Keep Cool, Cat!
A heavy metal newsletter's investigation of Garfield's 1995 Eurodance album
Pressing pause on the heavy metals because I desperately need to share this with someone. Since I have no life, that someone is you, dear subscribers. Worry not, the VaccZine will return soon. But for now, let me confide in you something that has been monopolizing my brain's processing power for way too long.
Behold, a Mystery
That's "Cool Cat," a relic of a bygone age known as the '90s. It's the first single from Garfield's album Keep Cool, Cat!, released on either November 13 or November 20, 1995. Hence, it's the kind of innocuous near-past artifact that cyclically resurfaces on the internet because the internet is built to remember everything and nothing. At first, it seems like this video can't possibly be real. Garfield-themed Eurodance? Someone slapped together Garfield and Friends clips and tried to submit it to Houseum, right? Somehow, no. Very real.
Take a moment to marvel that Russian bootleggers couldn't even be bothered to find an orange cat and-WAIT, HOLD UP. Why and how and…why and…how is there a Garfield Eurodance album? And, yep, that's the mystery.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, did I solve this mystery definitively? Well…much in the same way narrative whodunit podcasts reliably punt on their and-everything-in-between themes by the second episode, I'll let you know up top: No, I did not solve the mystery of why there's a Garfield Eurodance album. But I think I can get you close via rampant speculation, selective storytelling, and Discogs digging. In the process, we're going to encounter way more pop culture detritus than I ever expected would be in the same ancestral tree as a forgotten, cheesy Eurodance record with a famous cartoon cat on the cover.
So, think of the upcoming deep dive into my damaged mind as a treatise on just how much stuff resides behind something that objectively means so little. Keep Cool, Cat! demonstrates that even the dark matter powers governing nothing-music emanate from a pocket dimension of overlapping endless infinities that obliterate traditional music criticism demarcations like "good" and "bad." In that way, you could even say that Garfield is a lasagna that's bigger on the inside, an eternal Monday that can only be measured by Schrödinger-y observations. Put more simply, welcome to the unbelievable, unimaginable, unreal context of Keep Cool, Cat!, a parallel universe to the one I thought I existed in. Strap in.
Garfield, the Eurodance Group
First, it's worth differentiating the two entities in the mix: There's Garfield, the cartoon cat, and there's Garfield, the Eurodance group. What does that mean? Well, this is not wholly accurate because what thesis is, but you can frame the rest of this story this way: Garfield, the Eurodance group, licensed the image and likeness of Garfield, the cartoon cat. More precisely, Merchandising München licensed the rights to a proven property and worked with Metronome, the multinational music label, in some capacity to design and construct a concept that would allow them to sneak a set of unrelated Eurodance into circulation in two distinct markets. Confused? I think that was the point. Nonetheless, all of this will make sense soon. Except, no, it won't. Not a bit. But, hey, I have to start somewhere.
Although a few other artists were involved, at its core, Garfield, the Eurodance group, was four German musicians, all of whom happen to be related: Gabi, Giorgio, Martin, and Suna Koppehele. The Koppeheles were working under the stage surname Cope at the time. Per the info page on Avenue Music, the studio/songwriting arm of the Koppehele empire, Giorgio and Martin are brothers. Giorgio is married to Gabi, Martin to Suna. (Giorgio and Martin responded to an interview request but didn't answer a list of questions I submitted. If they do, I'll post it as a standalone Q&A and link to it at the bottom of this post.)
The earliest Koppehele credit I can dig up is Avenue, a vaguely Italo disco synth pop duo formed by Giorgio and Martin that recorded three singles for Ariola Records. The first, 1986's "Imagination," was produced by Michael Cretu. Congratulations, This is our first wild connection, and it's indicative of the six-degrees mania you're going to become used to encountering. Because, Michael Cretu? Kind of a big deal.
If you're over the age of 25, you know Michael Cretu even if you think you don't. The Romanian-German musician continues to amass multiple lifetimes of crazy credits. A tasting pour: He got his start playing on Frank Farian songs like Boney M's "Rivers of Babylon," scored a top 5 German hit with Moti Special's "Cold Days, Hot Nights," produced and then married German superstar Sandra, and achieved worldwide notoriety with Engima. Yes, the "Sadeness Part I" from the original Pure Moods Enigma. Needless to say, Michael Cretu has a cult following.
If you can tear yourself away from whispering “sade, dis-moi” dramatically for the rest of the day, here's the video for Avenue's "Imagination." Presumably, that's Giorgio and Martin. Not gonna lie, the song kicks ass in an A-Ha-if-it-were-Tears-for-Fears way.
While Avenue doesn't appear to have caught on or, at least, achieved lasting relevancy outside of coke-encrusted discos, Giorgio and Martin were able to find steady work in the biz. Actually, that might be an understatement. The brothers have scored a ton of credits over the years. Giorgio alone has 120 under his name, and that's not counting his various aliases which could easily add tens if not hundreds more. (This is 100 percent conjecture, but I think you can find even more unlisted credits under the Classic Arts music publishing company.) And, tellingly, these credits run the gamut, both in genre and placement. Early, post-Avenue examples include BonApart's infuriatingly earwormy "Oooh! La La" and Hyperdrama C.L.U.B.'s Star Wars-sampling "Cosmic Radiation." The Koppeheles also got a track on the German soundtrack for…Mystic Pizza? Sure. Why not.
These songs must've done some business because the Koppeheles kept racking up gigs. But, beyond any fleeting chart success, from my vantage point, the Koppeheles' most significant and enduring contribution to the German pop scene was their adeptness at bottling trends. They are Pokémon trainers of pop music fodder. Better still, they could churn out steady genre fare that wasn't totally embarrassing, no small feat as the '80s gave way to the '90s. For example, here they are helming the lead single for C.C. Catch's 1989 album, Hear What I Say, the enitrely passable freestyle-esque "Big Time."
Hear what I mean? It's not good, but, crucially, it's not bad. When it comes to pop songwriting and production, that's a superpower.
There's a lot more of that in the collected Koppehele discography, such as Virginity 99's wholesomely unwholesome "Kiss My... Cherry Lips," that's worth exploring. For our purposes, though, I want to point your attention to four tracks that will properly set the stage for Keep Cool, Cat!
