Album 534.
Sade..............................Diamond Life   (1984)










It's appeal cut through class, culture, race, age and sex. With Diamond Life, it became acceptable for a man to buy a romantic album for reasons other than ti impress a woman. The key that unlocked those doors was Sade's voice. The 25 year-old Nigerian-born singer's mesmerising mix of smoky blues, steely jazz, and sterling pop simply sounded like no one else.


The album would be an immediate hit in the UK, and it's 1985 release in the United States garnered similar results. Diamond Life would eventually shift six million copies and become the bestselling debut by any British female-vocalist in history.  (Don't know if that still stands?)

Album 532.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood........................Welcome To The Pleasuredome   (1984)












So, Frankie Goes To Hollywoods album Welcome To The Pleasuredome, initial thoughts on hearing it Relax, Two Tribes and The Power Of Love ( a superb Xmas number) were still as good some 35 years after my first treat of listening with fresh ears, I also liked the title track, but not the album version, which depending on which download you listen to, ranges from a decent 5 minute track going out to a 32 minute version of how many times can you go oo-ha welcome to the pleasuredome or Shooting stars never stop or In Xanadu did Kubla Khan, before it gets pretty staid, mind yer sitting in yer hoose listening to this, it's no gonna happen is it, even if you try play at a perty I guarantee you wont get past 6 minutes before people start shouting "sack the DJ"


Talking aboot Kubla Khan, it's obviously from the excellent poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, here's a little bit about it I found QI;



Coleridge composed his poem, Kubla Khan is a state of semi-conscious trance either in the autumn of 1797 or spring of 1798 and published in 1816. The whole poem is pervaded by an atmosphere of dream and remains in the form of a vision. The vision embodied in Kubla Khan was inspired by the perusal of the travel book, Purchas His Pilgrimage. Coleridge had taken a doze of opium as an anodyne, and his eyes closed upon the line in the book, “At Zanadu Kubla Khan built a pleasure palace.” But this opened his creative vision, and the poem of about 200 lines was composed in this state of waking dream. On being fully awake, he wrote the poem down. The theme of the poem is unimportant. It describes the palace built by Kubla Khan, the grandson of Chengis Khan, the great rule of central Asia.


Now for the most interesting bit (for me at least)


Kubla Khan was no' bad, but he was fuck all compared to his grandpappy Genghis.................he was the daddy!


Warlord Khan has 16m male relatives alive now, says study


One in every 200 men alive today is a relative of Genghis Khan. An international team of geneticists has made the astonishing discovery that more than 16 million men in central Asia have the same male Y chromosome as the great Mongol leader.It is a striking finding: a huge chunk of modern humanity can trace its origins to Khan's vigorous policy of claiming the most beautiful women captured during his merciless conquest.

 'One thirteenth century Persian historian claimed that within a century of Khan's birth, his enthusiastic mating habits had created a lineage of more than 20,000 individuals,' said team leader Dr Chris Tyler-Smith. 'That now appears to account for around 8% of the men in central Asia.'


The answer was consistent with the march of Khan, who lived between 1162 and 1227, He had many wives, and was enthusiastic in his attentions to other women.

 When Mongol armies attacked, their spoils were shared among the troops and officers, with one exception. The most beautiful women were reserved for Khan...................Top Shagger.



Anyways, back to the album, a double album for no reason I can think of, unless financial, as it was full of fillers that had been zealously over-produced by Trevor Horn, with one of the worst versions of "War" I've ever heard along with a lot of third rate cover versions.



This might have made a half decent album, and one I may have bought , but as a double it's like a packet of crisps these days, the essentials (the crisps/the singles) are tasty, but they seem to be in too big a bag that's full of air (the pish Phyllis Dillers)  that once removed leaves you with a bag half the size.



Anyways,I have the ones I like on various artists CDs, and the rest was pretty gash in my humbles so this album wont be going into my collection.





Bits & Bobs;



Outrage has always played a massive and underrated role in the marketing of rock and roll music. How else could visually an overweight red neck dressed in a dinner jacket have shocked a nation with a song that simply suggested dancing the night away.Bill Haley


 How else could a bunch of scruffy kids in love with playing Rhythm and Blues, but incapable of writing their own material, have metamorphosed into that mid-sixties nightmare of all respectable parents, the Rolling Stones?

 Or what a bout that bunch of yobs whose clothes were all held together by safety pins, who had short spiky hair rather than that trendy long stuff? They went on telly, were being asked perfectly sensible questions by that nice Bill Grundy and they replied using rude four letter words beginning with F. Remember the Sex Pistols?

 It happened again in 1984. In January, the perfect month to confirm paranoids that there was still a chance for Orwell to be right after all.

  There was this jolly ordinary pop song Relax cruising it’s way up the charts (Actually it was not that ordinary, but more of that later). Then one Wednesday morning Radio One disc jockey Mike Read decreed that the said Relax had absolutely the opposite effect on him, that it was disgusting and all about sex. (Pop music, of course, has never been about sex!)Decreeing that this filthy record would never be heard again on his radio show, Read hurtled it across the studio, where presumably it shattered into two million pieces. Breakfast in thousands of households was momentarily interrupted before the population got back to ordinary life and went off to work or school.

 And that’s where it should all have ended. Read would have been forgiven his tantrum and Frankie Goes To Hollywood might still have gone to Number One. For to give Relax full credit, it is a totally brilliant dance record, coupling a stirring chorus with a rippling rhythm that drags weary feet war whooping across the floor. It is not so much a record about everyday boy-meets-girl, they kiss-and-cuddle-a-bit sex, but about a nuclear session between the sheets. Exhilarating, but exhausting.

  The problem was that the two singers admitted that they were homosexuals. They were also signed to a brand new record label owned by their producer Trevor Horn, Zang Tuum Tuub (reputedly that is the sound made when you thump a drum). And ZTT’s marketing was in the hands of the fiendish Paul Morley.
Readers of The New Musical Express know of Morley as a fairly vicious, intense, Mancunian writer, suffering from a love-hate relationship with the music business.


Morley had come out of punk and he was determined to recreate, artificially if necessary, the outrage of that era. Frankie Goes To Hollywood were the perfect vehicle, ready made to clone into OUTRAGE. Relax’s sleeve is deliberately sexually ambiguous. The first 12 inch mix was provocatively called a “Sex Mix”, the sleeve notes threatened and tantalised. But the coup de grâce can be found in one corner of the seven inch single sleeve.

 Printing lyrics is not an original ploy, but here for children of all ages to see were the immortal lines: “Relax don’t do it when you want to suck it to it, relax don’t do it when you want to come.”


 The suggestion of fellatio was too much for the BBC. Most of the bosses went to public school, so to their minds the implication was obvious. The song was all about two men having sex together.

 So Read’s ban metamorphosed into a fullscale corporation wipe out. It was slightly embarassing that Radio One had played Relax some 90 times previously and that Frankie had done one Top Of The Pops already. The controversy caused by the ban, fuelled by Fleet Street (which for once did not agree with the Beeb and don its role as moral arbiter of the country), shot the record to the top of the charts.
 “The whole Relax thing was ridiculous,” says second singer Paul Rutherford, “I do not condone what Mike Read did censoring it. He does not have the right. Maybe he thinks he does, sitting there with his headphones on.


 “We hold no malice towards him. If anything we can thank him for making it a more important record than it was. But I’m not going to.”


 It was poetic justice that Read was the DJ with the honour of introducing Frankie on Top Of The Pops the week their second single Two Tribes began its chart career at the very top.

 Meanwhile, Relax had started to go up the charts again, attaining a life and behaviour pattern unique even in the rock world.

 At the very moment when Frankie Goes To Hollywood should have been heard in every home in the land 12 times a day ad nauseam, there was nothing. Just silence. Everyone wanted to hear Frankie, to see Frankie, to touch Frankie and they were not allowed to. The record buying public is like a child: what it cannot have, it must have.

 After releasing just two singles, Frankie Goes To Hollywood have become one of the country’s major rock bands. And still no one knows much about them. Except, perhaps, that they are all from Liverpool and are intent on breaking one of that city’s fabled pop records. Only Gerry and the Pacemakers had Number Ones with all their first three releases.

 William “Holly” Johnson was born in 1960 in Wavertree, not far from Penny Lane. (In the early days he used to claim to being born in Khartoum in the Sudan). His father worked first as a seaman, then as an insurance salesman, then as a building worker.

