Songoftheday 4/22/14 - If I get to know your name then I could trace your private number baby...
Dead Or Alive - "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)"
from the album Youthquake (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #11 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 11
Today's Song of the Day is from the British new wave group Dead Or Alive, who formed at the beginning of the 80s behind the flamboyant androgynous singer Pete Burns. They released a series of indie singles in the first years of the decade, but it wasn't until 1983, when their single "Misty Circles" scraped the bottom of the UK singles chart, while becoming a decent hit in American clubs, peaking at #4 on Billboard's dance chart that year. That record sounded like a bridge between the goth/new Romantic British dance music and the gay post-disco of Patrick Cowley. On the strength of that success, their label Epic commissioned a full album, and their debut set, Sophisticated Boom Boom, popped out three more singles, with a remake of KC & The Sunshine Band's "That's The Way (I Like It)" reaching #22 on the UK chart (their first top-40) and #28 on the American dance chart. I remember seeing the video for this somewhere on TV (most likely MTV but not totally sure) and was entranced by their totally wild campy image and Burns' eccentric but powerful voice.
After guitarist Wayne Hussey left following the release the the album, the remaining four teamed up with the production team of Stock Aitken and Waterman, who had previously helmed mostly gay underground disco singles from the likes of Hazell Dean and actor/drag performer Divine. The trio produced the band's second album, Youthquake, which was a solid set of pop radio-friendly yet extra-campy songs that were all so over the top that they only probably could have worked right then at that moment to break both the band and the production team. The first single, "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)", sounded like it was concocted by the gods as a gift to pop music on how fun and carefree a single should be, and the self-financed video made absolutely no apology for Burns' eccentricities. As Culture Club straddled the gender line to allow Boy George to coo soulfully over a sophisticated beat, Dead or Alive was about unbridled debauchery...
"You Spin Me Round" became Dead or Alive's first pop success in America, stopping one notch of the Hot 100's top ten in August of 1985, while making it to #4 on the dance club play chart in Billboard. In their native England their song topped the singles chart, the first for both the band and the producers (the single would also go to #1 in Anglophile Canada and Ireland as well). Internationally, the song was a huge hit, reaching the top ten in places like Australia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and more, establishing the band as more than just a UK local novelty.
And I was so enamored with this. Between my own self-discovery and the total joy this record gave me (it was one of those 45s I would play over and over again), I had been convinced that Dead Or Alive were going to be as big as the boys in Culture Club. And for a while they did a respectable job of it. But even so, I will still defend to the death the fact of this being one of the best pop singles of all time.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
...and here's the band in concert back in their glory days...
...as well as on a TV appearance from 1985...
In 2000, the metal band Dope recorded a version of "You Spin Me Round" that reached #37 on the American rock radio chart...
Latin singer Thalia also covered the single in 2002...
The following year, Australian pop princess Dannii Minogue "mashed-up" her single "I Begin To Wonder" with "You Spin Me Round" for "Begin To Spin Me Round", which appeared on the top-10 club single that I had on my car stereo all summer...
Pop singer/tuna connoisseur Jessica Simpson's take on the track almost made the Hot 100, creeping in at #21 on the "bubbling under" chart in 2006..
In 2008 singer/songwriter Thea Gilmore gave the song a countryfied sound...
Finally, Dead or Alive themselves returned to the UK charts twice with "You Spin Me Round". The first time was in 2003, where it climbed to #23 on the strength of new remixes (it also made the American dance chart at #21).
Then after Pete Burns' appearance on Celebrity Big Brother UK, another revamped version of the single leaped back on the British chart going as high as #5...
Up tomorrow: Sister rockers come back in a big way with a revamped band.
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