The Story Behind "Dance Hall Days" by Wang Chung

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, New Wave, Retro, Synth-Pop, Video  1 Response »
May 102013
 

Wang Chung released “Dance Hall Days” on Jan­u­ary 14, 1984. The sin­gle only charted at #21 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart, but peaked at #16 on the U.S. Hot Bill­board 100, becom­ing one of five U.S. Top 40 hits the band would have over the next three years.

Wang Chung is Chi­nese for “yel­low bell.” It’s also the first note in the Chi­nese clas­si­cal music scale. The band orig­i­nally spelled it Huang Chung, but changed the spelling at Gef­fen Records’ sug­ges­tion, as English-speaking peo­ple were pro­nounc­ing the band’s name as “Hung Chung.”

Lead singer Jack Hues stated in an inter­view that “Dance Hall Days” was par­tially inspired by Adam Ant, which led to Wang Chung record­ing the song with Chris Hughes, who also pro­duced Adam and the Ants’ “Kings of the Wild Frontier.”

Ver­sions
Dance Hall Days 3’58
Dance Hall Days [Remix] 8’02
Dance Hall Days [Remix] 7’22

Music Video #1

Music Video #2

Music Video
Two music videos were filmed for “Dance Hall Days.” The first was directed by Derek Jar­man and included his father’s home movies from the World War II era inter­spersed with footage of the band play­ing vio­lins and dressed as char­ac­ters from The Wiz­ard of Oz. (The tod­dler in the footage is actu­ally the direc­tor as a child.)

The sec­ond music video takes place in an art deco music hall. The band per­forms the song while cou­ples dance. Later, the cam­era pans across the tables and reveals the audi­ence is filled with iden­ti­cal twins. The mir­rored ball falls to the dance floor and a mir­rored dancer hatches from it and dances. Out­side the dance hall, lead singer Jack Hues walks off with­out his suit­case, which sprouts legs and chases after him. This video was nom­i­nated for Best New Artist at the 1984 MTV Music Awards, but lost to Eury­th­mics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).”

Mem­o­ries
“Dance Hall Days” is one of the few songs I can hear and instantly feel six­teen again. The song and the music video were in heavy rota­tion on radio and T.V. in the Sum­mer of 1984, which I feel was the apoth­e­o­sis of MTV. There’s just some­thing about the gui­tar and synth, the cryp­tic lyrics, and the sur­real video that has remained with me over the past almost thirty years.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Dance Hall Days” by Wang Chung?

The Story Behind "Dreaming" by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, Pop Music, Retro, Synth-Pop, Video  No Responses »
May 032013
 

Orches­tral Manoeu­vres in the Dark (OMD) released “Dream­ing” on June 6, 1988 to pro­mote their first com­pi­la­tion album, The Best of OMD. Although the song only reached #50 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart, “Dream­ing” peaked at #16 on the U.S. Hot Bill­board 100, mak­ing it OMD’s sec­ond most suc­cess­ful chart entry in the U.S.

After the suc­cess of “If You Leave” from the motion pic­ture Pretty in Pink two years prior, and the momen­tum behind “Dream­ing” on the U.S. charts, OMD sup­ported Depeche Mode on their 101 Tour at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Cal­i­for­nia. Unhappy with the com­mer­cial direc­tion the band had taken, co-founder Paul Humphrey’s left in 1989 and formed The Lis­ten­ing Pool with for­mer OMD mem­bers Mar­tin Cooper and Mal­colm Holmes. Andy McClusky con­tin­ued to record under the OMD name for three more albums. McClusky and Humphreys reunited in 2006 and have since released two new OMD albums.

I chose this song for Flash­back Fri­day because it’s a good exam­ple of how a pop song can be ubiq­ui­tous at the time of its release and then fade into obscurity.