 Liverpool has—because of the docks always enjoyed a more carefree night life, been more open to the bizarre and the foreign, but as a teenager young William still managed to shock the neighbourhood.

 “I used to shave me head and paint it red and green. People wrote to the Liverpool Echo saying ‘Who’s this Martian walking around town?”


 Hanging out in a club for “15-year-old weirdos” he bumped into Paul Rutherford (born 1959 in Liverpool; with a merchant seaman father). They have been friends ever since.

 “Decadence was the key word then. We were all into a bisexual scene. The name Holly was given to me by a girl called Yvonne Petrovitch, because of the Andy Warhol connection with the transvestite Holly Woodlawn.”


 Holly’s first musical gig was in local outfit Big In Japan, playing guitar behind singer Jayne Casey. At the time Paul Rutherford was sharing a flat with Pete Burns, the singer in Dead Or Alive.

 “We started off as local weirdos getting into fights and ended up as landmarks.



We used to congregate at Eric’s.”
 Eric’s, built on the site where the Cavern Club had once housed lunchtime gigs from the Beatles, was the seminal Liverpool club. It was there that Echo and the Bunnymen, Julian Cope (Teardrop Explodes), Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Wah and other bands with silly names and interesting ideas, congregated and began to expand.

 They will probably try to deny it, but the three musicians in Frankie were too young to really become part of the Eric’s scene. They were still at school—or not, as the case may be.

 Peter Gill—better known as Ped—was born in 1964, near the Aintree racecourse. He was given a drum kit for his 16th birthday, eight months later he formed Dancing Girl with guitarist Brian ‘Nasher’ Nash (born in May 1963) and bass man Mark O’Toole (born January ‘64), Nasher’s cousin.

 By their own admission it was not an earth shattering outfit. Ped left and picked up with Holly in Sons Of Egypt. Searching for a guitarist, they were joined by Mark’s brother Jed—who later quit because he had a wife, a kid, a job and a house. It became Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

 Holly pinched the name from a poster he once saw advertising a Frank Sinatra tour. From the outset the intention was to be different.

 “I had just seen Annabella Lwin from Bow Wow Wow,” says Holly, “It was pure sex on legs. I thought we might be able to cause some similar reaction. Our idea was to seduce everyone into a life of pure pleasure.”


 Even without the added Morley touch, the early Frankie shows were outrageous. Originally they had a girl singer and a couple of Leather Pettes clad in black and chained to pillars. Paul—back from a sojourn in London—saw a gig one night. It excited him so much he leapt up on the stage and has stayed there ever since.

 Early videos of the band have Paul wearing a pair of backless leather chaps, and a black leather peaked cap. It was aggressively macho and obviously gay. Even then Frankie had the aura of the Sex Pistols. They were dangerous.

 It was Channel Four’s Newcastle based rock show that provided the next piece of the jigsaw. Unsigned, with record companies sniffing around them, but basically incapable of marketing the heavy sexual image, Frankie wowed the TV audience on The Tube. They also impressed Paul Morley. He convinced Trevor Horn, who had simultaneously heard a Frankie demo on Richard Skinner’s Radio One show.

 Trevor Horn is a shy bespectacled chap, who is now regarded as the most exhilarating record producer in the known universe. Beginning his career as singer in Buggles—remember the insidious, Video Killed The Radio Star?—he graduated into an incarnation of the ponderous seventies supergroup Yes, before finding his real niche behind the control board. Productions for ABC (Lexicon Of Love), Dollar, Yes (he even gave them a US Number One with Owner Of A Lonely Heart) and Malcolm McLaren’s series of ethnic musical guerilla raids (Duck Rock), have resulted in a full cheque book, critical acclaim and Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

 Speculation about whether Frankie can survive without Trevor’s over the top, Armageddon approach to production or Morley’s blatant media manipulation are currently irrelevant. Two Tribes is not as great a song as Relax, but the finished product is far more powerful.

 It may be noised about as the “first genuine protest song of the eighties”—a totally ridiculous assumption—but it is a straightforward indictment of superpower politics. Holly did write it during the Falklands War and the accompanying video is quite simply chilling.

 The sight of Reagan and Chernenko gouging, pummeling, kneeing each other in the groin and biting each other’s ear is very brutal, but it is not mindless. The globe exploding at the end is a cliché, but it works. It might even be considered educational.

 There is a limit to the amount of hype even Paul Morley can inflict on a gullible public. Two Tribes took three months to make and their debut album has to come out this autumn. Welcome To The Pleasure Dome—its title tantalisingly gay, but actually lifted from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s opium inspired epic poem—will prove whether all Frankie’s songs (lyrics by Holly, music by Mark and Ped) can live to their early promise. Then will come the second test, the concert stage.

 Live Frankie are fundamentally a guitar, bass and drums trio. They will have to stand alone, without the Trevor Horn mega-mix, without the videos. But they are not worried unduly.

 “We want to create an aura of controversy,” says Mark O’Toole, “Because we set out to do something different.


 “We are at the top and we aim to stay there. Just look at that poof in a dress and make up, Boy George; he’s dying now. Spandau Ballet have been doing the same thing for the last three years, soppy ballads.


 “Duran Duran might survive on being musicians, but not because they’re pretty faces. And don’t mention Wham! in the same breath as us.”


 Dismissing the opposition with words is easy enough. But the five Frankies have surrounded themselves with that liverpudlian scally (slang for scalliwag) arrogance that once characterised the Fab Four. They have coupled that with the breath of scandal that catapulted the Stones into prominence.

 Back in the sixties no one wanted their daughter to marry a Stone. In the’ eighties they probably wouldn’t mind their daughter sleeping with a Frankie. But as for their son… “Lock up your sons and daughters. Frankie is coming to town,”

  Holly used to say in his early interviews, unaware of the fascination the heterosexual has for the homosexual lifestyle. “You should see some of the pictures we’ve had taken. We’re going to have to buy back all the negatives.” Holly and Paul have learnt their lesson now.

 “At the beginning Holly and I were very honest and totally naïve,” admits Paul. “I’m glad I’m gay, I’m glad I came clean about it, but we’re not waving any banners. Frankie only waves the banner of having fun.

 “With Relax we showed how obssessed and prejudiced people are about sex. Anyone accusing us of perpetrating the gay stereotype is talking through their arse.


 “I’m bored with it. There are a million and one faggots you can interview about being gay.


 “We are entertainers. For want of a better word.”


 Holly has one: “My favourite thing is singing. Singing is better than sex.”



"Relax"


 
Written by the group's lead singer Holly Johnson, bassist Mark O'Toole and drummer Peter Gill, "Relax" was the first Frankie Goes to Hollywood single, and by far their biggest American hit



The basic idea of "relax, don't do it" came to Johnson one day in winter 1982 when he was late for rehearsals "walking very quickly along the central reservation of Princes Avenue in Toxteth." At that point, the band only consisted of Johnson, O'Toole and Gill.


 
The lyrics are relatively ambiguous, although the line "When you want to come" is clearly a reference to orgasm. The song is essentially a guide to delaying ejaculation.


To throw censors off the scent, when "Relax" first came out the band claimed publicly that it was written about "motivation." Later they confessed it was actually about "shagging."


 
In America, any sexual innuendo contained in this song got little attention, but it caused plenty of controversy in England. On January 11, 1984, BBC Radio 1 DJ Mike Read announced on air that he refused to air "Relax" because of the single's controversial artwork and lyrics. Read was unaware of it at the time, but Radio 1 was already planning to ban the single, and did so shortly afterward. However, the ban was only temporary. A parody of Read's on-air rant was included on some of the releases of the band's third single "The Power Of Love."



The song had already reached #6 on the UK singles chart before the rant and ensuing kerfuffle, which helped propel the song to the top spot (commercial radio stations in the UK played the song more after the ban, boasting that they were playing "the song that BBC banned"). An appearance on the television show Top Of The Pops had moved the song up to #6 from its previous position of #35.



The BBC lifted its ban at the end of 1984 to allow the band to perform the song on the Christmas edition of Top of the Pops.


 
Originally when questioned on the matter, the press was told that the line that sounds something like "When you want to suck to it" was really "When you want to sock it to it." Later, once the song was successful, Holly Johnson confessed the line is "When you wanna suck it, chew it."


