The Story Behind "Rapture" by Blondie

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, New Wave, Pop Music, Rap, Retro, Video  No Responses »
May 242013
 

 

Blondie released “Rap­ture” on Jan­u­ary 12, 1981. It peaked at #5 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart and #1 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100. It was Blondie’s last U.S. hit until they released “Maria” in 1999.

“Rap­ture” is a fusion of musi­cal styles (post­punk, new wave, and hip-hop. It was the first sin­gle with a rap to top the music charts, as well as the first rap music video broad­cast on MTV. The U.S. 7″ record con­tained the album ver­sion, while the U.K. 7″ offered an edit. The U.S. 12″ vinyl included an addi­tional verse and is not even an entire minute longer than the album ver­sion. Pro­ducer Mike Chap­man remixed “Rap­ture” to cre­ate a Spe­cial Disco Ver­sion. In 1988, D.J.‘s would remix some of the most pop­u­lar Blondie songs with a cur­rent sound. The remixes proved so pop­u­lar, a com­pi­la­tion of Blondie and Deb­bie Harry’s solo hits was issued, enti­tled Once More into the Bleach.

Lead singer Deb­bie Harry had an ear for new trends. She used to take Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic to New York clubs and expose them to new things. While club­bing, Deb­bie became friendly with Fab Five Freddy and name-checked him in “Rap­ture.” Fab Five Freddy actu­ally appears in the music video for “Rapture.”

Ver­sions
Rap­ture [U.K. 7″ Promo Ver­sion] 3’53
Rap­ture [Edited Ver­sion] 4’50
Rapture [U.K. 7″ Mix] 4’59
Rap­ture [Album Version/Long Ver­sion] 6’33
Rap­ture [U.S. 12″ Mix] 7’13
Rap­ture [Spe­cial Disco mix] 10’01
Rap­ture [The Teddy Riley Remix] 6’58

Music Video
The music video for “Rap­ture” is shot to appear as if it takes place in the East Vil­lage of Man­hat­tan. While Deb­bie Harry sings and raps to the cam­era, William Barnes, a dancer in a white suit and top hat, fol­lows her. Rap­per Fab Five Freddy and graf­fiti artists Lee Quinones and Jean-Michel Basquiat appear in the video. Sup­pos­edly, Basquiat, an Andy Warhol pro­to­gee was asked to be in the video when Grand­mas­ter Flash did not show up.

Mem­o­ries
I can remem­ber shortly after we moved from Waco to Burleson, watch­ing Solid Gold on TV in my bed­room. Deb­bie Harry hosted the show and sang “The Tide Is High.” I liked the song, but it was no “Heart of Glass” or “Call Me,” in my opin­ion. Later in the pro­gram, she played the music video for Blondie’s new sin­gle, “Rap­ture.” It totally blew my lit­tle 7th grade mind. I wanted to rush out and buy the song after I heard it once. After the hol­i­days, “Rap­ture” began to receive air­play and it always seemed to be on the radio when my sis­ter Vicki drove me to school or picked me up after­wards. I always loved the rap, prob­a­bly because I loved old sci­ence fic­tion movies from the ‘50s.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Rap­ture” by Blondie?

The Story Behind "I Know What Boys Like" by The Waitresses

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, New Wave, Retro, Rock, Video  No Responses »
May 172013
 

The Wait­resses released “I Know What Boys Like” in 1980; how­ever, it didn’t chart until 1982, when it peaked at #62 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100. The song was a cult sen­sa­tion and fea­tured on their debut album, Wasn’t Tomor­row Wonderful?

The Wait­resses got their start on the Akron/Cleveland music scene.