Mr. M.A.X. – “Max Headroom Calling”
Mr. M.A.X.'s debut single, "Max Headroom Calling," was released on Polydor in 1989. Somehow, it is precisely what it says on the tin, a German synth-pop take on '80s cultural phenomenon/New Coke spokesman Max Headroom.
It's…mystifying why that one and the subsequent single, "Hit the Beat Max!," exist. That's obviously not Matt Frewer's voice, and, going strictly by vibe, I'm guessing the O.G. Max Headroom creative team didn't have much, if any, input on either single because the songs are not transgressive or funny. (On the Avenue Music info page, it does mention that the Koppeheles did soundtrack work for a Max Headroom project, but it doesn't elaborate on what that entailed.) And, truth be told, the 1989 release date is pretty late in the Max Headroom game. Granted, time moved slower before social media, but both the Channel 4/Cinemax- and ABC-aired Max Headroom TV series were off the air by the time "Max Headroom Calling" was released.
Even more confusing is that…you know…there already was a notable Max Headroom single out on the market. The Art of Noise's "Paranoimia," a Top 40 hit that featured the "real" Max Headroom, came out in April 1986. All of that is to say…why Max Headroom? Why Max Headroom in 1989? It's such a strange choice to hitch two singles on.
My best guess is that something, anything, needed to open Max Headroom Mega Dance, a two-disc compilation from Polystar with a pretty all-over-the-place track listing: De La Soul; Paula Abdul; A Living In a Box song that's not "Living In a Box" from its hit record Living In a Box. To put it another way, it's your typical pre-streaming compilation, a budget-priced assortment of whiplash-inducing odds and sods that's like casting a thousand fishing lines to hook one fish. Welcome to the old compilation economy.
Hits compilations and sampler albums were the playlists of their day, able to turn a tidy profit on low-ish overhead, a process best explained by John McCready in his remembrance of creating and marketing New Zealand's 20 Solid Gold Hits. In short, you secure licensing, calculate royalties, and away you go. Anyone who has flipped through the moldy record stack in a backwater Goodwill knows how prevalent these things used to be. Ubiquitous then, useless now. The overhead would only get lower with the advent of cassettes and CDs, further cheapening manufacturing costs. (Was that savings passed on to consumers? Of course not.) Before record labels decided that forcing consumers to buy a whole damn album from one damn one-hit wonder was the move, compilations were a win for everyone. The compilers made a mint while expending little effort and rapacious music execs got to squeeze more juice out of singles without adding many, if any, lines to the PR budget.
Anyway, besides Mr. M.A.X. and the album cover, that's it for the Max Headroom theme on Max Headroom Mega Dance. Hilariously, Polyphon's own 1989 Max Headroom compilation, Max Headroom Präsentiert: Dance Hits, skipped the Mr. M.A.X. gambit altogether. It recycled the same album art, though.
Oh yes, Digital Underground’s classic single, “The Humty Dance.” Looks like a lot of effort went into this one.
So, again, why Max Headroom if Mr. M.A.X. was barely Max Headroom in the first place? My final ruling that I can't confirm, but when has that ever stopped a grandstanding judge, is that someone held the German Max Headroom rights and called in a weird cash grab while there was still something left to cash in. To snag said cash, they needed to dangle an original song as a hook. Mr. M.A.X. was that hook. But, to maximize potential exposure, casting that hook in as many ponds as possible, the songs couldn't be too Max Headroom. No, the visual is there for one market, the content is there for another.
What do you end up with? A commercial deception dressed like Max Headroom but with vanishingly little Max Headroom content. But that doesn't matter. Regardless of the content, Max Headroom marks will bite. Dance music marks unfamiliar with Max Headroom will also bite because the barrier to entry is essentially nil since the songs dispense with any lore or in-jokes. The only thing that matters, then, is the name, a known quantity that has already echoed throughout pop culture. That subliminal familiarity helps cut through the chaff and gives these faceless dance tracks a leg up on the similarly indistinct competition. The work has already been done from a marketing perspective. Win/win.
Funny how Mr. M.A.X.'s singles were released one year after The Timelords published The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way).
Daffy Duck featuring The Groove Gang – “Party Zone”
[*reads slowly*] "Party Zone" by Daffy Duck featuring The Groove Gang. Uh…huh.
This one came out in 1991 on WEA. Its reason for being makes…a little more sense than Max Headroom in that Looney Tunes was a viable property, one that got a refresh from Tiny Toon Adventures debuting in 1990. (If you want an extensive timeline of Looney Tunes on TV, I'll happily defer to PopArena.) And if you remember it, it's because it reputedly ran for a spell on MTV as a "trailer," per some biased sources.
That said, does "Party Zone" by Daffy Duck featuring The Groove Gang have Daffy Duck, the Daffy Duck, on it? No. Of course it doesn't. Instead, it xeroxes the then-popular C+C Music Factory formula of soul diva hooks and hip house verses.
Fittingly, the people behind those hooks and verses have been obscured. The credits belong solely to "AVENUE (G + M Cope)" and the Groove Gang, the latter being, if Discogs is correct, Louis Pirson and Gaetan Fabri. No offense to Pirson and Fabri, but I don't think they're singing or rapping. (Pirson and Fabri would end up in D-Tune, a techno group that's not notable but has a song on its sole 12" titled "Love First (Gay Pride)." Is the music good? No. Do I appreciate the sentiment? 100 percent.)
If I had to take a stab at the non-Koppehele performers — and in what will become a theme, I have nothing to substantiate this — I'd say it's Splash, the German hip house duo that released its self-titled debut on WEA in 1991. And, would you look at that, Splash has songwriting credits by G + M Cope. At the very least, Aimee McCoy and Eric P. III's vocals sure sound familiar. To drive that home, here's Splash's "Dancin' On the Highway," which I'm picking mostly because it has additional guest verses by Midnight Fish, whose only other credits I can find are XL Singleton's "Give A Little Bit Of Lovin" and a 1995 ragga cover of, I kid you not, Lally Stott's "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" that was made famous by Middle of the Road. I can't even imagine what that must sound like. This is a plea: Someone upload that nightmare, please.