 
In 1984, "Relax" initially spent 48 weeks on the UK Singles Chart with five of those weeks
consecutively in the #1 spot. When the band's second single, "Two Tribes," was released in the summer of 1984, that song climbed to #1 while simultaneously "Relax" rose back up to #2. This was a feat only previously accomplished by Elvis Presley, The Beatles and John Lennon.



After 48 weeks, "Relax" fell off of the chart, but re-appeared soon after for four more weeks, giving it a total of 52 weeks on the chart.


 
Three music videos were made for this song. The first depicted the band in a Roman Empire bondage fantasy featuring simulated sodomy, Paul Rutherford's bare bottom and a group of bondage fetishists chained to scaffolding. It was banned by both MTV and the BBC.

The second video, shown primarily in the UK, featured the band (pretending to) perform the song while standing in front of green laserlight.



The third video, shown primarily in the US, featured the band in a live performance setting (performing along to the studio track) while being kissed and hugged by adoring concertgoers.


 
This was produced by Trevor Horn, a former member of the bands Yes, The Buggles and Art Of Noise. When this song hit #1 in the UK the week of January 28, 1984, "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" by Yes was at #1 in the United States. Horn produced that song as well, making him the only producer to score simultaneous #1s in the UK and US with songs by different artists. Other acts Horn produced include ABC, Godley & Creme, Paul McCartney, Seal, Simple Minds, Lisa Stansfield, Rod Stewart and Tatu.


 
When "Relax" was first released in the US in the spring of 1984, it peaked at #67 on the Billboard Hot 100. The band came to America in October 1984, already with three UK singles to their credit. They pushed the song "Two Tribes," performing it on Saturday Night Live in November, but couldn't come anywhere near their homeland success; that song stalled at #43.



The group fared better in early 1985 when a re-released "Relax" got attention on radio and MTV, climbing to #10 in March. In America, it is by far their most popular song.


 
The release of "Relax" was promoted by a variety of widely distributed T-shirts bearing the legendary "Frankie Say..." quotes, such as "Frankie Say RELAX Don't Do It."



This shirt gets a cameo in a season 3 episode of the TV series Friends during a scene where Ross (David Schwimmer) is taking back his stuff from Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) after the breakup. Knowing she likes to sleep in the shirt, he asks for it back, even though it hasn't fit him since was 15. He puts on the way-too-tight T-shirt and declares, "I'm going to take the rest of my stuff and relax in my favorite shirt." He later returns the shirt in a sign of reconciliation.


 
Trevor Horn discovered Frankie Goes To Hollywood shortly after creating his record company ZTT when he saw the band performing "Relax" and "Two Tribes" on a Channel 4 programme called The Tube. Chris Squire (of the band Yes) commented, "This band looks really interesting. Why don't you sign them up?" Horn didn't think much about them until months later when he heard them again on BBC Radio 1 DJ David Jensen's radio show. When Horn contacted them to sign them, he was unaware that the band was on the brink of breaking up because they felt unsuccessful.


 
Producer Trevor Horn recorded Frankie Goes To Hollywood performing this song in his studio but was dissatisfied with the outcome. He recorded a second version of the song using musicians from Ian Dury's backing band The Blockheads, but didn't like that recording either. He recorded a third version with producer/engineer Steve Lipson, keyboard player Andy Richards and Fairlight synthesizer programmer JJ Jeczalik, then informed a surprised Holly Johnson and Steve Lipson that he wanted to start from scratch a fourth time, using a beat he had once made on a LM-2 drum machine. He added a programmed bass line, Lipson on guitar, Richards on keyboard and Jeczalik making "funny noises" on the Fairlight synthesizer to create what would become the fourth and official recording. Richards and Lipson added sound effects with a few different Roland synthesizers. Johnson and Rutherford added vocals to complete the track.


 
Trevor Horn used an array of electronic devices to form the backing track. He explained to Sound On Sound: "It was a combination of Page R and the Conductor and locking it to a Linn drum machine. So the basic track was eights running in a Fairlight ('eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh'), fours on a bass ('ee ee ee ee') and a set of LinnDrum machine patterns locked to Page R played on top of each other. It was an amazing feel."




A little translation: Page R is a sequencer included with the Fairlight synthesizer. The Linn was one of the first programable drum machines that sampled real instruments - he used the LM-2 model. The Conductor is a unit that allowed Horn to connect the Page R sequencer to the Linn. It's something he also did on the Yes album 90125.


 
The record company's ad campaign for this song started with a quarter-page ad in the British music press featuring an image of backup singer/dancer Paul Rutherford in a sailor cap, accompanied by the phrase "ALL THE NICE BOYS LOVE SEA MEN" and declaring "Frankie Goes to Hollywood are coming ... making Duran Duran lick the s--t off their shoes."



It described the 7" and 12" vinyl singles of "Relax" as "Nineteen inches that must be taken always."  


 
The band's first-ever studio venture resulted in a 1982 demo of "Relax" and "Two Tribes" for Arista Records, but the company chose not to go further with the band. "Relax" was also rejected by Phonogram Records, leaving them free to sign with Trevor Horn's ZTT.


 
Fellow New Wave artist Gary Numan once said of the song: "When I heard this it plunged me into a pit of despair. The production was so good, the sounds so classy that it seemed to move the entire recording business up a gear - we were all left floundering, trying to catch up."


 
"Relax" was the only song on the album that was recorded on analog tape. The rest was recorded on a Sony F1 digital tape machine.


 
Holly Johnson once shared that Top Of The Pops presenter Paul Gambaccini "was amazed the record was being played. He said no one had got away with such obvious sexual innuendo since Lou Reed's '"Walk On The Wildside"



 
BBC Radio 1 DJ Mike Read once explained, "I didn't ban 'Relax.' I didn't have the power to ban it because I'm just an individual. What happened was that my producer went home one day to find his two young children messing around with the video recorder, rewinding and watching over and over again a clip from the 'Relax' video in which two men simulate buggery [a British term for anal sex]. And, not surprisingly, he was very upset."


 
This was used in the film Body Double, a 1984 suspense movie in which Holly Johnson, while lip-synching to the song, leads a man into a sex bar. The man eventually performs a sex scene as the song plays. This scene of the film virtually serves as a music video within the film. Backup singer/dancer Paul Rutherford also appears as a patron at the bar.




"Relax" was also featured in the 1984 Miami Vice episode "Little Prince," and in the 2001 Ben Stiller movie Zoolander.


 
In 1999, a man named R.D. Turner copyrighted the name Frankie Goes To Hollywood in the US and formed a band called The New Frankie Goes To Hollywood, which began playing shows in the US and abroad. Turner falsely claimed to be Davey Johnson, a brother of lead singer Holly Johnson. The band also sold new versions of the band's signature "Frankie Say" shirts for $20 each online.




"Two Tribes"


The lyrics were inspired by US president Ronald Reagan's belief that Christ would return after a nuclear war. The "two tribes" are America and the Soviet Union, who were engaged in the Cold War, putting the entire world under threat of annihilation.


 
The song features British actor Patrick Allen reading extracts from a government civil defense leaflet. Allen is well known in Britain for his distinguished voice, which has narrated many television adverts and films for over 30 years.


 
This was written by the band two years previous to release and was featured on a BBC Radio 1 John Peel session in October 1982.


 
In the extended version, the announcer states, "You may pronounce us guilty a thousand times over, but the goddess of the eternal court of history will smile and tear to tatters the verdict of this court - for she acquits us." When Adolf Hitler was tried for his failed putsch in 1924, he said these words (rather a very close paraphrase of it) in his concluding speech: "Pronounce us guilty a thousand times over: the goddess of the eternal court of history will smile and tear to pieces the State Prosecutor's submission and the court's verdict for she acquits us."


 
Former 10cc band members Lol Creme and Kevin Godley produced a memorable video featuring a no-holds-barred, hand-to-hand fight between Reagan and then Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko. Godley recalled to Q magazine: "It was a very intense shoot. We were trying to get the audience to behave in a manner that we wanted to by chanting, 'Kill! Kill! Kill!' A few of them seriously got into the spirit of it by jumping in the ring and beating each other up!"


 Trevor Horn produced this track. He spent weeks juggling with the sound and remixing it to perfection. He used a Synclavier synthesizer and Linn drum machine on the track.


 
In the UK for two weeks, this was #1 while Frankie Goes To Hollywood's song "Relax" was #2. They became only the third act to achieve this feat, after The Beatles and John Lennon, who like Frankie Goes To Hollywood, came from Liverpool. Madonna broke the Liverpool streak the next year.


