History - Charts - Official Music Video
After the success of My chico, Sabrina became completely inescapable in Italy despite coming under strong criticism from a part of the audience and the media. Even if she had a very busy agenda, Sabrina signed with Canale Cinco to co-host Odiens, a new TV show that would be broadcast from December 1988 till April 1989. In fact, the show was a good opportunity to promote her last album, Super Sabrina, as she sang most of its tracks week by week. All those performances would be later included in the video On Stage.
If Lorella Cuccarini was singing the opening theme of the show, La note vola, which became a huge hit in Italy (Sabrina would later record an itaglish version of this song for her album Over the pop), the ending theme was performed by Sabrina. Her team had chosen Like a yo-yo, one of the two songs produced by Giorgio Moroder for Super Sabrina, and which quickly became the third single taken from the album. Unfortunately, the 7”, which was released in February, didn't chart very high, peaking at #18. But its promotion probably became difficult when Sabrina stopped co-hosting the show before the end of her contract because of a disagreement with the production. Indeed, Like a yo-yo was immediately replaced by Greggio e D'Angelo's Viene a bere un bicchiere alla Maison.
Videogram decided anyway to support the song by releasing two double A-Side 12" with Funky girl on the front cover (but on the AA-side…).
Like a yo-yo was also released in several countries and as for My chico, it flopped in Western and Southern Europe (France, Germany, Portugal) but became a huge hit in Scandinavia (#1 in Finland). 2 versions were promoted from country to country: the album version and/or a remix by Dave Ford from the PWL team who also remixed My chico.
In Germany and in Scandinavia, where the single was first released, the record companies promoted the album version on 7” and 12”. The ‘89 remixed version was later released on 12” but for different reasons: to confirm the huge success of the song in Scandinavia (#1 in Finland) and to (try to) re-boost the sales of the single in Germany, featuring a ’89 remix of My chico on the B-side.
In France, where the PWL mix was released, it seems that the record-company Carrère never believed in this single as no 12” or maxi CD was released. No need to say that it didn’t enter the French charts.
In 3 other countries the single was released in June : in England, it did not work any better, despite the mention “remixed by Stock Aitken & Waterman” featuring on the cover. But obviously the song didn’t really have the potential to become a summer hit... In Japan, Like a yo-yo was chosen as the lead-single of the album Super Sabrina but as no other single was later released, it’s likely to say that it wasn’t a massive success. In Mexico, Like a yo-yo was released on a double A-side 12" with All of me. This record is nowadays very rare.
In 2008, Sabrina re-recorded the song for her comeback-compilation Erase / Rewind.
In 2014, during the promotion of Colour me, Sabrina was asked what her favorite single was and she answered : Like a yo-yo! She added that she had first recorded a rock version of the track (a demo) before the song was re-worked by La Bionda.
An oddity: in November 2006, Enrico Monti launched his website dedicated to a men's ready-to-wear collection. This site used background music: a new track by Sabrina, Yo-yo boy. The (strange) song was supposed to feature in a bossa nova album which was finally abandoned. It remains unreleased but leaked on the internet in late 2006.
It seems that the song was written by DJ Robert Passera who finally released the song in 2011 - feat. Jackie Perkins - on his album Gringo (!) on the rocks. The album feature 2 versions of the song, the Bossa Mix being quite similar to Sabrina's version.
Charts
COUNTRY |
HIGHEST POSITION |
CHART ENTRY DATE |
CHART HISTORY |
Italy |
18 |
Unknown |
#31 on February 18 and then #18… |
Denmark |
3 |
Unknown |
Unknown |
Finland |
1 |
Unknown |
Unknown |
UK |
72 |
01/07/1989 |
#72, 86 (2 weeks) |
Eurochart Hot 100 |
32 |
Unknown |
Unknown |
Official Music Video
Yo-yo boy (Audio, 2006)
Yo-yo boy by Robert Passera feat. Jackie Perkins (2011)