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Goldbug's inspired coupling of Led Zeppelin's legendary 'Whole Lotta Love' and the also legendary Pearl and Dean music gave them a huge Top 3 hit in January 1996.
I wasn't much of a cinemagoer as a kid so I'd never actually heard of the Pearl And Dean music until it was mentioned in the context of this hit. For those still unfamiliar of it, I should explain that it's a piece called "Asteroid", played regularly before the advertisements in British cinemas, hence its position at the start of the record. To be honest, this is more medley than mash-up, as the theme doesn't really appear beyond the intro. The remainder of the track is a relatively straight cover of the Led Zep track and 1970s TotP theme in a slightly jazz-funk like style. It's slightly subverted by the fact that it's sung by a woman - Scottish-born session vocalist Sandy McKenzie - which lessens the tiresome machoness of the original, even if the lyric "gonna give you every inch of my love" doesn't have quite the same meaning from her. This and the lack of that awful wibbly bit in the middle make this preferable to the original (which belatedly became the Zep's first UK hit the following year) for me. Yes, I said that and I stand by it.
Sadly, quite aside from the plagiarism case against Page, Plant, Bonham and Jones (settled out of court), there were various legal and royalty disputes which left nobody making much money out of this single, least of all McKenzie; judging by her local paper she couldn't even afford to be in focus. A second single with a different singer peaked at 108 a year later, and that was it. No other material emerged, and this track remains out of print today, presumably for legal reasons.
Available on: Whole Lotta Love
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