 
In the UK, this sold close to 2 million copies, making it one of the biggest-selling singles of the '80s. This was partly due to Horn's tendency to put out as many as seven different mixes of the singles.


 
This song had little impact in America, but that wasn't for lack of trying. "Relax" fared poorly when it was issued in the States, topping out at #67 in May 1984. Frankie Goes To Hollywood came to America in October to support the "Two Tribes" release, and performed it when they were musical guests on Saturday Night Live on November 10. They toured America through December, but "Two Tribes" went no higher than #43. When "Relax" was re-released in 1985, it did better, going to #10.




"The Power Of Love"

This song deals with spirituality and religion. It was Frankie Goes To Hollywood's third single, and proved they were not afraid to tackle controversial subjects; "Relax" was about sex and "Two Tribes" was about politics.


 
Anne Dudley, from the UK studio group Art Of Noise arranged the strings. In 1997 she won an Oscar for her work on the 1997 film The Full Monty.


 
The song was released in December and the video had a nativity theme. The video was directed by Lol Creme and Kevin Godley, who were members of the band 10cc.


 
When this made #1, this equaled the feat of fellow Liverpool band Gerry & The Pacemakers, whose first three singles also topped the UK chart. When their fourth single, "Welcome To The Pleasuredome," peaked at #2, this meant that they were still tied with Gerry & The Pacemakers for the best ever start to a UK chart career as the latter's 4th release, "I'm The One," also reached #2. Frankie Goes To Hollywood finally topped the Pacemakers when their fifth release "Rage Hard" reached #4, compared with Gerry's #6 hit "Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying." The Spice Girls blew them away in 1997 when their first 6 releases all topped the UK charts.


  
   

Last edited by arabchanter (31/7/2019 11:33 pm)

Yeah, touch wood.

Appreciate the message Tek, thanks.

I've got Welcome To The Pleasuredome, don't know how it arrived in my house. 

The second album has a dust cover advertising FGTH merchandise at what I consider to be excessive prices, including these Jean Genet boxers:


Dearie me!

But the production on the album is something else, and I've enjoyed re-listening to it there.

I'm not sure how much of a contribution the FGTH musicians made to the overall product, but pleased to see that Anne Dudley was heavily involved.

PatReilly wrote:

I've got Welcome To The Pleasuredome, don't know how it arrived in my house. 

The second album has a dust cover advertising FGTH merchandise at what I consider to be excessive prices, including these Jean Genet boxers:


Dearie me!

.

Album 533.
Run-DMC..............................Run-DMC   (1984)














Alright folks, been putting this one off for far too long. This is a genre I know absolutely fuck all about, it's also a genre that I really haven't ever been in close contact with, I've never really listened to this music and most of my close friends in 1984 or to be fair anytime after that were never into this style of music.



So it's no surprise that I don't really get it, maybe being in my mid twenties when this came out it coud've been it, and it was for the young guns but I can't say I particularly enjoyed this hip-hop/rap type of deal, just like people who grew up with the Beatles and maybe couldn't get on with punk (there are such people I've met them) I couldn't and still can't get into it as a whole.


I found myself not hating it but if I was in a pub and this was playing  non-stop I would do a runner, I think sometimes you are influenced by the latest fads, friendship groups as in what they are listening to and what sometimes makes you feel a tad elite, and not a "run of the mill Bill"


Anyways this album didn't move me in any way, a couple of tracks, "Rock Box," "Hollis Crew" and " It's Like That" were ok, but the rest all seemed much of a muchness to this listener. Now in saying all that, I'm not going to write this off completely, I'm going to download it and give it a week then decide what to do with it, so if any of you young blades (or even older blades) can guide me and tell me what I'm missing I'll be eternally grateful.


This album wont be going into my collection  (as yet)






Bits & Bobs.



Run-D.M.C. has a lot of firsts: they were the first rap group to grace the cover of Rolling Stone, the first rap act with gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, the first rap act to appear on MTV, and the first rap act to sign a major endorsement deal (with Adidas).


 Run-D.M.C. appeared as themselves in the 1985 movie, Krush Groove. The movie is a semi-biographical account of Joseph "Run" Simmons' brother, Russell and the early days of Def Jam Records. Also appearing in the film were Kurtis Blow, The Fat Boys, Shelia E and The Beastie Boys.


 
About the group's style, Joseph "Run" Simmons says, "There were guys that wore hats like those and sneakers with no shoestrings. It was a very street thing to wear, extremely rough. They couldn't wear shoelaces in jail and we took it as a fashion statement. The reason they couldn't have shoelaces in jail was because they might hang themselves. That's why DMC says My Adidas only bring good news and they are not used as felon shoes."


 
For a while, they wanted to call themselves The Dynamic Two or Treacherous Two. There are various claims about the meaning of the "DMC" in Run DMC. It is widely accepted to refer to Darryl "DMC" McDaniels last name, but there are other references, as well. DMC makes other references to what it stands for, including, "Devastating Mic Control" and "D for never dirty, MC for mostly clean." There is also a third reference that DMC makes: "The 'D's for Doing it all of the time, the 'M's for the rhymes that all are Mine, The 'C's for Cool - cool as can be."


 
As a child, Jam Master Jay played trumpet, bass, guitar and drums in several different bands, but gave them all up when, at the age of 13, discovered turntables. Soon after, he began DJ'ing.


 
Joseph "Run" Simmons turned to television after the group called it quits. He and his family were the subject of an MTV reality show called Run's House that aired 2005-2009.

 
Jason "Jam Master Jay" Mizzel had a big influence on an up and coming rapper that would soon be a mega star. Jay worked with a young 50 Cent, teaching him how to count bars, construct songs and produce albums. Mizzel founded the label Jam Master Jay Records and also established the Scratch DJ Academy in Manhattan, New York. Jay was murdered on October 30, 2002 in his studio.


 
In the late '90s and early '00s, DMC battled drug addiction, alcoholism and depression. "I was just a metaphysical, alcoholic, suicidal, spiritual wreck," he told Q radio. "It was just this funny feeling in me, this void in me. Depression is funny because you get to the point where you just don't want to live with it no more. I wanted to commit suicide because of this depressive feelings, but the reason why is really stupid."




In 2000, he learned he was adopted, which led to his song "Just Like Me," and later, a memoir called Ten Ways Not To Commit Suicide.



RollingStone       August 30, 1984 4:00AM ET


By Debby Miller.


Most Rap’s just a beat and a boast, but Run and D.M.C., a pair of New York rappers, let the beat run wild and turn the boasts into messages that self-improvement is the only ticket out. Trading off lines or even the words within a line, they get into a vocal tug of war that’s completely different from the straightforward delivery of the Furious Five’s Melle Mel or the every-body-takes-a-verse approach of groups like Sequence. And the music, by Orange Krush, that backs these tracks is surprisingly varied, for all its bare bones. In their adventurous “Rock Box,” Run and D.M.C. set their clipped, back-and-forth exchanges to a crying hard-rock guitar solo, melting rap into rock like it’s never been done before. And the dramatic, dark sound of “It’s like That,” with an organ pouncing in at the beginning of the lines, sets up the scolding rap: “You should have gone to school/You could have learned a trade/But you laid in the bed with the bunk half-made/Now all the time you’re crying that you’re underpaid/It’s like that.” 
 Still, the bulk of the words are hilariously self-promoting. Their big dance hit, “Sucker M.C.’s (Krush-Groove 1),” is included here, its story the rise of the duo from auditions to success. They rag on the lowly suckers who haven’t bothered to pull themselves up, sneering, “You’re a five-dollar boy and I’m a million-dollar man/You the sucker M.C. and you’re my fan.” You’d think the poor jerks had been stealing welfare checks, but what they’ve done is even more contemptible to Run-D.M.C.: “You don’t even know your English/Your verb or noun.”



Run-D.M.C. was a hip hop group composed of three individuals. The group broke up in 2002 due to the death of Jam Master Jay in a murder that is still unsolved to this day.


Upon the release of their eponymous debut album, it became obvious that Run-D.M.C. was very different from hip hop groups of the time. Their music was a mix of hard rock and traditional hip hop, a move that changed the music industry forever. "Rock Box", the third single released for the album, is constantly cited as one of the most groundbreaking tracks in music history.


