The group was formed in 1967 by Robbie van Leeuwen, former guitarist of another Dutch band, The Motions, with drummer Cor van Beek, bassist Klaasje van der Wal and singer Fred de Wilde. It was distinguished by an innovative sound for the time, by the showman abilities of guitarist Robbie van Leeuwen and by his singer Mariska Veres. Shocking Blue is a Dutch rock band made famous among others by the song Venus, taken over in 1986 by the band Bananarama with so many successes. Don’t be last on your block.If you have books or reference articles or if you know of quality websites dealing with the topic here, please fill in the article with references for verifiability and linking them to the section "Notes and references" Virtually the whole album is like that-expertly crafted, commercial, immediate, and seductive. The very ordinariness of the rest of the song is what focuses attention on this great moment, and makes you want to hear this over and over again. There’s a quick verbal change: “Did you hear about Mighty Joe? (do-do do-do do-do do)/ Beware, beware!” A ringing guitar builds off the chord change, and then they shift again within the chorus, generating excitement and making you hungry for a repetition. ![]() Van Leeuwen’s sense of song-how to insert moments of novelty into clichés and make his audience realize something’s going on-and that’s his car radio sense as well-comes off best on “Mighty Joe.” This number is unremarkable until Mariska and the band hit the chorus, the moment toward which the whole song has been building musically and lyrically. Robby Van Leeuwen, who wrote most of the songs, mixed the album, and presumably produced it, has a real flair for the melodramatic-“California Here I Come,” the flashiest cut on the record, might sound ludicrous corning from a bunch of Europeans, but there’s no flower-power nonsense, just a tough, hard sense of urgency and need, and a perfect melodic highlight repeated several times, until the song makes the listener want to get to California himself, even if he’s already there, sort of in the same way that “Cali-Girls” made all California boys feel proud of themselves. Shocking Blue, at the moment, is a sharply restrained ensemble-they’re not trying anything the Beatles didn’t do in 1965-but their sound is hard, clear, and invigorating, and they don’t really sound like anyone we’ve heard before. ![]() This is not even to mention that the lyrics, the vocal, and the music are just dripping with sex. Add a bubblegum organ for the preschoolers and very effective, imaginative drumming for the snobs, and it all works. Mariska, in a stiff, controlled Grace Slick style, chants the words, and her real contribution to the song is a riff of her own-the tough, know-it-all way she shouts “Well,” just before each chord change. “Venus” begins with a riff from Tommy (that’s already familiar), a few sharply syncopated guitar strums, a sweet note, and then a vicious turnaround on the bass that tells you to pay attention. ![]() You know how to sing along before the song is over. “Venus,” like most of the cuts, is based on a time-honored device that most current groups ignore-the hook line, a riff or a pattern that grabs the listener instantly and which, if its rich enough to repeat, can sustain the whole song with it sense of effortless familiarity. It’s only a matter of guessing which would be hits and which would get lost. “Venus” is the key to this album, because the whole record, with the exception of a couple of banal sitar exercises, is really a collection of singles. The band is fully as coordinated and precise as a group of Nashville sidemen, and they have a gorgeous, if musically limited, female lead singer named Mariska Veres, plus a number one single, “Venus.” They’re good, and what’s more, if they are really playing on this extremely immediate and commercial album, they’re professional as well. The Shocking Blue are the first Dutch group to generate any sort of excitement since Hans Brinker and the Fingers, and if they are handled with the proper amount of showmanship and mystery, they could become very big indeed.
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