Rapid Designs (the band behind Falling in Love with Mannequins) likely had many more songs that are now entirely lost
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Update #2 - January 2025
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Well, I really wasn't expecting to be making any other updates, especially after this long. I had all but given up hope of listening to their other music. However, as of January 2025, Billy Martin had been contacted, and has released an album of some of Rapid Designs other music that had been lost to time. There are, however, still many songs by them that remain lost, so hopefully he will release some other songs eventually.
The album consists of 8 songs, two of which are "Serious Thing" and "Falling in Love With Mannequins". The other 6 are songs we've never heard before. They're all pretty good, but the best of the new songs is "Blond leading the Blond", at least in my opinion.
It's also important to note that the version of "Falling in Love With Mannequins" on the album is a different recording than the one we had. This probably means this newly released version is the original 1984 recording, which we found a copyright registration for, while the one we already had is the 1987 re-recording from the vinyl. The background instruments are very different in the newly released version, it sounds like they were using a different synth from the 1987 version. Also some of the lyrics that were hard to decipher are clearer in the 1984 recording. The recording of "Serious Thing" on the album appears to be identical to the vinyl version.
The Rapid Designs page on the lostwave's finest wiki has also been updated, however it says there that the album consists of re-recordings, and the originals are still missing. I haven't found anywhere else that says this, so I believe it's just incorrect. My best guess is that whoever updated the wiki saw that the new version of FILWM was a different recording than the one we knew, and they didn't know about the existence of a 1984 recording, so they assumed the album was comprised of re-recordings done recently. In the album, Billy Martin sounds almost identical to how he did in the vinyl recordings, so it would be very surprising if these are re-recordings done recently, given the age he is now, his voice would almost certainly sound different.
I've updated the big list of song titles at the bottom of this post with which songs are now found and which are still lost. Strangely, some of the song titles from the album are ones we didn't find any copyright listing for (or at least I couldn't find any). So I don't know the date those ones were originally created. This also means they could have more songs they recorded, but didn't register the copyright for. If that's true there are likely more lost songs by them that we don't know about.
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Original Post:
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Hello everyone. I've already posted this on r/lostmedia but I thought I should post it here too to give this music the best chance of being found. As some of you may have heard, there was an unidentified song clip floating around for a while that had been dubbed "Time after time", and a few months ago it was identified as the song "Falling in Love with Mannequins" by a band named Rapid Designs. You can listen to the full song on youtube now (though I don't know for how much longer since some of the lost music channels have been recently getting terminated by youtube).
I'd really recommend listening to the full song as it's suprisingly good for a song this obscure. It seems to have a much higher production quality than much of the other lost music. And it has a very stereotypical 80s sound similar to other bands from the era, so much so that it may sound familiar even if you've never heard it before.
There is also a listing for the vinyl on discogs
https://www.discogs.com/release/2749510-Rapid-Designs-Serious-Thing-Falling-In-Love-With-Mannequins
This vinyl contains just two songs, "Falling in love with mannequins" and "Serious Thing" by Rapid Designs, and it seems to have been released in 1987.
You may think that the mystery is solved since the song has now been found in full, but the bizarre thing is, there is basically no information out there about the band or the people behind it, and outside of this one vinyl record, it's as if the band never existed. And any other music they produced is now lost entirely.
I've been researching as much as I can to try to find the other music they made, and while I believe I've found proof they did have more original music, this music is now completely lost, and I need any help I can get trying to uncover it. I'll go ahead now and go over what I was able to find.
So the most obvious place to start would be the vinyl itself, though it really doesn't have much information on it, not even a list of the band members. From the pictures I've seen, it only has three names: Billy Martin, Steve Ballantine, and it says it was produced by Mike Tavera. I can't really find any information about them online, except there is a Wikipedia page for someone named Mike Tavera, though I'm not sure if it's the same person or just someone with the same name.
The next place I looked was the newspaper archives on newspapers.com and this was where I was able to find some actual information about this group. Here I found listings for Rapid Designs performing at various venues and events around LA, with dates ranging from around 1985 to 1989, and one listing describing their style as "techno-pop". Since the vinyl came out in 1987, this is pretty good evidence that they were around for at least a few years before and after that.
