100 ’80’s Songs #21: Duel – Propaganda

In April 1985 the German group Propaganda released their second single Duel. It reached number 21 in the UK charts and was their second top 30 hit in the UK following their equally excellent debut single Dr. Mabuse which had reached number 27 in the spring of 1984. It also got to number 30 in Germany, number 5 in the Netherlands and it’s highest chart position was in Italy where it reached number 3.

There are many songs that have stood the test of time since they were released in the 1980’s but Duel is one of those songs that still conveys the energy and brilliance since we first heard it almost 30 years ago. Claudia Brücken’s vocals were perfect alongside the synth pop sound that defined Propaganda. Duel was written by Claudia, Ralf Dörper and Michael Mertens and it was produced by Stephen Lipson.

It has been covered a couple of times including versions by Mandy Smith in 1987 and then twenty years later in 2007 by Sophie Ellis Bextor.

Duel was a work of art in 1980s pop and still is today.

Below are four music videos and versions of Duel. Click on each link for original Youtube link and as ever thank you to each person who uploaded the music clips.

Here is the original music video.

Here is an extended remix.

Their only ever appearance on Top of the Pops.

and also a live performance.

100 ’80’s Songs #20: I’ll Always Love You – Taylor Dayne

In 1988 Taylor Dayne released her debut album Tell It To My Heart. It featured four consecutive Billboard Hot 100 top ten singles. Taylor’s first two singles were the dance pop hits Tell It To My Heart and Prove Your Love which both reached number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts and were also international hit singles. Her third single was not another pop dance song but was the ballad I’ll Always Love You which went to number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. It was written by Jimmy Green and produced by Ric Wake. Taylor’s fourth single Don’t Rush Me was also great pure pop and that song was her debut album’s biggest hit when it got to number two on the Billboard Hot 100.

While Taylor has had several hit singles since the release of Tell It To Your Heart her vocal was so powerhouse and memorable on her debut single that it has become the song she is most well known for singing but I’ll Always Love You showed that she could sing ballads just as powerfully. Us pop fans love when female music stars can be both a pop dance music artist and also a ballad singer and Taylor was both of those aspects of being a pop star back in the 1980’s and she still is today.

Taylor’s website is here which include her forthcoming concert dates and she is on Twitter @Taylor_Dayne

 

100 ’80’s Songs #19: The Lucky One – Laura Branigan

In 1984 Laura Branigan released her third studio album Self Control. It’s title track would become one of the most well known pop songs of the decade. It was just as powerful as her previous hit single Gloria which was a worldwide hit in 1982. I think Laura was truly one of the great pop vocalists of the 1980’s. I remember feeling so sad the day I heard that she had died at the young age of 47 in August 2004.

Laura’s voice was pure emotion, you believed in her songs when she sang them; whether they were ballads, pop or dance songs. The story conveyed in the lyrics she sang became real and that for me is always the power of a great pop song.

In 1984 Laura’s follow up single to Self Control was The Lucky One. It reached number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100. It only reached number 56 in the U.K. single charts but it was a bigger hit here in Ireland where it reached number 29. Self Control had also reached number 2 in the Irish singles charts. I am always intrigued and proud of the fact that pop hits often did the best in the Irish singles charts in the 1980’s. I think a huge part of the reason for that was because of the Irish television music show MT:USA which was presented by Vincent Hanley each Sunday afternoon during the mid 1980’s and which also pre-dated MTV. Vincent Hanley died in 1987 when he was just 33 years of age. I know that MT:USA and all of the wonderful music videos that Vincent had introduced and featured on his shows will always be a great memory of our teenage years.

It was a combination of that show, Smash Hits! magazine and the fact I grew up living beside a local radio station that I loved pop music so much and still do today. Self Control and The Lucky One were two videos that I can still see in my mind’s eye Vincent introducing them.

The Lucky One; like many music videos of the 1980’s, had a whole narrative structure. It is as much a short film as it is a music video and in that way it works on two levels. The songs lyrics were written by Bruce Roberts and was one of the early pop hits that the lyrics were not about love and relationships but the need to dream and do something with your life and it was Laura’s voice that conveyed that message so well.

100 ’80’s Songs #18: Never Knew Love This Before – Stephanie Mills

Never Knew Love Like This Before was a number four UK singles chart hit for Stephanie Mills in 1980. It was also a top ten hit in the Billboard pop and R’n’B charts. Written and produced by James Mtume and Reggie Lucas Never Knew Love Like This Before won two Grammy Awards in 1981; one for Best R’n’B song and the second for Best Female R’n’B Vocal Performance.

Stephanie Mills has recorded sixteen studio albums to date with a new album Breathless due to be released. I think Never Knew Love Like This Before is a great mix of R’n’B, pop and disco all in one song. It is the kind of song that reminds me of Diana Ross’s solo songs and also artists like The Three Degrees. All of the songs on my list of 80’s songs have that timeless quality for me as they sound as good today as when I heard them on their year of release in the 1980’s.

Stephanie is also on Twitter @PrettyMill1

100 ’80’s songs #17: Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime – The Korgis

Everybody Got To Learn Sometime by The Korgis was released in 1980 and got to number 5 in the UK singles chart and was a number one hit in France and Spain. It also got to number 18 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles charts. It is one of those songs that made me realise what an amazing thing pop music is. It had a timeless quality that has endured since it was first recorded. It was written by The Korgis lead singer James Warren and featured on The Korgis album Dumb Waiters.

Everybody Got To Learn Sometime has been covered several times since 1980 by music artists such as The Dream Academy and Army of Lovers. Two of my favourite covers were Baby D’s dance version from 1995 and also more recently in 2011 by Nicola Roberts on her debut solo album Cinderella’s Eyes.

There are several versions and videos of Everybody Got To Learn Sometime. Here is the original audio version.