Due to the massive success of "Rock Box", the group decided to stick with the harder, rock oriented style of hip hop that they would eventually become known for. The lead single of their second album, "King of Rock", was so successful that they were asked to perform at Live Aid on July 13th, 1985. They were the ONLY hip hop or rap group to perform that day.



Their third album did more than just skyrocket themselves into popularity. Through the urging of Jam Master Jay and their producer, Rick Rubin, the group jointly released (along with Aerosmith) possibly the most famous cover of any song in history, "Walk This Way". This cover is credited with bringing Aerosmith back into the public eye after drug problems had caused them to fade into obscurity.

 In April of 2009, Run-D.M.C. became only the second hip hop group to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, after Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.They were also the first hip hop group to have one of their music videos shown on MTV, were the first to appear on the cover of American Bandstand AND Rolling Stone. They were the first to earn a platinum record (King of Rock, 1985), and the first to earn a multi-platinum certification (Raising Hell, 1986).




After the release of the song "My Adidas", they actually signed a $1.6 million endorsement deal with Adidas. Adidas formed a long relationship with not just Run-D.M.C., but hip hop as a whole.
All in all, Run-D.M.C. released 7 albums and changed the music industry in the process.


"It's Like That"


This was Run–D.M.C.'s first single. It became a club favorite along with its popular B-side "Sucker M.C.'s."



The song was written by the group's rappers, Joseph "Run" Simmons and Darry "D.M.C." McDaniels, and their producer, Larry Smith. There are no samples on the track, which was programmed on a Oberheim DMX synthesizer with vocal punctuations mixed in. It was Simmons who came up with the idea for the song after studying Kurtis Blow and getting encouragement from his older brother Russell (Blow's manager), who encouraged him to tell stories in his raps and give them a wide appeal through universal themes. "I thought I'd just tell people what the world is like, and how to improve themselves," said Run. "This was the seed idea for 'It's Like That.'"


 
This was the song that convinced Russell Simmons to work with the group. His younger brother Joseph (Run) had been pestering him for a while, but Russell insisted he finish high school before making a record. Run and D.M.C., who hadn't yet teamed up with Jam Master Jay, worked to together on "It's Like That," with D.M.C. adding some lyrics and hooks to Run's song. The pair graduated high school and went to separate colleges: Run to LaGuardia Community College (studying mortuary science) and D.M.C. to St. John's University. Teaming up with Jam Master Jay, they recorded this song with Russell's Rush Productions, getting lots of help from Rush's musical director Larry Smith. Russell was so impressed with the track that he sent them on his Fresh Fest tour with Newcleus and Whodini, and helped them record their debut album


 
In 1998, house music producer Jason Nevins remixed this, and the new version became the most successful rap single in the UK, spending six weeks at #1 and topping the charts in 30 other countries including Germany. Nevins received a standard fee of $5000 for his efforts.


 "Rock Box"


Run–D.M.C.'s third single, this was the first high-profile rap song to incorporate rock guitar, which boosted its appeal to white listeners the same way "Beat It," with an Eddie Van Halen solo, expanded Michael Jackson's fan base. The guitar part wasn't a sample - it was played by Eddie Martinez, who was a session player most notable for his work with Blondie.



The writing credit on the song went to the three members of Run–D.M.C. (each 19 years old when the album was released), but Martinez got a production credit.



Run–D.M.C.'s DJ, Jam Master Jay, was known to loop riffs from Rock albums for Joseph "Run" Simmons and Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels to rap over. One of his favorites from the riff from Aerosmith's "Walk This Way," which they recorded in 1986 with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry in the first hit rock/rap collaboration.


 
The video was the first rap video to air on MTV. Directed by Steve Kahn, it was Run–D.M.C.'s first video. Whodini, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, Kool Moe Dee and a few other rap artists had made videos, but they were low budget productions that MTV wouldn't touch. The clip for "Rock Box" had animation, compositing, and an intro by the comedian Irwin Corey. It also had a guitar, which pleased the MTV programmers.



Thanks to their mentor Russell Simmons (Run's brother), the group made some shrewd business decisions and were savvy enough to make an MTV-worthy video - the group had no interest in making the clip. Since MTV had never played a rap video, the group didn't watch it and didn't think it was a big deal - at the time they were more concerned with getting the clip shown on local shows like New York Hot Tracks. Their label, Profile Records, was much more excited and got a nice return for the $27,000 they spent to make the video.


 
Larry Smith, who was the group's producer, had the idea for the rock guitar on the song, which the rappers were against, but went along with. They made a version of the song without the guitar, but it was the rocker that caught on. "We didn't want the guitar version playing in the hood," said D.M.C. in I Want My MTV. "But when DJ Red Alert played it on his radio show, black people loved the guitar version."



Run–D.M.C. were the rare teenagers who were willing to take advice from their elders; Smith was the most successful rap producer at that point, having produced Kurtis Blow and Whodini. He produced the first two Run–D.M.C. albums.

On March 27th, 1984, Run-DMC released their self-titled debut album. After the album was released, it was clear that things would never be the same for rap music.
Run-DMC almost singlehandedly ushered in the New School Era of hip-hop when they released their smash single “It’s Like That”/”Sucker MC’s” in Spring 1983. The record captured the spirit and stripped down, straight forward energy of the park jam and put it on a record. This was during a time when people were making rap versions of popular radio singles and trying to appeal to audiences other than B-Boys and B-Girls. Run-DMC’s A-side, “It’s Like That,” was a commentary of the Reaganomics ’80s and inner city blight in the mold of Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five’s 1982 hit "The Message"


 The B-side, however, changed everything. “Sucker MC’s” was a straight forward beat from a drum machine with no catchy chorus in which DJ Run, formerly billed as “The Son Of Kurtis Blow,” did exactly what he’d do on the mic at a throw down in the park. It was bare. It was minimalist. There was no backing band playing a version of a popular radio hit to ensure black radio might take a chance on it. “Sucker MC’s” was strictly for the B-Boys and B-Girls. It was raw. It was gritty. It was also completely revolutionary.




"It's Like That" and “Sucker MC’s” both got burn on seemingly every boombox in major urban centers and succeeded in capturing the hearts and minds of hip-hoppers all across the nation. They weren’t trying to gain favor with the segment of black radio with program directors that shied away from rap because of its unwillingness to compromise or assimilate within the acceptable confines of funk/soul/R&B. Gatekeepers like Frankie Crocker, Donnie Simpson, Don Cornelius and many other entrenched black music executives’ resistance to rap — while ignoring its young audience who clamored for it — would prove time and again to be short-sighted.



 Up until 1983, most leading rap groups of the Old-School Era dressed like a mix between punk rockers and funk/soul/R&B acts like Parliament/Funkadelic, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Kool & The Gang. Run-DMC dressed like straight up B-Boys from Hollis, Queens. And their aesthetic made them accessible and relatable to legions of rap fans.



 Run-DMC’s follow up single "Hard Times/Jam Master Jay was released in December 1983. Its popularity led to it entering the Hot Black Singles charts on January 7th, 1984. Its ascent mystified many in black music; by February 18th, 1984 it shot up from #63 to  #11. That six-week span both opened the eyes of the industry to the possibilities of rap on the sales side seeing as how Profile Records was independently distributed yet they still were selling in excess of 250,000 units without widespread black radio support.



 Run-DMC’s success, coupled with several other rap singles climbing up the Hot Black Singles charts, led to the entire rap world’s fortunes hanging in the balance on the outcome of Run DMC’s LP hitting store shelves the following month. rap singles had managed to gain traction and move an impressive amount of units before, but the final frontier was for a rap album to climb the Top Black Albums chart. Even fellow artists helped their cause as Sister Sledge performed Run-DMC’s “It’s Like That” during their appearance on The Jeffersons called “My Guy, George” which aired on CBS on March 4th, 1984.



 After the release of Run-DMC’s self-titled debut album on March 27th, 1984 it was clear that things would never be the same for rap music. While they were on Profile Records they benefited fully from the push of the Def Jam/Rush Management machine which included the music industry savvy, hustle, and foresight of Russell Simmons and Bill Adler. The album was reviewed and written up by leading music publications such as Rolling Stone,Spin,Village Voive, Billboard, and New York Times that usually wouldn’t be receptive to rap.



