70's, 80's 'Feel Good' Music

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"Music Box Dancer" is an instrumental piece by Canadian musician Frank Mills that was an international hit in the late 1970s. It features an arpeggiated piano theme in C-sharp major (enharmonic to D-flat major) designed to resemble a music box, accompanied by other instruments playing a counterpoint melody as well as a wordless chorus. (Most modern piano music sheets have the song in the key of C.)
Mills wrote and recorded "Music Box Dancer" in 1974, but it did not become a single until December 1978. By Christmas of that year, it was in the top ten of many European and Asian pop music charts. Released as a single in the United States in January 1979, it reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on the week ending May 5, and also reached #3 on the Canadian Adult Contemporary chart and #47 on the Canadian pop chart. The single also did well in Australia, reaching #14 on the Australian Singles Chart (Kent Music Report).
A few notes are missing in the third repeated introduction to the main melody, which could not be corrected, as Mills did not have the funds to record another take.
In 1974 Mills released an album that featured "Music Box Dancer", but it was not initially a hit. When he re-signed with Polydor Records Canada in 1978, the label released a new song as a single, with "Music Box Dancer" on the B-side. The single was sent to easy-listening stations in Canada, and one copy was mistakenly sent to CFRA, an Ottawa pop station. The program director played the A-side and could not figure out why it had been sent to his station, so he played the B-side to see if the record label had been mistakenly marked. He liked "Music Box Dancer" and added it to his station's playlist.
The song's success at CFRA was swift. "Music Box Dancer" premiered on CFRA's top 30 chart on May 5, 1978; by June 30, it was the #1 song on the station's playlist. "Music Box Dancer" also began picking up play on other Canadian stations around this time, becoming a nationwide hit. Mills's album went gold in Canada, which, after several months, prompted Polydor in the US to release the album and single with the B-side "The Poet and I".
The million-selling Gold-certified single reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the spring of 1979 as well as #4 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart, while the album reached #21 on the Billboard Top Album chart and also went gold. Around that time, Nashville, Tennessee television station WNGE used Music Box Dancer as its news theme; it became so popular among Middle Tennessee viewers, that Polydor awarded a gold record to WNGE for breaking the single in the U.S.
It was Mills's only U.S. Top 40 pop hit; the follow-up, another piano instrumental titled "Peter Piper", peaked at #48 on the Billboard Hot 100, although it was a popular Top 10 hit on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. Mills managed one final Adult Contemporary chart entry, "Happy Song", which peaked at #41 at the beginning of 1981. Mills also released a version of Ricky Nelson's "Poor Little Fool" with substantial airplay in Ontario during the 70's and 80's.

Frank Mills - Music Box Dancer


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Eagles - Hotel California
1998 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony


(Farewell Tour 2005)
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"Another Brick in the Wall" is a three-part composition on Pink Floyd's 1979 rock opera The Wall, written by bassist Roger Waters. "Part 2", a protest song against rigid schooling, features a children's choir. At the suggestion of producer Bob Ezrin, Pink Floyd added elements of disco.
"Part 2" was released as a single, Pink Floyd's first in the UK since "Point Me at the Sky" (1968). It became their only number-one single in the UK, the United States, West Germany and many other countries, and sold over four million copies worldwide. It was nominated for a Grammy Award, and was number 384 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
The American nu metal band Korn covered all three parts, released as a single, for the 2004 album Greatest Hits, Vol. 1.
The three parts of "Another Brick in the Wall" appear on Pink Floyd's 1979 rock opera album The Wall. During "Part 1", the protagonist, Pink, begins building a metaphorical wall around himself following the death of his father. In "Part 2", traumas including his overprotective mother and abusive schoolteachers become metaphorical bricks in the wall. Following a violent breakdown in "Part 3", Pink dismisses everyone he knows as "just bricks in the wall".
Bassist Roger Waters wrote "Part 2" as a protest against rigid schooling, particularly boarding schools. "Another Brick in the Wall" appears in the Wall film. In the "Part 2" sequence, children enter a school and march in unison through a meat grinder, becoming "putty-faced" clones, before rioting and burning down the school
At the suggestion of producer Bob Ezrin, Pink Floyd added elements of disco, which was popular at the time. According to guitarist David Gilmour:

[Ezrin] said to me, "Go to a couple of clubs and listen to what's happening with disco music," so I forced myself out and listened to loud, four-to-the-bar bass drums and stuff and thought, Gawd, awful! Then we went back and tried to turn one of the parts into one of those so it would be catchy.

