State Champ Radio Wednesday
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Over the years, Jim Shaw had loaned his friend Dave Bell, a longtime producer, publisher and label owner in Bakersfield, California, a couple of thousand dollars for various ventures — bits and pieces at a time. “He was one of the guys who kept rolling the dice,” Shaw recalls. “He’d make a million, then lose a million. Very interesting guy.”
By 2002, Bell was starting to feel guilty about how much money he owed to Shaw, a veteran member of Buck Owens‘ Buckaroos who now runs the late country legend’s foundation. Bell proposed a unique deal: In lieu of cash, he gave Shaw publishing rights to the rockabilly song “The Goo Goo Muck,” co-written and recorded by local country singer Ronnie Cook and his band, the Gaylads, in 1962. “At the time, it was like magic beans,” Shaw says. “[Bell] had a lot of gospel songs. He’d become very religious, and that song didn’t fit into what he wanted to do.”
Shaw knew, of course, that The Cramps had released a classic new-wave psychobilly-punk version of “Goo Goo Muck” in 1981, but since then the band’s popularity had faded and he never expected it to amount to much of anything. In fall 2021, though, the producers for Netflix’s Wednesday series called to license the Cramps’ version for a synch. When the Addams Family revival came out Nov. 23, the series saw record-breaking viewership and the track took off, much like Kate Bush‘s “Running Up That Hill” last spring in Stranger Things, shooting from 2,500 streams the day before the premiere to 134,000 five days later. “It’s a really amazing, fun little bonanza,” says Shaw, 76. “I wasn’t familiar with the show, but I was happy to make the deal, and caught by surprise on all this.”
Bell, who died in 2013, was a U.S. Navy veteran who evolved from directing a church choir to recording artists, including local symphonies and a pre-stardom Merle Haggard, for his Bakersfield-area studio and his Audan Records label. He also owned a couple of publishing companies, including Damosi, named after his wife and daughters. Not much is known about Cook, who wrote “Goo Goo Muck” with Ed James. “I really thought it was a fun little song — the Duane Eddy guitar and that sound,” Shaw says. “I don’t know what this leads to. I was thinking of Pulp Fiction. Remember some of the really cool songs that got dusted off?”
Shaw, who is on the board of directors for the Buck Owens Foundation and has written songs of his own for Garth Brooks and Tom Jones, among others, recalls the late Bell as a character who was both religious and “had a potty-mouth.” Says Shaw, with a laugh: “He said, ‘The problem in this world is that people don’t pay attention to the fucking Ten Commandments.’”
Although Bell had done “very well in his life” as a label and studio owner and song publisher, Shaw says, he hit a rough period in the early 2000s and his friend started loaning him $100 or $200 at a time. “It kind of accumulated, and he was telling me how badly he felt about it. He says, ‘I want you to have this song.’ I said, ‘OK, sure,’” Shaw recalls. “It’s really cool. That’s what every songwriter and publisher hopes will happen. It’s what everybody dreams.”
Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up column, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip. This week: Netflix’s latest hit series Wednesday helps an early cult-punk classic get out of the “Muck,” The 1975’s live lip-locking revives one of their early singles and everyone is left craving more “Yamz” this Thanksgiving.
‘Wednesday’ Sends The Cramps’ Streams Running Up That Hill
Wednesday, the Addams Family revival focused on a teenage Wednesday Addams (played by Jenna Ortega) and her adventures at a boarding school, has been a smash success for Netflix since premiering last Wednesday (Nov. 23), setting the record for the most hours viewed in a week for an English-language series on the streaming service. Its 341.2 million hours viewed in its debut week surpasses the record set a few months back by the fourth season of Stranger Things — which, you may recall, resurrected Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” with dramatic flair and turned the 1985 single into a top five Billboard Hot 100 smash in 2022.
Six months later, Wednesday is helping “Goo Goo Muck,” the spooky-fun 1981 version of the 1962 Ronnie Cook and the Gaylads single released on I.R.S. by influential rockabilly punks The Cramps, receive a similarly inspired comeback. “Goo Goo Muck” soundtracks a school dance in which Ortega demonstrates some quirky, spirited choreography, and Wednesday fans are seeking out The Cramps version after the fact. On the day before the Wednesday series premiered, “Goo Goo Muck” earned 2,500 daily U.S. on-demand streams, according to Luminate; by Monday (Nov. 28), that number was up to 134,000 daily streams. The Cramps have been defunct since the 2009 death of lead singer Lux Interior, but if Wednesday viewers keep streaming “Goo Goo Muck,” the band could belatedly earn its first career Hot 100 hit. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
The 1975 Make Out Like Bandits
U.K. alt-pop veterans The 1975 hit the Billboard 200’s top 10 for the fourth straight album this October with their latest set, Being Funny in a Foreign Language, and have a slow-burning streaming hit with that LP’s “About You,” which has grown 41% over the three weeks to over two million weekly U.S. on-demand streams for the period ending Nov. 24, according to Luminate. But the band’s most buzzed-about song the past week hasn’t come from that album, or any of the three before it – for that one, you’ve got to go back to from their 2013 self-titled debut set (on Dirty Hit/Polydor) and longtime fan favorite “Robbers,” which the group has turned into a lip-locking spectacle on their current stateside tour.
At consecutive stops over the past weekend in Las Vegas and San Diego, frontman Matty Healy pulled fans from the audience – one female, one male – onstage during their performance of “Robbers,” embracing them and then giving them a healthy smooch just before the song’s climax. The consecutive kisses both went viral on social media, getting fans dangerously in their feelings and causing them to swarm back to the enduring “Robbers.” Since Nov. 25 (the night of the Vegas concert), the song has spiked 116% in daily official on-demand U.S. streams, according to Luminate, growing from 65,000 that Thursday to 141,000 on Sunday, and no doubt inspiring a whole lot of breathless refreshing of social feeds for each remaining tour date. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
A Second Helping of “Yamz” This Thanksgiving
It was 2015 all over again last week, as the hottest song of Thanksgiving belonged to Fetty Wap. The “Trap Queen” hitmaker scored a breakout success with the rap-crooned synth-funk of “Sweet Yamz” – a song not necessarily about the delicious side dish, but which nonetheless felt seasonally appropriate to countless listeners. The 300 Entertainment/RGF Productions single, released to streaming services on Nov. 18, earned plaudits from authorities as respected as Snoop Dogg and Charlie Wilson and exploded on streaming last week, earning over half a million official on-demand U.S. streams daily from Wednesday (Nov. 23) through Saturday (Nov. 26), according to Luminate.
However, as many R&B heads online were quick to point out, the song wasn’t totally an original: The hit was based off a 2021 collab between Masego and Devin Morrison on EQT Recordings/Capitol, with a near-identical chorus and groove, but different verses. Though some cried foul at the lift, there was more than enough consumption to go around this Thanksgiving season: The original “Yamz” also experienced a huge bump, rising from 172,000 streams total from Nov. 21-23 to 367,000 from Nov. 24-26, a 113% gain. – AU