Two people that were crucial to getting the word out about Run-DMC to the mainstream were Billboard writers Nelson George, in his weekly column “The Rhythm & The Blues,” and Brian Chin who covered the Dance/Club beat with his column “Dance Trax.” In the April 14th, 1984 issue of Billboard, “Rock Box” made its appearance in the Billboard Singles Reviews. The following week, Brian Chin remarked that Run DMC’s recently released debut album was “hard-hitting and thoughtfully executed” while highlighting “Rock Box” as a standout track. The next month, Kiss 108 FM (WXYS) in Boston did the unthinkable: groundbreaking PD Sunny Joe White added “Rock Box” to the station’s regular rotation. Sunny Joe’s influence was evident when all up and down the Northeast Pop and black radio stations followed suit.





The end result? Run-DMC entered the Top Black Albums chart at #43 on May 12th, 1984. The very next week it jumped nine spots to #34 before peaking at #11 on June 23rd, 1984 largely due to the success of “Rock Box” (which hit #22 on the Hot Black Singles chart the previous week.) One of Run DMC’s biggest achievements was reaching #53 on the Billboard 200 on July 28th, 1984, ultimately yielding an all-important Gold RIAA sales plaque by December. 



 The critical response to the album echoed the opinion of the streets. It was universally recognized that Run-DMC were rap’s new champions ushering in a new age for a daring, brash young American genre of music that was no longer going to be denied its rightful place at the table. Run-DMC’s debut album would become the first domino that fell just as hip-hop culture burst onto the American mainstream that following Spring and Summer.




The Cannon film "Breakin" opened in early May 1984; it became an instant box office hit and its soundtrack shot up the Billboard charts thanks to the lead single “Beat Street Breakdown” which was released the day before Run-DMC’s album entered the charts. In late May, the Fat Boys self titled LP was released, it became another Gold record and a crucial win for the burgeoning art form. Kurtis Blow’s singles "AJ Scratch" and "8 Million Stories" off of his fifth LP Ego Trip had the ear of the streets, but it was his single "Basketball" that broke into Billboard’s Hot 100.  In early June 1984, the Harry Belafonte produced Orion Pictures film "Beat Street"opened and became yet another box-office hit complete with a hot soundtrack album was helped hip-hop culture explode into the mainstream.



 There were B-Boys present at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Michael Holman (who was an associate producer on Beat Street) got a pilot for a show about hip-hop culture aired on national TV called "Graffiti Rock" in late June, which aired in syndication in 88 different markets. The B-Boying themed TV special "The Pilot" aired in September 1984 and was played repeatedly for a year afterward. In October 1984, Whodini’s sophomore album "Escape" dropped containing hits like"Five Minutes Of Funk"and "Freaks come Out At Night and "Friends"which cracked the elusive Billboard Hot 100 charts. Escape collected a Gold RIAA plaque in January 1985 after being one of the headliners of the hugely successful 1984 Fresh Fest with Run-DMC.




Run-DMC championed hip-hop culture and rap music in another crucial arena. MTV wouldn’t play videos by black artists and after constant pressure and protest from the urban music community they finally relented. Two of the first Black videos they played were Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and Run-DMC’s “Rock Box.” The record was tailor-made for not only the young music network but its Rock loving viewers thanks to the slick production of "Larry Smith, Run and DMC’s back and forth rhymes and Eddie Martinez virtuoso guitar work. Everything about the “Rock Box” video just made viewers wonder why rap videos hadn’t been on MTV before. The video was instrumental in pushing Run-DMC’s album beyond Gold sales and thrust them into the forefront of the burgeoning music form. After that barrier was broken down, the floodgates had been opened and hip-hop culture’s invasion of the mainstream was complete. After five years of the first rap records being pressed up, the genre had finally managed to reach the heights the release of Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” had set it on.



 Run-DMC was partly responsible for introducing rap music to a brand new audience thus they often were the go-to guys whenever anything rap or hip-hop culture related came up. Their style of dress was iconic (and an extension of Jam Master Jay’s personal style), the way they went back and forth harkened back to the Old School Era but the ferocity and power of their bars changed the way subsequent MC’s delivered their rhymes in the New School Era. Their live shows with Jam Master Jay set the precedent for how future rap groups had to command a stage and rock a crowd. They were the standard bearers. They were champions of the art form and the culture as well as hip-hop ambassadors.



 In short, without Run-DMC’s debut album you likely wouldn’t be reading articles on Okayplayer 35 years later.




     

Album 534.
Sade..............................Diamond Life   (1984)











Sade deffo a marmite singer, a lot of people think she's too polished and laid-back, in fact I bought this on cassette back then but wasn't really looking forward to revisiting this one as I thought it would be a bit too dull for my tastes these days, but the things I worried about were actually the reasons I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this offering once again.


Was it smooth and polished? .........yes, as smooth and polished as a freshly bikini waxed doo-dah.

Was she laid-back?...........absolutely Nareyesque  (well no quite, but very laid back, but yer man, even just walking on to the park on Saturday, absolutely icebox, looked like he could still do a job and wouldn't break a sweat)


This album reminds me of a time when I was in London, if I've already mentioned this in previous posts I apologise for the repetition (but in my defence, it's been quite a long road with lots of alcohol inspired slavers, and remembering them all isn't easy, and probably not recommended, to be honest|)


Anyways, I worked behind the ramp in this pub a couple of nights a week, and there was a Kiwi girl who had just started work there, it was a big thing in London back then that you had a hell of a lot of Antipodean backpackers who would work three nights behind the bar for free accommodation, they didn't get paid but didn't have to pay rent for a room upstairs in the pub, and the landlord would always stipulate that two of the nights were at the weekend, everyone's a winner!

One night we were all sitting having a drink after we had closed up, so we were all having a good laugh and to be honest I'd never seen many girls drinking pints back then, mainly your half a lager and lime mostly,but she drank pints, now she must have been five foot tall at a stretch and a light flyweight with her duffle coat on, but I've never heard anyone before or since burp like she did it came right fae her toenails man, and ken what she never thought fuck all of it, just carried on yapping like there had been no break in the conversation.


To cut a long story short...ish, we ended up going back to her room, now being a gentleman I must insist on the "no names, no pack-drill" rule at this juncture, and lo and behold who did she put on the record player? fuckin' Kenny Logins, no just joking, only yer Sade album but to be quite honest by the time it got to "Your Love Is King" we were both buck naked and playing "Hide the sausage" I know quite a tenuous link, but I've had a few tonight.


The funny part of this story was whilst having our post-coital cigarette she said to me "have you ever wanted to bite your arm off?" a pretty odd question I thought but answered "Can't say I have, you?" and she said "lots of times, you know when you're well pissed and you wake up in the morning lying next to something you obviously thought was alright the night before, but in the cold light of day you realise you've let your standards slip (by an avalanche,) but hey your luck's in, it's not your place, fuck off pronto and all's good with the world, you start to move then you realise your arm is stuck under their body............SHIT. How do you navigate your arm without wakening the colossus that looked like Twiggy last night?................. Fuck it bite yer arm off and leave it there."


Now this wasn't a one night stand, we actually stayed together for a few months until she went off to the Munich beer festival and other backpacking trips, we left on good terms and I'm pleased to report neither of us lost a limb in the proceedings.


So, Diamond Life, very enjoyable for this listener, nice and mellow tracks without verging on the boring or cheesy, standouts for me were "Smooth Operator," "Your Love Is King," but my favourite track has to be "Why Can't We Live Together" the sublimest sublime song on the album"


I really enjoyed this re-visit, this could be my new chill down/simmer album great for taking you down a few levels, this album will be getting added to my vinyl collection, give it a spin guaranteed to take the weight off.



If there's a better version please let me know?










Bits & Bobs;


Sade can refer to both the name of a group and that group's lead singer. The singer was born Helen Folasade Adu in Ibadan, Nigeria. Her father, Bisi Adu, was a Nigerian economics lecturer from Africa, while her mother, Anne Hayes, was a nurse from England. As a biracial child, Helen's racist neighbors in Nigeria began to call her Sade after they refused to call her by her real name of Helen. While Sade is the short form of Helen's middle name, Folasade, ironically, it means "honor confers a crown."


 
When Sade was only 4 years old, her parents separated, and Sade moved with her mother to London's North End where she grew up. As a teenager Sade developed a soulful singing voice by listening to Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and Nina Simone. She got some jobs singing around London, but to pay the bills she worked as a bike messenger and a waitress. Her educational focus turned to fashion design when she attended St. Martin's School of Art in London.


