Songoftheday 4/6/15 - Your sweet nature darling was too hard to swallow, I've got the solution I'm leaving tomorrow...

"Brand New Lover" - Dead Or Alive
from the album Mad, Bad and Dangerous To Know (1987)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #15 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 9

Today's Song of the Day comes from the campy yet sorta goth hi-NRG pop act Dead Or Alive, who had one of the most gloriously fun singles of 1985 with their "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)". Two years later, they released their second album with producers Stock, Aitken, Waterman, Mad Bad and Dangerous To Know. An even more grander and flamboyantly earnest effort than their last, androgynous lead singer Pete Burns and the bmd came through with an album that was front to back full of singles possibilities. The first release from the set, "Brand New Lover", written by the band but with the classic SAW production full of handclaps and escalating chord changes, saw Burns releasing the slut puppy in himself and dropping his partner just for the excitement of it all...

"Brand New Lover" became Dead Or Alive's second and final top-40 pop hit in the U.S., reaching the #15 spot in March of 1987. The remix of the song was their first to top Billboard's Dance Club Play chart in December of the previous year. Internationally, the record was a top-40 hit in Australia, Canada, and Ireland, and topped out at #31 in their native Britain.

The band's next single, "Something In My House", did much better in the UK, peaking at #12, but stopped short on the American list at #85. In 1989, after both keyboardist Mike Percy and drummer Timothy Lever left the band, Dead Or Alive's fourth album Nude was released, and the more Expose'-sounding "Come Home With My Baby" became their second to top the club chart, and final pop chart entry at #69. The 90s saw the bands presence in the UK and US deflate, while their popularity in Japan remained crazy huge. Burns became more know for his plastic surgery disasters and appearance on Celebrity Big Brother in Britain that the music, though exposure did bring "You Spin Me Round" back to the top-40 in the UK twice. Since then Burns with backup players perform as Dead Or Alive at retro shows in the UK...

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Here's the band on tour in 1987 (well, more like a mime show with eye candy...)

...and finally, the #1 club version of the song....

Up tomorrow: Some instrumentation precipitation.