My First Taste of Fame and Fortune...

So last weekend, my husband bought us Singstar for Playstation 3. (Yes, I realize I don't need one more thing that forces me to be in front of the television). However, it was only $20.00 including the mikes, and Ne-Yo's song "So Sick" was on it, as well as Britney Spears' "Toxic". Good times. (Even though, those are really the only 2 songs we've been singing.) This past weekend though, we found another disc to play on the Singstar: ABBA. Don't laugh, I know you know all their songs too! You can't help but smile and sing along to these songs, which if you really pay attention, don't actually make THAT much sense. (What exactly is a "Chiquitita"? It makes me think of bananas...) I realized that I don't know a lot of the beginnings of the songs, but boy do I know the choruses!! They show the "videos" while you sing and they are all wearing those glorious 70's outfits! Anyhoo, all weekend I've been singing "Mamma Mia" and "Super Trouper".

Super Trouper. haha. I have a funny story for you.

When I was a kid, I was in a singing group called...The Super Troupers. True story.

My family and I were over at a family friend's house for dinner one night. They had a daughter who was two years younger than me (and two years older than my sister), and her cousin was also there and he was a year younger than me. While our parents sat and visited, the 4 of us were playing upstairs and listening to the MiniPops album. (You know - the MiniPops - they were kids that sang popular songs and they were awesome!) Their album was composed mainly of medleys and one of those medleys was the ABBA medley. (This explains why I only really know the choruses and not the whole song...) Anyways, we (I) decided that we were going to perform this MiniPops album for our parents. Since I was the oldest, I was also the ring leader. This meant I chose who was going to sing what song. We only had one boy in the group, so he had to sing all the "boy songs". I divided up the rest of the songs between myself and the other girl. Since my sister was the youngest, she was tasked with a lot of the background "vocals" and backup dancing. After we/I determined who was singing what, we went about practicing dance moves (ie. shuffling from side to side) and figuring out the singer transitions (ie. getting the singer of the next song out as soon as the song changed). When we were almost ready, I sent my sister downstairs to announce to our parents and their friends, that we would be performing in half an hour...

 Finally, the time came for us to perform and though there were some mistakes ("No YOU'RE supposed to sing this one! No you are!" etc...) we were a HIT! We even got paid. We ran upstairs, giddy from the high of performing and congratulated ourselves on how well we did. Then I divided up the money. We each got $1.00! It was our first taste of fame and fortune...And with that, the "Super Troupers" were born. 

After that, we had "gigs" at any and every party our parents had. I made posters and had my mom photocopy them for us on different colored paper. We had curling irons for our microphones, our dance moves got (slightly) better and so did our costumes (kind of). We began charging for our "mini concerts": $0.25 for adults and $0.10 for kids. Soon I appointed a stage manager, who was in charge of turning the record around, and an accountant,who collected our money. It was a great time in our lives...

Eventually though...like most groups, we had some "creative" disagreements which finally led us to disband. Our era, like the Beatles, was over.

But every now and then, I remember the glory we had...and it was AWESOME. And hearing these songs on Singstar by ABBA just brings me back to those days...

Hm...perhaps a reunion concert is in the cards?? (Of course now, we'd have to charge more.)