Chris But­ler was the leader of The Wait­resses and wrote most of their songs from a female per­spec­tive, because he found it funny and stu­pid and cool and dif­fer­ent. In 2005, he unknow­ingly bought the child­hood home of Jef­frey Dah­mer. He had orig­i­nally writ­ten “I Know What Boys Like” and recorded all the instru­ments for the track, before ask­ing his friend Patty Don­ahue to record the vocals as Patty Dar­ling. He bor­rowed the name The Wait­resses from a favorite t-shirt of a friend. After set­tling into New York, But­ler scored a record deal with “I Know What Boys Like” and scram­bled to find mem­bers for his imag­i­nary band.

Patty Don­ahue was the lead singer for The Wait­resses. She quite the band in 1984, then returned until the band broke up at the end of that year. After­wards, she worked for ABC in the Polit­i­cal Unit and the A&R depart­ment at MCA Records. She died of lung can­cer in 1996.

Drum­mer Billy Ficca also played drums for leg­endary punk band Tele­vi­sion, Nona Hendryx & Zero Cool, among many other bands.

Sax­o­phon­ist Mars Williams went on to play with The Psy­che­delic Furs, Billy Idol, Robert Palmer, Billy Squier, Power Sta­tion, Min­istry, and many others.

Bass gui­tarist Tracy Worm­worth went on to tour with The B-52s for 20 years. She was also a mem­ber of the house band on the Rosie O’Donnell Show.

Ver­sions
I Know What Boys Like 3’11
I Know What Boys Like 3’20

Music Video
The music video show­cases The Wait­resses per­form­ing “I Know What Boys Like” in a stu­dio, with some ani­mated seg­ments. Lead singer Patty Don­ahue flirts play­fully with the cam­era, while the rest of the band pro­vides addi­tional comic relief. The video seems ama­teur by today’s stan­dards; how­ever, it has a cer­tain charm rem­i­nis­cent of the early days of MTV that I miss so much.

Mem­o­ries
“I Know What Boys Like” by The Wait­resses reminds me of my older sis­ter, Vicki. She played the radio as she put her makeup on in the morn­ing before school and when she got ready to go out for the week­end, as well as giv­ing me a lift to school. I always enjoyed the catchy gui­tar riff and the monot­o­nous melody of this song, not men­tion the wicked sense of humor. I was still fairly naive, so I’m not sure I really under­stood what boys liked yet.

What are your mem­o­ries of “I Know What Boys Like” by The Waitresses?

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 "She Drives Me Crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, Pop Music, Retro, Rock, Video  No Responses »
Apr 192013
 

Fine Young Can­ni­bals released “She Dri­ves Me Crazy” on Jan­u­ary 1, 1989. It peaked at #5 on the U.K. Sin­gles Chart and went to #1 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100. It was the first sin­gle released from their sec­ond album, The Raw and the Cooked.

After The Beat broke up, gui­tarist Andy Cox and bassist David Steele formed Fine Young Can­ni­bals with vocal­ist Roland Gift, for­merly of British ska band Akry­lykz in 1984. They took the name from the 1960 Robert Wag­ner & Natalie Wood film, All the Fine Young Can­ni­bals.

The band had orig­i­nally wanted Prince to pro­duce some tracks to com­plete the album, but MCA Records sug­gested pro­ducer David Z, who had worked with Prince and is the older brother of Bobby Z of the Rev­o­lu­tion. Together, they recorded “She Dri­ves Me Crazy,” “I’m Not Sat­is­fied,” and “It’s OK (It’s Alright)” at Pais­ley Park Studios.

Sup­pos­edly, the song was orig­i­nally titled “She’s My Baby” and Gift sang the song in his reg­u­lar voice, before tweak­ing the lyrics and singing in falsetto.