Gilmour recorded his guitar solo using a 1955 Gibson Les Paul Gold Top guitar with P-90 pick-ups. Despite his reservations about Ezrin's additions, Gilmour felt the final song still sounded like Pink Floyd. When Ezrin heard the song with a disco beat, he was convinced it could become a hit, but felt it needed to be longer, with two verses and two choruses. The band resisted, saying they did not release singles; Waters told him: "Go ahead and waste your time doing silly stuff."
While the band members were away, Ezrin edited the takes into an extended version, and had engineer Nick Griffiths record children singing the verse at Islington Green School, close to Pink Floyd's studio. Alun Renshaw, head of music at the school, was enthusiastic, and said later: "I wanted to make music relevant to the kids – not just sitting around listening to Tchaikovsky. I thought the lyrics were great – 'We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control' ... I just thought it would be a wonderful experience for the kids."
Renshaw hid the lyrics from the headteacher, Margaret Maden, fearing she might stop the recording. Maden said: "I was only told about it after the event, which didn't please me. But on balance it was part of a very rich musical education." Renshaw and the children spent a week practising before he took them to a recording studio near the school. According to Ezrin, when he played the children's vocals to Waters, "there was a total softening of his face, and you just knew that he knew it was going to be an important record". Waters said: "It was great—exactly the thing I expected from a collaborator.
"Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" was released as a single, Pink Floyd's first in the UK since "Point Me at the Sky" (1968). It was Pink Floyd's only number-one hit in the United Kingdom, the United States, West Germany and several other countries. In Australia, it spent several weeks at number 2, where it was held from the number 1 spot by Split Enz's "I Got You" which was Australia's biggest hit of the year.[citation needed] It was also the final Christmas number one of the decade in the UK. In the US, it reached number 57 on the disco chart. The single sold over 4 million copies worldwide.
The song won Waters the 1983 British Academy Award for Best Original Song for its appearance in the Wall film. "Part 2" was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Performance by a Rock Duo or Group. It appears at number 384 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
The lyrics attracted controversy. The Inner London Education Authority described the song as "scandalous", and according to Renshaw, prime minister Margaret Thatcher "hated it". Renshaw said: "There was a political knee-jerk reaction to a song that had nothing to do with the education system. It was [Waters'] reflections on his life and how his schooling was part of that." The single, as well as the album The Wall, were banned in South Africa in 1980 after it was adopted by supporters of a nationwide school boycott protesting racial inequities in education under apartheid.
In exchange for performing vocals, the children of Islington School received tickets to a Pink Floyd concert, an album, and a single. Though the school received a payment of £1,000, there was no contractual arrangement for royalties. Following a change to UK copyright law in 1996, they became eligible for royalties from broadcasts. After royalties agent Peter Rowan traced the choir members through the website Friends Reunited and other means, they successfully lodged a claim for royalties with the Performing Artists' Media Rights Association in 2004

Pink Floyd - "Another Brick in The Wall


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If Not for You is the debut studio album by British-Australian singer-songwriter Olivia Newton-John, released in November 1971 by Festival Records. The album was released on the Pye International label in the UK as Olivia Newton-John, with a slightly different cover. As a covers album, If Not for You features mostly songs previously recorded from contemporary artists of the 1960s and early 1970s. She made several performances to promote If Not for You and her follow-up album, Olivia, including an international tour with British singer Cliff Richard. It was her first album released by Festival Records, which would release all her albums in Australia until its dissolution in 2005. It also has Newton-John's first works with her long-time musical partner, John Farrar.
The album was originally released on cassette and LP. The American edition, released by Uni Records prior to its merger with the Decca and Kapp labels to form MCA Records, went out of print following the release of Newton-John's 1973 album, Let Me Be There, and became a rare collector's item. However, the original American edition of Let Me Be There features six tracks from If Not for You. The album was first released on CD in Japan in 1990 as part of the EMI PASTMASTERS series (Cat.# CP21-6074). The album was simply called Olivia Newton-John, which was the full title of the original vinyl / cassette release in England in 1971. (It was initially released as Olivia Newton-John in England, and If Not for You in foreign territories, including the US and Australia.) This EMI 1990 CD release did not feature any of the original album artwork. Instead, the front cover photo is a "live" picture of Olivia from a 1977 appearance in Japan. The packaging included a Japanese-language obi, and a folded white paper insert, containing all the song lyrics in English on one side, and in Japanese on the other. In Australia, Festival Records re-released the album on CD in 1993 and also in a digitally remastered edition along with other albums of Newton-John's discography in 1998. In this latter case, at least the first run of the remastered CD release (Festival Cat.# D34320 / D19809) was seriously botched. The first track on the album, "Me and Bobby McGee", was missing entirely from the CD; thus the CD started with the Bread cover, "If", and contained only 11 of the 12 songs. Further, three of the latter songs on this release were mis-sequenced. However, the CD labeling lists all 12 original songs in their original sequence. However, the overall sonic quality of the 1998 remastered edition was praised.

