Great Moments In Pop – The 80s Part 53.

This is a group who I have featured in one of my longer pop music pieces, but it’s time to feature them in this series too. Haysi Fantayzee were a duo (although technically speaking they were actually a trio), the main members were Jeremy and Kate. They did some things on the chart in the early-80s that were rather bizarre even by the standards of that era.

They had four hit singles, two of which made the Top 20, and they are still remembered for these today. They were “John Wayne Is Big Leggy” and “Shiny Shiny”. And if you had to push me, I would have to say that my favourite of the two is “Shiny Shiny”. But it must not be forgotten that they had two smaller hits with “Holy Joe” and “Sister Friction”, neither of which made the Top 50.

And there was also their only album “Battle Hymns For Children Singing”. They were fairly popular, but their time on the chart lasted for barely a year, and they split in 1983. Since my last piece, I have found out a little more about what they did next. Kate had only one solo single. In November 1983 “Love Me Like A Rocket” was released, although this only reached an unofficial no. 140.

There was also a video made for this that was rather exciting. How this wasn’t a chart-sweeping sensation I’ll never know. After this, Kate went on to become a hugely successful photographer, working with lots of people who would go on to have lots of hits on the chart, after she had stopped having them herself. I also said about Jeremy becoming a successful club DJ, and I was sure that he had at least one more hit single on his own.

I knew that he had been involved in the dance group E-Zee Possee, who had some hits in the early-90s, and are probably best-known for March 1990’s “Everything Starts With An E”. But it turns out that it wasn’t as hard to track down his other hit singles as I originally thought because they were released under his real name, which is rather useful.

In October 1996 he teamed up with Amos for “Stamp!”, which reached no. 11 (the same position as “John Wayne Is Big Leggy”). This also got him back on to Top Of The Pops for the first time since those days. And in May 1997 he had another hit when “Argentina” reached no. 30. Since then he has continued to be in much demand as a remixer.

Great Moments In Pop – The 80s Part 46.

Following on from The Swingers, this is another group who appeared in the Australian chart in the 80s, although they had nowhere near the same amount of success, but they did manage to capture my eye (and indeed ear). The family trees of groups can be rather complicated, and just like with many others, Deckchairs Overboard evolved from a group that featured several of the same members, that was The Cheks.

In March 1983, their single “That’s The Way” was released, and reached no. 86. I found a TV performance of this, where they have a male lead singer, and there were also some amusing visual effects (back in the days before they could do much with computer-generated images). I wasn’t hugely excited by this one, but I did wonder if they had done anything else.

Next in September 1983 was “Shout”, and I was rather surprised, as the singer was now some woman with big red hair, their sound was much funkier, and there was another good video, now all of this was much more to my taste, so I was rather pleased to have discovered this one. I couldn’t believe it when I found out that this didn’t even make the Top 100 in Australia.

They also performed this on Countdown, which didn’t give them that much of a boost, but for me this has to be a lost gem. They did continue though, and in 1984 “Walking In The Dark” was released, and they went back to having a male vocalist. This didn’t chart either though. Their biggest success was in July 1985 when “Fight For Love” reached no. 78, their second and final hit single.

By the end of 1985, their album “Deckchairs Overboard” was released, “Walking In The Dark” was given another go, and there was also the release of “Teach Me To Cry” as a single, but there didn’t seem to be much interest in this, and (after a few line-up changes) they went their separate ways. It seems that none of their singles were released in this country, although one of their videos made the playlist of satellite channel Music Box.

It would’ve been great if they had made the big time, but it wasn’t to be. When I did some pieces about Australian soaps, I did a joke about “are they only 20 actors in Australia?” because many of them turned up in various shows. It would seem that there weren’t a huge amount of musicians to go round then either, because not long after, one of them went on to become a member of Crowded House, a group who definitely have been successful.

Update: I was recently told that some of Deckchairs Overboard also contributed to Sweet And Sour, a TV drama series about an aspiring group, and I shall have to take a look at that. And I couldn’t help but wonder if Cathy was still around and making music, and then I went on YouTube and found the video for her new single “Control” that was put on there earlier this month. It’s great to know that she is still out there four decades on, and she had blue hair in the video, so of course I was very pleased.

Great Moments In Pop – The 80s Part 42.

This is another group who found briefly fame on the Australian chart in the 80s, and one of them went on to be fairly famous in this country too. Globos were a duo who consisted of Wendy and Mark. In September 1982, their debut single “Tinterella Di Luna” was released, and reached no. 30. They also made a few TV appearances around this time.

One of them was being interviewed by “Molly” on pop music show Countdown, which was a sign that you had made it back in those days. And in March 1983, their second and final single, a cover of Sonny And Cher’s 1967 hit “The Beat Goes On” reached no. 28. Now I have to say that this is my favourite of the two. When I watched the video, I noticed that Wendy had some green streaks in her hair, now nice.

