HOF Inductee No. 14: "Rock Me Amadeus," Falco

And we come to Falco.

This is an earworm centered around the repeated incantation of the middle name of (possibly) (apologies to Ludwig von Beethoven) the greatest classical composer of all time: Wolfgang. Amadeus. Mozart. Let's all sing along: "Amadeus Amadeus Ammmm-adeus / Amadeus Amadeus Ammmm-adeus / Amadeus Amadeus o o Ammmmm-adeus" The hook most definitely is not found in the Austrian-accented, German-language rapped verse.

The genesis of this song was from the opinion of Falco that, if his fellow Viennese musical superstar Mozart, were alive today, he would not be composing classical music for small audiences in concert halls, but that he would be an international pop music sensation. The video captures this perfectly. THe song rocketed up the pop charts in the U.S. (and most of the western world), hitting #1 for three weeks in March 1986. It then plummeted down the charts as rapidly as it climbed up, as if the music-listening public collectively concluded: "what were we thinking?"

But there is no denying it's a fun song. Do you prefer your Amadeus in an orchestral setting? Here's the symphonic version of this song:

As catchy as this song, it is completely un-cover-able. There seem to be no versions of this song by any other pop artists. Just Falco and some versions from various symphonies, particularly the one in Vienna. But no artsy-quirky pop band from Stockholm or Brooklyn or Austin has ever attempted even a tongue-in-cheek cover.

My favorite Falco song? It's also un-cover-able. It's the song that kept playing on a loop in my brain -- a personal earworm -- during the time I visited Vienna:

Hello. Hello. "Vienna Calling."

Sadly, Johann "Hans" Hölzel, who the world knew as "Falco," passed away in 1998, killed in an auto accident in the Dominican Republic. He is buried in Vienna's Central Cemetery in a lavishly-decorated plot:

Vienna calling indeed.

HOF Inductee No. 13: "It's A Small World (After All)," Disneyland Children's Chorus

This may not have been a Top 40 hit, but that has not affected the ubiquitous in American -- née global -- culture.

If you've ever been to Disneyland in California, or the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World in Florida, or any of the global Disney theme parks in Europe or the Pacific Rim of Asia, you've heard this song. Even if you've only walked near the "It's A Small World" ride, and not gotten on board for a float, you've heard this song. And if you've entered the "It's A Small World" and floated through it's miniaturized global villages, you can't get this song out of your head. Ever.

Like so many aspects of American Boomer culture, "It's A Small World" made its debut at the 1964 New York World's Fair. Originally, the intended musical accompaniment of the ride "Children of the World" were to be the national anthems of the various countries of this earth, playing simultaneously.  Walt Disney heard this in the ride's prototype and decided that the resulting cacophony would not do. He asked Disney staff songwriters Robert and Richard Sherman to write one simple song to be played throughout the ride, as the patrons floated through various global villages. This was the song they wrote. They wrote it as a slow ballad. Walt wanted something peppier, so they sped it up. Walt was so thrilled with the final product that he renamed the attraction for the song: "It's A Small World."

Some people consider a float through Disney's "It's A Small World" to be a pleasantly amusing rest from the heat and crowds of the theme park. Others consider the ride to be a nightmarish hellscape where the ultimate earworm gets permanently implanted in their brains. But, like the old saying, it's a dessert topping and a floor wax. It's both!

Earlier this year, in 2022, the Library of Congress selected the original 1964 recording by the Disneyland Boys Choir for the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, artistically, or aesthetically significant":  

It is all that and more. Of course, it did not need such a designation by the Library of Congress to maintain its preservation. It's forever preserved in the minds of everyone who has ever ridden the ride at a Disney theme park.

HOF Inductee No. 12: "We Are The Champions," Queen

"We Will Rock You" opens the Queen LP "News Of The World." After two minutes and one second of its anthemic foot stomps and hand claps, it segues seamlessly into "We Are The Champions." Both had pretentions to be sports anthems. The two were released as a double "A" sided single. "We Are The Champions" is the side that climbed the pop charts, hitting #4 in the U.S. and #2 in the U.K. "We Will Rock You" is the side that stayed in our hearts and continues to live on as a sports arena anthem.

Both perennially make the list of all-time earworms. It is only fitting that they go into the Earworm Hall of Fame in the order we hear them on "News Of The World."

