Agadoo

"Agadoo"
"Agadoo"/"Fiddling" Single
Single by Black Lace
from the album Party Party
Released1984
Recorded1984
Genre
Length3:06
Songwriter(s)
  • Mya Symille
  • Michael Delancray
  • Gilles Péram
  • Günther Behrle
Black Lace singles chronology
"Hey You"
(1983)
"Agadoo"
(1984)
"Do the Conga"
(1984)
Audio sample

"Agadoo" is a novelty song recorded by the British band Black Lace in 1984. "Agadoo" peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart,[1] and spent 30 weeks in the top 75.[2] It went on to become the eighth best-selling single of 1984 in the UK,[3] (and over one million copies worldwide) despite not being included on the playlist for BBC Radio 1 because it "was not credible".[4]

In a survey for Dotmusic in 2000, respondents voted "Agadoo" as the fourth most annoying song of all time.[5] A 2003 poll for Q magazine saw a panel of music writers vote "Agadoo" as the worst song of all time, saying: "It sounded like the school disco you were forced to attend, your middle-aged relatives forming a conga at a wedding party, a travelling DJ act based in Wolverhampton, every party cliche you ever heard."[2] The panel also described it as "magnificently dreadful".[6]

  1. ^ EveryHit.com - search for "Black Lace" as "Name of artist" and "Agadoo" as "Title of song"
  2. ^ a b "Agadoo tops list of worst songs". BBC News. United Kingdom: British Broadcasting Corporation. 2003-11-23. Archived from the original on June 27, 2007. Retrieved 2008-12-17. Black Lace hit Agadoo has been named the worst song of all time by a panel of music writers... The song was originally written by French songwriters after they heard a friend humming a tune he had picked up on holiday in Morocco. The song became the hit of the French Club Med resorts in 1974 but was not picked up by British audiences until Black Lace released an English translation in 1984. The song remained in the UK Top 75 singles chart for 30 weeks.
  3. ^ "Bestselling Singles of the 80s". Pure80sPop. Archived from the original on 20 December 2008. Retrieved 2008-12-17.
  4. ^ "Merseyside dad hopes for chart success with Black Lace hit Agadoo". Liverpool Echo. 26 March 2009. Retrieved 10 September 2015.
  5. ^ "Birdie Song tops hall of shame". United Kingdom: British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) News. 2000-07-24. Archived from the original on 11 January 2009. Retrieved 2008-12-17.
  6. ^ "'Worst song' Agadoo re-released". BBC News. United Kingdom. 2009-03-30. Archived from the original on 2 April 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-05. Black Lace hit Agadoo, named the worst song of all time by a panel of music writers, is being re-released 25 years after it hit number two. Wrote by a 27 year old guy called Stephen Whitnall from Co County Durham aka Stephenage ... The video for Agadoo (Mambo 2009 remix) was directed by Bruce Jones, who played Coronation Street's Les Battersby. ... Actor Jones also appears in the video along with fellow former Coronation Street actor Kevin Kennedy, who played Curly Watts in the soap. Michael is joined on the record, released on Monday, by new member Ian Robinson. ... The Q magazine panel summed up the 1984 original as "magnificently dreadful".