But then I took a look at Mark, and I thought that he seemed to be familiar from somewhere else. It turns out that Globos split not long after the realise of this single (which wasn’t released in the UK, and they didn’t get as far as an album), because Mark wanted to go off and pursue his comedy career, as he had created a character, who would go on to do rather well.

This turned out to be Bob Downe, who appeared on various comedy shows in this country throughout the 90s, showing off his amusingly camp style. I already wrote a little about his career in my piece on BSB’s Up Yer Festival where he appeared, but I didn’t realise that he had a couple of hit singles in Australia, and almost four decades ago now as well.

He did well enough to get a comedy special of his own on ITV in 1996 (well it was rather late on New Year’s Eve, but this still counts). He performed his combination of comedy and music, and his special guests included Ant And Dec and Anthony Newley, and well I never would’ve thought that I would’ve been able to get from Globos to Anthony Newley in one step.

Among the other TV shows that he appeared on around this time was Des O’Connor Tonight, and best of all, at the end of the 90s, he had his own show on digital channel UK Play, which was a definite sign that you’d succeeded, where he toured the country. It seems that in more recent years he has continued to tour as Bob Downe all over the world.

Great Moments In Pop – The 80s Part 37.

A while ago, I was watching a repeat of Family Guy (bet then I usually am, because dozens of episodes seem to be repeated every day). This was the episode “German Guy”, and there is a part where a puppet performs a song that I wasn’t familiar with. But as this sounded rather like 80s synthpop which is my kind of thing, I had to discover more, and there is a rather curious story.

The original version of “Der Kommissar” was released by Falco in 1981, the Austrian-born musician (I think someone should’ve told Family Guy that Falco was Austrian, not German). But the lyrics were not in English, so although this did well in some European countries, it was felt that this wouldn’t have too much of a chance of succeeding in the English-speaking markets like this country and the US, where this didn’t make the Top 100.

To seemingly try to make “Der Kommissar” more suitable for the English-speaking markets, in 1983 the American singer Laura Branigan (best remembered for her hits “Gloria” and “Self Control”) made a song called “Deep In The Dark”, which had newly-written English lyrics that were performed to the tune of “Der Kommissar”, but ultimately this wasn’t released as a single.

Also around this time, the British group After The Fire (who had a couple of minor UK hit singles in 1979) released their version of “Der Kommissar”, which had the lyrics translated into English, and was accompanied by a rather bizarre video. In April 1983 this reached no. 47, and was their final hit in the UK, but this did reach the Top Ten in America, so at least one version finally succeeded there.

But Falco did finally find fame in 1986 when he had a Transatlantic chart-topper with “Rock Me Amadeus” (one week at Number One in the UK, and three weeks in the US). And of course, this didn’t contain English lyrics either, making the idea that he wouldn’t ever be able to break the UK and US by releasing non-English language songs somewhat incorrect. By the end of the year he had somewhat gone “down the dumper” though.

Great Moments In Pop – The 80s Part 34.

Having recently been on the search for some more interesting pop music moments from the 80s, I came across another group that caught my attention, although again, they didn’t hit the big time, and there isn’t really a huge amount to say about them. Deluxe-A were a male/female duo who came from Shrewsbury. Their singer was Mandy, who definitely did have terrific 80s hair.

They came on to the scene with their debut single “Boys On TV” (I wonder if this is a play on Duran Duran’s “Girls On Film”), which was a rather nice piece of synthpop. The producer was Sal Solo, who was best-known around this time for being the frontman of Classix Nouveaux. Record Mirror said that this was “a basically simple, pleasant tune with booming syndrums and echoing electronics”.

And considering that their critics were usually rather harsh about songs, this was almost rather close to being a compliment. There was also a video made, which really captures the era, and it seems that this was only shown once on Saturday SuperStore or some such show, meaning that for them, their moment of fame really did last for just three minutes.

“Boys On TV” was released in January 1983 (how is this almost four decades ago now?), and there was some hope that Deluxe-A could be among the big new stars to keep an eye on during the year, there was even a picture of them in Sounds. But this didn’t make the Top 100 in the UK, and this turned out to be their only single. Along with the B-side, although this is rather unlikely, it seems that this might be yet another group who only ever recorded two songs.

Why did this flop? Well tastes in pop music change very quickly, and by the start of 1983 synthpop was beginning to be a little out of date, this really was the last gasp of this genre being successful, maybe they were just too little too late, it’s a disappointment because they deserved some success. Maybe there are still 50,000 copies of this that were unsold in the producer’s attic somewhere.

Great Moments In Pop – The 80s Part 21.

This is another British group who did some interesting things in the 80s, mostly in the electropop genre, which was rather exciting at the time. Heaven 17 were formed by Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware after they departed The Human League, although of course that group did manage to carry on successfully without them. They recruited Glenn Gregory as their singer.

