Another single from their 1981 album 'Class', 'I'm losing you' is one of those many infectious Hot Chocolate tunes.
Kim Wilde seemingly finished the Eighties in a winning mood: she'd toured with Michael Jackson, her album 'Close' had been a phenomenal success, and superstardom was looming. But meanwhile, she wasn't quite that happy. She'd witnessed the intense loneliness stardom could bring while she was watching Michael Jackson and it wasn't that easy to come up with an equally successful album after 'Close'.
A single sleeve like this one wouldn't be acceptable anymore nowadays: a man with a fag in his hand, well, it's a disgrace! It's interesting to see how much has changed in three decades.
Martin Gore wrote 'In your room', a tense and atmospheric track on Depeche Mode's 1993 album 'Songs of faith and devotion'. It was released as the fourth and final single from that album in a remixed version. The 'Zephyr mix', as it was called, includes music completely redone by Butch Vig of Nirvana fame.
'Rules of the game' was written by Warren Harry. The lyric centres on a woman who becomes famous and turns her back on her old friends, but when the fame ends, she finds herself desperately lonely. Cheryl Baker, who performs lead vocals on this song, has since said of her dislike for this song, stating that she finds the lyrics depressing and was unhappy with the affected way she was asked to sing.
Two weeks after the death of lead singer Freddie Mercury, this double A-side single by Queen was released on December 9, 1991. It brought together the band's seminal track 'Bohemian rhapsody' from 1975 and a track from their most recent album, 'Innuendo', 'These are the days of our lives'. The song had very poignant lyrics that seemed almost too appropriate for the occasion.
These days, you have the Junior Eurovision Song Contest for children who want to be a performer watched by millions of viewers who get excited at watching young persons do their thing. It always makes me think of pedophiles, but that's a different story.
For a little while in 1984, Jermaine Jackson was just about as successful as his brother Michael. It seemed the world just couldn't get enough of Michael Jackson and so any record released by a sibling became a chart hit as well.
In 1987, the Frank Boeijen Groep released their seventh album 'Welkom in Utopia' ('Welcome in Utopia'). The album featured two title tracks: both titled 'Welkom in Utopia', the two tracks were very different from one another. Number one was the album's opening track, an uptempo track about social circumstances leading to desperate actions.
'Love don't live here' was released last Monday as the most recent Bananarama single. Taken from their current album 'Viva', the track was written by Sara Dallin, Keren Woodward and their producer Ian Masterson.
'Raspberry beret' tells the story of a teenager and his first sexual experience with a girl who wears the titular hat. The video for the song was Prince's first since his short-lived 'ban' on music videos. The song quickly became a fan favorite, and a staple in nearly every Prince tour.
'You sexy thing' was originally a hit for Hot Chocolate in 1975. Dutch DJ Ben Liebrand, who already made a career for himself remixing tracks for Dutch radio and also for record releases, took on the task of remixing the track for a 1987 single release. His effort didn't go by unnoticed: the single reached number 10 in the UK singles chart.
Frankly, I was very surprised when I played this single for the first time after buying it. Everyone knows Hot Chocolate's 'You sexy thing', with the near-falsetto lead vocals by Errol Brown. But this version of the song sounds very different. So what happened? You tell me, I couldn't find any information about it on the web.
It's a familiar story: a band signs with a record company, has some success, leaves the record company and signs with another one, and the previous record company tries to milk the success to the very last drop. It's no different with Clouseau: when they left HKM music to sign with EMI, HKM released a live album to try and get some extra money in.
Well, at least they don't beat around the bush. 'Ik wil vannacht bij je slapen' ('I want to sleep with you tonight') was released in February 1991 as the third single from Clouseau's second album, a title that leaves nothing to the imagination.
Joan Manuel Serrat was born on December 27, 1943. He started his career in music in the early Sixties, first as a member of a pop band in school, and after 1965 as a solo artist.
Kate Bush wrote the song 'Cloudbusting' after she read the book 'A book of dreams', published in 1973. The book was written by Peter Reich, son of psychologist Wilhelm Reich, about his father's arrest and imprisonment through the eyes of himself as a young boy. Wilhelm Reich is the inventor of the 'cloudbuster', a rain machine that looks very much like the machine that is pictured on the cover of this single. It's an extraordinary book, which was re-released as a result of the success of this song. I bought it, and I still recommend it to everyone who loves this song.
I don't have a lot of Garbage singles, and that's partly because most of their singles were not released on 7" vinyl. And when they were, they are often exceedingly expensive. But I got lucky: I found this 2007 single at a bargain price.
'I wish u heaven' was released as the third single from Prince's 1988 album 'Lovesexy'. It reached number 19 in the Dutch Top 40 and number 24 in the UK singles chart.
The third single from Chris Rea's 1984 album 'Wired to the moon' was 'Touché d'amour'. Somewhat surprisingly, it was a reggae-oriented track.
