AccuRadio Song Of The Day-The Flying Lizards

Artist:The Flying Lizards

Song:Money

Album:The Flying Lizards

This 1979 cover of the Motown classic Money was a top ten hit in England. It wasn't as big a hit in the US because radio stations were reluctant to play the emerging New Wave sound. But the video was played a lot on MTV. So I think the song was a bigger hit than its chart position. It's still a one hit wonder. The guy behind The Flying Lizards was Irish composer David Cunningham. He was attending Maidstone College of Art in Canterbury, England when he self released a 1975 album of minimalist music called Grey Scale. As an experiment, he recorded a minimalist cover of the Eddie Cochran classic Summertime Blues. The deliberately flat vocals were by his classmate Deborah Evans. He turned it into a demo and Virgin Records was the only label that liked it. They released it as The Flying Lizards and it did well enough that they agreed to a second single. That single was Money and after it reached #7 on the British Singles chart, Virgin wanted a whole album. Cunningham brought in free music composers David Toop and Steve Beresford to help him. Then Money crossed the pond and reached #50 on the Billboard Hot 100. MTV played the video in heavy rotation so I think the record was a bigger hit than the chart position. I suspect that radio stations didn't like the song and refused to play it. It reached #7 in Canada. The album is available. Cunningham released three Flying Lizards albums. Then he retired the name. In recent years he he has worked with composer Michael Nyman on some of Peter Greenaway's films. I guess Money is the prototype of the fluke one hit wonder. Here's the video for Money by The Flying Lizards.