They had four hit singles in 1981, but all of them missed the Top 40. The best of them for me though was “Penthouse And Pavement”, which reached only no. 57. A further single in 1982 narrowly missed the Top 40 too. But they finally made their breakthrough in April 1983 when “Temptation” was released. This featured the uncredited vocal by Carol Kenyon (although she was credited on her later collaboration with Paul Hardcastle).

This reached no. 2, to become their biggest hit single in the UK. At last they were big news, and they also made the cover of Smash Hits twice, which was proof that they had hit the pop jackpot. They followed this in June 1983 with “Come Live With Me”, to make it two Top Ten hits in a row. They had further hits in 1983 and 1984, with “Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry” being another good one.

Their hits had started to drop off by 1985 though. After a quiet period in the late-80s, Heaven 17 would eventually return. In July 1991, Marsh and Ware’s other group BEF (British Electronic Foundation) released a cover of Sly And The Family Stone’s “Family Affair”, which featured a guest vocal from Lalah Hathaway, and reached no. 37, while Gregory also worked with the group Honeyroot.

By this point, I wouldn’t know for sure of course, but they must’ve looked at the growing market of “squeeze one final success out of your career by doing a remix of your biggest hit one decade on”, and realised that there could be a place for them in that. And it would be a rather novel way to rescue them from being Down The Dumper as well.

So in November 1992, a remix of “Temptation” by Brothers In Rhythm was released, and this did indeed make the Top Ten for a second time (although two places lower than the original version). And suddenly they were back on Top Of The Pops, it was poptastic, mate, and it seemed for a moment that the previous decade hadn’t happened. But Carol Kenyon still didn’t receive a credit, and no new video was made.

That a Greatest Hits album was also released around this time wasn’t a coincidence. They decided in 1993 to release some more remixes of their 80s hit singles, but this just resulted in “Penthouse And Pavement” missing the Top 50 for a second time, which was disappointing. And this was also their final action on the chart, but they have now made eight albums.

Great Moments In Pop – The 80s Part 15.

I think that I’ve said before, but because I am always keen to find out more about 80s pop music, I thought that I would check out what was on the singles chart in various other English-speaking countries, including America and Australia, to see if there were any hits that didn’t get big over here, and also to discover how successful British acts were abroad.

In the 70s and 80s, the main pop music show in Australia was Countdown. Plenty of Top Tens from this show have been put online, so I thought I would take a look at some, to discover the musical tastes of the people in a land down under, when they weren’t chundering into their vegemite sandwiches (probably). One of the hosts was “Molly” Meldrum, if he thought that your album was great, then you’d go far!

This was how I discovered I’m Talking, an Australian group who were featured in this series recently. I was watching a Top Ten from October 1983 when a song jumped out at me. It was only a short clip, so I decided to find this in full, and it was just one of those things really. It was so catchy I couldn’t get it out of my head and wanted to discover more about the singer, so here’s the story.

Pat Wilson is an Australian-born singer (no relation to Rebel) who was a writer for a pop music magazine in the early-70s. By the early-80s, she had teamed up with her musician husband Ross, and in September 1983 the single “Bop Girl” was released. This slowly climbed up the chart, and eventually reached no. 2, only being beaten by “Karma Chameleon” by Culture Club to the top place.

This lead to a few TV appearances, including the Countdown Christmas special, where a group of children excitedly clapped along to this. It seems that this was also released in a few other countries, making the Top Ten in New Zealand. But in the UK, this wasn’t a hit, and in America, this narrowly missed the Top 100. There’s also some great trivia about “Bop Girl”.

Firstly, this won Pat an award for Best Debut Single. Also, one of the producers was Stig O’Hara from The Rutles. And this was the 11th biggest-selling single of 1983 in Australia (the things you can find out online, remarkable). But the main thing that this is remembered for now is the video which features an early appearance by future Best Actress Oscar winner (and also UK chart-topping singer) Nicole Kidman.

After this, the mini-album “Strong Love” was released (featuring “Bop Girl Goes Surfing”). In May 1984, the follow-up single, also called “Strong Love”, and a duet with her husband Ross, was released but missed the Top 20, and she wouldn’t make the chart again. Pat is still around though, and there are some videos of her performing “Bop Girl” on stage as recently as a few years ago.

Down The Dumper – The 80s Part 15.

Here’s another pop group who did rather well, but it turned out that they would only have two years at the top, although it was right in the middle of an era when many people feel that we were spoilt with great pop singles, and they were responsible for some of them. Altered Images were a New Wave group that formed in Glasgow in the late-70s, and their frontwoman was Clare Grogan. There was a lot of hype around them and many hoped that they would fulfil their potential.

