'Get down on it"was recorded by the jazz/funk/R&B/pop band Kool & the Gang on their album 'Something special' in 1981. The song reached number 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 8 in the Netherlands. In the UK, the single peaked at number 3.
'Half light' was the second single from Athlete's second album 'Tourist'. It was released in April 2005 and peaked at number 16 in the UK singles chart.
Alannah Myles was born on December 25, 1958 in Toronto, Ontario (Canada). At sixteen, she began performing in Southern Ontario. She performed cover versions of Aretha Franklin, T. Rex, AC/DC, Bob Seger, Anne Peebles, the Rolling Stones, and the Pretenders. Later, she joined with David Tyson to produce her self-titled debut album, Alannah Myles.
The Swiss band Furbaz consisted of Marie Louise Werth, Ursin Defuns, Gion Defuns and Giusep Quinter. They won the Swiss national final and represented Switzerland during the 1989 Eurovision Song Contest with their song 'Viver senza tei'. The song was performed in one of the four official languages of Switzerland, Romansh.
Taken from the album 'Love', 'Working in goldmine' was an unlikely single candidate. The track lasts for 5 minutes and 40 seconds and is a tad introverted. But it is an interesting song and that was rewarded by the listeners in the UK; the single climbed to the number 31 position.
After the demise of Tears for Fears as a duo in the early Nineties, Roland Orzabal decided to go on under the name of the band while Curt Smith tried to make it on his own. Unfortunately, he turned out to be the least successful one of the two.
The last single from One 2 Many's only album 'Mirror' was 'Writing on the wall'. The track was remixed for the single release by Julian Mendelsohn. It did not help matters much: the single did not chart.
The group CoCo formed in the first half of the Seventies but they only rose to fame in 1978 when they represented the United Kingdom during that year's Eurovision Song Contest. The group consisted of Terry Bradford, Josie Andrews, Cheryl Baker, Keith Hasler and Paul Rogers.
Don Johnson is best known for his acting work in the television series Miami Vice. Once you are famous in America, you can do pretty much whatever you want, so mister Johnson opted for a singing career, despite not having a very remarkable voice.
'Bliss' was the first single from Tori Amos' 1999 double album 'To Venus and back'. One disc of that album was filled with new tracks, whereas the other disc was filled with atrocious live tracks. Atrocious, because the audiences kept screaming through the music. I'll never understand why people felt the need to do that during Tori Amos concerts.
When you listen to this single and you know Máire Brennan's sister Enya's body of work, it's hard to imagine that there was ever a rowdy party at the Brennan residence. The music of the two sisters is beautiful, but sometimes verging on boring.
'Casanova' was Luv's fifth hit single, released in April 1979. First awarded the 'Alarmschijf', Radio Veronica's weekly tip for the chart, the single quickly moved up to sixth place in the Dutch Top 40. Nothing else is very spectacular about the song: it sounds a lot like the trio's earlier material.
Jimmy Ruffin was born on May 7, 1939 in Collinsville, Mississippi. Ruffin abandoned his gospel background to become a session singer in the early Sixties. He first signed with a Motown Records subsidiary, the short-lived Miracle, in 1961. He recorded a one-off single, before he was drafted for national service.
Ad Visser was born in Amsterdam on April 28, 1947. After a short spell in the avant garde trio Blurp and working for several record companies, he becomes the face of the weekly pop programme Toppop, broadcast in the Netherlands between 1970 and 1985.
'Giddyap a gogo' / 'Relief of Demorzan'
Somehow I couldn't imagine Michael Jackson playing 50 dates in London this year, but the way it doesn't come to pass is even more bizarre than I could ever have imagined. 'Where were you when you heard Michael Jackson died?'. Well, I saw the first reports coming in late last night and as the first rumour of his death appeared on the internet I went to sleep. The next morning I got up in the knowledge that he was probably dead. And the news only confirmed my expectation. It's a sad day.
'Midnight man' was released as the fourth and final single from Sandra's second album 'Mirrors'. The single charted in a few European countries, but didn't make the top 10 in any of them. In Germany, the single only reached number 24, making this Sandra's lowest charting single in that county.
'Steam' was released as the second single from Peter Gabriel's 1992 album 'Us'. Peter Gabriel has said that the song is about a relationship in which the woman is sophisticated, bright, cultured, and knows everything about anything and that the man knows nothing about anything, except, he does know about the woman, and she doesn't know much about herself.