Ver­sions
Dream­ing [7″ Ver­sion] 3’56/4’15
Dream­ing [Radio USA Mix/Radio Edit] 3’50
Dream­ing [7″ Edit] 3’56
Dream­ing [Album Version/Seven Inch Version/Single Ver­sion] 4’00
Dream­ing [Club Mix Edit] 4’58
Dream­ing [Extended Mix] 6’19
Dream­ing [The William Orbit Remix] 7’15
Dream­ing [Club Mix] 7’13
Dream­ing [12″ USA Club Mix] 7’05
Dream­ing [Extended 12″ Club Mix] 8’22

Music Video
The music video for “Dream­ing” cuts between a young woman who seems to be stranded on a rural road and OMD per­form­ing the song inside a mission-style build­ing. Occa­sion­ally, a hand drawn box appears on the screen, which fre­quently changes designs. It’s not an ambi­tious video, but I always though the band were well-lit.

Mem­o­ries
In May of 1988, I bought my first stereo with a CD player. The Best of OMD was one of the first CDs I pur­chased to play on my stereo, and I can still remem­ber the sur­prise I felt at see­ing the CD adver­tised in the Tar­get cir­cu­lar that came in the Sun­day news­pa­per. Since OMD had not achieved main­stream suc­cess in the States until “If You Leave,” I was unfa­mil­iar with most of their pre­vi­ous sin­gles, although it began my love affair with this band.

I don’t recall being par­tic­u­larly fond of “Dream­ing” at the time; how­ever, I’ve noticed over the years I always find myself singing along to the track quite enthu­si­as­ti­cally when­ever I hear it, so maybe I liked it bet­ter than I pre­vi­ously imag­ined. Regard­less, it always takes me back to the spring of 1988 when I finally real­ized the depres­sion that had haunted me since the pre­vi­ous sum­mer had finally lifted.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Dream­ing” by Orches­tral Manoeu­vres in the Dark?

The Story Behind "(Keep Feeling) Fascination" by The Human League

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, Retro, Synth-Pop, Video  2 Responses »
Apr 262013
 

The Human League released “(Keep Feel­ing) Fas­ci­na­tion” on April 17, 1983. It reached #2 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart and #8 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100. It also topped the Bill­board Hot Dance Club Play Chart.

After the huge suc­cess of their pre­vi­ous album, Dare, The Human League were under immense pres­sure from Vir­gin Records to pro­duce an even more suc­cess­ful fol­lowup album. As the record­ing ses­sions lagged on, the band released “Mir­ror Man” and “(Keep Feel­ing) Fas­ci­na­tion” as stand­alone sin­gles. Their record label decided to release an EP enti­tled Fas­ci­na­tion! until the band com­pleted their next album, which would be Hys­te­ria in 1984. Fas­ci­na­tion! includes two ver­sions of “(Keep Feel­ing) Fas­ci­na­tion,” “Mir­ror Man,” “Hard Times” (B-Side for their pre­vi­ous sin­gle “Love Action (I Believe in Love)”), “I Love You Too Much,” and “You Remind Me of Gold” (B-Side to “Mir­ror Man”).
The song is unique for The Human League, as the verses are alter­nately shared between Philip Oakey, Susan Ann Sul­ley, Joanne Cather­all, and guitarist/keyboardist Jo Callis.

On the record sleeve, “(Keep Feel­ing) Fas­ci­na­tion” fea­tures the word RED, which ref­er­ences a brief cat­e­go­riza­tion The Human League used in the early 80s to indi­cate whether a sin­gle was clas­si­fied as pop (blue) or dance (red).

Ver­sions
(Keep Feel­ing) Fas­ci­na­tion [7″ Version/Chris Thomas Remix] 3’43
(Keep Feel­ing) Fas­ci­na­tion [Extended/Extended Version/Extended 12″ Version/Extended Remix/Special Extended Ver­sion] 4’56
(Keep Feel­ing) Fas­ci­na­tion [Improvisation/Improvisation 12″ Dub/Dub Ver­sion] 6’15

Music Video
Direc­tor Steve Bar­ron came up wit the idea for the music video for “(Keep Feel­ing) Fas­ci­na­tion.” It begins with an orange dot on a map, which morphs into a huge orange dot painted in a run­down neigh­bor­hood in Newham, Lon­don, even­tu­ally reveal­ing an orange house in the mid­dle of the dot. The cam­era moves through an open win­dow to show The Human League per­form­ing the song, although the inside of the house is painted gray. Later in the video, two boys scene play­ing foot­ball kick the ball into the orange dot. When one of the boys fetches it, the ball and his clothes change to orange. The scenes with the band were actu­ally filmed in a stu­dio, as a fam­ily was liv­ing in the house at the time. The house remained painted orange until it was demol­ished a few months later.

