The Musical World of Rocky Horror

Little Nell "Beauty Queen" 7" Single (Front Cover)Little Nell "Beauty Queen" 7" Single (Back Cover)

This 7" single released in both the U.K. and Australia was Little Nell's third (and as it turned out...last) major single. As with her previous two singles (The Musical World of Little Nell and Fever), fellow Rocky Horror Picture Show alumnus Richard Hartley is involved as songwriter. Unlike the previous two though, it was not released by A&M Records and did not involve Brian Thomson this time. Beauty Queen was actually recorded as a theme song for a film entitled The Alternative Miss World (or "I Wanna Be A Beauty Queen" in its video release). Nell performs this song during the introduction for the movie, dancing around in a swimsuit as per usual. You can see several pictures of this on the front cover. Note however that Little Nell's part was actually recorded completely separate from the rest of the film, which was basically a documentary of the real-life Alternative Miss World pageant that year (Little Nell did not attend).

In the late seventies, the Alternative Miss World pageant was put on in London the same night as the REAL Miss World pageant. It was the put on each year by Andrew Logan, who was apparently like the Andy Warhol of London in that time period. The basis for the pageant was that the contestants should each have the most shocking and original costumes possible. It started out as being primarily a drag queen pageant but more and more women had been entering each year, so when this documentary was filmed there were actually quite a few women in the contest in addition to all the queens. You can see pictures of nine of the contestants along with a picture in the center of Andrew Logan himself (in his astoundingly good half-man / half-woman costume!) on the back cover. The contest was hosted by Andrew Logan as usual, along with special guest Divine.

One interesting thing is on the actual vinyl record, in the inner groove that usually has identification numbers pressed into it. Side A says "A GREAT FILM ANDREW", which is pretty self-explanatory as long as you know that Andrew Logan was the creator of the whole thing. Side B then says "BUY SOME FOR LULU", which is a bit more obscure unless you happen to notice that Andrew Logan's secretary in the film (who gives him contestant lists and such) is named Lulu. One other interesting reference during the actual film is when the narrator notices that "Malcolm of Rocky Horror Show fame" is in attendance and zooms in on him. I am assuming they are actually talking about Christopher Malcolm, who was the original Brad Majors from the 1973 London Cast and was later involved with The Rocky Horror Company in the U.K.

UK ©1980 Charisma Records Ltd. (PRE 004)
Released by Charisma Records Ltd.
Picture sleeve.

Australia ©1980 Charisma Records Ltd. (6000648)
Released by PolyGram Records Pty Ltd.

Side A

  1. Beauty Queen - 280 kbps MP3 or 16.9 MB lossless FLAC sound files, and song lyrics available.

Side B

  1. Beauty Queen (Slow Version) - 232 kbps MP3 or 16.1 MB lossless FLAC sound files, and song lyrics available.
Beauty Queen by Little NellBeauty Queen - 2 minutes 18 seconds (540x412, 30 fps, 15.4 MB). Little Nell performs the song Beauty Queen for the 1980 film Alternative Miss World. Master of Ceremonies Andrew Logan can be seen briefly beforehand.

Little Nell "Beauty Queen" 7" Single (Front Cover)
7" Front Cover
750x745 JPEG, 311 KB
Little Nell "Beauty Queen" 7" Single (Back Cover)
7" Back Cover
750x749 JPEG, 311 KB
Little Nell "Beauty Queen" 7" Single (Disc Label)
7" Disc Label Side One
657x655 JPEG, 265 KB

Written by Richard Hartley and Little Nell
Design by D.J. & Kev
Cover scene from the James Street production "The Alternative Miss World"

PRE
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