You Sexy Thing
Encyclopedia
"You Sexy Thing" is a song recorded by the British group
, Hot Chocolate. It was written by Hot Chocolate's lead singer Errol Brown
, and produced by Mickie Most
. It reached number 2 in the UK Singles Chart
in 1975, and number 3 in the US Pop charts
a year later. The song went on to gain lasting notability by being featured in many hit films, such as 1997's The Full Monty
.
. Not convinced that the song was a hit, producer Most put it on the flip-side of the Hot Chocolate single "Blue Night". The song was remixed at a later date by Most, who re-released it as an A-side some months later on his RAK
label. The song was a hit and ultimately became the group's most well-known song. In the UK the song was poised for the no.1 spot, but was beaten to it by "Bohemian Rhapsody
", when on 29 November 1975 the Queen
single leaped above it from no.9.
A 1987 remix
by Ben Liebrand
hit number 10. When it was featured in the film, The Full Monty
in 1997, it went to number six in the chart. In one of the most memorable scenes in the film, the male lead, Gaz (played by Robert Carlyle
) performs a "striptease" to the music of "You Sexy Thing". The song is later heard over the closing credits. "You Sexy Thing" has also been heard in other films including Boogie Nights
, Reservoir Dogs
, Bicentennial Man, Rat Race, Dude, Where's My Car, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo
and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
, Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son
, and in 2010 the movie Grown Ups. Another U.S.
resurgence in 1999 can be credited to a Burger King
television
commercial
in which the song played while the camera examined a Double Whopper
. The song has recently been featured in television advertisements for a new series, Hot in Cleveland
, on TV Land
. and on the Swiffer
Dusters cleaning product. It is the only song to enter the UK Top Ten in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
which is repeated intermittently throughout, played on a mildly overdriven electric guitar on a high treble
setting and with noticeable vibrato
. Eschewing the traditional rock drum kit
, the song uses hand drums
, played in a style reminiscent of tabla
. A number of violins accompany the rhythm section. Brown's vocals are sung in an energetic soul fashion, accentuated by the occasional high-pitched, Isley Brothers-style scream.
by Tom Tom Club
in 1992 on their album Dark Sneak Love Action. It was also covered
by Deee-Lite
in 1994. Two more covers were released at almost the same time as the 1997 re-issue of the Hot Chocolate original. Thus, for one week, the UK Singles Chart boasted three versions of the song. One cover was by the pop
/dance
act Clock
. The other version, by T-Shirt, featuring Chloé Treend, went to number 5 in New Zealand
and sold triple platinum
in Australia
, where the single reached #6 and stayed in the ARIA Charts for 32 weeks. Hot Chocolate lead singer Errol Brown
appeared in the film clip. Both were re-workings with the original music
and lyrics
but with new added additional rap
/vocal segments. Welsh band Stereophonics
also covered the song for the Radio 1: Established 1967 album. Bruce Springsteen
has covered the song several times at his live performances, including during his final concert at Giants Stadium
, during which he took a sign from a fan requesting the song and held it up for the audience to see as he performed it.
Band (music)
In music, a musical ensemble or band is a group of musicians that works together to perform music. The following articles concern types of musical bands:* All-female band* Big band* Boy band* Christian band* Church band* Concert band* Cover band...
, Hot Chocolate. It was written by Hot Chocolate's lead singer Errol Brown
Errol Brown
Errol Brown MBE is a singer and songwriter, best known as the frontman of Hot Chocolate. He has British citizenship by marriage to Ginette and they live in The Bahamas...
, and produced by Mickie Most
Mickie Most
Mickie Most was an English record producer, with a string of hit singles with acts such as The Animals, Arrows, Herman's Hermits, Donovan, Suzi Quatro and the Jeff Beck Group often issued on his own RAK Records label....
. It reached number 2 in the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
in 1975, and number 3 in the US Pop charts
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
a year later. The song went on to gain lasting notability by being featured in many hit films, such as 1997's The Full Monty
The Full Monty
The Full Monty is a 1997 British comedy film directed by Peter Cattaneo, starring Robert Carlyle, Mark Addy, William Snape, Steve Huison, Tom Wilkinson, Paul Barber, and Hugo Speer. The screenplay was written by Simon Beaufoy...
.
Overview
The song was originally a 1975 B-sideA-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...