 
After her studies, Sade began to do some modeling and fashion designing. She even designed some of the outfits worn by Spandau Ballet during the group's first US tour. Spandau Ballet, a London all-male band, was one of the most successful groups of the '80s. However, Sade decided to pursue her passion for music rather than continue as a successful fashion designer. In 1980 Sade began writing songs and joined the Latin-soul group Ariva, and then joined Pride in 1982 before creating the group Sade in 1983.


 
The breakout hit single by Sade was "Smooth Operator," from the group's debut album Diamond Life. Released in 1985 in the US, the song peaked at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 as the first song by Sade to reach the Top Ten. The song, which was written by Sade and Ray Saint John from the band Pride, was about a high society man living a luxurious lifestyle. Lyrics include, "Across the north and south, to Key Largo, love for sale," which inferred that the women in his life are also how he makes his money. Finishing lyrics say, "His heart is cold," meaning he had no love interest in his ladies; a real smooth operator in the sense.


 
Sade made her acting debut in 1986 as Athene Duncannon alongside David Bowie in the musical rock movie, Absolute Beginners, an adaptation of the novel by Colin MacInnes. She also performed the song "Killer Blow" for the film's soundtrack. The movie was initially a flop, but later became a cult classic mainly because of the soundtrack.


 
While Sade has appeared on the front and back covers of a special edition of Essence magazine in March 2001, Sade is a very shy person. In general, she avoids the media and rarely grants interviews. Sade has stated that, "I'm a diva, of course, but I'm not shy or reclusive. I just spend my time with people rather than journalists."


Helen Folasade Adu was born in Ibadan, Nigeria. Her father was Nigerian, a university teacher of economics; her mother was an English nurse. The couple met in London while he was studying at the LSE and they moved to Nigeria shortly after getting married. When their daughter was born, nobody locally called her by her English name, and a shortened version of Folasade stuck. Then, when she was four, her parents separated, and her mother brought Sade and her elder brother back to England, where they initially lived with their grandparents just outside Colchester, Essex.


 Sade grew up listening to American soul music, particularly the wave led in the 1970’s by artists such as Curtis Mayfield, Donny Hathaway, and Bill Withers. As a teenager, she saw the Jackson 5 at the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park, London where she worked behind the bar at weekends. “I was more fascinated by the audience than by anything that was going on on the stage. They’d attracted kids, mothers with children, old people, white, black. I was really moved. That’s the audience I’ve always aimed for”.


 Music was not her first choice as a career. She studied fashion at St Martin’s School Of Art in London, and only began singing after two old school friends with a fledgling group approached her to help them out with the vocals.


 Somewhat to her surprise, she found that while the singing made her nervous, she enjoyed writing songs. Two years later she had overcome her stage fright and was regularly singing back up with a North London Latin funk band called Pride. “I used to get on stage with Pride, like, shaking. I was terrified. But I was determined to try my best, and I decided that if I was going to sing, I would sing the way I speak, because it’s important to be yourself.”


 Sade served a long apprenticeship on the road with Pride. For three years, from 1981, she and the other seven members of the band toured the UK, often with her driving. Pride’s shows featured a segment in which Sade fronted a quartet that played quieter, jazzier numbers. One of these, a song called Smooth Operator, which Sade had co-written herself, attracted the attention of record company talent scouts. Soon, everybody wanted to sign her, but not the rest of Pride. Obstinately loyal to her friends in the group, Sade refused to depart. 18 months later she relented and signed to Epic records – on condition that she took with her the three band mates who still comprise the entity known as Sade: saxophonist Stuart Matthewman, keyboard player Andrew Hale, and bassist Paul Spencer Denman.


 Sade’s first single, Your Love Is King, became a top 10 British hit in February 1984, and with that her life, and that of the band, changed forever. The unstressed, understated elegance of the music in conjunction with her look – unspecifically exotic and effortlessly sophisticated – launched Sade as the female face of the style decade. Magazines queued to put her on the cover. “It wasn’t marketing,” she says, wearily. “It was just me. And I wasn’t trying to promote an image.”


 At the time of the first album, Diamond Life, in 1984, Sade’s actual life was anything but diamond-like. She was living in a converted fire station in Finsbury Park, North London, with her then boyfriend, the style journalist Robert Elms. There was no heating, which meant that she had to get dressed in bed. The loo, which used to ice over in winter, was on the fire escape. The bath was in the kitchen: “We were freezing, basically”. For the remainder of the 1980’s, as the first three albums sold by the million around the world, Sade toured more or less constantly. For her this remains a point of principle. “If you just do TV or video then you become a tool of the record industry. All you’re doing is selling a product. It’s when I get on stage with the band and we play that I know that people love the music. I can feel it. Sometimes I yearn to be on the road. The feeling overwhelms me”.


 Intrusive media interest in her private life has inspired a continuing reluctance on her part to participate in the promotional game. Having been travestied in print on many occasions, Sade rarely gives interviews. “It’s terrible this Fleet Street mentality that if something seems simple and easy, there must be something funny going on”.





RollingStone           May 23, 1985 3:20PM ET



By Charles Shaar Murray.



n England, ’twas ever thus: before the hit records, before the acclaim, before even the voice . . . there comes The Look. And what a look Sade has: the high forehead; the svelte shape; the luminous, almost Oriental eyes; the generous, sensual mouth. Without pastel cosmetics or a hedge-clipper haircut, Sade has a look that’s both distinctive and unconventionally alluring.


 And in the last year and a half, the twenty-five-year-old Sade (pronounced shar-day) has parlayed that look into an equally stunning musical career. As the lead singer and lyricist for the group that carries her name, Sade has seen her debut album, Diamond Life, sell more than a million copies in the U.K. and 4 million around the world. And now, spurred on by the single “Smooth Operator,” Diamond Life is vaulting up the U.S. charts.  Unlike Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Culture Club, Wham! and other British chart toppers, Sade shuns such excesses as synthesizers, glittery clothes and lavish videos. Instead, she represents cool understatement, an elegance based on absolute simplicity. Sade’s smooth, husky voice and her penchant for backless black cocktail dresses recall nothing so much as the great New York jazz clubs of the Thirties and Forties, while her band’s stripped-down arrangements have more to do with jazz than with rock & roll.


 Her success has stirred talk, especially in the U.K., of a jazz revival. But Sade is careful not to call her record a jazz LP. “I’m frightened of anyone for one minute thinking that we’re trying to be a jazz band,” she says, “because if we were, we could do it a lot better than we’re doing now.”


 In photos, her look seems austere, even haughty. In person, though, Sade is open and friendly. Her style is instinctive, and even at noon in her publicist’s modest London office, distanced from the fashion and music-biz storm centers of Kings Road and the West End, she’s dressed smart in pegged jeans and a black leather jacket. She’s unselfconscious about her look, and she claims a similar lack of premeditation or calculation for her band’s music.


 “We don’t sit around and say, ‘Right, we’re going to create this sound.’ It happens too naturally for us to even intellectualize about. When we create a song, it’s just . . . the way it goes. Our music is clearly pop, because it’s easy to understand. All the songs I’ve ever loved – even jazz stuff – are things that tell a story, like [Roland Kirk’s] “The Inflated Tear.’ And (Miles Davis) ‘Sketches of Spain’ – you feel you’re in Spain. The soul stuff I like is Sly and ‘Family Affair,’ and Marvin Gaye, who always tells a simple story. It’s all simple and unpretentious, and that’s what music is to me. It should take you somewhere and move you in some way, and that’s what I want our songs to do.” 
 There has always been something different about the Nigerian-born Helen Folasade Adu. Her parents met in the Fifties, when her father, a Nigerian, was studying for a master’s degree at the London School of Economics. After their marriage and the birth of a son, the couple returned to Nigeria, settling in Ibadan, where Sade’s father took a teaching post and where Sade was born in 1959. Her parents’ relationship didn’t last, however (“My father was a very difficult man”), and by 1963, Sade found herself in England, living with her mother, her brother and her grandparents in the small Essex village of Great Hawkesley – just in time for one of the coldest winters in British history.


 “It was all just green and white, green and white everywhere,” Sade recalls. “I’d never seen snow before. My grandfather was a bit tight, and he wouldn’t put heating in our room. We had icicles hanging from the condensation and ice along the inside of the window ledge. It was absolutely horrifying.”