Olivia Newton-John - If Not For You



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Olivia Newton-John spotted out and about with her daughter
By Leah Bitsky
June 26, 2019

Olivia Newton-John and her daughter Chloe Rose Lattanzi4CRNS, WCP / BACKGRID


Several months after revealing her third battle with cancer, Olivia Newton-John was spotted out and about in Los Angeles on Tuesday.
The “Grease” star — looking casual and comfortable in sneakers, a quarter-zip and a fanny pack — appeared to be in good spirits as she went grocery shopping with her 33-year-old daughter, Chloe Lattanzi.
Newton-John, 70, confirmed in September 2018 that she was fighting cancer in her back that stemmed from a tumor at the base of her spine.
In March, she denied reports that she was close to dying, saying: “My friends were calling and believing this stuff. I had to say, ‘You really think if it was that bad you wouldn’t know?’”
While her health struggles have been a challenge, the actress has remained optimistic.
“Of course I had my moments, and my tears and all that, but I have a wonderful husband [John Easterling] who supports me through those things,” she told People at the time.
The actress previously said she was treating her cancer with a combination of natural treatments, like cutting sugar from her die,t and using medical cannabis tinctures legally grown by her husband.
She was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992, and in 2013 doctors discovered she had cancer in her shoulder. Then, in May 2017 she opened up about battling breast cancer that metastasized to her sacrum.

https://pagesix.com/2019/06/26/olivia-newton-john-spotted-out-and-about-with-her-daughter/

 

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Olivia Newton-John - Physical 2017
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"Don't Cry" is a power ballad by the American hard rock band Guns N' Roses, two versions of which were released simultaneously on different albums. The version with the original lyrics is the fourth track on Use Your Illusion I, while the version with the alternate lyrics is the 13th track on Use Your Illusion II. Only the vocal tracks differ, and even then only in the verses; however, in those verses, not only are the words entirely different, but the meter and melody are also slightly different. There is also a third version, officially released only on the single for the song, which was recorded during Appetite for Destruction sessions in 1986.
The song reached the top 10 in many countries, including peaking at number eight on the UK Singles Chart and number 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100. In Ireland "Don't Cry" became Guns N' Roses' second number-one single, and in Finland it became the second number-one hit from the Use Your Illusion albums. Additionally, the song reached number two in New Zealand and Norway and peaked within the top five in Australia, Denmark and Switzerland.
Stradlin and Rose wrote the song (with the working title "Don't You Cry Tonight") in March 1985, shortly after Guns N' Roses was formed in Los Angeles. In the Special Collector’s Edition of Rolling Stone dedicated to the band, Kory Grow quotes Rose:

It was [about] a girl that Izzy had gone out with, and I was really attracted to her, and they split up. I was sitting outside the Roxy, and I was really in love with this person and she was realising this wasn’t gonna work – she wanted to do other things, and she was telling me goodbye and I sat down and just started crying, and she was telling me, ‘Don’t cry.’ The next night, we got together and wrote the song in five minutes.

After a low guitar drone, the song evolves into a hard rock lullaby that turns into a hard-hearted kiss-off, ending with an edgy, sustained vocal drone that is more scary than reassuring.In his book Over the Top: The True Story of Guns N' Roses, Mark Putterford notes the song's contrast with much of the other material on the Illusion albums, citing Rose's "deeply ingrained whore/madonna dichotomy" and his "dew-eyed romantic cooing with tenderness." "Don't Cry" features Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon as a co-lead vocalist. Hoon sings an octave higher than Rose, and his voice is placed further back in the mix. In his autobiography, Slash states that Hoon's harmony vocal "made that song all the more soulful." Along with "Estranged" and "November Rain," it forms a narrative inspired in part by the short story "Without You" by Del James. The song peaked at #10 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the band's fifth Top 10 hit there.
The official music video for the song was directed by Andy Morahan and Mark Racco. John Linson was the producer of the video.
Rose commented on the difficulty of filming the video and how certain scenes inspired by his relationship with Erin Everly affected him emotionally:

With our video for "Don't Cry," and the fight that Stephanie Seymour, (Axl's then-current girlfriend) and I had over the gun, you don't necessarily know what's going on. But in real life that happened with Erin Everly (Axl's ex-wife) and myself. I was going to shoot myself. We fought over the gun and I finally let her win. I was kind of mentally crippled after that. Before shooting our documentary, I said, "This seems really hard, 'cause it really happened." And the night we wrote the scene, my friend Josh said, "Okay, how are you going to play that?" He wanted to rehearse and I was like, "Look, leave me alone." But he kept pushing until, finally, I stood up. I had this cigarette lighter that looked like a real gun and I said, "Look, I'm gonna do it like this." And I just went over and slammed around in the hallway a bit and threw the gun and said, "Is that good enough for you?"

Izzy Stradlin had left the band by the time the band came to film the video and therefore does not appear in the video for the song he co-wrote. A fan can be seen holding up a sign saying 'Where's Izzy' in the video. Stradlin later deemed the multi-million dollar video "a pointless indulgence."
The official music video for the song was directed by Andy Morahan and Mark Racco. John Linson was the producer of the video.
Rose commented on the difficulty of filming the video and how certain scenes inspired by his relationship with Erin Everly affected him emotionally:
"Don't Cry" was performed quite frequently during the early tours and the Use Your Illusion Tour. It was absent from the early legs (i.e. 2001–02) of the Chinese Democracy Tour but reappeared to an extent in 2006, as guitarist Bumblefoot began using an instrumental version of the song as a guitar solo spot. In 2007, during the Bumblefoot solo spot, Axl came on stage to sing along to the solo on two occasions, marking the first times since 1993 that Axl had sung it live.
"Don't Cry" made another return during the 2009/2010 World Tour, with Axl singing along with the solo spot on each occasion that it has been played.
A recording of the song from the Tokyo Dome was released on the album Live Era '87–'93 and a VHS/DVD.

