Great Moments In Pop – The 80s Part 48.

Let’s go back to the 80s once again. There isn’t really a huge amount to say about this one, which unfortunately failed to cause much of a sensation on the chart, but I liked this, so again I thought that I might as well. Stephany (who mustn’t be confused with Stephanie, another singer on the pop scene in the mid-80s who I think I’m right in saying is Grace Kelly’s daughter) is a singer.

I couldn’t find out that much biographical information about her, but on the basis that the address of her personal website ends in “.it”, I will presume that because of this top-class detective work she is from Italy. In March 1984, her first single “Shame” was released in the UK, which apparently was hot on the radio and the dancefloors at the time.

I am not usually a huge fan of this kind of music from across the continent, but this was one of the catchiest songs in what is supposed to be in the Italo-House genre (and it is rather remarkable to think of how much that part of Europe helped dance music to develop throughout the 80s). I have also found a couple of TV performances of “Shame”.

I particularly enjoyed the one on a show called Xenon Disco, mostly because there were pink and blue neon flashing lights everywhere, which always reminds me of Top Of The Pops in its heyday. This one also required her to make some squeaking noises, which was rather good. It turns out that “Shame” wasn’t really a big success in the UK though, reaching a rather lowly (and unofficial) no. 157.

She did go on to release a few more singles in the mid-80s (although I am not aware of any of them being released in this country). In 1984 there was “Broken Heart”, “Oh! Che Calor” in 1985, and finally “Don’t Let Me Down” in 1986. I have seen the video for this, and I must admit that this was a slice of Europop that was too cheesy even for my taste. You could say that was an, er… shame.

But it was good seeing her again, although “Shame” will always be my favourite of hers. I don’t think that she got as far as releasing any albums, and her pop career had ended by the late-80s. Trying to work out what she has done in the years (and indeed decades) since, I did find a clip of her on TV as a host around the time of Italia ’90, and she does seem to have something of a social media presence.