 After Sade’s mother completed her nursing-school studies, she moved the family to its own house. That, too, proved to be a temporary dwelling. When Sade was ten, her mother married “a mad butcher,” and the family moved to Holland-on-Sea, “a rent-a-go-cart seaside town, full of poodles and old ladies.”


 At fourteen, Sade discovered clubs, dancing and soul music, which became her abiding passion. “It was the only thing to be listening to, the only thing I could possibly like,” she says. She liked her soul straight from the U.S., but she had a soft spot for Stevie Winwood’s voice; she’d even ask the local DJ to end the evening by playing Traffic‘s “Walking in the Wind.”


 She moved to London at age seventeen to take a three-year course in fashion and design at St. Martin’s College of Art in the West End. At the same time, she also discovered the joys of the capital’s clubland. When she completed her course, she struck out on her own, designing and selling men’s clothes, operating on what could delicately be described as a tight profit margin. It was a time when the art and music worlds were more intertwined than ever before, and when an acquaintance who managed a band asked if she wanted to try some backup singing, she was more than willing.
  “When singing came up, I didn’t think about making a career of it,” Sade recalls with a laugh. “I don’t do crocheting and I don’t play badminton, so I thought, This could be a good hobby! ” The acquaintance was Lee Barrett, and the band was called Pride. Sade was rejected at first, but the group couldn’t find anyone else, so they finally asked her to join. Eventually, Barrett suggested that she and some of Pride’s musicians work up a set of their own and perform between Pride’s sets. Sade the band took its first tentative steps at a Pride show at London’s premier jazz club, Ronnie Scott’s. Pride’s saxophonist-guitarist, Stewart Matthewman, became Sade’s songwriting partner when it became apparent that Sade was upstaging the parent outfit.


 The turning point for Sade came in 1983, when the band was engaged for a concert at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. The show was cosponsored by The Face, Britain’s high-gloss music and fashion magazine. Gussied-up technopop was at its zenith – but when a coolly elegant Sade, backed only by Matthewman and a rhythm section, breathed her confident, authoritative rendition of the torchy “Cry Me a River,” the place erupted with the joy of trendies who’d found their next wave.


 In October of 1983, Barrett signed the band to Epic. The group had settled around a nucleus of Sade, Matthewman, bassist Paul Denman, keyboardist Andrew Hale and drummer Paul Cooke (who has since been replaced by Dave Early); it had also made the acquaintance of producer Robin Millar, known for his relaxed, spacious sound. The simplicity and understatement of the Sade-Millar approach stood out in a pop environment crowded with attention-grabbing sonic devices. The group’s first single, “Your Love Is King,” was issued that February; it was followed by a second one, “When Am I Going to Make a Living,” and the album Diamond Life. Sade was off and rolling.
   It may have been momentarily hip, it may have been heralded as the New Jazz. Surely, it was a tasteful, non-flamboyant record – one in keeping with Sade’s general attitude. “That’s the way I tend to approach things,” Sade explains. “I’m not over the top; I’m not wacky. I’m fairly understated, and that reflects in the way I sing. I don’t necessarily think that you have to scream and shout to move somebody. Sometimes I am screaming and shouting: to me, I’m really putting something in and really saying something. But when it comes out the other end and people hear it, they think it sounds very understated. Maybe at the right time, with the right song, I will belt and I will go over the top, but I don’t think that to overstate is the best way of putting something across.


 “The same applies to everything: to clothes and design and architecture. It’s now so acceptable to be wacky and have hair that goes in 101 directions and has several colors, and trendy, wacky clothes have become so acceptable that they’re . . . conventional. From being at art college, I’ve always hated people that have the gall to think that they’re being incredibly different when they’re doing something in a very acceptable way, something safe that they’ve seen someone else doing. I don’t look particularly wacky. I don’t like looking outrageous. I don’t want to look like everybody else.”


 This distaste for wildness and flash is reflected yet again in Sade’s public persona. She does comparatively few interviews. She doesn’t feud with other artists. And in a country where pop stars are tracked incessantly by the Fleet Street press, she never shows up in the gossip columns. She shares a house in North London’s quiet Highbury with Robert Elms, a journalist, jazz buff and all-around scenemaker. She has come a long way from the night that she started scribbling the lyrics to “When Am I Going to Make a Living” on the back of a bill while walking home from the bus stop in the pouring rain; she lives comfortably, without ostentation. 1984 was a very good year for Sade.
  Sade knows the challenges that lie ahead. “I want to make a record that proves to people that we have got something. Everybody’s very skeptical about someone who has early, huge success. I want to prove to myself that there’s something there. I want to make a great album to follow Diamond Life, to stretch and come forward as a band. We’ve only just started, and we’ve got a lot to do. Diamond Life has been a success, but that’s finished now. We’re only just getting used to working together as a band; I’m just getting used to singing. I’ve had a lot of exposure at a point where I’m only just learning, only just teething . . .



 “Obviously, people expect an awful lot because of the amount of reaction we’ve had,” Sade muses, lighting one more cigarette than she planned to smoke, “but I feel a lot more confident now about songwriting and singing, even though I’ve still got a long way to go.”



  


"Smooth Operator"

 
This was written by lead singer Sade Adu and Ray Saint John, who was a member of Sade's previous band Pride. The song is about a fashionable man who lives a jet-set lifestyle. He's very popular with the ladies, and breaks a lot of hearts in his travels. With the lyrics, "Across the north and south, to Key Largo, love for sale," it's implied that the women he uses also supply his wealth. It's also clear that he does not return the affections of these women, as Sade sings near the end, "His heart is cold."


 
The full-length version of the music video for this song runs over 8 minutes and covers the entire story of the song.


 
Despite the cold-hearted lyric, this song is often used to imply a romantic encounter. It played a big part in the Season 12 Big Bang Theory episode, "The Procreation Calculation," where the lovelorn character Stuart plays it during his seductions after he finally lands a girlfriend.


 
 

PatReilly wrote:

Run DMC.

I even remember 'It's Like That' sounding a bit more exciting, but maybe that was a remix I'm recalling. 'Rock Box' is a wee bit different, but generally, rather than the aggressive sound I remember (or thought I did), the album as a whole sounds quite subdued.

Thought that to Pat.
 

arabchanter wrote:

Finn Seemann wrote:

but these guys were amongst the trailblazers so they really have to get recognition of some kind in book like this.  I wouldn't persevere with this if you don't like it - there are presumably more accessible rap / hiphop albums that come later...

Good to see you posting again Finn, agree about the recognition, but personally I've been doing a lot of persevering, and if I can listen to Thelonius Monk and that other chancer Mingus and their jazz pish, hip-hop and rap will be a doddle. (I'm on the home run, only 467 to go )


I try and judge every album on it's own merits, and honestly tell it like I hear it, then haver a load o' pish about what I thought of it, but at the end of the day it's from my perspective, everyone can post up what they think it's an open thread, and as I've said numerous times, nobody is wrong, we're all right as it's our unique opinion.
 

I've been in a really busy spell at work, but deal closed last week so should be back to normal levels of posting (i.e. not prolific).

I think a lot of the early rap/hiphop stuff was fairly subdued - it's livened up as the technology has improved.  I get why it isn't everybody's cup of tea though.  For me I think I was just alive at a great time.  Music really changed forever in the late 80s with dance, rap and hiphop becoming mainstream and it happened overnight.  One weekend I was at Flicks in Brechin in chinos and a blazer, next week I was in Fat Sam's in a hooded sweatshirt and trainers...or at least that what it felt like...

shedboy wrote:

Treasure is one of my favourite and most played albums of all time.  Lolerei is simply a song i have listened to for 30 odd years and appears on any playlist of best of songs for me.  Domino is a beautiful creep of a song that at the right volume is sensational.  Strange different tastes and i accept not for everyone but this is a certainty in a top 20 of all time for me if not top 10.  Great write up though chanter

Good to see you posting again shedboy, missed your unique take on things , don't be a stranger!
 

Congrats Mr C on passing the 2 year mark on this here thread (just another 2 to go).

Still don't think we've agreed on album though.

Album 537.
Van Halen......................................1984   (1984)










The last album during David Lee Roth's original tenure with Van Halen, 1984 was released in January of its namesake year. It was their most commercially successful album at the time, although it was deterred from the #1 Billboard spot by Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

 This project was known for embracing synthesizers, while remaining true to Eddie Van Halen’s signature guitar sound, with such hits as “Jump,” “Panama,” and “I’ll Wait.”