(From the TV show; 1990/Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince Greatest Hits album; 1998)
The biggest mistake Them crackers at Jive™ made wasn't continually delaying The Clipse's Hell Hath No Fury, it was not releasing the full Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air theme as a single back in 1990/1991. A no-brainer global hit in waiting, that shit coulda been as big as Summertime and made the world a more fun place in the process. Instead Jive came up with the bizarre decision to only release it as a Netherlands-exclusive and not even in its original form. Whichever A&R came up with that idea should have been fired - into space.
Didn't even know there was a long version.
ReplyDeleteThe pilot episode has a slightly longer version than the regular opening theme but I don't think they released the full version until the Greatest Hits album.
ReplyDeleteThis post was inspired by me picking up a copy of the theme on 7" a couple of weeks back only to find out it was the wack remix Netherlands version.
Sounds like New Jack Swing must have been big in the Netherlands lol.
ReplyDeletebad decisions & ball drops by UK records labels could be a long running blog series
ReplyDeleteTrue.
ReplyDeleteBut this particular one is a U.S record label decision innit. How the Hell did the Fresh Prince theme never get a single release in America or anywhere else on the planet other than the Netherlands? Truly mind boggling 😄
The Fresh Prince theme was the first hip hop song i loved.
ReplyDeleteIt's great how everyone who was a teenager between 1987 to 1999 has a formative Fresh Prince/Will Smith song.
ReplyDeletefunny/sad how the "yo home" euro man mondegreen has stuck for latter day domestic rsd cash in reissues and even streaming services like not one person in the decades long production chain is aware of the existence of the word "holmes"
ReplyDeleteI heard this and the All That theme song being played out in the clubs this past weekend
ReplyDeleteDamn, shoulda played Coolio's Kenan & Kel too for a TV theme trifecta.
ReplyDeleteNoz, tbf the actual lyric is "yo home to Bel-Air" innit. He doesn't say "yo holmes" until the "smell ya later" part.
Just checking Coolio's Discogs and I see that the Kenan & Kel theme never came out as a single either. SMH.
ReplyDelete"i thought nah forget it, yo' home to bel air" makes zero sense contextually and he says it in the exact same cadence as "yo holmes, smell you later" he's clearly addressing the cabby as ho(l)mes in both cases any other interpretation is some esl confusion
ReplyDeleteI've never heard anybody called "ho(l)me" without the s, so I've always assumed he means home to Bel-Air as in take me to my new home.
ReplyDeletehe's clearly saying it with an s i don't know what song you're listening to
ReplyDeleteI hear no s ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
ReplyDeleteHe clearly says holmes both times lol
ReplyDeleteI clearly disagree.
ReplyDeleteclearly yr british
ReplyDeleteClearly the American healthcare system does not provide earwax extractions.
ReplyDeleteI will solve this when I have my headphones at hand.
ReplyDeleteJust wait until I resurrect the immortal question: did Ma$e say fresh clothes or French clothes on Feel So Good?
ReplyDeleteAlways thought it was, “Yo, home to Bel-Air!”, too,
ReplyDeleteThat video just gave me a flashback of kid Alfonso's cover of The Message.
ReplyDeleteWas at a 90s/00s party earlier this year when the DJ played the full theme song, which was the first time of ever encountering this song outside of the internet. Bit baffling because even in the Netherlands that version is barely known and everybody instantly stopped singing along once the familiar parts of the song were over.
ReplyDeleteMight be the weirdest remix of the 90s.
ReplyDelete