Spandau Ballet -- True

 

I've got another ROY article for you tonight. In the 1980s during my university years as my friends and I hit the discos in downtown Toronto, we gradually figured out what the get-them-out-on-the-dance-floor songs were on the DJ's playlist. For example, there was "Strangelove" by Depeche Mode, "Bizarre Love Triangle" by New Order and especially among a few of us, there was "Boom Boom" by Paul Lekakis. It was almost comical...we would be nattering away in one of the dark corners of the club or drinking up when one of those songs popped up and we just hauled ass in mid-sip or mid-sentence. Couldn't miss one note of "Bizarre Love Triangle".

This particular number, though, was released about 18 months before I set my foot into my alma mater of University of Toronto for the first time, but I could imagine that the high school dances must have had it on the playlist but not as the usual uptempo free-for-all. Indeed, "True" by the English New Wave band Spandau Ballet was probably one of those ballads that would have the steady couples hit the floor for that slow dance, but I wouldn't know that for sure since being a full-fledged nerd, I barely ever went to the after-school dances.

Spandau Ballet's "True" was a long-lived resident on the CHUM Music Video Top 30 list on TV. For all intents and purposes, that was the first time for me to find out about the golden-voiced Tony Hadley and company, so my image for them will always be the "True" music video with all those soothing colours and sounds with the band all decked out in clothes that was a mix of 1980s sleek and 1940s Warner Bros. cinema style. There was probably a whole lot of swooning for the guys. In fact, my image of the band wearing those sophisticated threads is so seared in my memories that it's still a little hard for me to imagine that these guys were the standard-bearers of the New Romantic era earlier in the decade with the baggy clothing and the cosmetics.

Officially on Wikipedia, "True" is categorized as blue-eyed soul and New Wave. I can certainly agree with the first category...I do hear and feel the soul but I think that it also probably ended up getting played on a lot of AOR stations. Most likely as well, those opening notes are probably some of the most recognizable for fans of 1980s pop music, and the entire song seems to flow with nostalgic relaxation for me nowadays. This much is true (ha, ha), it hit No. 1 on Canada's RPM top singles and America's Billboard Adult Contemporary charts.

The single "True" was released in April 1983 but so was "Never Gonna Let You Go" by Sergio Mendes, and I've already put up a ROY article about that romantic hit with the top 3 Oricon songs in that month. However, I am undaunted so I will put up the No. 4, 5 and 7 hits instead.

4. Warabe -- Medaka no Kyoudai （めだかの兄妹）

5. Eisaku Ohkawa -- Sazanka no Yado （さざんかの宿）

7. EPO -- U, Fu, Fu, Fu, (う、ふ、ふ、ふ）