Mem­o­ries
I caught the music video for “(Keep Feel­ing) Fas­ci­na­tion” by The Human League late one night on a music video show at my grandmother’s house. I was already famil­iar with “Don’t You Want Me” and “Mir­ror Man,” but I had never seen The Human Leage before, and I remem­ber being shocked by Phil Oakey’s dan­gling ear­rings and makeup. Of course, every­thing about the video is visu­ally stim­u­lat­ing, but what stands out is that fan­tas­tic bass line and shared vocal duties. This song always makes me want to sing along and dance. It also reminds me of a day when I drove to Sem­i­nary South Mall with my friends Joan, Kent, and Susan. This song was play­ing on my tape deck when we parked and Kent said some­thing incred­i­bly nasty and hate­ful. The rest of us looked at each other and laughed, hav­ing no idea what put him in such a sud­den bad mood.

What are your mem­o­ries of “(Keep Feel­ing) Fas­ci­na­tion” by the Human League?

The Story Behind "Let the Music Play" by Shannon

 80s, Dance, Flashback Fridays, Freestyle, Music, Pop Music, Retro, Synth-Pop, Video  No Responses »
Apr 122013
 

Shan­non released “Let the Music Play” in Sep­tem­ber of 1983. Her only Top 40 hit reached #14 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart, #8 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100, and #1 on the U.S. Hot Dance Club Songs Chart. The record sold eight mil­lion copies.

An asso­ciate of pro­duc­ers Mark Liggett and Chris Bar­bosa noticed col­lege stu­dent Brenda Shan­non Greene singing with a band in her cousin’s record­ing stu­dio and invited her to audi­tion for them. They asked her to record a track Bar­bosa had writ­ten, enti­tled “Fire and Ice,” which evolved into “Let the Music Play.” The sin­gle was issued on New York-based dance label Emer­gency Records and became a mas­sive club hit before cross­ing over to radio.

Some regard “Let the Music Play” as a sem­i­nal dance record, as it was one of the first dance-pop songs to chart on main­stream U.S. radio after the disco back­lash a few years ear­lier. The song is con­sid­ered one of the first freestyle records, which fused Latin Amer­i­can rhythms with syn­co­pated drum pat­terns and synthesizers.

Shan­non released sev­eral more dance hits–“Give Me Tonight,” “My Heart Divided,” “Do You Wanna Get Away,” “Stronger Together,” “Urgent,” “Prove Me Right,” and “Dancin’”–before ask­ing to be released from her record con­tract in 1987.

Ver­sions
Let the Music Play [7″ Version/Vocal Long Version/Vocal/Radio Edit] 4’38
Let the Music Play [Album Version/Vocal Short Ver­sion] 3’34
Let the Music Play [12″ Version/Vocal] 5’49
Let the Music Play [Re-Mix] 6’03

Music Video
The music video for “Let the Music Play” was directed by Nigel Dick. Shan­non per­forms the song in an empty the­ater while dancers in tuxedo shirts and bowties dance behind her.

Mem­o­ries
“Let the Music Play” is one of those songs that instantly takes me back to late 1983/early 1984. Although it wasn’t a favorite of mine at the time, I appre­ci­ate it more now. “Let the Music Play,” along with Madonna’s “Hol­i­day,” was all over Top 40 radio in Dallas/Fort Worth; how­ever, I don’t ever remem­ber see­ing the music video on any of the local music video shows.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Let the Music Play” by Shannon?

The Story Behind "Always Something There to Remind Me" by Naked Eyes

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, Retro, Synth-Pop, Video  No Responses »
Apr 052013
 

 

Naked Eyes released “Always Some­thing There to Remind Me” on Jan­u­ary 16, 1983 and it peaked at #8 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100. (It had been released a few months ear­lier in the U.K. and ignored. Even after the top ten suc­cess in the U.S. and a sec­ond U.K. release, the sin­gle only man­aged to reach as high as #59 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart.)