Here also is a live performance introduced by James Warren.

100 ’80’s Songs #16: Don’t Break My Heart – UB40

UB40 are a band of whom I could feature several of their songs on this list. They brought reggae to a more general audience while still retaining a quality pop sound. By 1985 they had had several hit singles. Their cover of Sonny & Cher’s I Got You Babe with Chrissie Hynde gave them their second UK and Irish number one hit single following Red Red Wine in 1983. They were one of the first concerts that I ever saw when they played in Galway in, I think, 1989.

Their follow up single to I Got You Babe was Don’t Break My Heart. It is a drunken bumblebee of a song. The music loops and drifts with Ali’s vocals just completely perfect. It uses reiteration beautifully such as the song’s title and also the lyrics ‘but if you break my heart’. Good pop music has this amazing ability to make us happy, nostalgic and sad all at the same time. We can think of someone who the song reminds us of or of no one at all, that ability to just centre on the song itself. 

The music video features the skipping record on the jukebox moment which is one of those great pop culture moments in the sea of the many music videos of the 1980’s.

100 ’80’s Songs #15: No Regrets – Midge Ure

In the summer of 1982 Midge Ure released his debut solo single. It was a cover of the song No Regrets which was first recorded by Tom Rush in 1968 and later was a hit for The Walker Brothers in 1976. It reached number 9 in the UK singles charts.  No Regrets captured both the beauty of Scott Walker’s vocals and also the sound that Midge had created for himself as lead singer of the band Ultravox who had scored a number two hit single in 1981 with the forever timeless brilliance of Vienna. 

Midge would in the mid 1980’s show how music could be used to do great things when he and Bob Geldof co-wrote Do They Know It’s Christmas in 1984 and then they both created  Band Aid which led to the Live Aid concerts the following summer in 1985. Twenty years later in 2005 Midge was involved in the creation of the Live 8 concerts.

In 1985 Midge’s single If I Was went to number one both  in the UK singles charts and here in Ireland. While I love that song too I think there is an amazing almost Gothic atmosphere to Midge’s version of No Regrets which captures it’s haunting quality.  It is a song that is almost stated more so than sung. The words are said to make an effect, they linger. The lyrics can be read here.

The music video for No Regrets is also suitably atmospheric. While No Regrets was first written in the 1960’s and a hit in the 1970’s Midge’s version was one that helped define the sound of the 1980’s and many of the synth featured ballads that would dominate that decade of music.

Midge has performed No Regrets at many of his concerts since it’s release. Here is a gorgeous solo acoustic version of the song.

Midge’s website which includes his forthcoming concert dates is here and he is on Twitter at @MidgeUre1

100 ’80’s Songs #14: All of My Heart – ABC

One of the finest albums of the 1980’s was The Lexicon of Love by ABC which was released in 1982. It was produced by Trevor Horn who made British pop music in the 1980’s which was both elegant and powerful. 

The Lexicon of Love featured three top ten UK singles charts hits. Poison Arrow reached number 6, The Look of Love was the most successful single from that album when it reached number 4 and All of My Heart was their third consecutive hit single when it reached number 5. It was also a top 3 hit here in Ireland.

All of My Heart was written by ABC’s vocalist Martin Fry and is a classic bitter-sweet pop song. I have always loved pop lyrics and All of My Heart contain in my opinion some of the best:

Well I hope and I pray that maybe someday

You’ll walk in the room with my heart
Add and subtract but as a matter of fact
Now that you’re gone I still want you back
Remembering, surrendering
Remembering that part
All of my heart.

For me quality pop music is poetry and the reiteration of remembering is the great hook before the naming of the song which beautifully is just said at the end of the lyrics above.

I think part of the reason Poison Arrow and The Look of Love were hit singles because they captured a wonderful dramatic quality that only a well constructed pop song can do and that is the same elegant quality that applies to All of My Heart. 

100 ’80’s Songs #13: A Love Bizarre – Sheila E

One of the great things about Prince throughout the 1980’s was that he worked some of the most amazing and talented musicians and that several of them had music careers of their own. My favourites were Wendy & Lisa and Sheila E. Sheila E is without doubt one of the greatest drummers in pop and funk music. In the 1980’s she had three perfect pop songs which were The Glamorous Life, The Belle of Saint Mark and A Love Bizarre. 

A Love Bizarre was co-written and co-produced by Sheila E and Prince who both sing together. It was released in 1985 and featured on her Romance 1600 album. It reached number eleven on the Billboard Hot 100 singles charts and was a number one hit on the US Hot Dance Club Play Chart. It also features in the movie Krush Groove and most of the music video is taken from that movie. The single version was just under four minutes long but the album version was over twelve minutes long and is just glorious funk music.

Here is the music video for A Love Bizarre.

and the full album version which also featured on the 12″ release.

and a performance from the US music show Solid Gold

100 ’80’s Songs: #12: Like a Baby – Wham!

Wham! second album Make it Big was one of the most famous and successful pop albums of the 1980’s. It was released in 1984 and had four singles. Three were by Wham!; Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, Freedom and Everything She Wants which was a number one in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 charts and also part of the double A side of Last Christmas. The fourth single was George’s solo single Careless Whisper here in Ireland, the UK and in most other countries and which was credited as Wham! featuring George Michael in the US.  

Make It Big only featured eight songs in total and one of the album tracks which should have been a single was Like a Baby. It is such a beautifully structured song that really captures summer and memory. It is over four minutes long and George does not sing until one minute forty seconds into the song. While Careless Whisper was the great big ballad on the album I always think Like a Baby is a classic pop song in it’s own right. It has an elegant confidence. 

The album cover pictured above is the same as the one I still have. I loved that Wham!’s name and the album title weren’t on the front, however  it is in some editions.