"Mickey" - Toni Basil - Signature Songs That Are Actually Covers 

100%!

Um. A lot of us had that Racey LP. Lol i did. All hits were on Smash and grab.

​@@jimidangertv4569 Indeed. It's like people who think Mariah Carey wrote 'Without You'.

💯

Damn straight!

I grew up listening to that song

@@Dancestar1981 so did my g/f at the time, she credited that song to her getting into dance, something she made a career out of

yep!! a concept that Gwen Stefani would use when she did her own solo work with "Hollaback girl"..

@Creativewriter3 hollerback girl video is inspired by cheerleading and perhaps the spelling out of Bananas but the composition of the song (specifically the rhythm and cadence of the vocals) is mostly ripped off from "Heaven and Hell is on earth" by the 20th Century Steel Band. Which was also sampled by JLo for Jenny from the block. I interviewed the singer of that track for an upcoming video as he's received nothing at all from that song.

She rerecorded and re-released as "Hey Mickey" and it has 10 million plays so far...about $60k...not bad.

Now she just needs a Stranger Things-like licensing deal that worked out amazingly for Kate Bush last year.

I am going to stream it so many times.

This is a perfect example of why the copyright laws need to be rewritten in favour of the artist.

Why?

Toni basil should receive royalties from this but not all off them.

@ronnie doorzon that's not how it works. At all. There's 2 copyrights in music. One for the composition, for writing the song. Another for the sound recording. When selling recorded music around 85% of the revenue goes to the owners of the sound recording. The rest to the writers. The owner of the sound recording is usually the record label. They then pay royalties to the artist. As explained in this video, there is clause in music contract law that allows a recording artist to reclaim the copyright in the sound recording after a certain time period has passed. A right that Toni Basil exercised. So her recording of the song now belongs to her. That has been settled in court, as explained in the video. She IS the rightful owner🤦‍♂️ It could also be argued that her additions to the original composition, the "Hey mickey you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind" part, warranted her some writing credit on her version. This happens all the time. Beyonce is credited as a writer on the Destiny's child recording of Emotion despite it being a cover of a song written before she was born. As she added parts not in the original. Your comment makes it seem like you didn't watch all the video, or didn't understand it. As this is all very clearly explained. 🙄

@ronnie doorzon haha - great, so what you're saying is: when she finally reaches the grand old age of *109* years old she can go back into the studio, re record the song, dress up in her old high school outfit and remake the video and go and do live gigs - uh, ok!!

She is isn't she?! Total unsung hero for me...

Some of us knew that in 1982.

Me too! I thought she was a one hit wonder, but didn't realize she'd been in the biz for about 20 years at that point AND she continued to be in the biz after... she's prolific and amazing.. one wonders if she and Deborah Allen worked together since they seem to share that kind of artistic/choreographic vibe.

She's definitely is! The energy and enthusiasm she still has now for music and dance is so inspiring!

Wow! I've been swing dancing for 15 years now and that's the first I heard of her connection. Now that I know I am not at all surprised that she would get into it as well.

@solracer66 she's still close to some of the long time southern California lindy hoppers. I believe it was Tise Chao who arranged for Toni to teach a 60s dance series over zoom as the world got shut down for a while.

Yeah, I tried but couldn't find footage of the episode 😕 didn't know her character was called Mickie lol 😆

100% agree 😁

Also shows how corrupt the music industry is, due to greed. Nothing's changed.

🤣🤣🤣

Cute even at 80.

It was a Australian who co - wrote the original Chatman😅😅

Absolutely

I'm not sure how big she could be today but she was a pretty big hit in her day, I'm an Australian & Micky was huge here both the song & the video, where I work they play music, it changes every week but Micky has occasionally been included in rotation, including recently.

I still have the vinyl record of Street Beat. From back in my break dancing days.

​@@originalsusser it's one of very few tracks that make me smile, and take me back to a far more simple world. Except for the bullying in school and beatings at home. Music was one of very few escape mechanisms.

That number was so amazing and strange! I understand the director never wanted to do quick cuts after that again though 😄

@@JP-ve7or I'm currently reading this book about Hollywood from that timer can you believe they were concerned of getting an x-rating for the belly dancing part of the movie

Thank you 😊

It was huge

Wow, thank you! 😊

Why? She didn’t write it, just stuck on a bit in the beginning

@@petersyme7083 It sounds like you're one of the 'money men' whose sole aim in life is to leach off creative artists. Go away and curl up in your cess pit.

@@petersyme7083 "stuck a bit on the beginning" or " wrote some additional lyrics that appear at the start of the song, and again in the middle 8, as well as being the lyrics people remember the most it makes up 1/5 of the songs lyrics if you remove the repetition" 🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️ Using reductive language doesn't alter the facts.

In the Sixties,the actor, Richard Harris, recorded a song that got a lot of air play, and he said he never got a dime from it.

Thanks glad u liked it. Just like you I vaguely knew she was a choreographer and dancer, i knew it was a cover and .I had some passing knowledge of the lockers etc but the more I dug in the more crazy facts I found out about her...she's one of my favourite living people now.

She did caught the great era 60s

Ahhh. The music industry works in many different ways.

​@@Xesxs all driven by greed.

Right. Sad that such a loved industry has such a dark side.

Absolutely! 8:41 is her dancing aged 74. She still has all the moves, she says she can't jump as high any more but can do all the other moves!

Yep, a lot of the footage in this video is from those specials.

She covered the song, did not write it, no composer royalties

Thanks 😀

Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment. I didn't "miss" any. 🤷‍♂️ I chose a selected few to mention as they fit in with the story I was telling. The 3 syncs I chose were the subject of a court case that's why they were mentioned. I couldn't find any video for the Thai version or the Spanish version, so they weren't included in the final round up. This want meant to be an exhaustive account of every time the song have featured somewhere. That would be long and rather dull, I think. 🤷‍♂️ The hope was that anyone interested would go look her up, or look up the song...

@@Traxploitation Thanks for the considered response. I have seen the Thai Version, but I do not think its on YT anymore (possibly removed out of respect anyway), although the audio is still there.

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!

I didn't know that 😳 thanks! I did leave out a few things to keep it flowing but a video game sync would have been a cool addition...maybe she doesn't even know 🤔 it wasn't mentioned on any of the court documents...and the game is from 2012...5 years before the case was filed.

Yes it was. I was going to mention him by name by decided not to.

Thanks for watching This video is about the song Mickey, rather than about Toni Basil. It wasn't meant to be an exhaustive account of her life. The hope was to show that she is more than just that song and pique people's interest enough that they look deeper into her work. I might circle back one day and make a bio.

Much appreciated!

If I'd been told in 82 after seeing her music video she was 38 I'd never would have believed it

@@originalsusser I would have. The first time I saw the video I remember thinking she looked like an old hag, haha.

@@originalsusser Same here. Most of the girls in my high school English class (back in 1982) enjoyed copying the cheerleaders' opening chant which irritated the teacher (whose first name ironically was Mickey). True story. I doubt any of us would have figured at the time, that Basil was almost 40 when she did the music video (she looked so young).

Glad you enjoyed it

The one that surprised me the most was viva Las Vegas...you never actually see her face so it's hard to recognise its her without seeing the credits..