Sometimes, it’s good to be a Popdose reader, and this is one of those times…if you’re a fan of Kylie Minogue, that is.

As you may or may not know, Kylie’s new album, X, finally hit our shores this past Tuesday, courtesy of Astralwerks/Capitol, and in conjunction with its release, we’ve been offered the opportunity to give away a Kylie prize pack: the U.K. Enhanced CD single of “2 Hearts,” stickers, postcards, and a poster.

Do you care? Maybe, maybe not. If you do, then you’ll want to pay very close attention right now…and if you don’t, you’ll probably still want to pay attention, because we suspect you’ll enjoy this challenge whether you want the prize pack or not.

To win the prize, here’s what you have to do: connect Kylie Minogue to The Smithereens in ten moves…no more, no less. We’re looking for actual musical collaborations that connect these artists, be they vocal or instrumental. Whoever fills in the last blank wins the prize pack.

UPDATE: And the prize has been won! LuverOfLuv came up with the following connection:

1. Kylie Minogue collaborated with Manic Street Preachers on Impossible Princess.
2. Manic Street Preachers‘ “Your Love Alone is Not Enough” features vocals from Nina Persson.
3. Nina Persson sings the theme song to “Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased),” which was composed by David Arnold.
4. David Arnold composed the song “The World Is Not Enough” for Garbage.
5. Garbage collaborated with Tricky on the song “Milk (Wicked Mix).”
6. Tricky’s song “Keep Your Mouth Shut” features vocals by Bjork.
7. Bjork composed the song “Bedtime Story” for Madonna.
8. Madonna’s song “The Power of Goodbye” is a collaboration with Rick Nowels.
9. Rick Nowels provided vocals to Belinda Carlisle’s album Heaven on Earth.
10. Belinda Carlisle contributes backing vocals to The Smithereens‘ 11.

Absolutely valid, and congratulations!

For the record, this was how we’d had them connecting:

1. Kylie Minogue collaborated with the Manic Street Preachers on The Impossible Princess.
2. The Manic Street Preachers‘ song “Your Love Alone is Not Enough” features vocals from Nina Persson, lead singer of The Cardigans.
3. Nina Persson also contributed guest vocals to Shudder to Think’s soundtrack to the film “First Love, Last Rites.”
4. Also contributing guest vocals to the soundtrack was Billy Corgan.
5. Billy Corgan contributed guitar work to Enuff Znuff’s Paraphernalia.
6. Also appearing on Paraphernalia was Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick.
7. Rick Nielsen contributed guitar to Hall & Oates‘ Across the Red Ledge.
8. Also contributing guitar to Across the Red Ledge was George Harrison.
9. George Harrison also contributed guitar to Belinda Carlisle’s Runaway Horses.
10. Belinda Carlisle contributes backing vocals to The Smithereens‘ 11.

If you’ve been reading this column since its inception, you’ve probably noticed that it’s been evolving a little bit. Originally, it started out as just an excuse for me to chat up my favorite unheralded and underappreciated pop albums, but in recent weeks, I’ve been trying to hunt up the artists responsible for these albums and do a bit of a Q&A with them. Now, I don’t know how y’all have been digging it, but, personally, I’ve been having a blast chatting with these people who have been responsible for providing me with such great music; even better, the people in question seem to have been enjoying the chance to revisit their albums and, certainly, it’s nice for them to be reminded that their records still keep making people happy long after their initial release. In fact, I’ve actually got three columns currently in the pipeline where the artists have agreed to offer up their reminiscences about the albums I’ve selected.

Unfortunately, none of those columns are ready for this week, so I thought I’d tackle an album by a band who seems to have completely disappeared off the map and, as such, isn’t readily available to contact about doing a Q&A. (That way, I don’t feel like I’m slacking off.)

Kingmaker, a British trio consisting of Loz Hardy (vocals, guitar), Myles Howell (bass), and John Andrew (drums), took Kingston upon Hull — and, to a lesser extent, the whole of Great Britain — by storm in the early 1990s. Their first album, 1991’s Eat Yourself Whole, was a substantial hit in the UK, thanks to songs like “Two Headed, Yellow Bellied Hole Digger,” “Really Scrape the Sky,” and the title track. The second album, Sleepwalking, was decidedly less successful, and the third, In the Best Possible Taste, made barely a blip on the charts, but such is life when you’re trumpeted as the Next Big Thing by the NME: the odds are stacked against you from the start. And speaking of being barely a blip, that’s actually an understatement when describing Kingmaker’s American profile. Eat Yourself Whole did less than nothing here, and, frankly, I question if even Chrysalis Records knew that Sleepwalking came out in the States … and they released it!

