Oh, I want the truth to be SAAAIIID!!

That Spandau Ballet was a kickass group in the 80s.
Shoulda said that in the 80s thread, but i want them to stand alone.
Their hit True, what a solid, compelling song. Strictly commercial and for the chicks, but it moved me and I'm a guy! At least the last time I checked.
Anyway, more cool points need to be piled on 'cause one of these guys starred in The Krays.
Now take any rocker turned actor and vice versa. Can't think of any examples right now, but there's no cooler trajectory than True and The Krays. Spandau's legacy echoes melodically through time.
Where can I find a box set?

"[Two] of these guys starred in The Krays."

Even cooler!

Then one of them starred in Embrace of the Vampire. Cool points docked.

Yeah, with Alyssa Milano. Cool points restored.

Apparently you haven't seen the movie.

I have seen the movie and I want to see it again!

Alyssa Milano. Married that dude from Remy Zero. Cool points forfeited. Again.

gary kemp was in "killing zoe" and was in a scene with ron jeremy, coolness back on.

Journeys to Glory



i saw this die cut record once for two doallars. oh the cold sting of regret...

Don't forget one of them also "starred" in The Bodyguard.

The Kemp brothers would be very happy about this thread, I imagine.

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The Kemp brothers would be very happy about this thread, I imagine.

It seems that there are a lot of them.

Don't forget Edward Norton played "the bass player" from Spandau Ballet in that episode of Modern Family, so there's some cool points for that too I guess.

When he finds out the guy who hired him to play doesn't even know anything about the band he utters the immortal line :

"You aren't a FAN-dau!!"

Wasn't Alyssa Milano a bit of a baseball groupie for a while? I remember her dating Carl Pavano then some other player. I think she also designed a line of clothing for female baseball fans (saw it in the Eastbay catalog I get every month).

I wouldn't mind if this turned into an Alyssa Milano thread. This talented actress needs to be in a new show. I think Charmed was her last one.

Cookie, I dig you!

Ah yes. Spandau Ballet. The runt of the New Romantic litter, as it were. They had nowhere near the musicianship of labelmates Ultravox or contemporaries Visage. And they long dwelled in the shadow of their rivals, Duran Duran.  Hell, I’m sure Spandau Ballet wished fervently that they were the NewRo “Stones” to Duran’s “Beatles.” But viewed in the cold light of day, it was never going to happen. Not even close.

Perhaps it was the band’s reliance on guitarist Gary Kemp as the sole songwriter that was their achilles heel. Sure, sure. His lyrics were about on par with the howlers that Simon LeBon also dreamed up for Duran Duran, but they could not compete with Nick Rhodes’ keen sense of melody, nor with the tighter Duran Duran rhythm section. But, give the band credit for being first to market at least. Their debut single, “To Cut A Long Story Short” hit the charts in the tail end of 1980, a few months prior to Duran’s (superior) “Planet Earth.”

The riff of the song will sound familiar even if you’ve never heard this track as Eurythmics copied it straightaway as the foundation to their megasmash “Sweet Dreams.” The keys, as played here by Gary Kemp, singer Tony Hadley and guitarist Steve Norman reveal a distinct fear of polyphony! I can’t remember hearing any chords from these one-finger wonders! I’ll give then the benefit of the doubt and assume they were deliberately using monosynths here. The lyrics are nothing less than their take on similar subject matter to Dee Dee Ramone’s memorable “53rd and 3rd!”

“The Freeze” has more monophonic synth leads and lyrics that are best kept incomprehensible. If the pose of the song strikes one a ludicrous, you must admit that the infamous stentorian pomp of vocalist Tony Hadley fits it like a glove. That velvet glove got cast in iron for their third single, “Musclebound.” Here Kemp crafted a song that reveled in camp homoeroticism and fascism as if to say “top that, Bowie!” The track was a real goose stepper, but unlike The Associates “White Car In Germany,” which uses a similar marching beat to ravishing effect, the result here is leaden and boorish. The 7” mix trims off 2+ minutes from the album track and adds cimbalom for that “Old Country” touch! The 12” version does the same while avoiding the industrial welter that is the tracks’ coda on their LP. It boggles the mind to think of this track making the UK top 10, yet it did. What is most remarkable about this single is the B-side, which was the last thing anyone would have expected from this band.