"Party Zone," like "Max Headroom Calling" before it, was relegated to compilation duty, although no various artists collection was explicitly built around it. Still, the song variance on some of the comps that it costarred on is as all-over-the-place as Max Headroom Mega Dance, if not increasing the general huh???osity. Hit Fascination 4/91 has The Clash, The KLF, and Huey Lewis & the News. Maxi Dance Sensation 4 has MC Hammer, Massive Attack, and The Simpsons. Yes, that Simpsons, doing that song Simpsons creator Matt Groening wrote with DJ Jazzy Jeff. Schmucke Mucke has Marillion, Queen, Vanilla Ice, and Wilson Phillips. If these were your Spotify Wrapped, you'd have an FBI file. The track that unites them all is "Party Zone" by DAFFY DUCK featuring The Groove Gang.
Still, the reason why "Party Zone" by DAFFY DUCK featuring The Groove Gang is notable is the "official video" embedded above, which edits existing Looney Tunes material into something that looks like a music video, or as much as a surrealist edit of Looney Tunes can look to kids and the highly hungover. Kind of looks like the video for Garfield's "Cool Cat," no?
D A F F Y D U C K would return in 1992 with "Dynamite," a track featuring "Bugs Bunny" in a rap battle…that's more of a skirmish. MC Skat Kat is itching to 8 Mile through that lineup. Still, as you'd expect, "Dynamite" is even more shameless than "Party Zone," but at least acknowledges that Daffy Duck is a "hip hop duck." It's a better track for the namecheck. The video, too, is more cleverly edited, proving that whoever was pulling the strings of Daffy Duck, the hip hop duck, was learning as they went.
"Dynamite" would get dusted off for another remix in 1997 featuring turns from Partnerz' N Crime and someone named Dick Nasty, who, if Discogs is to be believed, appeared on a compilation in 2007 alongside…Sadistik Exekution??? Bet you didn't see that one coming. Anyway! Dick Nasty! Oh, you know, that classic pairing of Daffy Duck and Dick Nasty, compilation compadre of those Australian blackened death metal fukkers. What is even happening right now?
Odyssey – “Talk to Me” and Cymurai – “Magic Touch”
I'm lumping tracks three and four together because they are cut from the same cloth. Odyssey's 1993 single, "Talk to Me," released on Metronome, features vocals by Lisa Cash, previously on Consolidated's "This is Fascism." In Odyssey, Giorgio and Martin are billed as PSI 1 and PSI 2. The rapper is Marcus Deon Thomas, who has credits all over the aforementioned Splash albums and eventually took center stage for Pharao, the popular German Eurodance group Thomas co-fronted with Kyra Pharao.
Odyssey enjoyed greater longevity than the typical Koppehele project from this era, releasing its second and final album in 1999, the Intercord/Maxximum-released Boom Boom. If Odyssey has any remaining cultural cachet, it's for the videos it released in support of 1994's Love Train that are now awash in hazy "oh I remember this" YouTube comments. Here's "Riding on a Train," which, credit where it's due, beat Quad City DJ's "C'mon N' Ride It (The Train)" to the tracks by two years.
Whew, doggies, that is a weird one. Re: the video's YouTube comments, I don't blame anyone for thinking they dreamed this. The treatment is a literal interpretation of the lyrics (riding on a train) with a sprinkling of some dude...wielding a pan flute. Maybe this is why America still doesn't have highspeed railways. Again, weird! Ah, but not quite as weird as Cymurai's "Magic Touch." Just…look at this:
Christ, it's like what a sentient Sega Saturn would dream if you stuffed it full of shrooms. Also, musically, what a glorious 2 Unlimited rip-off. The singer this time is Thea Austin, she of "Rhythm Is A Dancer" fame. Snap!'s enduring hit, which Austin co-wrote, went to #1 in a bunch of countries, including Germany. By 1994, Austin was working on a solo career when she linked up with Giorgio and Martin for a few singles. Like "Talk To Me," "Magic Touch" targeted the mid-'90s Eurodance zeitgeist, competently delivering a payload of incessantly catchy nothing-music that sounds familiar the first time you hear it. It thus works in every mix because it sounds like everything else. It walked so Dance Dance Revolution players could stomp.
That ends our four-song Koppehele deep dive. A recap: Track one is a weird cash grab. Track two is a weird cash grab that doesn't feature the voice of the animated character in question, but does have a music video with the animated character's presence. Track three was released on Metronome and has a more Eurodance style. Track four is pure Eurodance with the familiar voice of a dance diva who had a massive hit. Got it? Great.
So, what was happening on the business side of things?
Merchandising München
In what's probably the best-case scenario for any of us after we cease operations, there's not a whole lot out there on the web about Merchandising München. It gets one sentence in the Wikipedia rundown of ProSieben, the German television broadcaster, noting that Merchandising München was bought by the parent company of ProSieben in 1996. Then, there are a few stray "in association with" mentions in archived press releases for shows like Pig City and Totally Spies! Most tantalizingly, though, is a Discogs page cataloging related audio releases, one which describes the business as a "German licensing and merchandising company."
According to Discogs, the Merchandising München-related discography stretches back to 1972, mostly made up of German versions of radio plays and songs for children's entertainment, from Astrid Lindgren's Pippi Longstocking to Osamu Tezuka's Kimba the White Lion to Waldemar Bonsels's Maya the Bee, and on and on. To be clear, Merchandising München didn't release these records and cassettes — the German version of Jim Henson's Muppet Babies #13 radio play cassette was released by Karussell, for instance — but it held the licensing.
By the late '80s and early '90s, it appears Merchandising München began licensing more modern fare, ending up with credits on several Simpsons, Baywatch, and Beverly Hills 90210 radio plays. In 1995, it's credited as the licenser for MTV's Beavis And Butt-Head - Cool Music, a compilation of songs presumably from the German dub. (German Beavis and Butt-Head were apparently fans of Spermbirds and H-Blockx.) Then, in 1996, it licensed Star Trek 30 Years - A Tribute, which was headlined by Yello, the Swiss duo responsible for "Oh Yeah." (The one band that compilation-makers thought would appeal to both Beavis And Butt-Head and Star Trek fans? Selig, somehow. Selig is still around. It released Myriaden in 2021.) A single for the theme song to the ProSieben show Arabella was also released in 1996. Merchandising München didn't have another credit until 2001's [Generation] Get It, a compilation of songs in German commercials, such as The True Party's "Whazzup?" Holy hell, this song sucks.