Ver­sions
She Dri­ves Me Crazy [Sin­gle Ver­sion] 3’35
She Dri­ves Me Crazy [Sin­gle Remix] 3’48
She Dri­ves Me Crazy [Radio Edit] 5’20
She Dri­ves Me Crazy [Radio Rap Ver­sion] 5’44
She Dri­ves Me Crazy [Remix/David Z Remix] 7’05
She Dri­ves Me Crazy [U.S. Mix/The Justin Strauss Remix] 7’39
She Dri­ves Me Crazy [Extended Ver­sion] 8’25
She Dri­ves Me Crazy [Louil Silas Jr. Remix] 4’53
She Dri­ves Me Crazy [The Monie Love Remix] 5’56

Music Video
The music video for “She Dri­ves Me Crazy” was directed by Philippe Decou­flé, a French chore­o­g­ra­pher, dancer, and the­ater direc­tor, who had pre­vi­ously directed the music video for “True Faith” by New Order. The video fea­tures Fine Young Can­ni­bals per­form­ing the song, inter­cut with footage of peo­ple danc­ing in col­or­ful and unusual cos­tumes. The music video was nom­i­nated for Best Video at the 1989 MTV Music Awards and

Mem­o­ries
The sin­gu­lar per­cus­sion cap­tured my atten­tion the first time I heard this song. I went to Sound Ware­house on S. Hulen Street in Forth Worth and bought the 7″ vinyl the next day. Shortly after, I caught the music video on MTV. At first, “She Dri­ves Me Crazy” was my lit­tle secret, and then it was all over Top 40 radio and the Fine Young Can­ni­bals were main­stream and I lost inter­est in them. Still, when­ever I hear this song, it takes me back to the Spring of 1989 and work­ing in the PBX at Tar­get. One night, we had a bad thun­der­storm with flash flood­ing, and our Store Man­ager, Mrs. Hahn sent me home early. I lived out in the coun­try and at one point I hit a patch of road where the water was run­ning across the road and it swept 1971 VW Super­bee­tle away a few feet. This song was play­ing on my mix tape at the time.

What are your mem­o­ries of “She Dri­ves Me Crazy” by Fine Young Cannibals?

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 "Swing the Mood" by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, Pop Music, Retro, Video  No Responses »
Mar 292013
 

Jive Bunny and the Mix­mas­ters released “Swing the Mood” in June 1989. This mash-up of Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood” with a med­ley of hits from the early rock and roll era topped the U.K. Sin­gles Chart and peaked at #11 on the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100. It was the sec­ond best-selling sin­gle of 1989 in the U.K.

In addi­tion to instru­men­tal of Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood,” the med­ley also includes “Let’s Twist Again” by Chubby Checker, “Rock Around the Clock” and “Rock-a-Beatin’ Boo­gie” by Bill Haley and His Comets, “Tutti Fruitti” by Lit­tle Richard, “Wake Up, Lit­tle Susie” by the Everly Broth­ers, “C’mon Every­body” by Eddie Cochran, “Hound Dog” by Elvis Pres­ley, “Shake, Rat­tle and Roll” by Bill Haley and His Comets, “All Shook Up” and “Jail­house Rock” by Elvis Pres­ley, and “At the Hop” by Danny and the Juniors. The orig­i­nal U.K. and Euro­pean release included the orig­i­nal record­ings; how­ever, “Swing the Mood” had to be re-recorded with sounda­like singers for the U.S. release due to copy­right infringement.

DJ and pro­ducer Lee Hem­stock came up with the con­cept for the mix of “Swing the Mood” on issue 22 of the DJ-only monthly sub­scrip­tion series from Mas­ter­mix, which was owned by John Pick­les. Andy Pick­les, John Pickle’s son, worked as part of the band, and later on when to found Tidy Trax, a hard house label.

The band is one of only three acts to score three con­sec­u­tive U.K. num­ber ones with their first three releases: “Swing the Mood,” “That’s What I Like,” and “Let’s Party”. (The other two acts were Gerry and the Pace­mak­ers and Frankie Goes to Hollywood.)

Ver­sions
Swing the Mood [Radio Mix] 4’05
Swing the Mood [12″ Mix/Dance Hall Ver­sion] 6’00
Swing the Mood [Album Version/Extended Ver­sion] 6’12

Music Video
The music video for “Swing the Mood” by Jive Bunny and the Mas­ter­mix­ers incor­po­rates stock footage from the ‘50s and ‘60s with the ani­mated Jive Bunny char­ac­ter. It includes scenes of teenagers, air­planes, new inven­tions, and Hol­ly­wood celebrities.