'Fanfare for the common man' is a 20th-century American classical music work by American composer Aaron Copland. The piece was written in 1942 for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
Marsha Raven recorded 'Catch me' in 1983. It was originally released as a simple dance song but it didn't hit the charts. It was remixed in 1984. This version featured a recording of London's Big Ben. In this version, the track became a hit in the Netherlands, peaking at number 4. It is quite remarkable that this single did not chart in the UK.
Although I was a fan of A-ha's music ever since they hit it big with 'Take on me', I grew increasingly unimpressed by their choice of singles in 1988. The album 'Stay on these roads' was decent enough, but the record company had a knack for choosing the most bland tracks as a single. Things hit rock bottom - in my opinion, of course - when 'Touchy!' was released in the summer of 1988. It was A-ha's most 'autopilot'-inspired track. The audiences still fell for it: the single peaked at number 11 in the UK and number 14 in the Netherlands.
Buying this single was actually a mistake. When I was only nine years old, sometimes I got confused by all these bands and their names. I was actually looking for 'My Sharona' by The Knack, but arrived home with 'Blinded (by the beauty of your eyes)' by The Kick.
Richard Darbyshire, Marcus Vere and Anthony Critchlow formed Living in a box in Sheffield in 1985. Their most commercially successful single, 'Living in a box', peaked at number 5 on the UK singles chart and was the band's only single to chart in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, peaking at number 17. In the Netherlands, the single peaked at number 10.
'Free Fallin'' is the opening track from Tom Petty's 1989 solo album, 'Full moon fever'. The song was written by Petty and his writing partner for the album, Jeff Lynne. The duo wrote and recorded the single in two days, making it the first song completed for the album.
'Peace' is the second single from Depeche Mode's current album 'Sounds of the Universal'. It was released two weeks ago on two different cd-singles and this numbered limited edition 7" pressed white marbled vinyl. This is number 10891. Martin Gore told The Sun newspaper that 'Peace' is one of his favourite songs of the ones that he has ever written.
When you listen to 'La dolce vita' by Anneli Saaristo and you know it is a Eurovision song, the assumption is quickly made that it is a Spanish song. But nothing could be further from the truth: this 1989 entry was actually sent in by Finland!
When the band Queen was good, they were good. And when they were awful, they were truly awful. But I could never quite make up my mind with this single: which was it?
Alison Moyet celebrated a lot of success with her debut solo album 'Alf' (1984), but it also presented an interesting task to come up with a successful follow-up album. 1987's 'Raindancing' could not compare to the success of its predecessor but still came up with a few reasonably successful singles.
Belouis Some was born as Neville Keighley on December 12, 1959. He released his debut album 'Some people' in 1985. The single 'Imagination' was taken from this album. On its first release in April 1985, it only reached number 50 in the UK singles chart. When it was re-released in January 1986, the single reached number 17.
Originally titled 'Boogaloo', 'Dancing Queen' was recorded in August 1975. During the sessions, Benny Andersson brought a tape home with the backing track on it and played it to his fiance, singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad, who apparently started crying when listening. She commented later: 'I thought the song was so beautiful'.
Not only do I have the 12" single of 'Say hello wave goodbye', I've also got the 7" single. The single basically cuts the extended version of the 12" single into two parts, in which the first part becomes the instrumental version on the B-side, the second part is the single version on the A-side.
'Evening falls' was the second single taken from Enya's breakthrough second album 'Watermark'. It was a typically silent song like she would record many times after this album and single. While her previous single 'Orinoco flow' was a number one hit in the UK, this one was less successful, peaking at number 20 only.
Mylene Farmer was born on September 12, 1961 in Pierrefonds, Quebec, Canada, a suburb of Montreal. Her parents moved from France in the late Fifties as Farmer's father pursued an engineering contract on a dam. Her family returned to France when she was eight, settling in the Parisian suburb of Ville d'Avray. In 1984, Farmer met Laurent Boutonnat, a young film student, when she replied to a newspaper ad for an actress for a small film he was working on. Farmer and Boutonnat became friends and forged a creative partnership, writing and producing the music.