. Not convinced that the song was a hit, producer Most put it on the flip-side of the Hot Chocolate single "Blue Night". The song was remixed at a later date by Most, who re-released it as an A-side some months later on his RAK
RAK Records
Rak Records was a British record label, founded by record producer Mickie Most in 1969. Rak was home of artists like Herman's Hermits, Suzi Quatro, Mud, Kenny, Hot Chocolate, Smokie, Arrows, Span, Racey and Kim Wilde. Rak Records were distributed via a licensing deal with EMI, which bought the...
label. The song was a hit and ultimately became the group's most well-known song. In the UK the song was poised for the no.1 spot, but was beaten to it by "Bohemian Rhapsody
Bohemian Rhapsody
"Bohemian Rhapsody" is a song by the British rock band Queen. It was written by Freddie Mercury for the band's 1975 album A Night at the Opera...
", when on 29 November 1975 the Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...
single leaped above it from no.9.
A 1987 remix
Remix
A remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song ....
by Ben Liebrand
Ben Liebrand
Ben Liebrand is a dance music DJ. He has produced artists such as Forrest and MC Miker G & DJ Sven and remixed tracks by artists such as Salt N Pepa, Sting, TLC, Fun Fun, Tavares, Bill Withers, Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, Rick Astley, SWV and Phil Collins...
hit number 10. When it was featured in the film, The Full Monty
The Full Monty
The Full Monty is a 1997 British comedy film directed by Peter Cattaneo, starring Robert Carlyle, Mark Addy, William Snape, Steve Huison, Tom Wilkinson, Paul Barber, and Hugo Speer. The screenplay was written by Simon Beaufoy...
in 1997, it went to number six in the chart. In one of the most memorable scenes in the film, the male lead, Gaz (played by Robert Carlyle
Robert Carlyle
Robert Carlyle, OBE is a Scottish film and television actor. He is known for a variety of roles including those in Trainspotting, Hamish Macbeth, The Full Monty, The World Is Not Enough, Angela's Ashes, The 51st State, and 28 Weeks Later...
) performs a "striptease" to the music of "You Sexy Thing". The song is later heard over the closing credits. "You Sexy Thing" has also been heard in other films including Boogie Nights
Boogie Nights
Boogie Nights is a 1997 drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Set in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley, the script focuses on a young nightclub dishwasher who becomes a popular star of pornographic films, and chronicles his rise and fall from the Golden Age of Porn of the 1970s...
, Reservoir Dogs
Reservoir Dogs
Reservoir Dogs is an American crime film marking debut of director and writer Quentin Tarantino. It depicts the events before and after a botched diamond heist, but not the heist itself. Reservoir Dogs stars an ensemble cast: Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, and...
, Bicentennial Man, Rat Race, Dude, Where's My Car, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo
Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo
Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo is a 1999 comedy film starring Rob Schneider. Other cast members include Eddie Griffin, Amy Poehler, Oded Fehr, Arija Bareikis, and William Forsythe....
and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist is a 2008 romantic comedy film directed by Peter Sollett and starring Michael Cera and Kat Dennings. Written by Lorene Scafaria and based on the novel of the same name by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, the story tells of teenagers Nick and Norah , who meet when...
, Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son
Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son
Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son is a 2011 crime comedy film directed by John Whitesell and written by Matthew Fogel and Don Rhymer. The film is the second sequel to Big Momma's House and stars Martin Lawrence reprising his role as FBI agent Malcolm Turner...
, and in 2010 the movie Grown Ups. Another U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
resurgence in 1999 can be credited to a Burger King
Burger King
Burger King, often abbreviated as BK, is a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida-based restaurant chain...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
commercial
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
in which the song played while the camera examined a Double Whopper
Whopper
The Whopper sandwich is the signature hamburger product sold by the international fast-food restaurant chain Burger King and its Australian franchise Hungry Jacks. Introduced in 1957, it has undergone several reformulations including resizing and bread changes...
. The song has recently been featured in television advertisements for a new series, Hot in Cleveland
Hot in Cleveland
Hot in Cleveland is an American sitcom on TV Land starring Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves, Wendie Malick and Betty White. The series, which is TV Land's first original scripted series, premiered on June 16, 2010, and was TV Land's highest rated telecast in the cable network's 14-year history. The...
, on TV Land
TV Land
TV Land is an American cable television network launched on April 29, 1996. It is owned by MTV Networks, a division of Viacom, which also owns Paramount Pictures, and networks such as MTV and Nickelodeon...
. and on the Swiffer
Swiffer
Swiffer is a line of cleaning products by Procter and Gamble. Introduced in 1999, the brand uses the "razor-and-blades business model"; in this case, the consumer purchases the handle assembly at a low price, but must continue to purchase replacement refills and pads over the life of the product...