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On March 8, 2008, the Rutland Times reported the breathtaking news that the world and elsewhere would soon be privy to something quite remarkable: “Rutlemania! The Tribute Concert.” Even more impressive to fans of the Prefab Four, however, was the announcement that the famed Mods & Rockers Film Festival would be handling the official 30th-anniversary celebration of the Rutles on March 17, with Dirk (Eric Idle), Nasty (Neil Innes), Ricky Fataar (Stig), and John Halsey (Barry) all in attendance for a screening of the original 1978 version of The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash, the 1975 British TV skit that inspired the film, Rutles-related footage from Saturday Night Live, and highlights from the 2003 film The Rutles 2: Can’t Buy Me Lunch.

Damn. I really wish I could’ve been there for that.

Fortunately, David Haber from WhatGoesOn.com was there, and provided two separate reports over at his website, one a general summary and the other focusing specifically on the Rutles’ first full reunion performance ever. Better you should go there yourself rather than allow me to cannibalize all the good stuff here, but let’s just say that any event that can draw an audience that includes Andy Summers, Jeff Lynne, Aimee Mann, Michael Penn, Stephen Bishop, Howard Kaylan of the Turtles, producer extraordinaire Peter Asher (who was also half of Peter & Gordon), Emo Phillips, Marcia Strassman, and Dan Castellaneta was clearly the place to be that night.

If you’re a Beatles fan who’s never heard the genius parody that is the Rutles, you’re really missing out. It’s a fair assessment to suggest that 90 percent of all power pop is unabashedly derivative of the works of John, Paul, George, and Ringo, and plenty of comedians have taken the world’s most famous Liverpudlians and had a laugh at their expense, but few have done such an exquisite job of it and gotten the blessing of the members themselves to boot — well, three-quarters of them, anyway. George actually made a cameo in the original film; as for the others (if we can trust Wikipedia’s word on the matter), Ringo liked the happier scenes but felt the ones that mimicked the sadder times in the band’s career hit too close to home, while John loved the film so much that he refused to return the videotape and soundtrack he was given for his approval, warning Neil Innes that “Get Up and Go” was too close to “Get Back” and to be careful so as not to be sued by Paul. This might explain why Macca always said “no comment” when asked of the film at the time of its release, as well as Innes’s remark that Sir Paul “had a dinner at some awards thing at the same table as Eric one night, and Eric said it was a little frosty.”

Well, fair enough, you can kind of understand that. It’s fine and well for us to have a laugh at it all, but then, we didn’t live it. George was around for much of the planning of the original film, but according to producer Gary Weis, even the Quiet One got a bit testy at one point, snapping, “We were the Beatles, you know!” Moments later, however, he shook his head and said, “Aw, never mind.”

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I can’t remember exactly when I first discovered The Brandos, but I can remember where I first discovered them: in Creem Magazine.

There they were, dressed to the nines in their Western ware and looking back at me from the ad for their debut album, Honor Among Thieves. I think it might’ve been frontman Dave Kincaid’s bolo tie that really caught my eye - snazzy, Dave, snazzy - but whatever the case, their name stuck with me. As a result, whenever it was that I was introduced to the band’s music, I was, like, “Oh, right, those guys!”

If I had to guess who made me hip to their tunes, it’s a fair bet that the great introducer was Jeff Castelloe; he and I have known each other for over thirty years now - his mother was my 3rd grade teacher - but starting at the arse end of the ’80s, we also spent a few years together in the music retail trenches. Jeff has also been guilty of wearing a bolo tie at one time in his life, so maybe that’s what led him to The Brandos in the first place, but all I know for sure is that he was a fan of theirs by the time he and I started working together at Record Bar, because the store used to subscribe to both HITS Magazine and ICE Magazine, and he would regularly scour their pages for information about the long-rumored sophomore effort from the band. Little did either of us know at the time that we were waiting in vain…but more on that in a few minutes.

Right now, let’s talk about this great little nugget of Americana from 1987 known as Honor Among Thieves.

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Funny what a difference a year makes.

Back in February 2007, I was putting together a piece for Bullz-Eye called “The Best Albums You’ve Never, Ever Heard (Well, Probably Not, Anyway),” and on my personal short list on possible inductees was Carly Hennessy’s Ultimate High, released by MCA Records in 2001. As it happens, however, the album never ended up making it into the final piece, mostly because Carly never got around to filling out the short Q&A that everyone else had done, and it would’ve looked lopsided without it. I followed up about a week after my initial request, and she responded, “I will do it tonight. Sorry, I had family in town, and I have been so busy with them that I didn’t have time.” Fair enough, but as the deadline for the piece approached, I still hadn’t gotten her responses, and since I didn’t want to be a nag, I saw no need to follow up a second time.

In retrospect, perhaps I should have. Now, Carly Hennessy is known as Carly Smithson, and she’s one of the final 12 contestants on the current season of “American Idol.”