Pete Byrne and Rob Fisher orig­i­nally formed a band with Curt Smith and Roland Orz­a­bal called Neon, before Smith and Orz­a­bal left to record as Tears for Fears and Byrne and Fisher started synth-pop duo Naked Eyes.

Byrne and Fisher recorded some demos in early 1982. Byrne had always loved the “Always Some­thing There to Remind Me” and decided to record it. He called a friend who owned the record and asked him to read the lyrics over the tele­phone, then he and Fisher com­pleted the song based upon their mem­ory of the orig­i­nal recording.

On the strength of their demos, Naked Eyes signed to EMI. Byrne and Fisher began to record their first album, Burn­ing Bridges, at leg­endary Abbey Road Stu­dios. One Sep­tem­ber evening, after attend­ing a party down­stairs with Paul McCart­ney and other celebri­ties, the duo returned upstairs to record the vocal for “Always Some­thing There to Remind Me” in one take with pro­ducer Tony Mansfield.

Writ­ten by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, “(There’s) Always Some­thing There to Remind Me” had orig­i­nally been recorded by Lou John­son in 1964 and reached #49 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100. British singer Sandie Shaw recorded her own ver­sion that topped the U.K. Sin­gles Chart and achieved great suc­cess around the world. Dionne War­wick, who had orig­i­nally recorded the demo for the song, released “(There’s) Always Some­thing Thre to Remind Me” as the B-side of her sin­gle “Who Is Gonna Love Me” in 1968 and it reached #65 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100. Two years later, R. B. Greaves’ cover would reach #27 in the U.S. Bacharach has cited Naked Eyes cover of “Always Some­thing There to Remind Me” as a per­sonal favorite.

Naked Eyes would go on to achieve three more hits between 1983–1984 before tak­ing a break to pur­sue other projects: “Promises, Promises,” “When the Lights Go Out,” and “(What) In the Name of Love.” They released two albums, Burn­ing Bridges–Naked Eyes in the U.S.–and Fuel for the Fire.

Byrne set­tled in Cal­i­for­nia and worked as a ses­sion singer and wrote and pro­duced songs for other artists. Fisher also found ses­sion work and formed another suc­cess­ful duo, Climie Fisher, with singer/songwriter Simon Climie, who scored a hit in 1988 with “Love Changes (Every­thing).” Fisher died on August 25, 1999 due to com­pli­ca­tions from surgery. Byrne still tours as Naked Eyes.

Ver­sions
Always Some­thing There to Remind Me [Short Ver­sion] 3’40
Always Some­thing There to Remind Me [Long Ver­sion] 6’13
Always Some­thing There to Remind Me [Amer­i­can Remix/Remixed Ver­sion] 5’41

Music Video
The music video for “Always Some­thing There to Remind Me” show­cases Byrne as a reporter fol­low­ing a mys­te­ri­ous woman who holds a press con­fer­ence with Fisher. She becomes upset, and she and Fisher run away. Byrne fol­lows the woman and Fisher to a cafe where he watches them dance until the paparazzi arrive and drive them away. Even­tu­ally, the mys­tery lady and Fisher marry, fol­lowed by court­room drama. In between these scenes, Byrne appears to work at a news­pa­per where Fisher also seems to be the edi­tor. In the end, Byrne bends down to read the head­line of a news­pa­per just as the woman walks by. He drops the news­pa­per and chases after her. The video ends by mor­ph­ing into a still pho­to­graph the woman.

Mem­o­ries
“Always Some­thing There to Remind” by Naked Eyes is one of my favorite songs of the 80s. When­ever I hear cer­tain songs from the Spring of 1983, it stirs some­thing inside me. The song is so dang hum­ma­ble and I love the church bells and drum pat­tern. It’s a shame Naked Eyes didn’t record more mate­r­ial, as I really liked their sin­gles. I even­tu­ally received a copy of The Best of Naked Eyes for my col­lege grad­u­a­tion in May of 1991. Thanks to iTunes, I can now watch the sin­gu­lar music video on my iPhone when­ever I feel nostalgic.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Always Some­thing There to Remind Me” by Naked Eyes?