The other thing I was able to find was a listing on last.fm for both the "falling in love with mannequins" vinyl, and a mysterious album by them called "Download".
https://www.last.fm/music/Rapid+Designs/Download
I have no Idea how accurate this is since there is no source listed, and no picture or even track list, so take this with a grain of salt. It doesn't help that with the name "Download" it makes this album basically impossible to search for online.
Now things really got interesting when I was searching the US copyright database. Here I found that the serious thing/falling in love with mannequins vinyl was registered to both William Martin and Steven Ballantine, as well as Rapid Designs. Not only that but there were more previously unknown songs registered to both Martin and Ballantine. And while these songs were not listed as being from Rapid Designs, the fact that they were registered during the years Rapid Designs were together (as shown in the newspaper archives) makes it very likely they were Rapid Designs songs. These songs are seemingly completely lost, and I can't find any mention of them outside of the copyright registration. I'll go ahead and list them here.
"Only You", 1988, William Martin, Steven Ballantine
https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/8898602
"Imagine You And I", 1990, William Martin
https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/9200892
"One Step Closer", 1989, William Martin
https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/9092138
"You can't get away from me", 1989, William Martin, Jeff Mar
https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/9091569
"So Long To Learn", 1987, Steven Ballantine
https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/9160716
"One Of These Other Days", 1988. Steven Ballantine
https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/9160719
So where does all that leave us? Well we can pretty safely assume the band existed from around 1985 to 1990, and they likely had numerous lost songs which were copyrighted, and possibly more music they just didn't copyright. If I had to guess, I would say that the serious thing/falling in love with mannequins vinyl may have been the only vinyl they made, with their other music being sold only on cassettes. One of the copyright listings even mentioned the music was on cassette. If they did have any more vinyl records, those must be even more rare and obscure than the one we know about. I don't know if their other music will ever be found, I just hope posting this helps it to be uncovered. I just know after listening to "falling in love with mannequins" I really wanted to hear their other stuff, so hopefully someone can help find it. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
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Update #1:
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I haven't looked at this stuff in a while, but it seems like this post still comes up as one of the top results when people google Rapid Designs and Falling In Love With Mannequins. So I'll go ahead and summarize what we found after I made this post, just to make it easier for anyone who finds this post and wants to continue the research effort and help find these songs. These new findings include many more songs we found on the copyright database, as well as who Billy Martin actually is.
So after I made this post, in the comments Sinister helped to find more of Rapid Design's music listed on the copyright database. Then I also took another look at the database and we worked to put together what we believe to be the complete list of their music that had been registered for copyright, but as of now all this music is still lost and we only have the titles to go off of. It's also possible we're still missing some songs from the database, since many of them are registered under slight variations of the author's names and nicknames, and can thus be hard to search for.
I had also found one copyright registration which seemed to show who the Billy Martin behind Rapid Designs really is, which contained his personal website and contact info in the description. This is a more recent copyright, so it would be unrelated to Rapid Designs, but it looks to be the same Billy Martin with the same middle name and birth year (William Joseph Martin, 1958).
https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/23482575
The personal website from this listing contains some info and past work from Billy Martin, who is most well known today for his work on the soundtrack of the games Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends, but he has also done work on a lot of other various movie, tv, and game soundtracks. The website doesn't mention Rapid Designs by name, but in the about section it gives an overview of Martin's career and describes how he moved to LA in the 80s and founded a band. Since the timeline lines up so well with what we know about Rapid Designs, Sinister and I concluded this was probably the same Billy Martin. Sinister later managed to find his Facebook account where I think he had mentioned Rapid Designs in an old comment or something. So at this point it's basically confirmed that Rayman Billy Martin is the same person as Rapid Designs Billy Martin. Here is the quote from his website describing the band:
"After college, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue the dream. He founded a band, nailed the requisite indie deal and hit college radio with an album's worth of self-produced material. When the record label went kaput, Martin played local gigs and sessions."