Guns N' Roses - Don't Cry
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"Sweet Child o' Mine" is a song by American rock band Guns N' Roses. It appeared on their debut album Appetite for Destruction. The song was released in August 1988 as the album's third single, and topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming the band's only number 1 US single. Billboard ranked it the number 5 song of 1988. Re-released in 1989, it reached number 6 on the UK Singles Chart.
The "Sweet Child o' Mine" video depicts the band rehearsing in the Mendiola's Ballroom at Huntington Park, surrounded by crew members. All of the band members' girlfriends at the time were shown in the clip: Rose's girlfriend Erin Everly, whose father is Don Everly of The Everly Brothers; McKagan's girlfriend Mandy Brix, from the all-female rock band the Lame Flames; Stradlin's girlfriend Angela Nicoletti; Adler's girlfriend Cheryl Swiderski; and Slash's girlfriend Sally McLaughlin. Stradlin's dog was also featured. The video was successful on MTV, and helped launch the song to success on mainstream radio.
To make "Sweet Child o' Mine" more marketable to MTV and radio stations, the song was edited down from 5:56 to 4:13, for the radio edit/remix, with much of Slash's guitar solo removed. This drew the ire of the band, including Rose, who commented on it in a 1989 interview with Rolling Stone: "I hate the edit of 'Sweet Child O' Mine.' Radio stations said, 'Well, your vocals aren't cut.' My favorite part of the song is Slash's slow solo; it's the heaviest part for me. There's no reason for it to be missing except to create more space for commercials, so the radio-station owners can get more advertising dollars. When you get the chopped version of 'Paradise City' or half of 'Sweet Child' and 'Patience' cut, you're getting screwed."
A 7-inch vinyl format and cassette single were released. The album version of the song was included on the US single release, while the UK single was the "edit/remix" version. The 12" vinyl format also contained the longer LP version. The b-side to the single is a non-album, live version of "It's So Easy".
On an interview on Eddie Trunk's New York radio show in May 2006, Rose stated that his original concept for the video focused on the theme of drug trafficking. According to Rose, the video was to depict an Asian woman carrying a baby into a foreign land, only to discover at the end that the child was dead and filled with heroin. This concept was rejected by Geffen Records.
There is also an alternative video for "Sweet Child o' Mine" in the same place, but with different shots and filmed in black and white. As of October 2019, the song's music video has over 1.0 billion views on YouTube.

Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine
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As many Guns N’ Roses fans know, Erin Everly was the girl featured in the “Sweet Child O’ Mine” music video. Erin Everly was also Axl Rose’s girlfriend and first wife, although they were only married for a short length of time.
Erin Everly was born in Los Angeles, California in 1965, making her three years younger than her former partner, Axl Rose. Her father was Don Everly, a member of the famous rock and roll duo The Everly Brothers.
Whilst her mother, Venetia Stevenson, was a British actress who later became a clothing designer. Erin’s parents divorced in the 1970s mainly as a result of Don Everly’s battle with drug addiction.
Fast forward to 1986 in sunny Los Angeles, Erin Everly met Axl Rose for the first time at a party aged just 19. After seeing each other for a while, she eventually moved to Los Angeles from New York to continue their relationship.

Erin Everly and Axl Rose.


Marc Canter, a long-time friend of Slash who grew up together recollects Axl and Erin’s relationship.
“I remember when she first came around. She had a good job, was doing a little modeling and always had a little bit of money on her and took good care of Axl. Erin didn’t seem the type that would hang around with GNR. She looked like you know a step above you know like she didn’t look like a stripper.”
When the interviewer asked him what she thinks about this song, “Sweet Child O’ Mine.”
“I know she’s proud of the song I mean even to this day, I’m sure she’s proud of it. That song will always be attached to her and she’s in the video! She was in love with Axl and Axl was in love with her and they were a good couple. I’m sure every now and then they had fights or whatever and you know things like that happen in every relationship maybe and there’s was a little bit heavier, but when they weren’t fighting, they were a great couple.”
Erin Everly also featured in another Guns N’ Roses music video for the 1987 song “It’s So Easy.” Erin played a slightly raunchier role (to say the least) compared to her previous music video. The footage comprised mostly of S&M stuff between Axl and Erin but was unreleased at the time.
Former GNR manager Alan Niven talks about the music video, which was recently released.
“Axl wanted to put in some S&M stuff that he shot with [ex-wife] Erin Everly, unbeknownst to me at the time; he quietly arranged this with Nigel Dick. When I went to look at the footage and sit with Nigel and start to get a basic edit on it, there was a lot of hanging Erin off the door, putting a ball gag in her, beating her and stuff.”

