'Baby I love your way' was written and performed by Peter Frampton and originally featured on his 1975 album 'Frampton'. A live version of the song was released in 1976 on his live album 'Frampton comes alive!'. In this version, the track peaked at number 12 in America and number 43 in the UK.
The third and last single from Human League's 1984 album 'Hysteria' was the melancholy 'Louise'. Writer of the song and frontman Phil Oakey points out that the story is actually about the original protagonists from 'Don’t you want me' meeting up four years later. In 'Louise' the man sees his lost love again and still cannot deal with reality. The anger that drove the earlier song has dissipated, and is replaced with a hopeful fantasy that his ex-lover is drawn to him all over again.
After the breakup of the Dutch girl group Doris D. & the Pins got ugly, even to the point of lawsuits, the four girls backing lead singer Debbie Petter decided to go on as a girl group of their own. They debut in 1982 with the single 'The girls are back in town'. After this hit and 'Starlight', the follow-up, Risqué release 'Thunder & lightning'. This third single does not chart. One further hit, 'Burn it up (Mr. DJ)' and two flops later, the group falls apart.
Fiction Factory are best known for their Eighties classic '(Feels like) Heaven'. I was surprised to find out that I only have the 12" single of that song, so I started looking out for the 7" single. So today I found the follow-up: 'Ghost of love'. This single peaked at number 64 in the UK but did not chart in the Netherlands.
I'm probably going to irritate my friend Puck with this entry, so here goes... I think Duffy is a good singles artist. She's got interesting songs that are worth a spin or two. But a full album by her is bound to be a boring experience: I think the interesting voice will become grating when you listen to it non-stop for an hour.
Curiosity killed the cat was formed in 1984 by Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot, Julian Godfrey Brookhouse, Nick Thorpe and Migi Drummond. Their first success came in the guise of the video for the 1986 single 'Misfit', which featured Andy Warhol. Further hit singles were 'Down to earth', 'Ordinary day' and 'Free', all taken from the band's debut album 'Keep your distance' (1987).
I have to admit, I didn't know this track but I assumed this would be instrumental synthpop when I saw the sleeve. I was not wrong. Space Art is a French band that was formed by two friends in Paris in 1977. The group consisted of Dominique Perrier on keyboards and Roger Rizzitelli on drums. Their music was all about experimenting with new sounds on new machines.
The single 'Churches' featured 'They all run after the carving knife' on the B-side. On this single, that track is the A-side - but it's an edited version, clocking in at 3'19 it's more than a minute shorter than the album version. It's a great dynamic track with lots of synths, which immediately explains its attraction to me.
Middle of the road had a top 5 hit in the UK in 1971 with 'Soley Soley'. The single did even better in the Netherlands, peaking at number 1. The single was also a huge hit in the Faroe Islands, where the name 'Sóley(ð/g)' is very popular as a girl's name and is pronounced the same way as this song's title.
'To die a virgin' was the second single to be released from The Divine Comedy's 2006 album 'Victory for the comic muse'. The track begins with a sample of Jennifer Ehle in the 1992 TV film 'The camomile lawn'. The B-side, 'Long slow suicide' was an exclusive track, released on the 7" vinyl only.
A disco song about Russian history, now there's something that hadn't been tried before! Boney M recorded and released 'Rasputin' in 1978, a song about Grigori Rasputin who alledgedly healed Tsarevich Alexei of Russia from haemophilia in the first years of the twentieth century. While 'Rasputin' accurately indicates that unfavorable rumors damaged Grigori's reputation, there is no verifiable evidence to suggest that he had an affair with Alexandra.
Mary Hopkin represented the United Kingdom in the 1970 Eurovision Song Contest singing 'Knock Knock, Who's There?'. Despite being the pre-contest favourite, Hopkin came second to 'All Kinds of Everything', performed by Irish singer Dana. The singer expresses a long-held optimism at the prospect of love finally finding her. At the exact point that said optimism has faded, and she has resigned herself to not finding love and companionship, she hears a 'knock knock', which signifies love finally becoming attainable for her. Excited, she beckons love to 'come inside' and into her life.
'Lithium' was the second single taken from Evanescence's second album 'The open door'. Peaking at number 32 in the UK and number 55 in the Netherlands, the single was reasonably successful. This picture disc 7" vinyl was the last vinyl release of the band so far.
Not included on any of Madness's original studio albums, 'Driving in my car' was a single released in July 1982. From the video and most of the lyric, the track is about a Morris Minor that was used by the group in the early years before band became famous. 
Rika Zarai was born on February 19, 1938 in Jerusalem, Israel. She became famous in 1969 with this single, 'Alors je chante', a French cover version of the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest song 'Vivo cantando' by Salome, one of the four winners of that year's edition.
I wanted to buy this single back in 1978, but instead I bought Patsy Gallant's 'From New York to L.A.' So this weekend I did something rather historical: I finally bought it. More than 3600 singles and 30 years later!
Blancmange released 'Blind vision' in 1983, after their single 'Waves' hit number 19 in the UK and almost made it into the Dutch Top 40. This single did better in the UK, peaking at number 10, but worse in the Netherlands, not charting at all.
