Stars on 45

Willem van Kooten, the managing director of the Dutch publishing company Red Bullet Productions, visited a record store and happened to hear a disco medley being played there.

The medley combined original recordings of songs by the Beatles, the Buggles, the Archies and Madness with a number of recent American and British disco hits like Lipps Inc.'s "Funkytown", Heatwave's "Boogie Nights", and The S.O.S.

The first version of the medley was eight minutes long, and it included parts from some twenty tracks of which only three were by the Beatles: "No Reply", "I'll Be Back", and "Drive My Car".

A later extended, 16-minute, 30-track mix of the same medley labeled "Bits and Pieces III" added another five Beatles titles: "Do You Want to Know a Secret", "We Can Work It Out", "I Should Have Known Better", "Nowhere Man", and "You're Gonna Lose That Girl".

Apart from the recreated songs, an original chorus and hook written and composed by Eggermont and musical arranger Martin Duiser called "Stars on 45" was added at intervals to help string differing sections together.

When Dutch radio stations began playing the four-minute, eight-track Beatles segment of the medley, placed in the middle of the original, 12" mix, an edited 7" single with the Beatles part preceded by "Venus" and The Archies's "Sugar, Sugar" was released and hit the #1 spot of the Dutch singles charts in February 1981.

The track list for the 7" edit of the "Stars on 45 Medley" in the US was the names of all the songs that make up the medley as it appears on the actual record label: This single with its 41-word title continues to hold the record for a #1 single with the longest name on the Billboard charts, due to the legalities requiring each song title be listed.

The popularity of the album even resulted in it being given an official release in the Soviet Union, where it was issued by state-owned record label Melodiya under the title Discothèque Stars.

In late 1981, Eggermont and Martin Duiser were awarded the Conamus Export Prize in the Netherlands in recognition of their contributions to Dutch culture and economy.

In late 1982, Eggermont and Duiser again won the Conamus Export Prize, this time together with Tony Sherman, who sang lead vocals on "Stars on Stevie".

Dutch band Veronica Unlimited scored a big hit in 1977 in the Benelux countries and at home with the disco medley "What Kind of Dance Is This".

[10] The Top of the Pops chart of Thursday, 13 August 1981, had seven medleys in the Top 40 (by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Tight Fit, Gidea Park, Lobo, Starsound, Startrax and Enigma) with "Stars on 45 (Volume 2)" and "Startrax Club Disco", a Bee Gees medley, jointly holding the number 27 slot in the chart.

[11] Beginning in the late 1980s, a British novelty group, Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers, had several hit singles using the same format as Stars on 45, only using primarily big band and 1950s-60s rock and roll songs.

Initially, the group utilized remixes of original recordings by artists such as Bill Haley and His Comets, Little Richard and the Everly Brothers, but later used singer-impersonators in similar form to Stars on 45.