Sinister had tried contacting Martin through his email and contact info listed on the website, but as far as I've heard he never received a response. My guess is that the email address isn't active anymore, or the emails got marked as spam or something. Either way, no one has been able to get in contact with Billy Martin yet and ask about Rapid Designs or if he can share the lost music.
It also looks like someone saw our comments here and updated the Discogs page for Rapid Designs and Falling In Love With Mannequins, since it has recently been edited to link to Rayman Billy Martin, where before it just linked to an unknown Billy Martin, and his page also now links to that personal website I mentioned. So thank you to whoever updated that page and did that.
So for anyone who wants to continue the search, I think our best bet is to continue trying to get in contact with Billy Martin, and possibly Mike Tavera, and asking them if they can share the lost songs. It also may be possible to try to contact radio stations around LA that might have played Rapid Designs music and see if they still have a copy of the songs we're missing. I'm probably going to take a break from this for a while unless something major is found, so good luck to anyone who wants to continue the search.
Here, for future reference, is the complete list of songs found on the copyright database by me and Sinister. I've gone through and organized them by year, as well as taken out all the ones that are more likely to be Billy Martin's solo work or projects with other bands. So these are all the songs most likely to be from Rapid Designs:
1982 - "Only words" - [Billy Martin] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/8271013
1983 - "I Always Will" - [Billy Martin] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/8409728
1983 - "All I Need Is You" - [Billy Martin] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/8347850
1983 - "Just Couldn't Say It" - [Billy Martin, Steve Ballantine] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/8397048
1984 - "Shoes" - [Billy Martin, David Saber] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/8450036
1984 - "To[o] many nights in the doghouse" - [Billy Martin] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/8743168
1984 - "Breakdown" - [Billy Martin, Steve Ballantine] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/8494971
1984 - "Blond Leading the Blond" - [Billy Martin, Steve Ballantine] - (FOUND - released by Billy Martin in the Jan 2025 album) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/8412003
1984 - "Simplicity" - [Billy Martin, Steve Ballantine] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/8494972
1984 - "Falling In Love With Mannequins"(1984 version) - [Billy Martin] - (FOUND - released by Billy Martin in the Jan 2025 album) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/8494970
1985 - "Dust, dirt, and hot air" - [Billy Martin] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/8743167
1986 - "Urgency" - [Billy Martin, Steve Ballantine] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/8641563
1986 - "Big mouth" - [Billy Martin] - (FOUND - released by Billy Martin in the Jan 2025 album) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/8641562
1986 - "One Feeling" - [Billy Martin, Steve Ballantine] - (FOUND - released by Billy Martin in the Jan 2025 album) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/9007465
1987 - "Good Luck" - [Billy Martin] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/8860832
1987 - "So Long To Learn" - [Steve Ballantine] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/9160716
1987 - "Falling In Love With Mannequins"(1987 version) - [Billy Martin] - (FOUND - original vinyl release) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/11200740
1987 - "Serious Thing" - [Billy Martin, Steve Ballantine] - (FOUND - original vinyl release) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/11200740
1988 - "Something's gotta give" - [Billy Martin] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/12276303
1988 - "Only You" - [Billy Martin, Steve Ballantine] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/8898602
1988 - "One Of These Other Days" - [Steve Ballantine] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/9160719
1989 - "One Step Closer" - [Billy Martin] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/9092138
1989 - "You can't get away from me" - [Billy Martin, Jeff Mar] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/9091569
1990 - "I'm in a daydream" - [Billy Martin] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/9409756
1990 - "Imagine You And I" - [Billy Martin] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/9200892
1990 - "The invisible man" - [Billy Martin, Mark Ivan] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/9253150
1990 - "What's up with that girl" - [Billy Martin, Mike Tavera] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/9300555
1991 - "Shake you up" - [Billy Martin, Mike Tavera] - (LOST) - https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/9300556
???? - "It's all over" - (FOUND - released by Billy Martin in the Jan 2025 album)
???? - "Nothing stays the same" - (FOUND - released by Billy Martin in the Jan 2025 album)
???? - "Out of nowhere" - (FOUND - released by Billy Martin in the Jan 2025 album)