Brian May wrote "We Will Rock You." It's fair to say he was more in tune with sports stadium rock. Freddie Mercury wrote "We Are The Champions" as a sports song, but it isn't really. It's a theatre song. The title may say "sports," but lyrics about taking bows and curtain calls scream "Broadway," or since Queen are Londoners, "West End." That's why the best cover of this song was done by someone whose very existence screams "Theatre!" with a capital-T: Liza Minnelli:

Liza performed the song as the show closer to the 1992 Freddie Mercury tribute concert. She is the one who truly grasped that this is a theater song and, as such, is an appropriate honor to, maybe, the most theatrical rocker of all time. (The "maybe" is tip o' the hat to Alice Cooper -- Vincent Furnier -- who brought together hard rock and show tunes, combined with an entertaining stage show, creating one of the greatest personalities in recorded music. But that's an analysis we'll save for a future induction.)

HOF Inductee No. 11: "We Will Rock You," Queen

Science(TM) has selected this next inductee into the Earworm Hall of Fame. "Scientists" at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, at their School of Philosophical, Anthropological, and Film Studied, developed a mathematical formula to determine what makes an earworm the earwormiest. The study was published in that noted science-y-ific journal, New Music Express.

According to the article, "an earworm needs five key components: surprise, predictability, rhythmic repetition, melodic potency and receptiveness (how the listener feels about the song)." Thus, researchers reduced this to a precise mathematical formula: "Receptiveness + (predictability-surprise) + (melodic potency) + (rhythmic repetition x1.5) = earworm." Plug all of this into the formula and, according to research team, the Number 1 earworm of all time is this:  Queen:  "We Will Rock You."

Who are we to argue with Science(TM)? We are not science-deniers here.

Regarding the formula for building the perfect earworm, "We Will Rock You" has "rhythmic repetition" in spades. But the song is much more than that. As far as the "predictability" metric, it depends on what this means. Once the song starts, the course is very predictable, up to the Brian May guitar solo at the end, There is not a whole lot of sonic variation within its 2:01 run time, But, as far as the song itself, this song sounds like no other pop song of the recorded music era. The melody, such as it is, is carried by foot stomps and hand claps, not by instrumentation (until the aforementioned guitar solo at the very end).

The song was designed to be anthemic. It was and it still is. It is also infectious and irresistible. It is an all-time earworm. Maybe not the all-time #1 earworm. The science is never settled. But a major earworm nonetheless.

Despite the catchy infectiousness of the song, the song is essentially un-cover-able. Need proof? Hair metal band Warrant -- pioneers of the genre "bubblegum metal" -- a band that posed as a metal band but was just a purveyor of sappy power ballads -- tried to do a cover of this song for some forgotten forgettable movie. The wispy results were predictably awful. Worse than awful. Anemic. An anemic anthem. Warrant should've stuck to eating its cherry pie.

HOF Inductee No. 10: "Come And Get Your Love," Redbone

 

Get it from the main vine!

Remember the old Sara Lee commercials from many decades ago. To paraphrase: Every doesn't like some song, but nobody doesn't like Redbone's "Come And Get Your Love."

This is not just one of the best earworms you can ever hope to get lodged in the right hemisphere on your brain. This is one of the happiest, peppiest, most likeable songs there ever has been. And thank you very much, makers of the film "Guardians of the Galaxy," or to the movie's protagonist Peter Quill, for bringing this awesome song to a whole new generation of music fans.

Anchoring this Native American rock band were brothers Patrick and Candido Vasquez, who we know better as Pat and Lolly Vegas. Only Pat is still with us, as Lolly passed away in 2010, before the major resurgence in popularity experienced by their greatest song thanks to "Guardians of the Galaxy." The Vegas Brothers originally started as a surf rock band. In the 1960s, they became the house band for the teen-themed music TV show "Shindig!" But their Native American heritage was in the background at that time. Inspired by Jimi Hendrix's embrace of his Cherokee roots, the Vegas Brothers fully embraced their own, deeper, indigenous heritage.

Their self-titled debut album was released in 1970. But it was with their second album, "Potlatch," also released in 1970 -- it was not unusual back then for groups to release more than one LP in a calendar year -- that Redbone began hitting the pop charts, with the lead track "Maggie," a swamp rock ode to a dead hooker, getting up to #50. The B-side was even better: the quirky "New Blue Sermonette." Their third album, "Message From a Drum," released in 1971, featured their first Top 40 hit, with the bluesy voodoo-themed "Witch Queen of New Orleans" reaching #21 in the Hot 100. Like many of Redbone's singles, it was an even bigger hit in Europe. "Witch Queen" reached #2 in the UK. (The New Orleans connection for Redbone ran deep, with the name "Redbone" itself being a cajun term for someone of mixed race.)