Dusters cleaning product. It is the only song to enter the UK Top Ten in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
Structure
"You Sexy Thing" has a simple structure, with most of the song alternating between two major chords (F and Bb). It has a chorus-verse form. One of the song's most memorable aspects is its distinctive six note riffRIFF
The Resource Interchange File Format is a generic file container format for storing data in tagged chunks. It is primarily used to store multimedia such as sound and video, though it may also be used to store any arbitrary data....
which is repeated intermittently throughout, played on a mildly overdriven electric guitar on a high treble
Treble (sound)
Treble refers to tones of high frequency or range. In music this corresponds to high notes, and for this reason the treble clef is often used for instruments with higher pitch. Examples of treble sounds are guitar tones, female voice , young boy voice, etc. They have frequencies above 9 KHz. Treble...
setting and with noticeable vibrato
Vibrato
Vibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied .-Vibrato and...
. Eschewing the traditional rock drum kit
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, the song uses hand drums
Hand drum
A hand drum is any type of drum that is typically played with the bare hand rather than a stick, mallet, hammer, or other type of beater. The simplest type of hand drum is the frame drum, which consists of a shallow, cylindrical shell with a drumhead attached to one of the open ends.-Types:The...
, played in a style reminiscent of tabla
Tabla
The tabla is a popular Indian percussion instrument used in Hindustani classical music and in popular and devotional music of the Indian subcontinent. The instrument consists of a pair of hand drums of contrasting sizes and timbres...
. A number of violins accompany the rhythm section. Brown's vocals are sung in an energetic soul fashion, accentuated by the occasional high-pitched, Isley Brothers-style scream.
Cover versions
"You Sexy Thing" was coveredCover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
by Tom Tom Club
Tom Tom Club
Tom Tom Club is an American new wave band founded in 1981 by husband-and-wife team Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, both also known for being bandmembers of Talking Heads.-Biography:...
in 1992 on their album Dark Sneak Love Action. It was also covered
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
by Deee-Lite
Deee-Lite
Deee-Lite was an American house and club/dance group, formed in New York City, United States. The group's best-known single was "Groove Is in the Heart", from their 1990 debut album, World Clique. However, Deee-Lite achieved longer lasting success on the U.S...
in 1994. Two more covers were released at almost the same time as the 1997 re-issue of the Hot Chocolate original. Thus, for one week, the UK Singles Chart boasted three versions of the song. One cover was by the pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
/dance
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
act Clock
Clock (dance act)
Clock was a British band primarily led by Stu Allan and Pete Pritchard. They started as a house act, then turned to eurodance and eventually ended up as a disco act. In 1994, they hailed themselves as the British "2 Unlimited" when they recruited rapper Marcus Thomas , and vocalist Lorna Saunders ...
. The other version, by T-Shirt, featuring Chloé Treend, went to number 5 in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
and sold triple platinum
Music recording sales certification
Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...
in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, where the single reached #6 and stayed in the ARIA Charts for 32 weeks. Hot Chocolate lead singer Errol Brown
Errol Brown
Errol Brown MBE is a singer and songwriter, best known as the frontman of Hot Chocolate. He has British citizenship by marriage to Ginette and they live in The Bahamas...
appeared in the film clip. Both were re-workings with the original music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
and lyrics
Lyrics
Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...
but with new added additional rap
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
/vocal segments. Welsh band Stereophonics
Stereophonics
The Stereophonics are a Welsh rock band now living in turners x that formed in 1992 in the village of Cwmaman in Cynon Valley, Wales. The band currently comprises lead vocalist and guitarist Kelly Jones, bassist and backing vocalist Richard Jones, drummer Javier Weyler, guitarist and backing...
also covered the song for the Radio 1: Established 1967 album. Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
has covered the song several times at his live performances, including during his final concert at Giants Stadium
Giants Stadium
Giants Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium, located in East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA, in the Meadowlands Sports Complex. Maximum seating capacity was 80,242. The building itself was 230.5 m long, 180.5 m wide and 44 m high from service level to the top of the seating bowl and 54 m high to...
, during which he took a sign from a fan requesting the song and held it up for the audience to see as he performed it.
Charts
- #2 UK and New Zealand
- #3 US
- #5 Netherlands
- #6 Australia
- #10 Norway
- #12 Austria
- #16 Sweden
External links
- [ "You Sexy Thing"] at Allmusic websiteWebsiteA website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...