A Whirlwind Marriage
Four years after they had initially started dating, the couple finally got married on April 28, 1990. The couple exchanged vows during a wedding ceremony held at Cupid’s Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. Allegedly, Axl wanted an annulment only 48 hours after the marriage!
Four months after the marriage, Erin Everly lost her baby due to a miscarriage, largely contributing to the breakdown of their relationship.
Around the same time as the miscarriage, the famous bottle incident happened with Axel’s neighbor. Which eventually led to part of the inspiration behind the song, “Right Next Door To Hell.”
Their marriage eventually ended 10 months after the Las Vegas wedding. When talking about their relationship, Axl Rose stated, “Erin and I treated each other like crap… Sometimes we treated each other great, because the children in us were best friends. But then there were other times when we just messed up each other’s lives completely.”
Their abusive and wild relationship was not unknown to friends and those around the band. According to Rolling Stone, the band Great White used a recording of Erin Everly defending herself from punches thrown by Axl Rose on their 1992 Psycho City album.
In 1994, People Magazine published an article about Axl’s abusive relationships with ex-wife and previous girlfriend Stephanie Seymour. The latter with which he was involved in a lawsuit at the time, where they both ended up successfully suing each other. That’s Hollywood for you!
In March of 1994, Erin Everly initiated her own lawsuit against Axl Rose. She claimed that he had subjected her to physical and emotional abuse. Along with claiming that he had frequent bouts of unpredictable rage. Axl claimed otherwise and the lawsuit was eventually settled outside of court.
After the release of the Chinese Democracy album, Axl talked about the song “Oklahoma,” which was inspired by the court case with his former wife and the Oklahoma City bombing.

Where Is Erin Everly Now?
After her divorce with Axl Rose, Erin Everly ended up dating some well-known celebrities including David Arquette, Anthony Kiedis from the rock band the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Donovan Jerome Leitch who is the son of the singer-songwriter Donovan, Matthew Nelson, and Matthew Klyn.
In 1997, she ended up marrying Jack Portman, whom she has three children within his hometown of Atlanta. In 2006, the couple ended up divorcing and in 2010, Erin Everly was arrested for domestic violence. She was arrested for attacking Matthew Klyn with a knife.
In 2011, Guns N’ Roses played a show in Atlanta, Georgia. A lot of fans noticed that Erin Everly attended the show. People speculated that the reason Guns N’ Roses never played a show in Atlanta in 2002 or 2006 was that Axl knew Erin Everly lived there and was worried that she would show up.

From the Collection of Erin Everly
Rather bizarrely, in 2013 Rolling Stone reported that Axl Rose’s ex-wife was selling love letters and their wedding video from 1990. The auction included candid photos of Axl Rose, some of which were from his childhood, letters from Rose that he wrote to her, handwritten song lyrics, clothing he wore in music videos and even their marriage certificate.

All in all, Erin Everly has so far lived a rather wild existence. It seems wherever she goes, a tornado of trouble follows close behind.

https://www.rocksoffmag.com/erin-everly-axl-rose/

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W. Axl Rose (born William Bruce Rose Jr.; raised as William Bruce Bailey; born February 6, 1962) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer and activist. He is the lead vocalist of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, and has also been the band's sole constant member since its inception in 1985. In addition to Guns N' Roses, he also toured with Australian rock band AC/DC in 2016 during the final two legs of their Rock or Bust World Tour when Brian Johnson took a break due to hearing problems.
Rose has been named one of the greatest singers of all time by various media outlets, including Rolling Stone and NME.
Born and raised in Lafayette, Indiana, Rose moved in the early 1980s to Los Angeles, where he became active in the local hard rock scene and joined several bands, including Hollywood Rose and L.A. Guns. In 1985, he co-founded Guns N' Roses, with whom he had great success and recognition in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Their first album, Appetite for Destruction (1987), has sold in excess of 30 million copies worldwide, and is the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. with 18 million units sold.[9] Its full-length follow-ups, the twin albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II (1991), were also widely successful; they respectively debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and have sold a combined 35 million copies worldwide.
After 1994, following the conclusion of their two-and-a-half-year Use Your Illusion Tour, Rose disappeared from public life for several years, while the band disintegrated due to personal and musical differences. As its sole remaining original member, he was able to continue working under the Guns N' Roses banner because he had legally obtained the band name. In 2001, he resurfaced with a new line-up of Guns N' Roses at Rock in Rio 3, and subsequently played periodic concert tours to promote the long-delayed Chinese Democracy (2008), which undersold the music industry's commercial expectations despite positive reviews upon its release. In 2012, Rose was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Guns N' Roses, though he declined to attend the event and requested exclusion from the Hall. In 2016, the same year as he toured with AC/DC, Rose partially reunited the "classic" lineup of Guns N' Roses and has since toured the world as part of the Not in This Lifetime... Tour.

During Rose's late teens, a psychiatrist concluded that his delinquent behavior was evidence of psychosis. In addition, he made note of his high IQ. In a subsequent interview, Rose questioned the diagnosis altogether, stating,

I went to a clinic, thinking it would help my moods. The only thing I did was take one 500-question test—ya know, filling in the little black dots. All of a sudden I'm diagnosed manic-depressive. 'Let's put Axl on medication.' Well, the medication doesn't help me deal with stress. The only thing it does is help keep people off my back because they figure I'm on medication.