But Redbone would have to wait until 1974 to have their biggest hit:  "Come And Get Your Love." Not only is this Redbone's greatest hit, it's the biggest hit ever in the US for a Native American recording act. Interesting, while the song peaked at #5 on the weekly charts, it spent so much time in 1974 in the upper reaches of the Hot 100 that it was the #4 song for the entire year of 1974. It is a very unusual accomplishment for a song to chart higher on the annual chart than it did on any weekly chart. Redbone did it with their greatest earworm.

Hail Redbone. Hail "Come and Get Your Love." You now are in the Earworm Hall of Fame. Given your accomplishments as the greatest Native American rock band of all time, when is Redbone going to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

HOF Inductee No. 9: "Hey Jude," the Beatles

Number nine. Number nine. Number nine.

Inductee No. 9 into the Earworm Hall of Fame is, fittingly enough, the Beatles. Why fittingly? Beatle John Lennon was obsessed with the number 9. He was born on the 9th. He was born in October, which, if you are fixated on the Number 9 (as Lennon was), you note as being the 9th month of the year ... according to the Chinese calendar. He was raised in a house at 9 Newcastle Road in Liverpool. His best solo song, my opinion, was "#9 Dream," which peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 at, you guessed it, #9.

The Beatles biggest hit on the U.S. pop charts was, of course, "Hey Jude". It went to #1, where it spent, yes, nine weeks at the top of the charts, from September 28, 1968, through the week of November 23. And September is the ninth month! The nines keep on coming! Yes, it is a Paul McCartney song, but it allegedly is about (or at least inspired by) John Lennon's first-born son, Julian.

And so we have at Inductee No. 9, "Hey Jude." Lists of the Beatles biggest earworms routinely have two of their songs as the earwormiest. "Yellow Submarine," a likely future inductee, and this, their biggest hit. The earworm is the lengthy -- very lengthy -- outro "Na na na nananana nananana, hey Jude," which goes on for nearly four minutes at the end of the 7 minute, 11 seconds song (then the longest timed #1 hit in the history of the Billboard charts, a record later broken by Don McLean's "American Pie," and much more recently, and much sadly, by some Taylor Swift song). Both the longest and the earwormiest outro in the history of pop music!

The best cover of "Hey Jude"? The gospel-tinged version by Wilson Pickett, featuring guitar work from Duane Allman.

HOF Inductee No. 8: "The Love You Save," Jackson Five

The Jackson Five began their career with four consecutive number one hits:  "I Want You Back," "ABC," "The Love You Save," and "I'll Be There." The next two singles after that could only eke their way up as high as #2: "Mama's Pearl," and "Never Can Say Goodbye." Four chart-toppers, then two near-chart-toppers. Earworms all. And if you had to pick one to be the initial Jackson entrant into the Earworm Hall of Fame, the choice is easy. "Stop / The love you save may be your own / Darling, take it slow / Or someday you'll be all alone".

The Jackson Five really were misnamed. Yes, there were five brothers. All with the surname "Jackson." But they really were the Jackson One, with four of his brothers. Even at age 11, the Jackson Five were all about the youngest brother on stage, Michael. Not only did he have serious vocal chops at that very young age, he had stage presence. As can be seen from the lip-synched clip from the "Ed Sullivan Show," even at a very young age he commanded the stage. His brothers were his supporting players. Without Michael, with Jermaine in the lead, the Jacksons would have had hit records, but their career would have looked more like the Five Stairsteps, another group of soul singing siblings from 1970, than the Michael-led Jackson Five.

Michael's vocal skills at even that young age are evident from the fact that only two of those initial six mega-hits have been covered. Michael's vocals are so sophisticated, so difficult, so soulful, even as a pre-teen, that there is no point in even trying to re-do "Mama's Pearl," or "ABC," or, the subject here, "The Love You Save." Graham Parker made a credible stab at "I Want You Back." And Gloria Gaynor and Isaac Hayes did very different takes on "Never Can Say Goodbye." And everybody's done "I'll Be There," although most non-Jackson version are very weak tea. But Jackson songs belong to the Jacksons and no one else.

"I Want You Back" started the whole Jackson family thing. "Mama's Pearl" is Michael's best, most difficult to emulate, vocal. "I'll Be There" spent five weeks at #1 and was the Jackson's biggest hit as a family act. But great as those songs may be, none are more catchy than the sing-along "The Love You Save."