Modern Romance - Best Years Of Our Lives

Another one of those odd early 80s UK sub-sub-genres, the short lived British Salsa revival. Modern Romance started off as a spin-off from 70s comedy punk band The Leighton Buzzards and had a couple of big hits namely 'Everybody Salsa' and 'Ay Ay Ay Ay Moosey' (yes seriously, I'm not making this up). They then released a cover of the popular standard 'Cherry Pink & Apple Blossom White' (featuring the 'trumpet stylings of John Du Prez, that's him in the Biggles outfit) before original lead singer Geoff Deane departed and the band took a more pop direction. 'Best Years Of Our Lives' was their biggest hit reaching the top 5 in 1982 before the band split in the mid-80s.

Interestingly enough, Geoff Deane wrote 'You Think You're A Man' for Divine before going on to be a TV writer and producer while John Du Prez teamed up with Eric Idle and co-wrote Spamalot. Morrissey allegedly once said of the group "There are indeed worse groups than Modern Romance. But can anyone seriously think of one?"

Bonus Clip: If you thought 'Best Years Of Our Lives' was ridiculous, take a look at 'Cherry Pink & Apple Blossom White'!

Kid Creole & The Coconuts - Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy

Ah, good old August Darnell, for Kid Creole is he, and his marvelous bunch of coconuts! Of course, undetermined parentage has been the source of many songs and films such as 'Billie Jean' and 'Mama Mia' but never quite as funny or tongue-in-cheek as this: 'You see if I was in your blood, then you wouldn't be so ugly!'

The band recorded on ZE Records (useless fact: the Z in ZE Records came from Michael Zilkha, the son of the owner of Mothercare) who have recently released a number of compilations entitled 'Mutant Disco' featuring not only Kid Creole but spin offs and luminaries e.g. The Coconuts, Coati Mundi, Cristina, Lio & Was (Not Was) - I highly recommend them if you like this sort of thing.

Spandau Ballet - To Cut A Long Story Short

Wasn't New Romanticism an odd genre? Synthy New-Wave tracks played by men in make-up and pirate/Braveheart costumes - yeah, that's just what we need. Even odder, a short-lived revival known as 'Romo' was attempted in the mid-90s!

Anyway, my twin sisters each had a favoured band - one was mad for Duran Duran and the other for Spandau Ballet. Me? I could take 'em or leave 'em (though Duran Duran has a special place in my heart - more to be revealed at a later date) - both started out with some good singles but quickly devolved into insipid soul-lite ballads (the latter) or cocaine-fuelled nonsense (the former). Spandau Ballet, in particular, completely lost it from 'True' onwards. However, I always quite liked this track - and even 'Musclebound' and 'Chant No. 1' had a certain charm. But it was pretty much downhill from there. The Kemp brothers starred in 'The Krays' and Martin then went on to 'Eastenders'. Tony Hadley released a couple of solo albums and turned up in 'Chicago' and 'Jesus Christ Superstar'. Everyone stopped talking to Gary and the other 2 fell off the face of the Earth. Recently, though, they have announced their reformation but I guess they're not going to come up with anything like this again...

Bonus Clip: London band Cazals covered 'To Cut A Long Story Short' a couple of years ago and, apart from slightly speeding it up and playing the main riff on guitar, didn't really change much. Take a look for yourselves...

Red Box - For America

A number of the songs posted here were forged in my memory, not because they were huge hits but because they were played on a number of UK mid-80s music shows. Red Box are a good example: they only ever had 2 chart entries - this track followed their 1st (barely) hit 'Lean On Me' - but were featured continuously on 'The Chart Show', a presenter-less music video programme (a precursor to 'Pop Up Video' if you will).

Red Box were one of those obtuse mid-80s indie groups that a major label (in this case WEA) decide to try and make big. Their shtick was synth-pop tracks mixed in with a little world music and visuals containing semaphore, phonetics etc. Needless to say, they did not set the world on fire and apparently 'For America' was written as a riposte to a request from their record label to write something that would appeal to mainstream American radio!

Bonus Clip: Here's 'Lean On Me'