The Story Behind "I Beg Your Pardon" by Kon Kan

 80s, Canada, Flashback Fridays, Hi-NRG, House Music, Music, Retro, Synth-Pop, Video  1 Response »
Mar 222013
 

Cana­dian synth-pop duo Kon Kan released “I Beg Your Par­don” in 1988. The first sin­gle from their debut album, Move to Move, peaked at #19 on the Cana­dian Sin­gles Chart, #5 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart, and #15 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100.

Kevin Wynne sang lead vocals on all but two songs on Move to Move. Barry Har­ris also pro­vided vocals, key­board, and gui­tar. Har­ris recorded two more albums using the Kon Kan moniker before he formed Outta Con­trol. He gained his most suc­cess as Thun­der­puss 2000, one-half of a remix duo with DJ Chris Cox. Wynne left the band after the first album and worked on the busi­ness side of the music indus­try. Today, rumor has it he’s a semi-pro video golfer.

The song gen­er­ated con­tro­versy for Kon Kan’s sam­pling of “Rose Gar­den” by Lynn Ander­son, “Disco Nights (Rock-Freak)” by GQ, “Get Up and Boo­gie” by Sil­ver Con­nec­tion, “Call Me” by Spagna, and the open­ing bars of theme from movie The Mag­nif­i­cent Seven.

The band’s name is a play on the abbre­vi­a­tion for Cana­dian Cotent (Can­Con), which requires a third of all music played on Cana­dian com­mer­cial radio sta­tions must be Cana­dian in origin.

Ver­sions
I Beg Your Par­don [Radio Mix] 3’59
I Beg Your Par­don [Club Mix] 6’39
I Beg Your Par­don [In the Green — House Mix] [Theb-4We Re-Mixitmix] 7’43
I Beg Your Par­don [I Beg Your House] 5’16

Music Video
The music video for “I Beg Your Par­don” is rather straight for­ward. Wynne sings into the receiver of a pay phone while Har­ris dances about and plays a portable key­board. A 70s lounge lizard offers comic relief, while a cow­girl who resem­bles the love child of Roy Orbi­son and k.d. lang lip-syncs to the Lynn Ander­son sam­ple and plays an accor­dion. A group of young men and women pro­vide some arm motions dur­ing the bridge

Mem­o­ries
I remem­ber walk­ing into the Sound Ware­house on Hulen Street in Fort Worth after I fin­ished my shift at Tar­get and the Move to Move album was play­ing. I believe “Puss n’ Boots/These Boots (Are Made for Walk­ing)” was the song play­ing at the time I walked in. I browsed the record bins and by the time “I Beg Your Par­don (I Never Promised You a Rose Gar­den) [12″ Mix]” played, I decided to buy the CD.

When I first started hang­ing out with my col­lege room­mate, Chris, he kept ask­ing me if I had ever heard this cool song he wanted to find. He’d try to hum the melody, but he could never get it right. One day, months later, I put my Kon Kan CD on to lis­ten while I cleaned house and Chris came run­ning out of this bed­room as soon as “I Beg Your Par­don (I Never Promised You a Rose Gar­den)” began to play, shout­ing, “That’s it! That’s it!”

For my 23rd birth­day, Chris took me to din­ner and to see the movie adap­ta­tion of Car­rie Fisher’s Post­cards from the Edge. When we came back to the apart­ment, Kon Kan blasted from my stereo along to a strobe light. My friends Trixie and Susan were wait­ing to kid­nap me and take me to a com­edy club. It was a fun night!

What are your mem­o­ries of “I Beg Your Par­don” by Kon Kan?

 Posted by at 7:00 am

The Story Behind "Chains of Love" by Erasure

 80s, Dance, Flashback Fridays, Music, Retro, Synth-Pop, Video  1 Response »
Mar 082013
 

Synth-pop duo Era­sure released “Chains of Love” on May 31, 1988. It was the sec­ond sin­gle released from their third stu­dio album, The Inno­cents, in the U.K., and the first sin­gle released in the U.S. The song reached #11 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart and #12 on the U.S. Hot Bill­board 100, becom­ing their high­est chart­ing hit in the U.S. It also peaked at #4 on the U.S. Bill­board Dance Music/Club Play Chart and #1 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales Chart.

Pro­duced by Stephen Hague, the sin­gle ver­sion of “Chains of Love” is slightly remixed, with s brief synth intro, while the album ver­sion starts cold.