During this mid '90s stretch of radio plays and compilations, Merchandising München has a licensing credit on one oddball album. Why was that one weird? It was a rare recording of originals attributed to a single group.
Garfield's Keep Cool, Cat! was released by Metronome in 1995, "licensed from" Merchandising München. It also appears that Merchandising München was responsible for the "concept and design," as well. Here's the back of the CD single of "Party of Love":
Oh hey, I spy FKM Filmkunst-Musikverlag. We should probably talk about that real quick. FKM Filmkunst-Musikverlag is a publisher, mostly working in "themes, scores, and soundtracks." Where's it located? Munich. What has it published? Many things, including Daffy Duck's "Party Zone" and "Dynamite." Also, I'm going to list some of its other unrelated trash for no other reason than to punish you. Here's Grandmaster Mouse's "Die Schnellste Maus Von Mexiko."
Burn it with fire and send it straight to hell. Can it get worse? I'm sorry, are you challenging me? Bang: Gogo's "Hey, Pippi Langstrumpf."
I think I just violated 83 human rights laws.
So, how is our Keep Cool, Cat! investigation looking so far? The Koppeheles (mostly) had the music. Merchandising München had the rights and created the concept. Hang on, let's go back to that "Party of Love" single. Who is Rachel Wallace?
Rachel Wallace
Following her well-received 1991 debut single, "I Feel This Way," Rachel Wallace made waves with 1992’s "Tell Me Why," a song she co-wrote with Mark Williams and Matt Clayden, the "M&M" of Acorn Arts, among other projects. It's the type of drum-heavy, Suburban Base dance track that would've been sped up in a DJ Bailey mix.
While I can't find chart data, the song obviously made a dent and is recognized as an underground classic now. For what it's worth, I prefer Wallace's 1993 follow-up, the absolute banger "Pressure." Her vocal on that rules. We're losing the thread somewhat, but this is my newsletter, so here's that one:
After two solid singles, did success follow? Not in the music biz. As expained on Wallace's Discogs page, she put her career on hold to go to college. She eventually moved to Munich and opened a clothing store. Wallace's Wikipedia entry fleshes that life event out by adding a key detail: "Wallace then relocated to Munich, Germany, where she opened a clothing shop until 1995, when she returned to the music scene as a lead vocalist for the German group Garfield…." (Wallace didn't respond to interview requests.)
How did Wallace enter the orbit of the Koppeheles? Check out this bit of PR pulled from the "product-fact" sheet of Keep Cool, Cat!
Here’s the rough translation from Google Translate:
Martin and Giorgio discovered Rachel in their shop on Camden Road in London. The producer team was immediately impressed by Rachel's voice and hired her on the spot. The singer now also sells trendy fashion in her own fashion shop in Munich. When she's not roaming around London for the latest trends or reading Miles Davis' biography, Rachel likes to spend most of her time with her favorite animals, the cats. Her undisputed star: Garfield.The Paws of God
Garfield, the syndicated newspaper comic strip, debuted under that name on June 19, 1978. (Earlier strips were published under "Jon" in the Pendleton Times-Post.) The strip's creator, Jim Davis, made a critical decision early, choosing to handle merchandising in house. Garfield, the cartoon cat, blew up, perhaps peaking as a pop culture entity in 1988 with the near-universal "Stuck on You" suction-cup plush. Paws, Inc., the company that Davis founded to manage the brand, employed nearly 60 people at its height.
Just how much money was Paws, Inc. raking in? Well, Licensing International, reporting on Viacom's 2019 purchase of Paws, Inc., cited this bananas figure: "$750 million-$1 billion in annual retail sales of licensed goods." (I reached out to Viacom Nickelodeon Consumer Products requesting an interview. No one responded. Viacom is now known as Paramount Global.) Given that small-nation GDP, you can guess that Garfield has appeared on almost every piece of merch possible. And where there is merch money, there is transcendence.
Garfield quickly made the leap to other media. The Monday-hating fat cat has had an extended stay on television airwaves since the early '80s, even winning Emmys. Then, Garfield hit the silver screen in 2004. Garfield: The Movie made $203.2 million at the box office, and its sequel, 2006's Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, grossed a respectable $143.3 million. (Both movies co-star Breckin Meyer and Jennifer Love Hewitt, with Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield. I choose to believe that they are in the same cinematic universes as Clueless, Can't Hardly Wait, and the reoccurring dream of Phil Connors, and you can't tell me otherwise.) And, oh yeah, there have been Garfield albums. As this is a music-centric newsletter, let's stick to those.
The first Garfield album is Here Comes Garfield, released by Epic in 1982 in conjunction with the TV special of the same name. (The TV special was nominated for two Emmys.) The songs are sung by Desirée Goyette and Grammy Award-winning smooth soul king Lou Rawls. (I have a soft spot for Rawls, especially his stint on Philadelphia International.) Ed Bogas, Goyette's husband, shares writing credits.
To drive home how many unexpected pop culture connections circle Garfield, the cartoon cat, let's drill down on Ed Bogas. Bogas was an "additional musician" on 1968's The United States of America, the cult psych/experimental rock album by The United States of America. (Ulver covered one of its songs on Childhood's End.) Like Michael Cretu, that is one credit of many in an early career that demonstrated Bogas's versatility as a musician, producer, writer, and arranger. Check out this list of Bogas associates: Buddy Guy, Clover, Robbie Basho, The Grateful Dead, Sly and the Family Stone, Sylvester, and a ton more. Following Vince Guaraldi's death, Bogas contributed music to the Peanuts TV specials. And that wasn't his first foray into animated works. Along with Ray Shanklin, Bogas composed music for two Ralph Bakshi features, Heavy Traffic and Fritz the Cat, which means that…yep…Garfield is connected to Fritz the Cat. Bogas is still active. You can find some of his commercial work on his website.
And that's only scratching the surface. Bogas is but one connection on an album/special loaded with many others. Garfield's next album would provide a ton more.
Am I Cool Or What? was released in July 1991 by GRP Records. It clawed its way to #23 on Billboard's Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart. Rawls and Goyette returned. They're joined by, among others, Patti LaBelle, Natalie Cole, The Pointer Sisters, and…B.B King?! Yeah. B.B. King is there for "Monday Morning Blues (Blues for Mr. G)." Of course.