“Glow” was was a tremendously atypical flip side for a Spandau Ballet single.  It wasn’t a mis-named version mix of “Musclebound.” It was the furthest thing from a pseudo-Teutonic disco tracks that marked the bulk of their catalog at this point. It was a curious mixture of Latin Funk with more typical Eurosynth stylings they were most known for.  A little history is in order to put this radical shift into perspective. Trends flew fast & furious in postpunk England. 1980 was all New Romantic effete club posers in 18 century dress and makeup. By 1981 it was hitting the mainstream. Hardcore clubbers were moving on from the masses. And the destination was funk.

Around this time there was also a slight UK salsa (?!) trend with groups like Modern Romance and Blue Rondo A La Turk making some noise. The Kemps were friendly with the Blue Rondos so given that connection, “Glow” is less startling in retrospect, with a little knowledge under your belt. There were still synths in the track, but the riffage was more muscular than typical for the band. The synths emulated a horn section while ex-rhythm guitarist Steve Norman went nuts on Latin percussion. Timbales and congas seasoned the mix while the music had far more taut urgency than ever heard from this band before. A beautiful mongrel, bursting with hybrid vigor, was the result. The 7” version is but a taster for the full eight minute 12” version, which had the distinction of actually being the A-side of the “Musclebound” twelve inch! Was this a one-off aberration, or the shape of things to come?

The next single was as magnificent a follow-through from “Glow” as was possible. “Chant No. 1 (I Don’t Need This Pressure On),” existed in several forms, the longer the better. This time the synth-horn approximations get the deep six to be replaced by Beggar & Co., a hot real horn section that helped make this Spandau’s ultimate single for my ears. Richard James Burgess remained as producer and this time he gave Spandau a secret weapon that no others had at the time; Simmons Drums, of which he was the developer. The dry, plastic thwack of the SDS was utterly new at this point in time and juxtaposed with the thin, funky guitar, blaring horns and congas and percussion, it resulted in a unique brand of white funk over which the still stentorian emoting of Tony Hadley sat atop the construction not unlike a Bentley’s hood ornament. And the longer this song lasted, the better it was.

The followup single, “Paint Me Down,” continued in this vein. Like “Chant,” it sported incomprehensibly unrelated Inuit artwork (what was that all about?) but unlike “Chant,” it featured a dire riff upon which the song was built. And the lyrics lacked the blunt appeal of “I don’t need this pressure on,” repeated endlessly. At the time, I felt it was a weak offering, and it kept me from hearing the “Diamond” album for a few years. British listeners agreed and this was the first Spandau single to not hit the top 20 – shocking! Flash forward nearly 30 years later and the repetitive urgency now works for me. I find it clearly inferior to “Chant,” but it’s now ascended considerably to minor classic status with my ears. The flipside to the 7 inch single, “Man With Guitar,” was a version mix.

After this second single, the group released their sophomore album, “Diamond” in late 1982. A more quixotic, conflicted, and confused album your ears are not likely to ever hear. Side one was all trendy Latin Funk but side two featured the single “She Loved Like Diamond” – an early taster of their lounge soul style that no one could have predicted at the time. And after that aesthetic whiplash was still ringing in the listener’s ears, the rest of side two of that album featured “soundtrack music” as in the words of the scribe, Gary Kemp, himself. It sure sounded as if Kemp had been listening to side two of “Low” or “Heroes.” Only without Bowie and Eno’s talent!! I’m sure Chrysalis UK had kittens, when the band delivered the master tapes on this puppy! Nevertheless, someone greenlighted an audacious side project that lives in infamy: The Diamond Boxed Set!

The band released the album as a set of four 12” singles (take that, P.I.L.!) – each remixed differently to any other previous single mixes. That meant a truly glorious eight minute re-mix of “Chant No. 1” kicked the proceedings off! The funky, Herbie Mann-esque flute got plenty of space near the end of the track and the horns are particularly highlighted in the remix. This was followed by the re-mix of the LP version of “Instinction,” which wouldn’t get released as a single until some time later, and in a radically different form. The “Paint Me Down” re-mix is nothing like any of the previous 7” or 12” mixes. Finally the excellent “Coffee Club” was remixed and extended here for the only time. Pity, as it would have been a much better single choice than “Paint Me Down” or “She Loved Like Diamond.” The track actually sounds more Latin than anything else on “Diamond” with the rhumba beat contrasting mightily with the Simmons kit playing it! But it was Steve Norman’s acoustic percussion and the horns that took it all home to Jesus.

