Over the last two decades, Josie and the Pussycats has become a generation-defining cult classic, simultaneously being ahead of its time with its take on consumerism and the state of pop music and yet a perfect encapsulation of the Y2K era, Carson Daly cameo included. I knew all about that world., Donald was the best dancer,says Green, laughing. Does a pressure come with that about what your next move has to be to maintain any momentum?RLC: You know, it's very hard for me to describe that time in my life. However, in the years since, critics and fans revisited this movie and decided that not only is it actually a pretty good movie, but that its message about capitalism and consumerism have only become more relevant in the years since its release. I wanted to play the guy in the band who had too many accessories. When I had the opportunity to be in a boy band it was a dream come true. I just knew I liked the script and I think Deb and Harry get one thousand and one percent credit for the movie. E! In the 2001 film Josie and the Pussycats, Cook played the role of Josie McCoy, the lead singer of the band Josie and the Pussycats. Hanna-Barbera contracted producer Jimmie Haskell and a group of anonymous session singers to perform the music for Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, and La La Productions' Josie and the Pussycats group was officially disbanded. So far, the Josie and the Pussycats have only been in one episode of Riverdale. This might not seem like the best circumstance for a meet-cute, but in real life, Tara Reid and Daly dated for a while after meeting on the set of Josie and the Pussycats (mirroring a bit in the movie where they briefly flirt before Melody knocks Daly out with a cutout of Matt Damon). Prepared for a given day: The soup du jour is cream of potato. : Do you think that was a major part of the disconnect as well, when the people who are considered tastemakers at the time are older white men who the movie probably isn't for? The other voices in the movie were provided by various singers and actors, including Alan Cumming, Parker Posey, and Seth Green. The movie came out at the peak of the boy band era, months after I Want It That Way defined the pop proclivities of a generation, O-Townformed on Making the Band, and*NSYNC delivered the most iconic choreography and chorus of their career with Bye Bye Bye. At the time, Faison and Green were thrilled to not only capitalize on that and riff on this cultural phenomenon, but do so with substance, as Josies punchlines hit deeper than jokes at the expense of Nick Lacheys tattoos and do so together. Rhino pressed 5000 copies of the album. ", Things Only Adults Notice In Josie And The Pussycats. At the time, is that really daunting or exciting? I always knew we were proud of the movie that we had made, so it's not like it was keeping me up at night, let me be very clear about that! DMCA| Tempest raises . I just feel lucky that we got to make such a cool, irreverent take on it. They held a talent search to find three girls who would match the three girls in the comic book in both looks and singing ability, and, after interviewing over 500 finalists, settled upon casting Dougher as Josie, Moor as Melody, and Holloway as Valerie. 1], "You've Come a Long Way Baby" [alternate mix No. The second Dujours Song of the Year competition was held in 2015. While some people may believe that product placement is a necessary evil, others feel that it is a blatant form of advertising that is often used in a cynical way. Nobody knows your age, girl!'" DuBois had a prolific career beyond the 1970s hit "Good Times . E! At the time there was the whole beef between like, Eminem and *NSYNC, or how people viewed certain boy bands, Faisonrecalls of the days whenEminem would name-checkand threatenChris Kirkpatrick in a smash hit like 2002s Without Me.Certain boy bands were too popcorn; other boy bands were not popcorn enough. If a band or performer ever figures out the gambit, the recording industry "takes care" of them and as Fiona points out, those stories then get turned into VH1's series Behind the Music (in one of the movie's darkest jokes). California Consumer Privacy Act | The first Dujours Song of the Year competition was held in 2014. Seth introduced me to Bush, you know what Im sayin? Although she was cast as the singing voice of Josie, Kathleen Dougherty only sings partial lead vocals on "If That Isn't Love" and "I'll Be There." Letters to Cleo vocalist Kay Hanley performed all lead vocals. I'm also a big fan of healthy eating, and I love sharing tips and recipes for healthy and delicious food. RLC: Completely. Other lead vocals were performed by Cherie Moor. In honor of the 20th anniversary, Rachel Leigh Cook, who took on the titular character's cat earsthough Letters to Cleo's singer Kay Hanley provided the vocals, more on that latertwo years after her breakout role in She's All That, hopped on the phone with E! : And the list of people who auditioned for this movie is crazy. Alan Cumming and Parker Poseywere deliberately and deliciously over-the-top as cackling villains Wyatt and Fiona. So the fact that we all happened to get along as well as we did, frankly, that could've gone another way, but I felt very lucky and I still do to this day. So I didn't feel like I was any less busy, I just knew that the movies had smaller budgets. I'm just lucky my eyebrows grew back. I met Tara at a dinner in town because she was living in L.A. and we got along well enough and were just off to the races there. At 6'6 without shoes,Tempest is the tallest contestant to ever appear on RuPaul's Drag Race. E! All rights reserved. I heard this from a couple of musicians we trained with for the moviebut but he's not doing apparently an incredible job of mimicking actual playing and he was coming under fire for that. It's just a long path. The fact that it got to the point that we are talking about it 20 years later, I guess word-of-mouth works. I remember we all celebrated by going to dinner at the Italian restaurant we loved to go to across from the hotel we were all staying at. Firstly, the film was produced during the height of the product placement craze. Watch the official music video for Rise Up by Andra Day from the album Cheers To The Fall. Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AndraDayMusic?sub_confirmation=1Listen on Apple Music here: http://smarturl.it/CTTFAppleMusicListen on Spotify here: http://smarturl.it/AndraDaySpotifyDirector: M. Night ShyamalanProducers: Thom Fennessey \u0026 Ashwin RajanProduction Manager: Zoe KatzFollow Andra Day:Web: https://andraday.comInstagram: https://instagram.com/andradaymusicFacebook: https://facebook.com/AndraDayMusic Twitter: https://twitter.com/AndraDayMusic Andra Day is a singer renowned for her hit songs Rise Up, Stand Up For Something, Strange Fruit, The Only Way Out, Forever Mine, City Burns, and Rearview. She worked with artists like Stevie Wonder, Questlove, Common and Ziggy Marley amassing billions of global streams and receiving international acclaim.Lyrics:You can have all the money in your handsAll the possessions anyone can ever haveBut it's all worthless treasureTrue worth is only measured not by what you gotBut what you got in your heartYou can have, you can have everythingBut what does it, what does it meanIt all means nothingIf you don't stand up for somethingYou can't just talk the talkYou got to walk that walk yes you doIt all means nothingIf you don't stand up for somethingAnd I'll stand up for youAnd I'll stand up for you yes I will, yes I willYou do the best to do the best that you can doThen you can look in the mirror proud of who's looking back at youDefine the life you're livingNot by what you take but what you're givingAnd if you bet on love no way you'll ever losetake a stand, make a stand for what's rightIt's always worth, always worth the fightCuz It all means nothingIf you don't stand up for somethingYou can't just talk the talkYou got to walk that walk, yes you doIt all means nothingIf you don't stand up for somethingand I'll stand up for youSelf respect, dignityIf that's all you gotThen you got all you needAnd without that you don't have a thingIt all means nothingIf you don't stand up for somethingYou can't just talk the talkYou got to walk that walk, yes you doIt all means nothingIf you don't stand up for somethingand I'll stand up for you#OfficialMusicVideo #AndraDay #RiseUp #WeAreWarnerRecords And that's sort of the way it felt ever since. The "Josie and the Pussycats" recordings were produced by La La Productions which included producer-songwriter Danny Janssen (who had written for Bobby Sherman and the Partridge Family), his business partner Bobby Young, and songwriters Austin Roberts, Sue Steward (now known as Sue Sheridan) and Bobby Hart (formerly one of the producer-songwriters for the Monkees). E! By using our Services, you agree to our use of cookies. At the time it was when *NSYNC was doing that HBO special [NSYNC: Live From Madison Square Garden], and we all watched ita couple of times trying to copy those guys. He was just around and doting on us and we stayed there well after they closed. There's a lot of acting going on there. They were out at the same time Britney Spears came out; theres even magazine shoots that they did with Britney. One of the most frequent targets of criticism when it comes to product placement is the 2001 film Josie and the Pussycats. [2] Holloway also sings lead on the Josie and the Pussycats theme song, which was written by Hanna-Barbera musical director Hoyt Curtin, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Eventually, Josie and the Pussycatsreveals its central conceit: the head of MegaRecords, Fiona (Parker Posey), is using the company's music to distribute subliminal messaging and get America's teenagers to buy a ton of material goods they don't need. John sang demos for the band and when, in Kipner's opinion, the group could not recreate . As she shows representatives of the United States Government and other collaborators, MegaRecords is home to an enormous control room filled with workers who decide what's "cool" for teens now, whether they're deciding that orange is the new pink or that the newest slang should be the newly created word "jerkin.'". [citation needed] Valerie had been introduced in the "Josie" comic book in late 1969, and the character had been African-American from the start. And then in the industry everyone started doing TV and I was lucky enough to work on a TV show for three seasons, with Eric McCormack, and I solved a lot of fictional crime (Ed's note: TNT'sPerception) and that was tremendous. I remember Deb and Harry sort of saying in the room, like, "That was great. We eat it up because we think we love it or maybe we do love it but for the most part, were fed it over and over and over again.. So, why is there so much product placement in Josie and the Pussycats? With Rachael Leigh Cook, Rosario Dawson, Tara Reid, Gabriel Mann. Baby, I'm dancing in the dark with you between my arms. Janssen refused to recast Holloway, whose voice he felt he needed for the soul-inspired bubblegum pop songs he had written, and threatened to walk away from the project. I know I taped it, and I know Breckin taped it When we shot the movie, *NSYNC was top of the food chain, then it was Backstreet Boys, then it was O-Town I think., We created our own choreography, selected our own outfits so that we could completely embody versions of each of these characters, Green says, referring to the personal touches they all put on their roles. This new reincarnation of the Pussycats had a harder, punk-rock sound, as opposed to their Motown 1970 counterparts. The group also released six singles in 1970 and 1971. The experience scarred the directorial duo so much that they never helmed a movie again. Yo, 100 