Ver­sions
Chains of Love [7″ Remix] 3’37
Chains of Love [Edit] 3’34
Chains of Love [Remix Radio Edit With­out Intro] 3’40
Chains of Love [Remix Radio Edit with Intro] 3’56
Chains of Love [Album Ver­sion] 3’36
Chains of Love [The Foghorn Mix] 6’26
Chains of Love [Truly in Love with the Marks Bros. Mx] 7’18
Chains of Love [The Unfet­tered Mix] 8’23

Music Video
The music video for “Chains of Love” fea­tures Andy Bell and Vince Clarke per­form­ing the song while mov­ing about a ware­house on hoists, while sur­rounded by chains. It also fea­tures a few extras in makeup and cos­tumes. Andy wears his sig­na­ture white t-shirt and jeans, don­ning his Ricky Ricardo Babalu sleeves near the end. I was always impressed by Vince play­ing the piano that was sus­pended from the ceiling.

Mem­o­ries
My best friend, Kent, was a huge Era­sure fan, and I can remem­ber an early sum­mer day when we stopped by the Sound Ware­house on Hulen Street, so he could buy The Inno­cents album on cas­sette, which came with two bonus tracks.  (In order to per­suade con­sumers to pur­chase cas­settes or CDs, record com­pa­nies often tempted them with bonus tracks that were not included on the vinyl album.)  I can still hear Kent singing “Ship of Fools,” “Chains of Love,” and “A Lit­tle Respect” with his voice prac­ti­cally drip­ping with joy. Good times!

What are your mem­o­ries of “Chains of Love” by Erasure?

The Story Behind "Take My Breath Away" by Berlin

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Movies, Music, Pop Music, Retro, Synth-Pop, Video  No Responses »
Feb 152013
 

Berlin released “Take My Breath Away” on June 15, 1986 and the song began a slow rise to the top of both the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100 and the U.K. Sin­gles Chart.

The song was writ­ten and pro­duced by Gior­gio Moroder, famous for his work with Donna Sum­mer dur­ing the ‘70s. In the ‘80s, Moroder had pro­duced many hit sin­gles from movie sound­tracks: “Call Me” by Blondie from Amer­i­can Gigolo, “Putting Out Fire with Gaso­line” by David Bowie from Cat Peo­ple, “Rush Rush” by Deb­bie Harry from Scar­face, “Together in Elec­tric Dreams” by Phil Oakey of the Human League from Elec­tric Dreams, and “The Nev­erEnd­ing Story” by Limahl from the movie of the same name. He approached the band about record­ing the song for the movie Top Gun. Terri Nunn, the lead singer of the band, was game, but John Craw­ford, the band’s key­boardist and song­writer dis­liked the song and com­plained that it didn’t have the band’s sig­na­ture sound. Sup­pos­edly, this, along with the lack of suc­cess of their Count Three and Pray album, led to a rift in the band and con­tributed to their breakup the fol­low­ing year. The band’s man­ager didn’t have faith in the song, either, and promised to shave his head if the song charted in the top ten.

Released as the sec­ond sin­gle from the suc­cess­ful Top Gun sound­track, “Take My Breath Away” was actu­ally a replace­ment for the love theme from the motion pic­ture. Toto had orig­i­nally wrote and planned to record a song enti­tled “Only You,” which was intended to be used as the love theme from the movie; how­ever, legal con­flicts between the movie’s pro­duc­ers and the band’s lawyers pre­vented this from happening.

“Take My Breath Away” won Best Orig­i­nal Song at the 44th Annual Golden Globe Awards on Jan­u­ary 31, 1987 and Best Orig­i­nal Song at the 59th Acad­emy Awards. Rumor has it that the pro­duc­ers of the Acad­emy Awards insisted all the artists nom­i­nated for Best Orig­i­nal Song per­form only a por­tion of their song for a med­ley of nom­i­nated songs. Berlin refused and boy­cotted the cer­e­mony and won the Oscar!

In 1991, DGC released a remix of “Take My Breath Away” by DJ Paul Dakeyne, cred­ited to Berlin feat. Terri Nunn, to pro­mote her soon to be released solo album. Moment of Truth.