The last re-mixed track from the “Diamond” boxed set was the next single release from the album, “She Loved Like Diamond.” Here was where singer Tony Hadley first let the Vegas in his soul free! The style of the track really didn’t fit in with the Spandau styles previously on display. It’s more of a lounge number and as such, prompted head scratching for anyone who heard it at the time. And that number was few as it fared even more poorly in the charts than the previous single, “Paint Me Down.” Clearly, some stronger measures were in order to resurrect their rapidly dwindling career.

In 1982, no measure was stronger than producer Trevor Horn. After his success as half of The Buggles, he began to hit the charts with his production of Dollar singles. Then Martin Fry thought he was the man to make the dream of “The Lexicon Of Love” flesh. Overnight, the mantle of de-riguer UK producer went from Martin Rushent, still resting on his Human League laurels, to the upstart Horn. TCH dramatically remixed the fourth single, “Instinction.” Words almost pale in describing just how superhuman he managed to make the song sound. It’s the weak track on side one of “Diamond,” but there’s nothing weak about this re-imagining of it. In fact, to hear it is to be devastated, as if Horn managed to get the Space Shuttle hangar to record the reverb in. A single dry Simmons “thwack” has been pumped full of sonic steroids to occupy 1/50th of the track’s running time! The five minute track was compressed into a hyperthyroid three minutes on seven inch. If you bought the 12” single you were treated to exactly the same mix, because the listeners would have burst into flames had he extended the remix any!!! Instead, the 12” listeners were treated to the godlike eight minute “Chant No. 1 (re-mix)” from the “Diamond” boxed set.

Fortunes restored, Spandau shifted gears to their blue-eyed soul salad days with their next single, “Lifeline.” When I heard this song I could hardly believe it was the same group behind the first two albums. I had “Journeys To Glory” but wasn’t overly enamored of it. What I had heard from “Diamond” had appalled me at the time. I was not prepared for the relaxed Vegas vibe of “Lifeline.” Amazingly, I went out on my weekly record buying jaunt and picked up the US 12″ single. The sea-change in their style was symbolized by Steve Norman’s move to sax as well as percussion, from here on out. “Lifeline” had a great vibe and I was primed for more.

The next single was the excellent “Communication.” A song best heard in its dynamic album version. The third single from “True” was the title cut. Snipped of 45 seconds for the 7″ mix; it was still over 5:30 long! Nevertheless, it sold like proverbial hotcakes the world over, and finally took Spandau up to the level of international stars. I still find it soporific.

The fourth single from “True” was one of their best. Gary Kemp stated that “Gold” was his attempt at a Bond theme. And a cracking one it is. Truthfully, it smokes most official Bond themes for breakfast! I’d rate only “Goldfinger,” “Thunderball” and maybe “You Only Live Twice” as better. Spandau managed to make Duran Duran’s official Bond theme of 1984 sound pretty impoverished next to this puppy. This was possibly the only time Duran didn’t get the better of their rivals. The 12″ version was truly sumptuous, making every extra second added to the song count.

On that single, Spandau began their practice of including live cuts as B-sides. That’s highly ironic considering that for their first two years of existence, they barely played concerts! Over the next handful of singles, these live tracks were taken from a concert recorded for home video: Live Over Britain. That concert from Mayday, 1983 at Sadler’s Wells (broadcast on MTV in America) is as much as anything is why I finally became a Spandau Ballet fan. It featured most of the “True” album in a lively, crisp setting with hot arrangements of older material as added bonus.

Spandau heralded their fourth album as superstars with the tepid “Only When You Leave.” Their subsequent single was the best one from the far too MOR “Parade” album. “Highly Strung” actually has a pulse. “Parade” was very much cut from the same cloth as “True” and it proved that Spandau Ballet weren’t going to keep reinventing themselves as they had done over the course of their first three, very different albums. “Parade” was the sound of a group playing it safe and milking the cow until it cried uncle. Half of the songs sound like they were trying for another “True” and that’s sad. Almost any cut from “True” trumped the songs on this album. Only “Highly Strung” had the spark of the earlier material. What happened next was a bit unusual to say the least.

Spandau then sat out all of 1985 and most of 1986, suing their label Chrysalis for not promoting them enough! Yeah, they had worldwide hits and sold millions of records (even in America, the former colony curiously resistant to their previous recordings) and that was clearly a breach of faith on the part of Chrysalis in their eyes! Give me a break! After suing Chrysalis they signed with CBS and their slow death spiral began. Not releasing records for almost two years when you are at the top of your sales game is a form of commercial suicide, extreme stupidity, or at least industrial strength hubris. Possibly all three.