In contrast to his public image, Rose was not a heavy drug user, though he did not disavow the use of illicit substances entirely. Rose intentionally overdosed on painkillers in 1986 due to stress, stating "I couldn't take it. And I just grabbed the bottle of pills in an argument and just gulped them down and I ended up in the hospital." Rose's experience at the hospital inspired the lyrics to the Guns N' Roses song "Coma".
In the early 1990s, Rose became a staunch believer in homeopathic medicine, and began regularly undergoing past life regression therapy. He went public with his "uncovered memories" of being sexually abused by his biological father at the age of two, which he said had stunted his emotional growth: "When they talk about Axl Rose being a screaming two-year-old, they're right." His dislike of touring was caused in part by the various illnesses he contracted over time. He expressed his belief that these health problems were caused by him unconsciously lowering his own resistance as a form of "self-punishment". During the recordings of Chinese Democracy, Rose had a personal psychic who would look at photographs of potential employees to "read the auras" and decide if they should be hired.
In early 1986, Rose began a relationship with model Erin Everly, the daughter of singer Don Everly of the Everly Brothers. He wrote the song "Sweet Child o' Mine" for her, and Everly appeared in the accompanying music video. Rose and Everly were married on April 28, 1990 in Las Vegas. Less than a month later, Rose first filed for divorce. The couple later reconciled, during which Everly became pregnant. She suffered a miscarriage in October 1990, which deeply affected Rose, who had wanted to start a family. Everly left Rose the following November after an altercation; they annulled their marriage in January 1991. In 1994, Everly filed a suit accusing Rose of physical and emotional abuse throughout their relationship. The lawsuit was settled out of court.
In mid-1991, Rose became involved in a tumultuous high-profile relationship with supermodel Stephanie Seymour. During their relationship, Seymour appeared in the music videos for "Don't Cry" and "November Rain". Rose became deeply attached to Seymour's young son, Dylan, and tried to be a good father figure for the child, as there had been none in his own life. Seymour and Rose became engaged in February 1993, but separated three weeks later.
On April 28, 2015, Rose sent a letter to Indonesian President Joko Widodo asking Widodo to remove the option of the death penalty in the case of the Bali Nine on grounds of humanitarianism. Rose then criticized Widodo for "ignoring the international outcry" after the executions took place.
Rose has used Twitter to criticize various figures in the Trump administration, as well as other figures such as Apple CEO Tim Cook. On May 7, 2020, he used Twitter to criticize Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for the Trump administration's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, to which Mnuchin responded.

https://twitter.com/axlrose

Rose (left) and Slash (right) performing with Guns N' Roses in 2018

 

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"You're Only Lonely" is a 1979 single by J. D. Souther from his album of the same name. The single peaked at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100, Souther's only top ten pop hit, and spent five weeks at number one on the Adult Contemporary chart.
Souther hired Danny Kortchmar to play guitar, David Sanborn saxophone, and to help out with the harmony, Phil Everly, Jackson Browne, and three members of the Eagles.

J. D. Souther - You're Only Lonely
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"Take My Breath Away" is a song written by Giorgio Moroder and Tom Whitlock for the 1986 film Top Gun, performed by American new wave band Berlin. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song in 1986.
Once Giorgio Moroder wrote the musical backing to what would become "Take My Breath Away", lyricist Tom Whitlock wrote the lyrics while driving home from the studio, and then spent a few hours at home polishing them. A demo of the song, sung by a background singer, impressed director Tony Scott and producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, who decided to film more romantic scenes between Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis to feature the song.
The song was first offered to The Motels, who much later released their original demo, which is fairly similar to Berlin's released version, on their compilation album Anthologyland (2001). Columbia Records suggested some of their signed artists, but eventually Moroder thought of the band Berlin, whose song "No More Words" he had produced. Whitlock made a few changes to the lyrics before Terri Nunn recorded the vocals. Moroder has said that of all the songs he has produced in his career, he is most proud of this song.

Take my breath away (demo) the motels
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"Take My Breath Away" was the second single from the Top Gun soundtrack album, following Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone", and was released in 1986 as a split single alongside the song "Radar Radio", performed by Moroder featuring Joe Pizzulo.
The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and also topped the charts in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Ireland and Belgium.
"Take My Breath Away" is available on both the original Top Gun soundtrack album and the expanded edition. The song was also featured on Berlin's fourth studio album, Count Three & Pray, and on several of the band's compilation albums: Best of Berlin 1979–1988, Master Series, Greatest Hits Remixed (which includes a "Mission UK Remix" version), Live: Sacred & Profane, and Metro Greatest Hits. "Take My Breath Away" was one of the only songs not written by Berlin's John Crawford that they had performed on any album up to that point.
"Take My Breath Away" was re-released in the United Kingdom in October 1990 to coincide with the first television showing of Top Gun (by ITV, on the evening of October 6, 1990), as well as Peugeot's new television advertising campaign for the 405 model range. The re-release reached number three on the UK Singles Chart.
In 2017, ShortList's Dave Fawbert listed the song as containing "one of the greatest key changes in music history"
The music video features scenes from the film Top Gun intermingled with Berlin's singer Terri Nunn performing the song in blue coveralls, walking between parts of planes in a windy aircraft boneyard (part of the Mojave Air & Space Port) at night. Bandmates John Crawford and Rob Brill are shown relaxing in the yard and then following Nunn. The video can be seen occasionally on VH1 Europe's Top 10 Movie Soundtracks program. It was later included on the 2004 Top Gun collector's edition DVD.

