Blog: 10 Years Of Hey Hey 16K

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I was wandering around the flat yesterday when a stray thought ambled by. "I know that Mr Rob Manuel's Hey Hey 16K video came out about ten years ago, but I wonder exactly when it was?" This is a thought I've had SEVERAL times before, always meaning to look it up, stick it in my diary, and then maybe DO something about it, but have never actually got round to, but this time, for some reason, it seemed a good idea to get on and DO it.

A little bit of digging through the archives later and I'd got it worked out: Rob had unleashed the video onto the world on May 4th 2004, and then all SORTS of EXCITEMENT ensued, with it getting into the Top 5 most looked at web pages in the WORLD (it was, to be fair, a much smaller internet then!) and having two MILLION views in its first fortnight. There was no YouTube back then, so this meant that Viral Videos hadn't really become a THING yet - I believe The Hamster Dance was the first, but we weren't far behind.

There was also no iTunes or, as far as I know, ANY way of selling digital music online, and I've often thought since that if there HAD been then we probably would have got into the CHARTS! I did sell a few extra CD copies of Say It With Words, as well as some t-shirts, so I can't complain!

So anyway, in order to celebrate this auspicious anniversary I've done a RE-RELEASE of the original single, featuring all the original b-sides, the proper album version, AND the demo of "Hey Hey 64K" which I did a few years later, available just for the next few days on a Pay What You Want basis. You can find THE LOT over at www.heyhey16k.com (I bought the domain a while ago for something else, but this seemed like a good excuse to use it!).

As ever with this sort of thing, I'd very much appreciate any mentions people can make of it, whether that be tweets, telling someone in a pub, or two hour retrospectives on Channel 4. Most of all though I hope you enjoy the memory of it all as much as I've been - it was a KRAZY time and led to a HUGE amount of fun!

posted 29/4/2014 by MJ Hibbett

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