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Dead or Alive is a British New Wave band from Liverpool that rose to popularity during the 1980s. They are best known for their most popular song, "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)".
Band members The band members have included the following musicians. Early career of band Dead or Alive (DOA for short, not to be confused with punk band D.O.A.), was founded in 1980 in Liverpool by Pete Burns, who was encouraged by local music promoters to gather a band together based on his outrageous appearance alone. It was only after rehearsing in 1978 with some friends that Burns realized he really did have a powerful singing voice, and his first band was an outfit he formed with friends Julian Cope and Pete Wylie. Dubbing themselves The Mystery Girls, they played only one gig before disintegrating. Burns returned in 1979 with a new band, Nightmares in Wax, featuring a gothic post-punk sound. Nightmares in Wax released their only recording, a three-track 7" EP titled Birth of a Nation in 1979/1980. In 1980, just before they were to record a radio session for John Peel, Burns changed the name of the band to the more marketable Dead or Alive. The band went through several different lineup changes over the next three years while recording a series of independent singles. When Dead or Alive's singles started placing high in the Indie charts, Epic Records took notice and signed the band in 1983, their first release for Epic being the single "Misty Circles". At this point, the band was a five-piece consisting of Burns, Mike Percy (bass), Tim Lever (keyboards/sax), Steve Coy (drums), and Wayne Hussey (guitar). The debut album, Sophisticated Boom Boom, featured Dead or Alive's first top forty UK single, a remake of the 1975 hit by KC and the Sunshine Band "That's the Way (I Like It)". Hussey departed Dead or Alive just before the album's release, despite having had a hand in writing much of the material that appears on it. Chart success Now a stable four-piece, in 1985 they released the album Youthquake, produced by the then-fledgling songwriting/production team of Stock, Aitken and Waterman (SAW). The single "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" went to number one on the UK singles chart after having lingered outside the top forty for over two months after release; the song remains a club favorite two decades later. Several other tracks from the album, including "Lover Come Back to Me" and "In Too Deep", also became dance hits. In 1986, Dead or Alive released their third album, Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know, also produced by SAW. The album included one of the band's best-known songs, "Brand New Lover". Three additional singles from the album were released, all of them meeting some sort of controversy in some way. The single "Something in My House" had a very Gothic flavor to it and featured Burns on the picture sleeve in front of what appears to be a Satanic altar featuring an inverted crucifix. A 12" version of the song, released only to club DJs, featured sampling of some obscene dialogue from the soundtrack of The Exorcist. The picture sleeve to the third single, "I'll Save You All My Kisses", originally featured Burns with a metal "Sex" belt buckle in front of his lips, but Epic covered up the word "Sex" with a sticker that said "Kiss" after retailers objected. The video was banned by MTV because of its overtly gay content, which depicted Burns in black tights and a leather jacket singing the song from a baseball diamond while a number of men, some of them shirtless, cling to a fence and ogle him. A fourth single, "Hooked on Love", suffered with very little promotion due to what the record company felt was a "Gothic" overtone that had been added to the song in a post-production remix, and managed to barely scrape into the UK top 70. In 1988, they parted ways with Stock, Aitken and Waterman and in 1989 released the self-produced Nude, which featured the hit "Turn Around and Count 2 Ten", a single that spent seventeen weeks at number one on the Japanese charts. The single was also was followed up by Nude and the single "Come Home with Me Baby" (a number one hit in Brazil). The single was a club hit, but the track failed to generate any radio play, partially due to a reactionary attitude toward the song's seemingly casual attitude toward sex at a time when AIDS awareness was coming into the public consciousness. Later releases 1990 saw the release of Fan the Flame (Part 1); however, the album was only released in Japan. The album was a radical departure in style. Instead of high energy dance beats, the album had more of a 1970s disco style crossed with lounge-style vocals. The album had three singles, "Your Sweetness (Is Your Weakness)", "Gone Too Long", and "Unhappy Birthday". Fan the Flame (Part 1) also is notable because it contains the very first ballad that Dead or Alive ever recorded, a seasonal track called "Blue Christmas" (an original composition and not a cover of the song popularized by Elvis Presley). For several years, Dead or Alive was mostly inactive in the recording studio, until Pete Burns resurfaced in 1993 as vocalist on a single for the Italian techno outfit Glam. Burns helped write the single, "Sex Drive", which was a major return to the dancefloor. Burns and Coy flirted with the idea of recording under the name International Chrysis, and released a single as such in 1994, a cover version of David Bowie's "Rebel Rebel". 1995 saw a resurrection of the Dead or Alive moniker for the album Nukleopatra, which was eagerly anticipated by the band's large fan base. The album featured a smattering of previously released material, including "Rebel Rebel", "Sex Drive", and two tracks that originally appeared on Fan the Flame (Part 1), "Gone Too Long" and "Unhappy Birthday". The album also featured a cover of Blondie's "Picture This". Initially released in Japan only, Nukleopatra, unlike its predecessor, was also released in Australia, Singapore, South Africa, France and the U.S., and each release sported different cover art, tracklistings and song versions; many releases of Nukleopatra also included one or more remixes of "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)". In 2000 Dead or Alive released Fragile, a compilation of remixes with several new tracks and remakes of U2's "Even Better Than the Real Thing" and Nick Kamen's "I Promised Myself", and another remix album, Unbreakable, in 2001. This was followed by a greatest hits album called Evolution: the Hits, released in 2003 which featured yet another remix of "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)"; both of them enjoyed, for the first time since Nude, a UK release, with "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" re-entering the top forty. In 2004, Burns enjoyed solo success with the Pet Shop Boys-produced track "Jack and Jill Party". Although only released through the Pet Shop Boys website, the track reached number 75 in the UK singles chart and was an underground club hit. Dead or Alive in concert In 1987 the band embarked on their world tour which consisted of dates in Europe, Japan and the USA. The dates in Japan (Tokyo and Osaka) were filmed and released on VHS. For the tour, the band remixed several of their songs including 1984's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" and "My Heart Goes Bang". It was widely believed that the concert was entirely mimed; however, parts of the show were live, while others were pre-recorded or mimed. Whereas Burns mimed to a vocal track, the band (Coy, Lever and Percy) played the backing track live while two dancers mimed the guitar solos. The tour was re-released in 2003 on the Evolution DVD. It was also released as a Laserdisc and as a CD (though the CD version was not a live recording). Notable hits Although the 1984 song "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" may have been the band's biggest success in North America and at home, their biggest hit in Japan, the 1989 track "Turn Around and Count 2 Ten" topped the Japanese charts for seventeen weeks. The band's other major UK hits were the 1986 track "Something in My House", 1985's "Lover Come Back to Me" and "In Too Deep" (of the same year). You Spin Me Round The single "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" has been released and re-released by the band on a number of occasions: Recent activities Celebrity Big Brother In 2006, Pete Burns took part in the TV show Celebrity Big Brother in the UK. His eccentric appearance, surprising behaviour and explosive attitude made him a staple character in the show, which received huge audiences. Burns became known for openly insulting actress Traci Bingham and performing modern dance with socialist politician George Galloway. Following the end of the show (Burns finished in fourth place), the Youthquake version of "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" was re-released and reached the top five in the UK singles chart. Burns himself expressed distaste for the re-release, he is quoted as saying "it's like wearing a school uniform at the age of 46". Trivia Albums Singles See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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