percent, I was into *NSYNC, dude. Janssen presented the newly formed band to William Hanna and Joseph Barbera to finalize the production deal, but was in for a major surprise. It isnt bad shouting of the sort that rendered him immediately famous in that freeway scene from Clueless but good shouting, excited shouting, the joyful kind that greets a home run at a ballpark. The accompanying video features Christine and the Queens in a purple room, donning a powerful fitted suit. The competition is divided into two categories: Pop and Electronica. I already knew thats how the industry was, he says. As Rachael Leigh Cook joked years later to The AV Club, "Somehow, they gave one of the title roles to me, and I cannot sing at all. They just have great taste. When its done right, its sort of unstoppable. In the show, the Josie and the Pussycats are a band that is made up of three members: Josie, Valerie, and Melody. Your source for entertainment news, celebrities, celeb news, and celebrity gossip. Earlier in the film, Wyatt briefly references his high school trauma and in doing so, also makes a reference to one of Cumming's most famous roles. After marrying David Ladd, she went on to replace Farrah Fawcett in Charlie's Angels prior to the filming of its second season in 1977. The fact that it was "happening" did not land until, you know, that edge of the ocean was way out there, if that makes sense. Right on cue, the screen flashes with its own "subliminal message," with text across the screen as well as narration reading, "Josie and the Pussycats is the best movie ever" followed in smaller text with "Join the Army." "Pedestal" is the first single off the duo's upcoming fourth album, Ceremony, set for release on March 6.The experimental pop duo have always offered cathartic music laced with emotional narratives. The truth is, Swenson didn't have to learn much when it came to the 25 Diamond songs he sings. : There would probably be a DuJour TikTok challenge if this movie came out on Netflix today. Probably. A new banger from the electro-pop duo Phantogram has us super amped for their upcoming album due out March 6, Christine and the Queens released a Euro-pop hit in which she serenades listeners in French during one verse, and of course, a collaborative track from Khalid and Disclosure will have your adrenaline pumping in no time. RLC: It definitely felt like movie jail, for sure. Josies critique of the machinations of the music industry at the time is hardly veiled, and Du Jours piece of that puzzle is crucial: They represent the constant demand for fresh, new talent, and the impermanence of fame. That was a lot more comfortable for me. [] I feel like I have the equivalent of, like, survivor's guilt, that I somehow got this role. After Josie tells Agent Kelly, who was in on the whole scheme from the beginning, that Fiona and Wyatt are indoctrinating teens through MegaRecords' music and he pretends to be shocked he tells his men to arrest the two record executives. I didn't audition with either of the girls. Josie and the Pussycats was a 1970s girl group designed to be the real-life incarnation of the eponymous fictional band in Archie comic book and Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon series. 2. African-American with part-Hispanic background, Holloway was the younger sister of Motown legend Brenda Holloway. Visit Billboard Pro for music business news, Magic in the Chaos: How Christina Aguilera, Mya, Baz Luhrmann & More Revived Lady Marmalade, Al Dente & Vinyl or Ill Break Your Legs: Chef Frank Prisinzanos Perfect Quarantine Cooking Soundtrack, Andrea Bocelli Stuns With Easter Concert at Milans Duomo: Watch. Led by Rachael Leigh Cook as Josie alongside Rosario Dawson and Tara Reid as her bandmates Valerie and Melody, the story takes several bizarre twists and turns before revealing a complex gambit about capitalism and monetizing pop stars, bringing the audience on a hilarious thrill ride. Faison, maybe predictably, praised the movie version of the property, and while Braff continued trying to name off cartoons, Faison recited, and then started to sing "DuJour Around the World," one . The music, as the kids would say, slapped. I thought that was very clever, and worth talking about, even in a comedic way. My kid brother was in a boy band called Imajin, and they had one album that Jive [Records]put out and that was it. To illustrate MegaRecords' scheme, Fiona shows a brief, informational video to her new collaborators from various governments across the world about exactly how they use music to distribute subliminal messages to unsuspecting teenagers, which helps the American economy thrive. Cooks performance in Josie and the Pussycats was well-received by critics, and the film was a box office success. Through Baby Face, John became involved in the movie Josie & The Pussycats, where he provided the singing voice for the boyband DUJOUR's lead vocalist. Throughout the film, Wyatt offers guidance and support to the Pussycats, trying all the while to cover up the fact that he and Fiona have some seriously sinister motivations. Seth Green & Donald Faison Revisit 'Josie & the Pussycats' and Du Jour, Your Favorite Fake Boy Band "I'm just gonna let you know before we go any further: NOBODY ROCKS THE MIC LIKE DU JOUR. He also came to the attention of UK producer STEVE KIPNER, producer of multi-platinum group WESTLIFE. RLC: That's so true. 3. STORIES DUJOUR. However, at the end of the movie, both Wyatt and Fiona reveal something even weirder than their subliminal messaging scheme: They went to the same high school and were two of the biggest outcasts in their class, thanks to Wyatt's albinism and Fiona's lisp. Having signed with the label as a solo artist in 1965, she was the only one of the three finalists with prior ties to Capitol Records (the label that released the Pussycats' album and singles). 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