When someone sings '52 positions in a one night stand', you know you're dealing with a sexually-charged track. And so it is...
Bernadette Kraakman represented the Netherlands in the 1983 Eurovision Song Contest with 'Sing me a song'. Despite the English title, the rest of the song was sung in Dutch, as the rules prescribed. The song finished seventh in the Contest, in the year that Luxemburg won with Corinne Hermes' 'Si la vie est cadeau'.
'Life on your own' was the second single from the Human League's 1984 album 'Hysteria'. The track was made using a Linn M-1 drum machine, which took two months to be programmed for this track. The overall sound of this track is intentionally slow, downbeat and deliberately melancholy.
'Another part of me' was the sixth single taken from Michael Jackson's 1987 album 'Bad'. The track originally featured in Jackson's 1986 3-D movie 'Captain Eo' and was written, arranged and composed by Michael Jackson himself.
Sandra Calderone was born on October 15, 1972 in Montegnée near Liège in Belgium. She took on her stage name Sandra Kim, naming herself after her big idol, Kim Wilde. In 1986, at the tender age of 13, she represented Belgium in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song 'J'aime la vie'. In the lyric of the song she claims to be 15 years old, the minimum age for Eurovision contestants. She won the Contest that year. When her real age was revealed, Switzerland (who'd reached second place with 'Pas pour moi' by Daniela Simons) petitioned to have the song disqualified, but this did not happen.
In 1989, I bought a 3" cd-single featuring Sylvian and Sakamoto's wonderful collaboration 'Forbidden colours', recorded for the movie 'Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence'. This cd-single also featured two further tracks: 'Bamboo houses' and 'Bamboo music'. I didn't know this, but these tracks were actually the first collaboration of the two. It was Sylvian's first 'solo' project, released while still in the band Japan, which he left two years later.
'When Smokey sings' was released in 1987 as the comeback single of ABC. Their last album release, 'How to be a zillionaire', had been less successful and the new album 'Alphabet City' was seen as a return to form. The single was a tribute to Smokey Robinson and other soul singers from the Sixties.
Peter Cox (born November 17, 1955) and Richard Drummie (born March 20, 1959) formed Go west in 1982. Without a recording contract, they recorded 'We close our eyes' and 'Call me' themselves, with which they managed to persuade Chrysalis Records to sign them. These two songs were subsequently released as their first two singles. Both were very successful, starting a very promising career. Their debut album 'Go west' (1985) featured these and three more singles.
'Friday night' is the second single taken from Arabesque's debut album of the same name. This line-up did not feature Sandra Cretu yet; she joined the group a year later, in 1979. 'Friday night' is a pretty standard Seventies disco tune, charming in all its pretention-free simplicity. 
'Good tradition' was Tanita Tikaram's debut single back in 1988. Written by Tikaram herself, the single originally didn't get much airplay. But in time, the single slowly climbed up the UK singles chart, until it finally reached number 10 after many weeks.
'Red rain' was the third single released from Peter Gabriel's multimillionselling album 'So' (1987) . The song is a combination of several inspirations. The lyric directly reference a recurring dream Gabriel was having where he swam in his pool drinking cold red wine. According to the sleeve notes from the remastered version of 'So', it is also a reference to acid rain.
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions formed in Glasgow, Scotland in 1982. The band consisted of Lloyd Cole, Blair Cowan, Lawrence Donegan, Neil Clark and Stephen Irvine. Their debut album 'Rattlesnakes', released in 1984, was a commercial and critical success. When they released 'Easy pieces' a year later, they continued this success.
Released in November 1982, 'Our house' reached number 5 in the UK singles chart. The single was also a big success in America, where it peaked at number 7. The song subsequently won an Ivor Novello award for 'best song'.
Lily Allen was born May 2, 1985 as the daughter of actor/musician Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen. She debuted in 2006 with the single 'Smile' and the album 'Alright, still'. 'Littlest things' was the third single from that album, peaking at number 21 in the UK, which was the only country where this single was actually released. 
Sandie Shaw represented the United Kingdom during the Eurovision Song Contest in 1967. With the song 'Puppet on a string' she managed to win the Contest, despite the fact that Shaw herself hated the song from beginning to end.
'We let the stars go' was the second single taken from Prefab Sprout's 1990 album 'Jordan: the comeback'. The album was, like the single, produced by Thomas Dolby, and nominated for a Brit Award.
In 1980, Andy Gibb released 'Andy Gibb's Greatest Hits' to finalize his contract with RSO Records. The album contained two new songs: 'Time is time' and 'Me (Without you)'. Both were released as a single. 'Me (Without you)' was Andy Gibb's last Top 40 entry in the USA, although it only made number 40.
This single by New Musik was released in France only. 'Churches' is a track from New Musik's second album 'Anywhere'. The photograph on this sleeve also appeared on an American album called 'Sanctuary', which collected tracks from New Musik's debut album 'From A to B' and 'Anywhere'.
'You thrill me' was released as the follow-up single to Exile's worldwide hit 'Kiss you all over' in 1978. In America, the single reached the top 40 for one week only, making the 'Top-hit in USA' banner on this sleeve a tad overenthusiastic.
