarf song from the Walt Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). The single almost reached the top 30 of the German single charts. In 1987 they recorded the title Holidays Are Here Again with Klaus and Klaus .

In 1998 Bruce & Bongo released a remix of their hit single together with British rapper Tony T. , but without any notable success.

The melody of the single Geil was used in 2003 for a commercial for the “ Geiz-ist-geil-Aktion ” of the electronics retail chain Saturn . In 2006, Earlam and the Berlin duo Soul Control produced a soccer version for the 2006 World Cup, which reached number 93 in the charts.

Because the duo is only associated with the title Geil today, they are considered a one-hit wonder .

Discography

Albums

  • 1986: The Geil Album (Geil Records, TELDEC)
  • 1993: The Geil Album (Castle Communications; new edition)
  • 2016: Awesome: 1986–2016 - 30 years! (Original version and 11 remixes by Geil )

Singles

  • 1986: Great
  • 1986: Hi Ho (Heigh Ho - Whistle While You Work)
  • 1986: French Foreign Legion
  • 1987: The Best Disco (In the World) / The Best DJ (In the World)
  • 1987: Holidays Are Here Again ( Klaus & Klaus and Bruce & Bongo)
  • 1992: We Ain't Back
  • 1998: Geil (Bruce & Bongo vs. Tony T )
  • 2016: Geil - The 30 Years Jubilee Version

literature

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ Günter Ehnert (Ed.): Hit balance sheet German Chart Singles 1981–1990 . Taurus Press, 1991, ISBN 3-922542-44-1
  2. ↑ AT charts
  3. ↑ CH charts
  4. ^ A b Niels Kruse: 1985: Germany is cool . In: Stern online, December 13, 2005
  5. ↑ Bruce & Bongo vs. Tony T - Geil (release)