Although this track sounds slightly rudimentary, it is the seventh single by UB40, released in 1982. 'Love is all is all right' is one of the most laidback reggae songs I ever heard in my life, which was part of the appeal.
When you compare all the sleeves of All about Eve singles through the years, this one is a pretty dismal affair. It's almost a shoddy sleeve, a piece of work that could only have resulted from disinterest from the record company.
'What if' is a track from Coldplay's third album 'X&Y'. It was released as a single to radio stations in France and the French speaking regions in Belgium and Switzerland. A cd-single was only released commercially in Belgium, whereas this 7" vinyl single is originally part of the Coldplay Singles box set. (I managed to buy a separate single from a dealer who was apparently splitting up his box set.)
At 7 minutes and 30 seconds, the original version of New Order's 'Blue Monday' is one of the longest tracks ever to chart in the UK. It was released on 12" single only, which made it an even more unique charting track. The band claimed to have written the song in response to crowd disappointment at the fact that they never played encores. This song, they say, allowed them to return to the stage, press play on a synthesiser and leave the stage again.
Roger Hodgson was born on March 21, 1950 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. Between 1969 and 1983 he was a member of the legendary pop group Supertramp, lending the band his distinctive vocals and also writing some of their best known songs.
Young Vanessa Paradis followed up her debut album 'M&J' (1987) with a second album, 'Variations sur le même t'aime' in 1990. On this album, she had French music legend Serge Gainsbourg compose songs for her. The track 'Tandem' was released as one of the singles from the album.
'Careless memories' was the second single by Duran Duran, released in April 1981. The choice to release this song as a single was made by the record company. They must have been unpleasantly surprised when it stalled at number 37 in the UK singles chart, after the debut single 'Planet earth' had been a top 20 hit. Subsequent singles were chosen by the band - and became big hits.
Kim Wilde left RAK Records in 1984 and signed a new recording contract with MCA Records. They launched Kim Wilde with a new image, courtesy of XL Design, who were also responsible for the images of Wham! and Frankie goes to Hollywood back then. Kim's new single 'The second time' sounded fresh and exciting, the video was vibrant and full of energy and the lyric of 'The second time' was quite daring.
The second single from the Blue Nile's second album 'Hats' was a remixed version of 'Headlights on the parade'. The remix was made by Bob Clearmountain, who previously mixed tracks by artists like Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones and Bryan Adams. Not the most obvious person to handle a Blue Nile track, but the remix turned out quite reasonable.
'Straight up' was the third single from Paula Abdul's debut album 'Forever your girl', but the first one to be a worldwide success. The single spent three weeks at number 1 in the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaked at number 2 in Australia and number 3 in the Netherlands, Germany and the UK.
When I was introduced by a friend to the music of Sandra (he kept nagging me to listen to it until I finally gave in), he gave me the cd of 'Into a secret land'. It was the title track that grabbed my attention, and it is probably the track you can single out as the creative peak of Sandra and Michael Cretu. A great synth hook, an interesting lyric and a nice, glossy Eighties production.
Oh dear. Whenever the song 'You keep me hangin' on' is mentioned, the cover version by the Sixties band Vanilla Fudge comes up. I guess at the time it was quite an innovation to record a song in a different style than the original (in this case, slower and in a rock fashion), but when you listen to it now, you can't help but noticed the dated sound of it all and the terrible lead vocals by Mark Stein. This is even more obvious in the B-side, which sounds like an amateur band at best.
After 'It's my life' and 'Such a shame', here's the third and - as far as I know - last of three singles taken from the compilation album 'Natural history'. As far as re-releases go, this single is probably the most interesting of the three. Not only does it feature a live recording of the track on the B-side, the A-side features a new edit of 'Living in another world'. Although I'm not a fan of edits per se, it is always interesting to hear a new version of a track.
Jody Watley's debut album 'Looking for a new love' yielded five hits, of which 'Don't you want me' was the second. It reached number 6 in the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 55 in the UK singles chart.
'I don't like Mondays' was written by the lead singer of the Boomtown Rats, Bob Geldof after he read a telex report at Georgia State University's campus radio station, WRAS, where he was giving an interview. The report was about Brenda Ann Spencer, aged 16 at the time, firing at children playing in a school playground across the street from her home in San Diego, California. She killed two adults and injured eight children and one police officer. Spencer showed no remorse for her crime, and her full explanation for her actions was 'I don't like Mondays, this livens up the day'.
When an artist records two versions of a song, one in French and one in English, it's quite easy to make an extended remix: you just use the verses of both versions and before you know it the song is about seven minutes long.
Such is the nature of beautiful music, that these days even people with not an inch of artisticity in their body recycle it to make their own filth. Bruce Hornsby's 'The way it is' fell victim to Tupac Shakur when he made the track 'Changes', which for reasons that are still a mystery to me became a worldwide hit.
Adamski was born as Adam Tinley on December 4, 1967 in the New Forest, England. In the late Eighties, at the time of acid house, Adamski made a name for himself in the club circuit, touring with Daddy Chester and later with Seal. With the latter, he wrote 'Killer', which would become Adamski's breakthrough single, but is better known as the track that launched Seal's career.
I bought this single of 'It would take a strong strong man' in 1995. I didn't know it had been released as a single, but since this was an American pressing I assumed it was only released over there. I was right, to a degree: this single reached number 10 in the US Billboard Hot 100, but it also reached number 2 in Canada and number 4 in Ireland.
'Advice for the young at heart' was the third single taken from the 1989 Tears for Fears album 'The seeds of love'. The song was written by Roland Orzabal and keyboardist/singer Nicky Holland. The lyric 'Love is a promise, love is a souvenir once given, never forgotten, never let it disappear' is a quote from John Lennon. The lead vocal on the song was sung by Curt Smith; the only track he sang on the whole album. The single peaked at number 36 in the UK singles chart and number 22 in the Dutch Top 40.
In the UK, this single was released in a limited edition box set (pictured below) including four postcards. The front of the box set states that it's 'part one', but I've never seen 'part two'.