There’s something ironic about the fact that I was first inspired to purchase my copy of Ultimate High because of an article which originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal (but appears here via a posting on Matt Goyer’s blog) which spoke of how few copies of the album had been bought. It’s a painful yet fascinating read, but certain facts really leap out at you, including…

* MCA paid for her living expenses for two years.
* They also gave her a blue convertible Volkswagen Golf to drive around in.
* They sent a surprise limo to take Carly and her friends to a Blink-182 rock concert to celebrate her 18th birthday.

…but what it really boils down to is this: the label spent $2.2 million to make and market the album - including $250,000 on a video that showed her dancing in a disco and jumping around with her pals in their sleepwear - but, after three months, it had sold precisely 378 copies.

Yikes.

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I wouldn’t want to be the lone man out, so let me begin by opening this contribution to PopDose’s Al Jarreau Week by admitting that I, too, was hesitant when asked if I might want to chime in on the genius that is Mr. Jarreau. It’s not that I can’t get behind a tribute to the man; it’s simply that I’m not all that familiar with his back catalog.

I do, however, have 1996’s Best of Al Jarreau, so I immediately broke out that disc in order to spin it and see which songs leapt out at me with instant familiarity. As it turned out, all I really had to do was glance at the track listing for memories of one of the songs to come flooding back: “We’re In This Love Together.” The finger-popping goodness and silky smooth synth and sax sounds of this track still hold up, at least to my well-aged ears. Jazz? Not so much. But given the way the hook has stuck with me for 25 years, it’s sure as hell a top-notch pop song. Listening to it now, it has the same effect that so many singles from the early ‘80s have on me: it makes me start to wax nostalgic about a time when tracks from various musical genres could sit comfortably side by side on the airwaves without having to be so damned segregated.

And speaking of the early ‘80s, I always used to get Al Jarreau and George Benson mixed up back then (and I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m not the only who suffered from this malady), so I found it rather appropriate when I learned that the pair had teamed up in 2006 to release the collaborative effort, Givin’ It Up. As someone who gets inappropriately excited about a good cover song, it must be said that I probably enjoyed their take on Seals & Crofts’ “Summer Breeze” more than some, but the cover that really surprised me was Sam Cooke’s “Bring It On Home To Me,” courtesy of an unexpected third vocalist: Sir Paul McCartney. You can always tell when Paul’s having fun rather than just phoning it in, and this is clearly a case of the former; when listening to the soulful vocal harmony between these three guys, it sounds like the feeling was mutual.

Unfortunately, that’s about all the love I can comfortably offer for our man Al without totally clutching at straws. But here’s to ya, Al, and let it be said that, if nothing else, you made enough of an impression on me in my youth that I think of you fondly even now. That should count for…um, probably either nothing or, if you’re in a really bad mood, maybe even less than nothing.

But, hey, at least, it’s from the heart.

Two Canadian artists back to back?

Hey, don’t blame me. Blame Paul Myers.

If you happened to check out the comments in last week’s column, you might’ve seen the entry written by a man who described himself as a “Canadian in Berkeley, CA.” I’ve never actually met Paul personally, but we’ve traded E-mails a few times, and he and I have been fellow subscribers on an invaluable E-mail list called Audities. (The group sprung forth from Audities Magazine, and it’s been a haven for pop fanatics for quite a few years now; I can’t remember exactly when I first joined, but I know that when I attended the 1999 International Pop Overthrow in Los Angeles and met several listees, I’d already been a part of the list for a fair while.) The first time I received an E-mail from Paul via the list, though, I did a major double take, wondering, “Is this the Paul Myers?”

For the answer to why I asked myself this question, we must flash back to the mid-1990s, when I was sale-bin diving at a used CD store and happened upon a 2-disc collection of indie bands from Canada. I mostly bought it because it included an early version of “Be My Yoko Ono,” by Barenaked Ladies, and truth be told, most of the bands on the collection didn’t really do much for me, but in addition to discovering one of the great band names of our time (the Bourbon Tabernacle Choir), I also stumbled upon an incredibly groovy pop song called “Rome Wasn’t Built In A Daydream,” by The Gravelberrys. After one listen to the song, I knew I’d gotten my money’s worth and then some…like, to the point where I desperately needed to find out if the band had anything else available.

Fortunately, they did: a full-length album entitled Bowl of Globes.

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You remember these guys, right? Okay, maybe you don’t. But I sure do.