But the eye-popping connections aren't limited to the stars above the line. Am I Cool Or What?'s session musicians are where you find the good stuff. Sal Marquez, who shows up on many classic Frank Zappa records, is there. So is Tom Scott, the composer of the theme to Starsky and Hutch, among a million other things. Marcel and Nathan East have credits. Larry Washington and Carlos Vega have credits. Larry Steelman, who played piano on Willis Alan Ramsey's self-titled debut, one of my favorite records of all time, has a credit. It's ridiculous. If you're ever like, "Huh, I wonder if I can connect the bear in The Revenant to Garfield, the cartoon cat?" you can use Am I Cool Or What? to do it.
Don't believe me? The Revenant soundtrack was produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Alva Noto, and Bryce Dessner. Sakamoto is in Yellow Magic Orchestra with Haruomi Hosono. Hosono was in Happy End. Happy End's great 1973 self-titled finale was produced by Van Dyke Parks. Tom Scott played on Van Dyke Parks' Song Cycle. There you go. Van Dyke Parks also gets you to Charles Manson through the Beach Boys, so that's a thing.
Anyway, here's Am I Cool Or What?'s opener. It's The Temptations teaching you how to "Shake Your Paw."
Notice that this same clip was used in the video for "Cool Cat." Anyhow, good lord! I feel like I need to step in and rescue a legacy here. As a palate cleanser, here's The Temptations standing on "Shakey Ground" with cult guitarist Eddie Hazel and "Standing On the Top" with Rick James. Never let it be said that I hung post-imperial period Temptations out to dry.
Where were we? Right, from my perspective, Am I Cool Or What? is Garfield at its absolute zenith. Two of its songs, "Shake Your Paw" and B.B. King's "Monday Morning Blues (Blues for Mr. G)," appear in 1991's Garfield Gets a Life, the final Garfield TV special. (Demonstrating how deep I could go, it was directed by John Sparey, who had a wild career, working on everything from Lady and the Tramp to The Flintstones to a lot of Bakshi features to Bobby's World. Sparey's co-directors on the previous few Garfield specials, Phil Roman and Bob Nesler, have even wilder careers. The Simpsons! King of the Hill! Space Jam!)
The rest of the decade would begin an ever-so-slight descent for Garfield's popularity, like someone dropping a feather from the top of the Burj Khalifa. Garfield was still a reliable commodity thanks to its incredible syndication numbers and forever-expanding merch empire, but the mid-'90s now look like a lull — or more accurately a valley — compared to its busy-bee era of total cultural domination. To wit, by the end of 1994, Garfield and Friends, the CBS animated TV show that aired on Saturday mornings, was winding down, airing the final episode of its seventh season on December 10 and living on in reruns until October 7, 1995. In Germany, it aired on the network Junior until 1998.
Incidentally, the nail in Garfield and Friends coffin was probably hammered by Laurence Tisch, the CBS CEO whose cost-cutting initiatives and bottom-line-conscious underbids are partly responsible for the NFL's NFC package landing on Fox, helping to legitimize the broadcast channel runt along with The Simpsons, The X-Files, and Married With Children. Interesting story, not going to get into it here. Mark Evanier wrote an "over-answer" about it in 2014.
While there's a paucity of wild connections during Garfield's pre-movie-resurgence '90s period, two big things did transpire: Paws, Inc. scooped up all of the Garfield strips from 1978 to 1993 in a 1994 deal with United Feature, providing Jim Davis even more control over his creation. And, at the end of 1995, Garfield: Caught in the Act was released to Sega Genesis, Game Gear, and PC. For an interview with GamePro, Davis drew a special three-panel strip:
Of all things, that strip proved to me that Keep Cool, Cat! was legit.
The Copyright Notice
This is an especially telling insight into my idiocy, a Swiss cheese skepticism that rejects hard data but safelists fallacious leaps of logic. Even though we have music videos to watch and physical copies of Keep Cool, Cat! are available to buy, thus substantiating that it is, in fact, a real thing, I still thought it might be an elaborate hoax, some Mandela-ass bug in simulation. At the very least, I felt in my bones that it was something that was churned out for the Euro market without Paws, Inc. and/or Jim Davis's involvement.
Part of the reason I labored under that delusion for so long is that I thought that any authentic Garfield product would probably sport, at the very least, the Paws, Inc. logo.
I'll now admit, this is an incredible double-failure of understanding how graphic design and copyright law works, but hey, I'm working with the brain I've got here. This is to say, to my broken brain, the fact that Keep Cool, Cat! lacked that logo made it seem irrepressibly janky to me, the kind of on-the-cheap, low-effort bootleg that leads someone to take a picture of a grey and white living cat as a stand-in for an orange cartoon one. Like…Jim Davis couldn't have possibly signed off on a German Eurodance album, right?
Ah, but check out that copyright notice in the second panel of the GamePro strip posted above. Now, compare it to the one that appears in the Keep Cool, Cat! cover art:
Similar! And that's not the only time the copyright notice has appeared on a CD cover. In 2011, this was purportedly included in an edition of Garfield Magazine:
Summer Party is a whole other Garfield mystery. It was made in Romania, but it's a knock-off covers compilation of Eurodance, rumba, and mambo. Half the album is in Spanish. There's Garfield branded takes on…Lou Bega's "Mambo No. 5," Eiffel 65's "Blue," and Vengaboys' "Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!" The cover is…Garfield in Dire Straits? Hold on, I need to yell into a pillow. I'm sorry, WHAT??? Now that's what I call a mystery. Alas, the only info about it is this Discogs page. But, yeah, there's the same copyright notice: "© PAWS."
Of course, a good bootlegger would just…rip off the copyright notice. (Be that as it may, most bootleggers aren't…good? That's why…they're bootleggers?) So, I wanted to find more compelling evidence that Paws, Inc. and Davis were in the loop for Keep Cool, Cat! And that's when I looked at scans of the CD booklet. Here are the acknowledgments:
"Plus big thanks to Jim Davis and the one and only GARFIELD." OK. You know, I think Davis might've known about this.
Keep Cool, Cat!