Their chart career started off rather quietly, but then in September 1981 “Happy Birthday” was released, this reached no. 2 to become their biggest hit single, and probably soundtracked many a birthday party around this time. And Clare appeared on the cover of Smash Hits. They also appeared on every TV pop show going all across Europe it seems, and they always got everybody having a good time.

Also in September 1981, they released the first of their three hit albums, although none of these made the Top Ten. They would go on to have two further Top Ten hit singles, which were “I Could Be Happy” (in December 1981), and “Don’t Talk To Me About Love” (in March 1983), completing a trio of terrific and very memorable songs, that you can still come across on the radio to this day.

By July 1983 (what a month that was) though, when “Love To Stay” was released, this reached only no. 46. This turned out to be their final hit single, as follow-up “Change Of Heart” didn’t even make the Top 75, and it was also around this time that Altered Images split. This wasn’t the last that we were going to hear of some of the members though. Bassist John McElhone went on to be a member of Hipsway (who had a Top 20 hit single in 1986), and Texas, who since the late-80s have had have lots of chart success.

Clare went on to be an actress, and has appeared in various films and TV shows, including EastEnders and Red Dwarf. Although she didn’t go on to have any further chart success by herself or in other groups, in more recent years, Clare has gone on to perform on the nostalgia circuit (sometimes using the Altered Images names), and everyone still likes to hear her big hits and have a party, just like they did all those years earlier.

The One-Hit Wonders – The 80s Part 16.

The Eurovision Song Contest has now been going for several decades, and it needs little introduction really. I thought that I would take a look back at story of the United Kingdom’s entry one year in the 80s, and I have decided to choose 1983, partly because this is the year that I was born, and also because this was back in the days when the UK still had a half-decent chance of winning.

The success of Bucks Fizz was only a couple of years earlier at this point, could any group be found that could repeat the magic formula? After having to go through the tense process of A Song For Europe, it turned out that Sweet Dreams would represent the UK in West Germany. This was a trio consisting of Bobby, Carrie, and Helen. They had a dance routine and a rather catchy song, because you’ve got to put on a show as well, but would this be enough to win over the judges?

There was also some publicity, and they appeared in a few magazines, where they were rather optimistic about their chances. When the time came, the performance of “I’m Never Giving Up” led to Sweet Dreams finishing in sixth place with 79 points, which was considered to be rather disappointing at the time. The winner turned out to be Luxembourg for the fifth and final time, and they haven’t entered the contest since 1993.

And in April 1983, “I’m Never Giving Up” was released, and reached no. 21. Sweet Dreams didn’t have any more hits after this though, and it is surprising how many Eurovision acts went on to have no further chart success. A while after this, it was announced that they had changed their name to Dreams and were planning to work on some more songs, but this didn’t really happen.

After Sweet Dreams went their separate ways, Carrie went on to have some further success as a TV presenter, including CITV’s mid-80s game show How Dare You! where she had no problem with joining in with all the zaniness, and later on she used her musical expertise to become a judge on BBC1’s Fame Academy, the musical talent show that Pop Idol could’ve been.

The One-Hit Wonders – The 80s Part 14.

This is someone who had a brief moment of pop music fame in the 80s. Gary Byrd (although this one was actually credited to “Gary Byrd And The GB Experience”, whoever they may be) was an American singer/rapper, and in July 1983 (what a terrific month that was), “The Crown” was released, which reached no. 6 in the UK (but missed the Top 40 in America). Now I think that there are plenty of interesting things about this one.

Firstly, this was a rather long and ambitious song, as Gary tried to cram the story of about 2,000 years of history into almost 11 minutes, meaning that if the lyrics were published in a magazine such as Smash Hits, they would probably fill two or three pages. And there was no video either (although Gary was interviewed on some TV shows), so when this featured on Top Of The Pops, there was a dance routine by Zoo, although this had to be condensed to about three minutes.

It would’ve been great if this had been played in full, but it would’ve taken up about a third of the show. And then there was a guest uncredited contribution from Stevie Wonder (who was also the co-writer and producer, and this was even released on his own label in America). This was a time when Stevie seemed to feature on a lot of hit singles (such as Eurythmics’ chart-topper), maybe he decided that he’d play his harmonica for anyone for a decent price.

I imagine that there is also a chance that this is probably the only hit single to reference a slogan for a cassette manufacturer (“is it you or is it Memorex?“). Also among the backing singers was Teena Marie, who had some hit singles of her own, and this was a song with a message worth listening to. Although “The Crown” would be his only hit single in the UK (with no success for any further singles or albums), this wasn’t the last that we would hear of Gary.

After this, he went on to become a presenter on BBC Radio 1 for a few years, and he featured on various shows, including Sweet Inspirations, a late-night show from 1984-1985 that played Gospel music, and this was followed in 1986-1987 by The American Chart Show, where Gary revealed what the biggest hits stateside were, direct from New York.