"I Want Candy" was originally released and recorded by "The Strangeloves" in 1965, where it enjoyed it's highest placement in the US charts. (#11). The song was written about a dancer the writers saw at the 1965 World's Fair named Candy Johnson. Those writers were actually The Strangeloves- an assumed name and identity for each member of the band was created for this record. The female vocalist on that record is an uncredited session single and remains unknown.
Fast forward to 1981, and it was recorded by Bow Wow Wow as the first single released from their US-only EP, "The Last Of The Mohicans". It was also included on several compilation albums at the time, incorporating tracks from the debut release, "Your Cassette Pet" and follow up "See Jungle". These were all in an effort to break the band in various territories around the world, but I think the same tracks released over and over again under a different cover and with alternate running orders did more to alienate them from what started out as a strong fan base.
The song did not chart in the top 20 anywhere in the world outside of England and Ireland, but it was in heavy rotation on MTV in America which made it seem like a bigger hit that it actually was.
There was a 12" mix available, but it seemed like a half-hearted effort and barely extends the run time of the original single- which was less than 3 minutes long to begin with! I have extracted the various vocal and instrumental parts of that 12" mix to re-arrange and re-create a truly extended mix. What you hear here is my THIRD mix, after working on it for a few days I realized my second mix was going to be well over 10-minutes and that was just too long, so I scrapped it. My first mix was a 3-minute dub version full of scratches and effects- most of which I retained in this version, the "just right" mix I finally settled on.
18 сен 2024