Ver­sions
Take My Breath Away (Love Theme from Top Gun) 4’13

Music Video
The music video for “Take My Breath Away” is your stan­dard promo clip for a sound­track sin­gle, fea­tur­ing Terri Nunn singing at night at the Mojave Air & Space Port while fel­low band mem­bers John Craw­ford and Rob Brill lounge about with­out their instru­ment and try to look cool. Mean­while, scenes from Top Gun are inter­cut with the footage of the band. I’d almost for­got­ten bout Nunn’s two-tone hair.

Mem­o­ries
I have a con­fes­sion: I’ve never seen Top Gun. I don’t know why, but I just never got around to it. I do remem­ber hear­ing “Take My Breath Away” on the radio and lik­ing the song. I had been a fan of Berlin from the first time I heard “The Metro” while lis­ten­ing to my knock-off Walk­man the Sun­day night before we went back to school after the Christ­mas of 1982. Plus, I’d always admired Gior­gio Moroder’s work with Donna Sum­mer and his sound­track work with Blondie and David Bowie. I will say, how­ever, that by the time the song had reached #1 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100, I was burned out on it.

While research­ing and writ­ing this post, I real­ized that I’d nei­ther seen the music video before nor did I know the words to the song, except for the chorus.

The most dis­tinct mem­ory I have of “Take My Breath Away,” isn’t even my own. I recall my friend Terri telling me how she and her boyfriend Mike went to see Berlin in con­cert shortly after the song had topped the U.S. charts, and she described how touched she had been by how emo­tional Terri Nunn got as she intro­duced the song before the band per­formed it and thanked the fans for mak­ing it num­ber one.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Take My Breath Away” by Berlin?

The Story Behind "Obsession" by Animotion

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, Pop Music, Retro, Synth-Pop, Video  No Responses »
Feb 082013
 

Ani­mo­tion released “Obses­sion” on Novem­ber 23, 1984. It peaked at #5 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart and #6 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100. The track is fea­tured on their self-titled debut album.

“Obses­sion” is some­times mis­tak­enly cred­ited to synth-pop band the Human League, who was an influ­ence on Animotion.

The song was writ­ten by Holly Knight, famous for writ­ing many suc­cess­ful sin­gles, such as “Love Is a Bat­tle­field” by Pat Benatar“Better Be Good to Me” by Tina Turner. Knight recorded the song with Michael Des Bar­res, an actor and lead singer in the bands Sil­ver­head and Detec­tive, in 1983, which was used in the movie A Night in Heaven, where Christo­pher Atkins, play­ing a male strip­per, dances in front of his col­lege pro­fes­sor, Les­ley Ann Warren.

Knight has said “Obses­sion” is about a stalker, who becomes more fix­ated on the object of his affec­tion as the song goes on, trans­form­ing from a crush to to some­thing more dangerous.

Ver­sions
Obses­sion [7″ Ver­sion] 3’58
Obses­sion [Album Ver­sion] 5’30
Obses­sion [Spe­cial AOR Mix] 5’00
Obses­sion [Dance Mix] 6’00
Obses­sion [Spe­cial Club Mix] 5’30
Obses­sion [12 Inch Remix Ver­sion] 7’32

Music Video
The music video for “Obses­sion” is set in expen­sive house in the hills sur­round­ing Los Ange­les. The band are fea­tured in var­i­ous costumes–Mark Antony, Cleopa­tra, astro­naut, etc.–singing and danc­ing around an out­door pool and inside the rooms of the house.

Mem­o­ries
Even though “Obses­sion” was released in late 1984, I have more mem­o­ries of hear­ing it in 1985. The music video was in heavy rota­tion on those after­noon music video shows that were pop­u­lar on TV when I got home from school. When­ever it came on the radio, I cranked it up, and I swear it’s included on every 80s com­pi­la­tion in the free world. Upon watch­ing the video again for this post, I was struck by how much singer Bill Wad­hams resem­bles these fash­ion sketches of male mod­els that were used in adver­tis­ing at the time, with the high cheek­bones and puffy hair.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Obses­sion” by Animotion?