The best thing you can say about the music on Keep Cool, Cat! is that it sounds professional. The drums hit. The bass wums. The synths burble in a '90s trance way that's not entirely irritating. Rachel Wallace doesn't exactly wail but gives each of her reads a cool confidence. Sure, there's no grit. No pizazz. No verve. Garfield makes something like Rednex sound like Refused, makes A Night at the Roxbury seem like it's Juice. But it's competent. For what it is, it is what it is. It's just not an album about Garfield.
Right. None of Garfield's songs are directly about Garfield, the cartoon cat. Yes, two songs cheekily employ the word "cat": "Cool Cat" and album closer "Catwalk." But neither is about cats nor even…you know…the cat Garfield, the Eurodance group, is making itself out to be. And that's too bad because the music isn't remarkable enough to stand out on its own, from both a qualitative and weirdness measurement. Ultimately, Keep Cool, Cat! is like one of those 'Bruce Willis needs a summer vacation' action flicks where the star shoots all of his scenes in a single day and dies within the first 15 minutes of the movie. Yet, there's ol' Bruce front and center on the movie poster. It's a con. A fakeout. A cynical marketing ploy.
I can't overstate this: Garfield, the Eurodance group, would've been a knockout if any of the songs on Keep Cool, Cat! were actually about Garfield, the cartoon cat. Alas, nothing about the nothing-music tips you off to the wild incongruity of the project's album cover and branding. If you handed these songs to someone on an unmarked CD-R, they'd say, "Why are you giving me a mix of replacement-level '90s Eurodance?" And then you'd chuckle about that during your 72-hour mental health involuntary hold.
So, why didn't anyone just write some damn Garfield tracks? I think there are three possibilities.
1. All of the songs were written without Garfield in mind because they were composed before the Garfield deal
Imagine this scenario: Merchandising München strikes a deal. The endlessly prolific Koppeheles say, Hey, we already have a ton of music that we've written for other projects. Merchandising München asks if any of them are about cats. Everyone laughs. Metronome releases the album.
This is the most logical answer, but I don't think it applies in this case. Here's why:
"The main producers of the project had been on a tight deadline back then and asked me to come up with a track for the album," Marc Mozart writes to me in an email. In 1995, he was working under the name Mark Z. The track is "Dancehall Fiesta," a quirky mix of spidery Spanish guitar glitches and archaic "human voice" synth settings. Compared to everything that comes before and after on Keep Cool, Cat!, it's a strange fit. It's almost…Balearic? I appreciate it for that reason.
Mozart's collaborator on "Dancehall Fiesta" is Regina Gedeon, aka Danielle Dee, who Mozart also worked with in Morphosis and East Beat Syndicate, among others. Sigh. I'm sorry. I keep doing this. You have to hear this East Beat Syndicate song.
Yeah. They pilfered the "rude" rhymes from Prince's "Controversy." The other half of that verse is all them, though. Like hanging a van Gogh behind Goatse.
Mozart wasn't the only non-Koppehele composer on Keep Cool, Cat! Olli "Keyboard Wizzard" Otis, a frequent Koppehele collaborator on remixes, kicked in three tracks: "Music Takes Control," "Are U Ready For Love," and "Hold On To Your Dreams."
Summation: If you believe in this theory, the question you have to grapple with is, if all of the Keep Cool, Cat! tracks were already written, why rope in two other producers to help hit the deadline?
2. Some songs were written for Keep Cool, Cat! and then they ran out of time before they could finish the rest
Imagine this scenario: Merchandising München wants to strike a deal. The endlessly prolific Koppeheles cut "Cool Cat," a punny song that could be about Garfield or any disco lothario. It has layers. Merchandising München uses that track to seal the deal with Paws, Inc. Metronome releases it as a single. It picks up steam. Metronome wants an album, now. The Koppeheles, running out of time, jettison the cat theme and bring aboard Mozart and Otis. Due to the deadline, the new songs have no layers. Metronome asks if any of these new songs are about cats. Everyone laughs. Metronome releases the album.
This makes more sense. "Cool Cat" might've been penned as a proof of concept to see if the project was viable.
Want proof? Check out the "Cool Cat" single. The release date was May 8, 1995, months before the LP release. It features alternate PAWS copyrighted art and a logo that you will only ever see again in the "Cool Cat" video.
Here's a picture of the CD. You bet, there's a "Fast Cat Mix" and "Rave the Cat" mix. How is the "Fast Cat Mix" not the fastest song? A MYSTERY.
Incidentally, the "Rave the Cat" mix is by the Dance Syndicate "3-O-Matic-Team," the still-active duo of Achim Kleist and Andy Lutschounig. Hey, you know what Kleist co-produced? Here's a callback: Lou Bega's "Mambo No.5." Breathe easy, you're off the hook. I won't embed it. Instead, I will punish you with a different Kleist/Lutschounig song, Sqeezer's Blue Jeans.
Everyone in Germany was just permanently blown off their tits on ecstasy in the '90s, right?
Anyway, it's not unreasonable to think that the Koppeheles cranked out "Cool Cat" and Merchandising München used that to get Jim Davis on board by promising some other cat-y songs. That single and its remixes did well enough, which helped greenlight an LP. And then…everyone ran out of time, and that's why Garfield has a song titled "Dancehall Fiesta" instead of "Punting Odie Off a Table." This is further substantiated by the floating release date of Keep Cool, Cat!, which is cited in various promotional materials as November 13, even though it seems like the album's actual release was delayed by one more week according to Discogs.
3. The whole dang point is that none of these songs immediately scan as Garfield-related
Imagine this scenario: Everyone laughs. Metronome releases the album.
This is the most conspiratorial angle and is the least likely because, as I've demonstrated throughout this newsletter, I don't think much forethought went into any Eurodance. Despite that, I subscribe to this theory because I am like that.
In any case, to me, it seems like Keep Cool, Cat! is pulling a Mr. M.A.X.X and trying to increase its earning potential by pleasing two different markets: curious and completist Garfield fans and non-discerning Eurodance fans. It entices the first group with the visual and the second group with the music. And, similar to trying to mingle at a birthday party where you invited two different friend groups, never the twain shall meet because, in the minds of marketers, it's unlikely that those two fanbases could potentially cross over. In fact, it would probably end poorly if they did, snipping the mental cables that suspend belief. A Garfield fan is not going to want a Eurodance album if you tell them it is a Eurodance album. On the flipside, a Eurodance fan is not going to want a Garfield album if you tell them it's a Garfield album.
