Songoftheday 3/1/13 - Head over heels when toe to toe, this is the sound of my soul...

Spandau Ballet - "True"
from the album True (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #4 (four weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's Song of the Day is by the British New Romantic band Spandau Ballet, who formed in London in the late 70s as a much more rock-oriented group, before releasing their new wave-tinged first single, "To Cut A Long Story Short" in 1980. It was one of two top-10 singles from their debut album Journeys To Glory, and reached #5 in the UK, while topping the chart in France. A year later, they did even better with their sophomore set, Diamond, scoring a British #3 single with "Chant No. 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)". However in these records, they didn't sound like the band that most Americans are familiar with, and more in line with older Human League and Thompson Twins.

With their third set, True, Spandau Ballet went with a more soul/jazz-influenced sound, and they finally cracked the US market with their ballad "True", written by member Gary Kemp and produced by Steve Jolley and Tony Swain...

"True" not only made the top-5 on the pop chart in the States, but also topped the adult-contemporary (soft-rock) chart, as it did the same on the British and Canadian pop charts, and was a success in pretty much every country in the world.

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"True" would go on to conquer the US pop chart in 1991 as the backdrop for the P.M. Dawn single "Set Adrift On Memory Bliss", with singer Tony Hadley even showing up in the video, and this remains one of the best "sample" records ever made...