The Story Behind "Don't Leave Me This Way" by the Communards with Sarah Jane Morris

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, Pop Music, Retro, Synth-Pop, Video  No Responses »
Feb 012013
 

The Communards released Don't Leave Me This Way" with Sarah Jane Morris during the Summer of 1986. The single topped the U.K. Singles Chart for four weeks in September; it was the biggest selling record of the year. Although the song only reached #40 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, it did become a #1 hit on the Billboard Dance Chart.

"Don't Leave Me This Way" was originally recorded by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, which featured Teddy Pendergrass' lead vocal; however, it was never released as a single in the U.S. (It reached #5 on the U.K. Singles Chart.)

Diana Ross recorded her own ver­sion of the song, and it was intended to be her next sin­gle after the suc­cess of “Love Hang­over,” but Motown decided to have upcom­ing artist Thelma Hous­ton record her own ver­sion and release it as a sin­gle. Houston’s cover was a huge hit, top­ping the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100 and peak­ing at #13 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart.

After leav­ing Bron­ski Beat, Jimmy Somerville founded the Com­mu­nards with pianist Richard Coles. Somerville had often been accused of being a com­mu­nist, due to his left-wing pol­i­tics, so named the band the Com­mu­nards after a French term for peo­ple of the com­mune. They released two sin­gles, “You Are My World” and “Dis­en­chanted,” which charted in the lower top 30, before record­ing their Hi-NRG ver­sion of “Don’t Leave Me This Way.” The song was recorded as a duet with Sarah Jane Mor­ris, orig­i­nally lead vocal­ist for The Repub­lic and The Happy End. Her deep con­tralto con­trasted nicely with Somerville’s high falsetto.

The Com­mu­nards released sev­eral more hit sin­gles before split­ting up in 1988. Somerville embarked upon a suc­cess­ful solo career, and Coles worked as a jour­nal­ist for the Times Lit­er­ary Sup­ple­ment and Catholic Harold, before being ordained in the Church of Eng­land. Mor­ris went on to record and release sev­eral solo albums. Inter­est­ingly, she and Tales of the City author Armis­tead Maupin are cousins by the same grandfather.

Ver­sions
Don’t Leave Me This Way 4’36
Don’t Leave Me This Way [LP Ver­sion] 4’50
Don’t Leave Me This Way [Mega Mix] 11’00
Don’t Leave Me This Way [Son of Gotham City Mix/The Gotham City Mix] 13’00
Don’t Leave Me This Way [Extended Mix] 6’25
Don’t Leave Me This Way [Gotham City Mix Part Two] 11’25
Don’t Leave Me This Way/Sanctified/Don’t Leave Me This Way [Gotham City Mix Part Two] 11’30

Music Video
The music video for “Don’t Leave Me This Way” appears to be some­where behind the Iron Cur­tain. Young peo­ple make their way to a ware­house, where the Com­mu­nards per­form “Don’t Leave Me This Way.” A young man who appears to be Dolph Lundgren’s long lost brother watches the band with a surly look on his face. He has flash­backs where he was chased through what appears to be an under­ground park­ing garage. He’s caught and taken to see a man with mir­rored shades who gives him a large radio. The video goes back to the young man in the ware­house. He pulls out the radio as the band fin­ishes the song, spot­lights flash on and the crowd disperses.

Mem­o­ries
I don’t remem­ber exactly when I heard “Don’t Leave Me This Way” by the Com­mu­nards with Sarah Jane Mor­ris for the firs time, but I must have heard it at some point, because when I bought the used 12″ record at Half Price Books dur­ing the Sum­mer of 1990 and played it, I rec­og­nized the song. My friend Joan imme­di­ately squealed, jumped up, and started danc­ing. (Evi­dently it had been pop­u­lar with her crowd when she went to North Texas State Uni­ver­sity.) The next year, I found a copy of Jimmy Somerville’s The Sin­gles Col­lec­tion 1984/1990, which intro­duced me to his work with Bron­ski Beat and the Com­mu­nards, as well as his solo stuff. That sum­mer, we played “Don’t Leave Me This Way” a lot in my lit­tle apart­ment on Benge Street, which was more like a house than an apart­ment. When I hear this song, it always brings back good memories.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Don’t Leave Me This Way” by the Com­mu­nards with Sarah Jane Morris?

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