Mem­o­ries
I worked part-time in the Human Resources Office at Tar­get on Hulen Street in Forth Worth when this song was pop­u­lar. I had just moved into my first apart­ment near the Uni­ver­sity of Texas at Arling­ton cam­pus and I first heard it the night of the earth­quake in San Fran­cisco. If mem­ory serves me cor­rectly, I went down­stairs to the music depart­ment on my break and bought the cas­sette sin­gle of “Swing the Mood.” I had dis­cov­ered my grandmother’s Glen Miller records as a teenager, and had become fond of swing music while work­ing as a stage man­ager for a pro­duc­tion of Biloxi Blues two years before. Sam­pling was in vogue, at the time, and I thought it was cool the way the record made swing music acces­si­ble to younger gen­er­a­tions who might not have given it a chance oth­er­wise. Although Jive Bunny and the Mix­mas­ters went on to score many more hits in the U.K., after “Swing the Mood” peaked, they dis­ap­peared from U.S. radio. “Swing the Mood” was a bit dodgy, but fun.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Swing the Mood” by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers?

The Story Behind "Karma Chameleon" by Culture Club

 80s, Flashback Fridays, Music, New Wave, Pop Culture, Retro, Video  No Responses »
Mar 152013
 

Cul­ture Club released their most suc­cess­ful sin­gle, “Karma Chameleon,” in Sep­tem­ber 1983.  The song topped both the U.K. Sin­gles Chart and the U.S. Bill­board Hot 100.  It went to #1 in 14 other coun­tries and sold over seven mil­lion copies world­wide.  It was the best-selling sin­gle 0f 1983 in the U.K. and won Best British Sin­gle at the 1984 Brit Awards.

Accord­ing to the Boy George, “Karma Chameleon” is about the cause and effect of not being true to one­self for fear of being ostra­cized by other peo­ple. Although the group wrote their songs together, Boy George often crafted their lyrics. A fre­quent source of inspi­ra­tion was his secret rela­tion­ship with drum­mer Jon Moss, who inspired the lyric “You’re my lover, not my rival.” The stress of the public/professional and personal/private rela­tion­ship would even­tu­ally take its toll on both of them, as well as the band.

The pic­ture of Boy George on the record sleeve was taken by pho­tog­ra­pher, David Levine, brother of Cul­ture Club’s pro­ducer, Steven Levine.

Ver­sions
Karma Chameleon [7″ Ver­sion] 3’59/4’05
Karma Chameleon [Album Ver­sion] 4’11

Music Video
The music video for “Karma Chameleon” is set in Mis­sis­sippi in 1870; how­ever, it was actu­ally filmed in Des­bor­ough Island in South­east Eng­land. Boy George, in his iconic fin­ger­less gloves, braids, and black derby, sings as he and oth­ers await to board a steam­boat, Chameleon. Mean­while, a gen­teel pick­pocket moves through the crowd and steals jew­elry and wal­lets. On the boat, he plays cards with the other band mem­bers of Cul­ture Club. He is even­tu­ally found out and forced to walk the plank. The music video ends with every­one singing and dancing.

Mem­o­ries
My fond­est mem­ory of “Karma Chameleon” by Cul­ture Club is my mom buy­ing a copy of the Colour by Num­bers album because she fell in love with the song. She used to play the album all the time on her big-ass Cur­tis Mathis enter­tain­ment cen­ter that took up a whole wall of our liv­ing room. She’d also watch every inter­view with Boy George that came on T.V. It seemed like the song was every­where and it was insanely catchy. How­ever, it’s one of those songs that was played so much, I rarely have the urge to lis­ten to it.

What are your mem­o­ries of “Karma Chameleon” by Cul­ture Club?

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