'The Message'
There's a lady plays her fav'rite records/On the jukebox ev'ry day/All day long she plays the same old songs/And she believes the things that they say/She sings along with all the saddest songs/And she believes the stories are real/She lets the music dictate the way that she feels.
I wouldn't call that song a novelty, though the J. Geils Band did do some novelty songs, my favorite being "No Anchovies Please."
Meanwhile back in Portland, Maine...
"Oh my god! That bowling ball! It's my WIFE!!!!!"
Was David Bowie considered a novelty act (due to "Laughing Gnome") before Space Oddity or The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars came out?
Wasn't Space Oddity the song considered a bit of a novelty song when it first came out?
Wasn't Space Oddity the song considered a bit of a novelty song when it first came out?
Right, because it came out specifically to exploit the moon landing, and the title is obviously parodic.
Wasn't Space Oddity the song considered a bit of a novelty song when it first came out?
I was wondering that while I was typing that post....
But it wasn't a hit until two years later!
I would say the song transcends its novelty-song-ness to some extent due to its dark conclusion.
Yes, well, the novelty element is somewhat a matter of perception. It's notable that the song wasn't a hit until it was past the novelty association of the Apollo flights and 2001.
So, The Blues Brother - novelty act or vanity project?
Or are the two not mutually exclusive? In any case, I'm tempted to say novelty act, but apart from "Rubber Biscuit" the songs themselves were done pretty straight.
Also, where does Buster Pointdexter fit in?
Or Spinal Tap?
Blues Brothers - Vanity project, though "Rubber Biscuits" is totally a novelty song.
Spinal Tap - awesome novelty.
Buster Poindester - novelty. NSM the songs as the character.
The New York Dolls (my favorite band ever!) were unfairly dismissed as a novelty band by many critics and hippies. The twat on the Old Grey Whistle Test (UK music show) introduced them as "Mock Rock."
Gerard Way's video interview with Spin after his magazine interview with Spin.
Favorite quote so far: "I didn't shower a lot back then. I used to drink a lot back then."
So what does a band have to do to be pegged with the "Novelty band" label? Just one novelty song? One popular novelty song?
I'd vote for a number of novelty songs, certainly for acts in the pre-rock era. A lot of the big bands -- dare I say most of them -- recorded at least some novelty songs. But, for example, I wouldn't call Tommy Dorsey's band a novelty band because of "The Music Goes Round and Round."