Stars On 45

Stars On 45 (known in some countries as Starsound) was a Dutch pop act, briefly very popular in the U.K., Europe and the U.S. in the early 1980s. The project consisted of studio session musicians under the direction of Jaap eggermont, who was drummer of The Golden Earrings (the sixties incarnation of Golden Earring in the latter half of the 1960s. Stars On 45 popularised the medley by recreating hit songs as faithfully as possible and stringing them together with a common tempo and relentless underlying drum track. The point was to provide a danceable disco record using familiar tunes.

The project consisted of studio session musicians under the direction of Jaap eggermont, who was drummer of The Golden Earrings (the sixties incarnation of Golden Earring in the latter half of the 1960s.

Stars On 45 popularised the medley by recreating hit songs as faithfully as possible and stringing them together with a common tempo and relentless underlying drum track. The point was to provide a danceable disco record using familiar tunes.

The first such release, Stars On 45 Medley, featuring songs from The Beatles, went to #1 in the U.S. and #2 in the U.K. Several follow-up records also proved highly succesful. Another release featured medleys using ABBA and Motown material, while a third featured medleys of The Rolling Stones and Stevie Wonder.

Trivia: one of their releases continues to hold the record for a #1 single with the longest name on the U.S. Billboard charts, due to the legalities requiring each song title be listed: Intro/Venus/Sugar Sugar/No Reply/I'll Be Back/Drive My Car/Do You Want to Know a Secret/We Can Work It Out/I Should Have Known Better/You're Going to Lose That Girl/Stars on 45.