Songoftheday 11/12/20 - Brother Pele's in the back sweet Zina's in the front, cruisin' down the freeway in the hot hot sun...
"How Bizarre" - OMC
from the album How Bizarre (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart
Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #4 (six weeks)
Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 36
Today's song of the day comes from the New Zealand pop act OMC, the moniker used by singer Pauly Fuemana. Along with co-writer and co-producer Alan Jansson, Pauly released his first single "We R The OMC" in 1994. The "OMC" stood for "Otara Millionaires Club", namechecking the section of city Aukland. But that being only a local release, the world wouldn't hear from Fuemana until his and Jansson's second release "How Bizarre", which was released Down Under in 1995, becoming insanely popular and eventually wove its way around the planet until it got to the States in 1997, where mainstream pop radio took to it's mixture of indie-rock and Latin production along with Sina Saipaia's backing vocals to make a witty but accessible record. In a way, it's a precursor to today's TikTok hit "Siren Beat" from Jawsh 685, where a native Down Under artist transforms another genre (this time reggae instead of Latin rhythms), and I'm sure "How Bizarre" deserves some TikTok love...
Since "How Bizarre" wasn't released as a commercial single in the States (most likely at the time to attempt to goose sales of the album), it was not able to place on Billboard magazine's official Hot 100 pop chart. However the song got so much radio love that it peaked in the top ten of the airplay component of that list in July of 1997, and spending almost a year (51 weeks) on that chart. The song also rose to #5 on Billboard's Adult Top-40 radio format list. Internationally, besides its initial #1 success in Australia and New Zealand, the single also topped the charts in Canada, Austria, and Ireland, and made the top ten in Germany (#2), Sweden (#4), Switzerland (#4), the UK (#5), and Hungary (#10). The How Bizarre album, the only release from OMC, reached #40 on the Billboard 200 sales chart, going on to sell over a half a million copies.
Despite the massive success, Fuemana and Jansson were unable to build on that with any other of the hits Down Under from How Bizarre, including follow-up single "Right On" (#11 NZ), "On The Run" (#30 NZ), and "Land Of Plenty", which returned them to their homeland's top ten at #4. All were pretty decent and deserved better here. Nonetheless, that would be the last we heard from them, and sadly Fuemana died of an autoimmune disease in 2010. and "How Bizarre" returned to the New Zealand top-40 shortly after in honor.
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Here's OMC performing on Kiwi TV in 1996...
Up tomorrow: Singer/songwriter is advocating some diversity.
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