There are two big flaws in this argument. First, the PR run-up to Keep Cool, Cat!'s release positions Garfield, the cartoon cat, as a Santa-real mastermind orchestrating this entire affair from behind the scenes. "Und weil Garfield lieber cool bleibt, hat er wie bei 'Cool Cat' wieder andere für sich arbeiten lassen," says the product-facts, roughly, "And because Garfield prefers to stay cool, he has let others work for him, as in 'Cool Cat.'" Seems like…uh…they pretty clearly want Garfield to be Garfield. In spite of that, I'll push back by saying that PR is going to PR, and when presented with such an easy, attention-getting angle as GARFIELD IS FRANCIS URQUHART, it will run with it. Plus, a salesy one-sheet is something that the consumer will never see.
The other big flaw is that the videos for "Cool Cat" and "Party of Love" cross the Garfield and Eurodance streams, interweaving clips of Garfield, the cartoon cat, into the typical Eurodance visuals. These videos are something that the consumer would definitely see, I can't argue that. But I don't see the Garfield framing as an artistic choice so much as a way to insidiously rely on Garfield's humongous brand identity to do the marketing dirty work.
Even if you don't know Garfield, you know Garfield subconsciously by dint of being alive, like how omnipresent marketing slogans entered the songs of Wesley Willis. Thanks to Garfield, the cartoon cat, being a familiar visual, anything related to it is more easily lodged into viewers' minds. It's not a new concept, something that has already been groked. So, it's a fast, cheap way to stick out in a distressingly vast sea of happy hardcore Pippi Longstockings targeted at kids and their slightly older raver siblings who are glued to balloons of nitrous. It's less "here are some songs by Garfield!" and more "hey, you know this brand, right?"
The final calculus is crunched like this: Making a straight-up Garfield album would limit Keep Cool, Cat!'s sales potential. Likewise, making a straight-up Eurodance album would forgo an easy sales opportunity. So Keep Cool, Cat! goes full Def Jam's How to Be a Player, making sure that neither fanbase is too aware of the other. Potential customers are playing out a pre-established binary: You either buy the album blind because you like Garfield or buy a comp with the un-Garfield-ized song because you like Eurodance. The overlap in that Venn diagram is absolutely minuscule, smaller than the number of dungeon synth artists who aren't lonely, so why bother marketing to them if it's going to cost you buyers in either predominate group? I guess that sales strategy is perversely fascinating from a marketing game theory perspective, but it sure makes Keep Cool, Cat! a disappointingly dry listen.
The Koppeheles are running the show, though, so there are flashes of what could've been if everyone had more time and been more engaged. Otis's "Music Takes Control" is a bass thumper that's not Miami, but definitely Munich. "Are U Ready For Love," another Otis track, is a nu-NRG stomper that gets by on its speedy, happy hardcore-y BPMs. "Getting High," an incredible title given the context, has aged pretty well as a faceless '90s house track that dabbles with gospel house's spirit. And the best thing on here by a mile is "Party Of Love (House Mix)," a bonus remix of Keep Cool, Cat!'s first single.
However…all of these songs would've been better if they were about Garfield, the cartoon cat! Try telling me that "Come Into My Life" wouldn't be immeasurably improved if the only thing you tweaked about it were the lyrics, transforming it from a blasé Saint Etienne ripoff to a song about Garfield shipping Nermal to Abu Dhabi. That would rule! That would be weird! That's what's missing. Keep Cool, Cat! needs way more gonzo to match its utterly unbridled context.
Keep Cool, Cat! was released on November 20, 1995, the same day as Deadguy's Fixation on a Coworker. Was it a hit? Well…define "hit." Unfortunately, it's impossible to find German dance chart data, so I don't have much to go on here beyond metrics I've previously established, such as compilation inclusion. By that mark, Keep Cool, Cat! was a banger, landing tracks on 47 compilations and at least 18 recorded mixes. Some of these comps are hilariously horny, like this NSFW Polish bootleg titled Viva Charts Vol. 8. But, yeah, Garfield made the rounds. Two singles. Two videos. Bunch of remixes. A buttload of compilation appearances.
And then…that was it. Goodbye, Garfield.
Allow Me to Stab Journalism in its Heart and Speculate More Than I Already Have Done
Back to square one: why and how did Keep Cool, Cat! happen? For the final time, I can't tell you for sure. Besides Marc Mozart, no one seems particularly interested in talking to an unpopular heavy metal writer about a forgotten Eurodance album. But, if you'd indulge me, here's what I think took place, based on nothing more than me living within these Discogs pages for weeks. It's time to go full true crime. Let's get fallacious, baby.
Merchandising München picked up the Garfield rights for the German market. As Merchandising München was expanding into inspired-by compilations, someone got the idea to make a Garfield one-off album and sold the concept to Metronome. The Koppeheles, familiar to Metronome through Odyssey and having crushed cartoon/old property assignments in the past, signed on. To max the possible international return, they needed an English-speaking singer. Like Lisa Cash and Thea Austin before her, enter Rachel Wallace, who just happened to be in Munich thanks to her clothing store. The Koppeheles and Wallace cut "Cool Cat" as a proof of concept for a pun-rich, feline-themed recording project. Merchandising München sent the song to Paws, Inc. for approval.
With Garfield and Friends winding down and a new video game scheduled for Q4, Jim Davis OKed the album for some Euro-region synergy. Davis, or someone else at Paws, Inc., whipped up some art. "Cool Cat" was released to DJs and started gaining momentum. With the holidays set as a target and a hot iron in the forge, Metronome pushed the Koppeheles to deliver an album. Sensing that disaster was looming, the Koppeheles roped in Olli Otis and Marc Mozart to help finish the album. Gone were any attempts at making more cat songs. Instead, "Dancehall Fiesta" and "Getting High" would have to do. It didn't matter. Metronome would cover for the lack of Garfield, the cartoon cat, with videos that were shot on the cheap and punched up with footage from Garfield TV specials, a la Daffy Duck. As was the fashion at the time, Metronome made tracks available to any and all compilations that wanted them. The album needed a title, so the label clumsily Frankensteined together "Cool Cat" and Am I Cool Or What?, the last Garfield album. Thus, drumroll please, Keep Cool, Cat!
