Like most people, I was childishly infatuated by Scatman John's inimitable hit single “Scatman” back in the days. While John Paul Larkin (Scatman John's real name) is American, his international success was c/o Germany. I'm not surprised – my brother worked with people in the German music industry and can confirm that Gerries have a pretty strange taste and crazy attitude towards pop music. It's a bit like “anything goes”, so *of course* they decided to combine scat singing (originally a jazz thing) with euro-disco!
Today, most Europeans remember Larkin as a one hit wonder, but actually he had, ahem, two great hits, the second being “Scatman's World”. He also had some kind of utopian message about a world filled with peace, love and understanding – perhaps a reaction to his own rough childhood and early-middle adulthood (until his success at age 53).
I know next to nothing about the Japanese attitude to pop music, but for some reason, Scatman John's career continued in the Land of the Rising Sun even as his popularity waned in The True West. Even the manga “Ultraman franchise” appropriated some of his hits. This CD, a kind of greatest hit collection, is Japanese and hence contains more than the usual European material. His original Euro-album is available from another product page.
I admit that I was never a hard line fanboy of The Scatman, mostly laughing (albeit heartily) at the sheer weirdness of his tunes (who doesn't remember the lines “zzzazzzazzzazzzazzzazzza” or “it's a scooby dooby dooby melody”?), but I can understand why some people went further. Scatman John is a modern pop version of the “sad clown/happy clown” that makes people laugh and cry at the same time…
RIP, Scatman John, I hope you finally found Scatland!
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