NZMM Day 6 – When The Cat’s Away

Today’s artist is the all-girl band When The Cat’s Away, who I mentioned in yesterday’s post. They’ve been active since 1986.

The group’s original five members were Annie Crummer (who sings first in the video above), Debbie Harwood, Dianne Swann, Margaret Urlich and Kim Willoughby. While they’d all been performers in their own right, they formed their group at the 1986 New Zealand Music Awards.

The video above is their cover of UK band Blue Mink’s “Melting Pot” (1988), which reached Number 1 on the NZ chart. It also went Gold.

In 2001, they teamed up with Sharon O’Neill (the artist in yesterday’s post) for a remake of O’Neill’s “Asian Paradise” (below). As I said yesterday, I think this version is better, partly because it’s slightly faster, but also because the production also seems smoother. On the other hand, this version was recorded some two decades after the original, so the sound ought to be different.

Interestingly, while I prefer the remake of “Asian Paradise”, I like both versions of “Melting Pot”, because I think both have their strengths. I’m not one of those people with an automatic bias in favour of newer versions of songs.

This post, too, was suggested by family members, who also suggested Annie Crummer specifically. She will be the subject of a post of her own because she’s an artist I’ve always liked.