For A Moment The World Was Aglow – Boney M’s Christmas Joy
How Boney M.’s 1978 kept getting better and better
The race for the Christmas No.1 has always been a big deal in the UK. Not that there were too many acts making a special effort to nab the top spot in 1978. Yes, The Smurfs had a crack with ‘Christmas In Smurfland’, inspiring spoof act Father Abraphart And The Smurps to do likewise with their ‘Lick A Smurp For Christma’s. And while Judge Dread unleashed his reggae-fied ‘Jingle Bells’ upon an undeserving world so The Dickies had a go at re-imagining ‘Silent Night’.
The only other act seeking to court the seasonal market were California AOR legends The Eagles (‘Please Come Home For Christmas’). Otherwise, the charts were crammed with – admittedly excellent – tracks such as The Clash’s ‘Tommy Gun’, Ian Dury’s ‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’, Blondie’s cover of ‘Hangin’ On The Telephone’ and ‘Le Freak’ by Chic, plus none-more-70s artists such as Racey, Darts and Rocky Sharpe And The Replays.
However, these non-festive acts were every bit as powerless as their Christmas-coated counterparts with regard to making it to the top of the chart tree.
For that all but belonged to Boney M. (the full stop’s really important, apparently), a German disco outfit who released three singles over the course of 1978, shifting some five million discs in the process. Which wasn’t at all bad given that they weren’t really a group: at least, not in the conventional sense.
Boney M. – the name came from the Australian crime series Boney – were the brainchild of Frank Farian. A German record producer based in Miami, Farian looks exactly as you’d imagine he would. Long before he made his millions, the man born Franz Reuther had been trying to make it as a recording artist.
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