Songoftheday 8/29/15 - When explanations make no sense, when every answer's wrong, you're fighting with less confidence...

"Breakout" - Swing Out Sister
from the album It's Better To Travel (1987)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #6 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 11

Today's SOTD comes from Swing Out Sister, a jazz-pop trio that came together in Manchester in the mid-80's with singer/fashion designer Corinne Drewery along with Andy Connell and Martin Jackson. They released their debut album It's Better To Travel in 1987, with the shiny, bright "Breakout" as the lead single, produced by future Amy Winehouse collaborator Paul Staveley O'Duffy...

"Breakout" became SOS's first and only top-10 pop hit in America in November of 1987. The single did even better on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, reaching #1 for two weeks, while making it to #12 on their Dance Club Play chart. Internationally, the record topped out at #4 in their native Britain, top-10 in Ireland and New Zealand, and top-20 in Canada, Australia, and Belgium.

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...and here's the trio performing live along with Level 42 at the Prince's Trust in 1989...

...and again in London in 2001....

...and finally a more acoustic take in 2009...

Up tomorrow: the second Shondells song to hit #1 in November of 1987.