A few days ago, while cleaning up dead links on this blog, I ran across something included in my 2019 post Vaneigem and Bubblegum, which discusses matters musical, political, and spiritual. “Art on 45” is the lead track on a 1982 vinyl 12” EP called Art • Dream • Dominion by The Royal Family and the Poor. It appears to take its name from Stars on 45, a Dutch act that legitimized what had been a bootleg: a stringing together of popular songs to a disco beat.
The story told on Wikipedia is that Willem van Kooten worked for a music publisher when he heard a medley playing in a record store that included a tune to which his company held the worldwide rights. Realizing it had to be a bootleg, he legally licensed the medley’s tunes, hiring a producer and studio musicians to mimic the original, the result being released in 1981 as Stars on 45 (artist and title). It became a thing, as we’d say now. I picked up the 33-RPM version, Stars on Long Play as well as several confusing renderings of the original bootleg, which was titled “Let’s Do It” and “Bits & Pieces III.” Two other items I nabbed: a 1981 Dutch pressing of Mix Your Own ’Stars’ [sic] (tagged “The Original American Rhythm Tracks Album”), containing four tracks of beats at various RPMs, and 1981’s “The Punks of 76,” a 7″ disco-ized medley of songs by the Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, Eater, The Damned, The Jam, and The Clash—on blue vinyl—produced by the Pistols’ producer Dave Goodman.
“Art on 45” isn’t a medley per se. Rather than stringing together songs, it does so with popular references. Issued forty-three years ago next month, it’s quite relevant for, well…, rotation, rotation, rotation on an inauguration dance floor. See what you think.