When they re-emerged in late ’86 with the ludicrous “Fight For Ourselves” as their first single in almost two years, the band had decided to “rock!” The album “Through The Barricades” was a queasy blend of more attempts to mine another “True” abetted by ham-fisted, lighter-waving arena rock. Like almost every other band I liked through the early 80s, they lost their mooring [such as they had any] in the horrifying mid-80s. Needless to say, the sight of Tony Hadley in a mullet was dispiriting to say the least. The 12″ remix of “Fight For Ourselves” featured crowd noise run through a Fairlight for a truly repulsive feel. The next single wasn’t much better. “Through The Barricades” was yet another lighter-waving ballad. At least the extended version wasn’t pumped full of ersatz crowd excitement. It sounded like it was pumped full of sleeping pills instead. “Through The Barricades” would be the last Spandau Ballet album released in America for the now fading group.

Two years passed when the first single from what would be the final Spandau Ballet album was released in 1989. “Raw” was an attempt at carnal thrills that just came off as crass and thick-headed. It didn’t help that Hadley pronounced the title as if he were singing “roar.” It’s debatable as to whether this cut represented an improvement over the MOR fluff that now typified a Spandau single release. At least “Raw,” to its credit, was an attempt at excitement and more than what listeners would come to expect from this flagging band at this point. It merits pointing out that their bitter rivals Duran Duran were also at creative low ebb during this time period with their abhorrent “Liberty” album.

Their last singles were barely scraping into the UK top 100 and with that Spandau Ballet ceased to exist. The Kemp brothers by this time had starred in the much-better-than-their-last-three-albums film The Krays, to some acclaim and charted their course for Hollywood stardom. After appearing third billed in the Whitney Houston potboiler, “The Bodyguard,” Gary Kemp, settled down to a career of nothing much, really. Good thing he had the royalties. Even so, in the late 90s, ex-members of the band other than his brother (busy with a B-movie/TV career and -ouch- brain tumor surgery) unsuccessfully sued Gary for royalties denied. I can imagine them testifying in court. “You know that bit after that other bit? Well, I thought that up!” Meanwhile Gary Kemp probably brought in his notebooks and publishing demos. Case closed. Chastened by their loss in court to Kemp, they plugged along as a threesome performing the hits of Spandau Ballet without being able to use that name.

At least until the Spring of 2009, when UK news sites were abuzz with the account of Spandau Ballet’s (wait for it)… reformation! Yes, they had buried the hatchet for the sake of brotherhood and moving beyond the old money issues that fractioned the band violently as recently as 2007. It’s all about the music, maaaan! And only a cynic would suggest it was possibly the tanking of their retirement portfolios in the recent financial meltdown that had anything to do with this sudden and drastic change of events! If you’ve read this far, it’s obvious that I’m not even the biggest fan of this band, but to this day I derive enormous pleasure from a track like "Chant No. 1." It's one of my favorite singles from 1981, which is saying a lot!



Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

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Ah yes. Spandau Ballet ... --- ... --- ... --- ... --- ... ---which is saying a lot

Extended mix? Bursting into flames?

Good thing this wasn't a thread about ex-members of The Fall.

Wow. I doff my (old) New Romantic cap in your general direction.

HollowbodyKay: This was hastily edited from a blog post I once made! I claim salvage rights on the Trouser Press forum! Go there and search "Spandau Ballet" for the full monty… if you dare.



Post Edited (02-05-13 12:03)

Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

Quote

Go there and search "Spandau Ballet" for the full monty… if you dare

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Why do I find it hard to write the next line?

Ah yes, thank you Monk, "To Cut A Long Story Short” was the one I was trying to remember. That was a good 'un (never made the Eurythmics connection, tho, interesting.) Compelling synth bass line, and a...um...did I mention the compelling synth bass line? Yep, they deserve their reputation. "True" make me cringe like only a Dan Fogelberg-gone-New Wave track can.

(Tho that Latin funk stuff sounds interesting. I have a soft spot in my brain for that Pigbag/Haircut 100 kinda cheese.)

Mr. Fab - Gott In Himmel - did you read all of that? If you enjoy New Wave Latin Funk then try the 2xCD RM of "Diamond." It's packed with goodness [albeit with brickwall mastering].



Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

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did you read all of that?

Gotta be honest, I skipped around. That bit caught my eye.

Damn, that's a helluva lot of post-punk for one Monk.

And Hollow, yes, Alyssa Milano makes one fine cookie.

She's always looked pretty sweet and delectable to me.