'Talking in your sleep' was written and recorded by the Romantics in 1983. It was a hit in the USA, but failed to chart in the UK.
After having been a member of the Frank Boeijen Groep for a year, Maarten Peters embarked on a solo career that gave him some success in the second half of the Eighties. His first taste of chart success came when he released the single 'Away', a song written by himself and produced by Jos Haagmans, not coincidentally a member of the Frank Boeijen Groep.
Although this single was released in 1983, I didn't hear it until 1988. When I did hear it, it was hard to believe that this was a Hot Chocolate track: it was a poppy track, but lacked the funky feel of most of their material. Still, I liked it a lot and after some time hunting for this single, I found it.
Released in 1983, 'Hey now, whatcha gonna do' was another single by José that failed to chart in the Dutch Top 40. The song was written and produced by Pim Koopman and stayed faithful to the uptempo, major key popsongs that José was known for even when she was still a member of the girl trio Luv'. Still, the single failed to become a success.
Micky was born as Miguel Ángel Carreño Schmelter in Madrid in 1943. He began his music career in 1962 leading the band Micky y Los Tonys, which released 30 singles and 5 albums. He started a solo career in the Seventies. After his single 'Bye bye fräulein' (1976) entered the charts in Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, he was chosen to represent Spain during the 1977 Eurovision Song Contest.
'Young Turks' is a track on Rod Stewart's 1981 album 'Tonight I'm yours'. It was released as the second single from the album. In English slang, a 'Young Turk' is a rebellious kind of teenager who would go against the grain.
The last single taken from Lisa Stansfield's 1993 album 'So natural' was the dance track 'Little bit of heaven'. Written by Lisa Stansfield and her husband Ian Devaney, it was one of the few uptempo tracks on the album, and a bit of a return to form.
'Queen of rain' was originally written and recorded for Roxette's highly successful album 'Joyride' and considered as the closing track. When it was replaced by another ballad called 'Perfect day', the song reappeared on Roxette's next album, 'Tourism'.
'Empty garden' was written by Elton John after his friend John Lennon was murdered by an obsessed fan in front of his New York City apartment on December 8, 1980. He first performed the song live at Madison Square Garden in 1982, with Lennon's widow Yoko Ono and their son Sean in the audience.
'Adieu sweet Bahnhof' is the title of the Nits' 1984 album, which they recorded with producer Jaap Eggermont, who became famous internationally thanks to his 'Stars on 45' project. The song was the title track of that album.
As the Eighties drew to a close, the career of Spandau Ballet was also seemingly coming to an end. The album 'Heart like a sky' did not meet the expectations commercially speaking, and the singles taken from the album also had little success in the charts.
'That's the way love goes' was written and produced by Janet Jackson with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Jackson came up with the title, inspired by the downbeat tone of the music created by Jam and Lewis.
Metallica's James Hetfield wrote this song while on the phone with his girlfriend. Since he held the phone with one hand, he plucked the four open strings with the other, which eventually made up the first two bars of the song. The lyrics were also dedicated to his girlfriend, which talk about being 'so close, no matter how far', indicating the bond they shared even when Hetfield was on tour. Initially, the song wasn't meant to go on the album, and Hetfield had written it for himself, but when drummer Lars Ulrich heard it, it was recorded for the album anyway.
Elpida Karayiannopoulou was born October 1, 1950 in Spercheiada, Greece. At 14, she moved to Athens with her two older brothers to study. After this, she started a career in music when she became a singer of an orchestra, eventually recording an album with them and then forging her own career.
Written by Susanna Hoffs with Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg, 'Eternal flame' was inspired by two eternal flames: one for Elvis Presley that Michael Steele saw when the band was at Graceland, and one at a local synagogue in Palm Springs which Steinberg attended as a child. Steinberg: 'Susanna was talking about The Bangles having visited Graceland, and she said there was some type of shrine to Elvis that included some kind of eternal flame. As soon as those words were mentioned, I immediately thought of the synagogue in the town of Palm Springs, California where I grew up. I remember during our Sunday school class they would walk us through the sanctuary. There was one little red light and they told us it was called the eternal flame.'
American-born Dutch singer Lori Spee released her third album 'Intuition' in 1983. The single 'Sugar' was taken from this album in January 1984. Supported by a concert tour in the Netherlands, the single still didn't manage to conquer a place in the Dutch Top 40.
Personally, I think the best Police track is 'Synchronicity II', as it displays an amount of aggression that is not equalled in any other piece of music I know. The title refers to Carl Jung's theory of Synchronicity. It tells the story of an emasculated husband and harried father whose home, work life, and environment are terrible and depressing. One of the best lines in the track is 'every single meeting with his so-called superior/is a humiliating kick in the crotch', as the visual image underlines the music so well.
According to Sting: 'Jung believed there was a large pattern to life, that it wasn't just chaos. Our song 'Synchronicity II' is about two parallel events that aren't connected logically or causally, but symbolically.'
Gry Johansen was born August 28, 1964. She represented Denmark during the 1983 Eurovision Song Contest with the song 'Kloden drejer' ('The planet's spinning'). The song finished 17th out of 20 competitors. She made two further bids for Eurovision in Denmarkt in 1989 and 2000, but both times she was unsuccessful.
Following Depeche Mode's single 'A question of lust', 'A question of time' was released as Depeche Mode's 17th single in August 1986. The track was remixed for the single, running at a slightly faster temp and pitch than the album version on 'Black celebration'. The accompanying music video was the first to be directed by Anton Corbijn and brought forth a big relationship with him and the band which still lasts to this day.
David Bowie has claimed that 'Modern love' was inspired by Little Richard, and it maintains the album's theme of a struggle between God and man. It was the first track on his 1983 album 'Let's dance' and released as its third single.