'When I think of you' was released as the third single from Janet Jackson's third album, 'Control'. The song was written by Jackson with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who also produced the track.
'Sorry seems to be the hardest word' was written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin. It was one of the rare instances where Elton John himself wrote much of the lyric. The track was released in 1976 as a track on his album 'Blue moves'. When it was released as a single, it reached number 11 in the UK singles chart, number 6 in the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 14 in the Dutch Top 40.
I think this 7" single is quite rare. As far as I know, 'Cherish the day' was only released on this format in Spain. And even then, it was just a promotional single. I guess I was lucky to find a copy.
'Get here' was originally written and performed by Brenda Russell on her 1988 album of the same name.
After the death of Freddie Mercury, the remaining members organised a concert featuring the songs of Queen, performed by them and various guest vocalists. Arguably the best of them was George Michael. His performance of 'Somebody to love' and 'These are the days of our lives' (the latter together with Lisa Stansfield), augmented with some other live tracks from other performances were put together on the 'Five Live' mini album. This EP represent four of the five tracks.
Just like in Europe, 'When your heart is weak' was also the debut single for Cock Robin in the UK. But for some reason, it was released with a different sleeve and a different B-side! Whereas the European sleeve resembled the album sleeve a lot, the UK version featured a different colour photograph of the band and a unique band logo (which was only used on UK releases).
Belle and the Devotions represented the United Kingdom with the Motown pastiche 'Love games' during the 1984 Eurovision Song Contest. The 12" single featured on this blog some time ago, but obviously I've got the 7" single as well.
For some reason, I've listened to the 12" extended remix of 'La femme accident' a lot more than the original single version over the last ten years. So it was delightful to play this single again after such a long time.
'Strangers when we meet' was originally recorded by David Bowie for his 1993 album 'The Buddha of Suburbia'. He re-recorded the song in 1995 for his album '1. Outside'. It was released as the second single from the album, as a double A-side with a reworked version of Bowie's 1970 song 'The man who sold the world'. While this was announced as a 'live' track, it was actually recorded in the studio, based on a reworked version as performed on the Outside Tour.
I have to say that I think the Pet Shop Boys were not particularly inspired when they recorded two new tracks for their 1992 compilation album 'Discography'. If 'DJ Culture' was a bit boring musically, 'Was it worth it' was uninspired both musically and lyrically.
'Material girl' is of course one of the songs that made Madonna famous in the early Eighties, and also the song that gave her the nickname Material girl.
In 1988, Crowded House released their second album 'Temple of low men'. Since my sister bought the cd, I pretty much knew every track on it (at the time, cd's were still pretty rare in our house). 'Sister madly', which appears on the album, is said to be about Neil Finn waking up to find his sister having nightmares.
In 1992, Sinéad O'Connor released her third album 'Am I not your girl?', an album with cover versions of mostly jazz standards. According to O'Connor, the songs were 'the songs I grew up listening to [and] that made me want to be a singer'.
Earlier this year, Stevie Nicks finally commented about the song 'Gypsy', released by Fleetwood Mac in 1982: 'In the old days, before Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey [Buckingham] and I had no money, so we had a king-size mattress, but we just had it on the floor. I had old vintage coverlets on it, and even though we had no money it was still really pretty... Just that and a lamp on the floor, and that was it—there was a certain calmness about it. (...) So that’s what 'Gypsy' means: it’s just a search for before this all happened. And later, I tacked on a line for my friend Robin, my best friend, who died of leukemia: 'I still see your bright eyes.' But then, Robin wasn’t sick yet. She got cancer, and died within a year.'
Unlike almost everyone in my class, I was not a fan of the movie 'Grease' when it was released back in 1978. I hated John Travolta and the rather overly dramatic number 1 hits 'Greased lightning', 'You're the one that I want' and 'Summer nights'. However, when Olivia Newton-John's single 'Hopelessly devoted to you' was released, I had to relent a little. I liked the melody a lot, and even if I couldn't understand the lyric (I was eight years old, mind you) I knew this was a pretty powerful lovesong.
'Once in your life' was the fourth single taken from Sam Brown's 1990 album 'April moon'. It was released in Europe only, as far as I know. Despite a colourful music video and an equally colourful sleeve, the single was not successful in the charts.
I found this white label 12" single during a holiday in London. With no description of the tracks, I decided to give it a spin on the record players that were available in the shop, and decided within a minute that I wanted to have this. Three remixes of the Coldplay track 'Clocks'... it was simply too interesting.
'Ride like the wind' was Christopher Cross's debut single in 1980. It was a track on his self-titled debut album and featured backing vocals by Michael McDonald. Christopher Cross dedicated this song to Lowell George, formerly of the band Little Feat, who died in 1979. The single reached number 69 in the UK singles chart.
Clint Eastwood and General Saint hail from Jamaica and recorded reggae music during the early Eighties. 'Stop that train' was their only significant international success, peaking at number 3 in the Dutch Top 40 in early 1984.
The lyric of Mylene Farmer's 1989 single 'Sans logique' deals with a kind of schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder, which lives in the protagonist and makes her a killer. Very literary, the song uses obsolete words from the language of the 18th century. The calculating Marquise de Mertreuil (a character in the French epistolary novel 'Les liaisons dangereuses'), as angelic as diabolical according to her own interests, seems to be evoked in the lyrics.