Berlin - Take My Breathe Away

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"Only the Lonely" is a song by American new wave band The Motels. It was released in 1982 as the first single from their third studio album All Four One. Propelled by a popular music video, it debuted at number 90 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 on April 24, 1982. It would ultimately climb to number 9 on July 17 of that year where it spent four weeks in that position. On the U.S. Cash Box Top 100, it performed slightly better, peaking at number 8 for two weeks. The song is included in the 2006 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories in the fictional power ballad radio station Emotion 98.3.
The Motels initially recorded darker pieces for their anticipated third studio album. However, with the exception of a reworked "Only the Lonely", the rest of the songs were shelved. The unreleased songs would eventually be featured on the 2011 album Apocalpyso.
Lead singer Martha Davis wrote "Only the Lonely" on a guitar that was given to her by her late father—an administrator at the University of California, Berkeley, who found the instrument in Stiles Hall on the campus. She explained the song's inspiration in an interview with Beyond Race magazine:

"...It's a song about empty success. It came about while the Motels were experiencing critical acclaim, traveling the world, riding in limos, and yet I was probably as sad as I had ever been. I was in a horrible relationship and had not yet recovered from my parents' death (I doubt one ever does). The contradiction of these two worlds was where 'Only the Lonely' lived... bittersweet."

In a 2019 interview, she contrasted the song's development process with her later hit "Suddenly Last Summer":

"'Those two songs couldn't be more opposite," she said. "With ‘Only the Lonely’ I picked up my guitar and (the tune) was sitting there (as if it wrote itself). I played ‘Only the Lonely’ bada-boom, bada-boom.'"
The music video for "Only the Lonely" was directed by Australian filmmaker Russell Mulcahy. Martha Davis stars in the vintage-style video as a socialite who is frequenting the bar at a posh hotel. Eventually, a once solitary Davis becomes overwhelmed by the jubilation of an increasingly unstable crowd. The video earned the award "Best Performance in a Music Video" at the American Music Awards.

The Motels - Only The Lonely


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[postnew]

"The Captain of Her Heart" is a song by the Swiss duo Double from their debut studio album, Blue (1985). The song is a ballad about a girl who stops waiting for her absent lover to return. The single was an international success, reaching No. 8 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100, thus making Double the first Swiss act to reach the top 40 on the latter chart.
In a retrospective review of the song, AllMusic journalist Stewart Mason suggested that the song is "one of the great lost one-hit wonders of the mid-1980s." Mason wrote: "The Swiss duo never managed to capitalize on this song's casual sophistication and melodic grace, but it remains a glorious anomaly." The prominent saxophone on the song was played by Christian Ostermeier.
There were two different music videos produced for the song. The original Swiss version features the band performing the song in a darkened room. The US version of the video incorporates more of a storyline, with alternating location shots featuring the band members and various female models. Although 15-year-old Denise Richards appears to be featured early in the video, she stated on the April 10, 2019 broadcast of The Morning Show that she did not appear in the video . The Richards lookalike was model Mickey Monroe. A TV program incorporating elements from the US video made the band appear as having 4 members, with Felix Haug either playing drums or piano depending on the shot, and Kurt Maloo either playing guitar and singing or playing saxophone. Most shots of playing musicians just showed 2 of them at the same time, but a few were composite and showed all 4. The original Swiss video uses a similar idea, but also sometimes makes two incarnations of the same artist appear together and does not attempt at realism. The album cover also represents each artist twice
The song has been covered by Randy Crawford, Laurent Voulzy, Koto, Roland Kaiser, Ronnie Jones and Beauty & Deep. Contemporary jazz pianist Duncan Millar offered his take on his 2001 album Good to Go.

Double - The Captain Of Her Heart


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[postnew]