There you go. Is any of that true? Doubt it. Reality is always much, much weirder.
The Aftermath
Once the singles and compilation spots ran out, it was curtains for Garfield, the Eurodance group. It was not curtains for the Martin, Suna, Gabi, and Giorgio Koppehele, who continued to rack up bonkers credit after bonkers credit throughout the rest of the '90s.
There really are too many to mention, so I need to pick my battles. In order of weirdness, there's Apollo 303's "Barbarella Calling…," another joint project with Marc Z and Danielle Dee that steps into happy hardcore territory. Then, there's High Score's "Game Over," which reteamed the Koppeheles with Olli Otis. That one includes the video game Die Pirateninsel on the maxi single's CD-ROM partition. Next, there's Hypnotic Beat's "I Like Chopin," which is precisely what you think it is. Finally, there's Tomatoes' "Do You Like?," which you can't possibly prepare yourself for.
And, of course, the Koppeheles were drawn to cartoons. You can find all four credited on various Die Schlümpfe albums, known in the English-speaking world as The Smurfs. By the end of the '90s, Avenue Music found a winner with Super Moonies, which was, quoting from its Wikipedia page to prove I'm not making this up, "a German pop group created in 1998 to provide the soundtrack for the successful Sailor Moon anime series, particularly the German-dubbed version."
If the '90s were a never-ending torrent of projects, the 2000s would seemingly offer the Koppeheles greater stability. In 2005, the family began a long-running artistic relationship with Nicole, Germany's first Eurovision winner. Martin and Giorgio also started Ambra, an audio/visual new-age group that released albums and DVDs. Ambra would evidently lay the groundwork for Lichtmond with Meera Fé, a more ambitious A/V undertaking that pairs serene beats and new-age vox with visuals that look like a 1080p version of what Warp Records’ Artificial Intelligence series did on (Motion).
Lichtmond has proven to be a unit-pusher within its niche, topping the German music video charts per the Lichtmond website. Never ones to fail to seize an opportunity, the Koppeheles parlayed Lichtmond's success into a related venture, Magic Horizons, "a unique combination of elaborately produced 360-degree environments in 3D, calming music, modern virtual reality technology and relaxing virtual worlds for VR headsets," according to the company's sales materials.
The elevator pitch is virtual reality plus binaural audio, something that's perfectly timed for the Metaverse. Speaking of, the company's webpage features a menu item titled "Why relax?" that links out to a page explaining...why you need to relax. Welcome to late-stage capitalism, Germany! Also, I find this graphic…extremely unsettling?
Whatever. Magic Horizon appears to be successful, landing partnerships with T-Mobile, Orange, and the University of Southern California, among other entities.
VR that looks like Animusic on DMT is where we'll leave the Koppeheles. So, what of Rachel Wallace? Immediately after Keep Cool, Cat!, Wallace got another run in the UK club scene as a sample source. Her two Suburban Base singles, "I Feel This Way" and "Tell Me Why," got flipped into UK garage bangers, such as "Why" by Twyce As Nyce, which paired producers Jeremy Sylvester and Paul Benjamin.
Paul Benjamin would use Wallace's vocals again on "Intoxicate," a co-production with Carl H. Is this my newsletter? Yes! Am I going to embed that one? Yes!
Wallace is still singing, accruing the eclectic credits that would make the Michael Cretu, Ed Bogas, and the Koppeheles proud. Garage House: Ben Mono featuring Rachel Wallace – "Don't Tell." Ambient/downtempo: Planet Boelex & rachelW – Reworks Chapter 1. Lovers rock: Adam Prescott featuring Rachel Wallace – "Back Together Again," released in 2021. Breaks: Austin & Vinyl Junkie featuring Rachel Wallace – "Can't Go Back (Sanxion Remix)."
Lastly, after moving back to the UK, Wallace became a backup singer for Stereo MC's of "Lost in Music," "Connected," and "Step It Up" fame. She'd marry lead singer Rob Birch. And she has credits up and down the later Stereo MC's catalog, including on "Boy," the single from the group's previous album, 2011's Emperor's Nightingale. In addition to Stereo MC's, Wallace plays the odd festival date as a solo act.
Marc Mozart is still working in the field, both on his own and as the director of Mozart & Friends, a kind of all-facets-of-pop production haus. His most impressive credit, in my estimation, is providing exclusive remixes for DMX's Greatest Hits With A Twist. He also landed a "Party Up" remix on the B-side of DMX's final single "X Moves," the kitchen-sink track surrounding the rapper with Bootsy Collins, Steve Howe, and Ian Paice. Mozart's book, Your Mix Sucks, is available through Waves.
As for Garfield, the cartoon cat, it keeps chugging along, slowly devouring the rest of the known universe. At least one more major Garfield soundtrack was released, that one for the previously mentioned 2004 movie. It curated a bunch of well-known cat and dog songs, further connecting Garfield to, among other artists and groups, James Brown, Elvis, and the Rat Pack, and thus anything ever created. (The most incredible thing about the soundtrack, though, is that it kicks off with a track from the Baha Men that's not "Who Let the Dogs Out.") A new Garfield theatrical feature, the franchise's third, is on the way, with Chris Pratt voicing the cartoon cat in a casting decision that caused the internet to briefly melt down. I'm glad you don't have to see this, Lorenzo Music.
Elsewhere in the vast Garfield media empire, two more TV series followed Garfield and Friends, with a fourth currently in development at Nickelodeon. Road Pizza, Garfield's 73rd comic strip collection, is due in June. Jim Davis's bank account is, presumably, doing just fine. For what it's worth, he seems to be a pretty good sport whenever someone tries to dunk on Garfield for being everywhere and making all of the money, even approving the suitably nihilistic Garfield Minus Garfield. I'd like to think that I'd be cool, too, if I accomplished all of the things in life multiple times.
But, there's one thing that Davis hasn't repeated. At the time of this post, Keep Cool, Cat! remains the only Garfield Eurodance album that wasn't made in Romania. And, perhaps, now you know why and how that is. Or, maybe you still have no idea at all. I sure don't.
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