The Fixx were formed in 1980 in London by college friends Cy Curnin and Adam Woods, originally under the name The Portraits. The pair placed an ad for additional members. As a result, Jamie West-Oram, Rupert Greenall and Charlie Barret joined, and the band changed their name to The Fixx.
The central theme of the song 'Vriendschap' ('Friendship') is made clear by the first sentence of the refrain: 'Eenmaal trek je de conclusie / Vriendschap is een illusie' ('Once you'll draw the conclusion / Friendship is an illusion'). This single by the Dutch band Het Goede Doel was one I played a lot after I was unsuccessful in conquering the heart of a female friend I had in highschool. She not only told me she wasn't interested in any romantic relationship, she also kept her distance for months. What a great friend she was.
Geier Sturzflug was formed by Friedel Geratsch, Werner Borowski, Uwe Kellerhoff, Michael Volkmann and Klaus Fiehe in 1979. They were one of the bands from the German New Wave genre, which took Germany by storm in the early Eighties.
'Somewhere only we know' was the first single from Keane's debut album 'Hopes and fears'. The first demo was composed by Tim Rice-Oxley circa 2001. Rice-Oxley composed this song out of hammering with the piano and based on David Bowie's song 'Heroes'. It was first played on the guitar, just before Dominic Scott left the band, and recorded as a demo the same year with a Yamaha CP70 instead of the guitar.
During the making of 'Spirit of Eden', Talk Talk manager Keith Aspden had attempted to free the band from their recording contract with EMI. EMI, however, wished to keep the band on their roster. After many months of litigation, the band ultimately succeeded in extracting themselves from the contract. EMI then sued the band, claiming that Spirit of Eden was not "commercially satisfactory", but that case was thrown out of court.
The song 'Airport' by the Motors used to freak me out, because in the last minute you can hear a high-pitched voice screaming 'Airport!' in the same way my mother used to call me out for dinner. Many times I thought I was actually called by my mother while I was listening to this song.
Siren Records re-released 'Valentine' in 1993 to promote 'Heart and soul: the very best of T'pau', a compilation album including all of T'pau's hits and then some. I was really surprised when I found this single, because when I bought it I didn't know that compilation had even been released.
'Perfect day' was written by Lou Reed in 1972. The song was originally featured on his 1972 album 'Transformer'. The song's lyrics are often considered to suggest simple, conventional romantic devotion, possibly alluding to Reed’s relationship with Bettye Kronstadt (soon to become his first wife) and Reed’s own conflicts with his sexuality, drug use and ego.
After his marriage ended, Joe Jackson moved toNew York. His 1982 album 'Night and day' was a partial tribute to the city. Songs like 'Real men' and 'A slow song' referenced New York indirectly. I don't know why 'Real men' ended up on the B-side of the single in the UK, but perhaps it was because of its anti-war sentiments under Thatcher's reign and the Falklands war that was taking place that year.
When Jim Morrison died in 1971 at just 27 years, he'd created a legacy together with his band mates John Densmore, Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger. You'd think that the surviving members were careful not to ruin the memory, but they have been doing several ill-advised things in the 38 years since, the most regrettable being recent tours with Ian Astbury or Brett Scallions trying to replace Morrison.
Marga Bult was born as Marga Groeneveld on July 2, 1956 in Lattrop, the Netherlands. In 1981, producer Peter Koelewijn selected her out of 250 singers to replace Gemma van Eck, who had left the popular Dutch girl group Babe. They worked together for five years until Babe fell apart.
In 1981, the Who released their album 'Face dances'. It was their first album since the death of drummer Keith Moon, who was replaced on this album by Kenney Jones. The song 'You better you bet', written by Pete Townshend, was taken from the album as the first single.
Anne Marie David won the 1973 Eurovision Song Contest with 'Tu te reconnaitras'. I didn't know at first that she'd released different versions of the song. 'Du bist da' was recorded for German-speaking countries. Even the B-side 'Au bout du monde' was translated into German for this single.
In 1986, Spandau Ballet signed to CBS Records and released their fifth studio album 'Through the Barricades'. On the album, the band tried to move away from the pop and soul influences of their two previous albums 'True' and 'Parade' and moved towards rock.
When I heard 'Wires', I thought it was the debut single of the band Athlete. But I was wrong: the band was formed in 1999 by Joel Pott, Carey Willets, Steve Roberts and Tim Wanstall and they had already released several singles and one album, 'Vehicles and animals' (2003).
