Yesterday,
my father approached me with some very sad news: Pete Burns – singer/songwriter and frontman of 80s Hi-NRG band Dead or Alive – died from a cardiac arrest on October
23th (Sunday), and he was just 57 years old. Needless to say, I became
instantly sad.
Now,
I know very well this blog is about Japanese music, but anchored by the fact
that Pete Burns and Dead or Alive were very famous in Japan during the
mid-to-late 80s, I think this space can welcome my little homage to the now deceased Pete Burns.
Dead or Alive experienced worldwide fame between 1985 and 1987, after working with
famous British production team Stock, Aitken and Waterman (SAW) in some catchy
Hi-NRG cuts like “You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)”, “In Too Deep”, “Brand New
Lover”, “Something in My House”, “I’ll Save You All My Kisses”, among others,
that resulted in two studio albums and one compilation: “Youthquake”, “Mad, Bad
and Dangerous To Know” and “Rip It Up”, respectively.
After that, even
though their popularity in homeland England and in the United States decreased, the
band still had one last stronghold: the distant Japan, where Dead or Alive and
their Hi-NRG sound – there called Eurobeat – were very loved.
With
that in mind, it was no surprise when 1988’s “Nude”, a self-produced album with
no touches from SAW, became a huge success in Japan, but not so much in the
English-speaking world. It also helped that lead single “Turn Around and Count
2 Ten” was a true blast of joy, and in a strange way, very similar to the kind
of Eurobeat songs that were imported by Japan from Italy at the time.
Here in Brazil, it was second single “Come Home (With Me Baby)” that
made similar success among clubbers. The song was more in touch with the Latin
Freestyle genre, which was very popular in Rio de Janeiro’s lower class
neighborhoods, for example. I think some of my older cousins must probably know
this song.
As for my personal favorites from “Nude”, I’d say they are the bouncy “I
Don’t Wanna Be Your Boyfriend”, with its dated – yet charming – feel, and the
overtly dramatic album closers “I Cannot Carry On” and "My “Forbidden Love” –
both of them a mix of Pete’s theatrical singing with some stormy late 80s synths.
Unfortunately,
after some time, Pete became more known for all the bad plastic surgeries and
reality TV appearances than for the music he created. His outrageously
flamboyant looks were far from being tame, and it probably didn’t help his
career in the music industry that extreme sincerety and sarcasm were also a big
part of his personality. Nevertheless, his talent – beautiful, strong and full
of personality vocals, coupled with an accurate sense for catchy melodies and
clever lyrics – was truly one of a kind.
The “Nude” album was
released in December 1988, and, apparently, scored a #1 position on the Oricon
chart (I’d love to find some numbers to measure the success of Dead or Alive in
Japan at the time, but I wasn’t able to). All songs were written by Pete Burns,
while music and arrangement were done by Pete and Dead or Alive.
Hello, Marcos.
ReplyDeleteYes, yet another singer has left this mortal coil in an untimely fashion unfortunately. You can only imagine how many times our group here danced to "You Spin Me Round" in the discos on a Friday night.
I cannot give you numbers about how Pete Burns and his band did in Japan but on the other SNS I belong to, Mixi, over there, I'm part of the 1980s music community. And in the past few days, there has been a lot of tribute to Burns in the form of entries with imported YouTube videos including the ones that you have included above.
Hi, J-Canuck.
Delete"You Spin me Round" is a classic. The song goes on relentless with that progressive electronic Hi-NRG sound. It's also a very maximalist approach to pop, since there's virtually no room left for breathing.
In Japan's case, "Nude" was a particularly successful album. I've seen some places saying "Turn Around And Count 2 Ten" stayed at #1 in Japan for 17 weeks, but I don't think they're talking about Oricon.
I've been checking the Oricon charts from the 80s, and Dead or Alive didn't make an appearance in any of the singles entries (I still have to check the album entries to see if "Nude" was on there with the biggest sellers of 1988 or 1989, though).