Not that they’re not a great band, but the reason that it’d be easy enough to forget the Pursuit of Happiness (henceforth to be referred to as TPOH) is because Chrysalis Records seemed to want to focus almost exclusively on making the smart-ass “I’m an Adult Now” into their signature song rather than trumpeting the way more important fact — at least to music geeks, anyway — that their debut album, Love Junk, had been produced by Todd Rundgren. It’s not that “I’m an Adult Now” isn’t a funny song; it’s just that the older you get, the less often you find yourself interested in spinning it, as opposed to the follow-up single, “She’s So Young,” which has all the harmonic hallmarks of a Rundgren production to provide a lifetime of listening enjoyment. Of course, that really just means that it sounds like something from one of Rundgren’s own albums, but it’s not like that’s a bad thing. After all, if you give me the choice between listening to “I’m an Adult Now” and “She’s So Young,” I’ll go with the latter every single time.

Unfortunately, when Todd turned up to produce the band’s sophomore effort, One-Sided Story, Chrysalis pulled the same stunt again, opting for the awkwardly catchy “Two Girls in One” as the first single rather than the way more obvious (and way more Rundgren-esque) “New Language.” The result: the novelty angle didn’t work the second time around, the album died a quick death, and TPOH found themselves without a label.

Enter Mercury Records, who presented the band’s next record, The Downward Road, in 1993. Rundgren wasn’t producing this time around — that honor went to Ed Stasium — but he did schedule time to provide a guitar solo for “Love Theme for TPOH.” Also in tow for a song was Jules Shear, who wrote the lyrics and cowrote the music for “A Villa in Portugal.” Alas, despite the first single, “Cigarette Dangles,” getting a bit of love, The Downward Road continued the downward commercial spiral for the band and served as the swan song for their major-label career. And that’s where I lost pursuit of the band, as did most of America.

I’ve since gotten the impression that their 1995 indie album, Where’s the Bone, only picked up a tiny bit of steam because of the novelty hit “Gretzky Rocks.” As for me, I didn’t even know it existed until well after 2000, when I eventually stumbled upon it in a used bin; I discovered the 1996 follow-up, The Wonderful World Of…, first, and that’s only because the group’s label at the time, Iron Music, spontaneously sent it to the magazine I was writing for.

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Yeah, yeah, we know what you’re thinking: “The Hooters? Are they even still together?” Well, actually, if you’d asked that question between 1995 and 2001, the answer would’ve been a resounding “No.” After the tremendous success of the band’s 1985 breakthrough, Nervous Night, their commercial success in the States began a gradual descent; simultaneously, however, their stock was rising overseas. When the band took a break in 1995, singer-guitarist Eric Bazilian proceeded to keep very busy as a songwriter, working with everyone from Midge Ure to Jon Bon Jovi, but when the gang got back together in 2001 he was right there with them. The Hooters did a fair amount of touring in Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden, but it wasn’t ’til 2006 that the band finally started doing some shows in the U.S. The next thing you know, the band was back in the studio to record Time Stand Still, their first album in 14 years. Popdose had the good fortune to speak with Eric about the history of the band as well as his solo career, touching on subjects like the Hooters’ omission from the Live Aid DVD, what it’s like to meet three out of four Beatles, and what a glorious gift it was to have Joan Osborne record “One of Us.”

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Stop laughing, you bastards!

A few weeks ago, I was having a conversation with David Medsker – my comrade in arms both here and over at Bullz-Eye.com – about Kylie Minogue. He’d just heard “Wow,” the first single from her new album, X, and in the process of researching a post he was writing about the song, he learned that Kylie had gone to Number One in every major country in the world…except, of course, for the US.“Here,” he informed me, “she has two Top Ten singles, which are also her only two Top 20 singles. In England, she has seven Number One singles, 30 Top Tens, and 40 Top 20 singles. Forty. Here? Two. Jesus.”

I totally get his frustration, but I also understand why Kylie ended up being shunned by American audiences.

In 1987, Kylie was already a proven entity in both the UK and her native Australia, courtesy of her years spent as a cast member of “Neighbours,” so it was easy enough for her to score attention with her first single, the dangerously catchy “I Should Be So Lucky,” and take it to the top of the British charts. Stateside, however, it only crawled to #28, so Geffen played the cover-song card and giggled gleefully as Kylie’s take on the Little Eva classic, “The Locomotion,” soared to #3. Unfortunately, instead of making her into a household name, it merely served to transform her into an instant novelty; the follow-up single, “It’s No Secret,” struggled its way into the lower reaches of the Top 40 before dying a quick death soon after, and if Geffen bothered to release any singles from her second album, 1989’s Enjoy Yourself, they didn’t manage to chart. It took the U.S. twelve years to renew their membership in the Kylie Minogue Appreciation Society, and they only did it then because it was painfully evident that no-one…no, not even slope-browed American radio listeners…could deny the brilliance of “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head.”

Well, that and the fact that she looked like this:

It was more than half a decade prior to that, however, when I first began to realize that there was very possibly more to Ms. Minogue that I’d originally been led to believe. I’m sure we’ve all found ourselves prone to appreciating someone’s work simply because of the company they keep, and that’s what started me on the road to rediscovering Kylie.

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