"Don't You Want Me" is a single by British synthpop group the Human League, released on 27 November 1981 as the fourth single from their third studio album Dare (1981). The band's best known and most commercially successful song, it was the 1981 Christmas number one in the UK, where it has since sold over 1,560,000 copies, making it the 23rd-most successful single in UK Singles Chart history. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 in the US on 3 July 1982, where it stayed for three weeks.
In November 1983, Rolling Stone named it the "breakthrough song" of the Second British Invasion of the US. In 2015, the song was voted by the British public as the nation's seventh-favourite 1980s number one in a poll for ITV.
The lyrics were inspired after lead singer Philip Oakey read a photo-story in a teen-girl's magazine. Though the song had been conceived and recorded in the studio as a male solo, Oakey was inspired by the film A Star Is Born and decided to turn the song into a conflicting duet with one of the band's two teenage female vocalists. Susan Ann Sulley was then asked to take on the role. Until then, she and the other female vocalist, Joanne Catherall, had only been assigned backing vocals; Sulley says she was chosen only through "luck of the draw". Musicians Jo Callis and Philip Adrian Wright created a synthesizer score to accompany the lyrics that was much harsher than the version that was actually released. Initial versions of the song were recorded but Virgin Records-appointed producer Martin Rushent was unhappy with them. He and Callis remixed the track, giving it a softer, and in Oakey's opinion, "poppy" sound. Oakey hated the new version and thought it would be the weakest track on Dare, resulting in one of his infamous rows with Rushent. Oakey disliked it so much that it was relegated to the last track on side two of the album.
Before the release of Dare, three of its tracks—"The Sound of the Crowd", "Love Action (I Believe in Love)", and "Open Your Heart"—had already been released as successful singles. With a hit album and three hit singles in a row, Virgin's chief executive Simon Draper decided to release one more single from the album before the end of 1981. His choice, "Don't You Want Me", instantly caused a row with Oakey, who did not want another single to be released because he was convinced that "the public were now sick of hearing The Human League" and the choice of the "poor quality filler track" would almost certainly be a disaster, wrecking the group's new-found popularity. The band felt the track was "our sort of Des O'Connor song." Virgin were adamant that a fourth single would be released and Oakey finally agreed on the condition that a large colour poster accompany the 7" single, because he felt fans would "feel ripped off" by the 'substandard' single alone.
The Human League often added cryptic references to their productions and the record sleeve of "Don't You Want Me" featured the suffix of "100". This was a reference to The 100 Club, a restaurant/bar in Sheffield.
Today, the song is widely considered a classic of its era. In a retrospective review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine, senior editor for AllMusic, described the song as "a devastating chronicle of a frayed romance wrapped in the greatest pop hooks and production of its year." Oakey still describes it as overrated, but acknowledges his initial dismissal was misguided and claims pride in the track. Oakey is also at pains to point out another misconception: that it is not a love song, but "a nasty song about sexual power politics."
"Don't You Want Me" was released in the UK on 27 November 1981. The B-side was "Seconds", another track lifted straight from the Dare album. As with previous singles, a 12" version was also issued featuring the original version of "Don't You Want Me" and "Seconds" on the A-side and an "extended dance mix" lasting seven and a half minutes on the B-side. This mix is also featured on the Love and Dancing album that was released under the name of the League Unlimited Orchestra in 1982.
To the amazement of the band (and especially Oakey), the song entered the UK Singles Chart at #9 and shot to #1 the following week, remaining there over the Christmas period for a total of five weeks. It ultimately became the biggest-selling single to be released in 1981, and the fifth biggest-selling single of the entire decade. Its success was repeated six months later in the US, with "Don't You Want Me" hitting #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks. Billboard magazine ranked it as the sixth-biggest hit of 1982. The single was certified Gold by the RIAA the same year for sales of a million copies. "Don't You Want Me" is notable as the first song featuring the revolutionary Linn LM-1 drum machine to hit #1 on the UK charts and also the first LM-1 track to top the Billboard Hot 100.
The song was re-released in October 1995 as a CD, cassette and 12" single featuring new remixes by Snap! and Red Jerry, peaking at #16 on the UK chart. The release coincided with the issue of the group's second "Greatest Hits" compilation album shortly afterwards, which featured the Snap 7" remix.
As of November 2012, "Don't You Want Me" is the 23rd best-selling single in the UK, with 1.55 million copies sold. On 23 March 2014, the song re-entered the UK Singles Chart at #19 and debuted at #1 in the Scottish singles charts thanks to a social media campaign by fans of Aberdeen Football Club.
In 1981, record company Virgin were becoming aware that the promotional music video was evolving into an important marketing tool, with MTV being launched that year. Because it was agreed[by whom?] that the video for "Open Your Heart" had looked "cheap and nasty", Virgin commissioned a much more elaborate and expensive promotional video for "Don't You Want Me".
The video for the song was filmed near Slough, Berkshire, during November 1981 and has the theme of the filming and editing of a murder-mystery film, featuring the band members as characters and production staff. Because it is a "making-of" video, both crew and camera apparatus appear throughout. The video was conceived and directed by filmmaker Steve Barron, and has at its core the interaction between a successful actress (also a second negative cutter) played by Susan Ann Sulley walking out on "film director" Philip Oakey on a film set. It is loosely based on the film A Star Is Born. Near the end of the video, Wright, who also plays a film editor, has an expression on his face while the camera pulls back to reveal that the negative room where Oakey, Wright and Sulley were working is yet another set (the camera can be seen in the mirror's reflection).
Filmed on a cold, wet winter night, the video was shot on 35mm film instead of the cheaper videotape prevalent at the time. Sulley claims that Barron was heavily influenced by the cinematography in Ultravox's video for "Vienna" (directed by Russell Mulcahy earlier that year). Barron was also influenced by François Truffaut and his film Day for Night, and, because of that, the clapperboard seen in the video bears the inscription "Le League Humaine" as a tribute to Truffaut.
The video is credited[by whom?] for making Oakey, Sulley and Catherall visual icons of the early 1980s, but it became controversial later for a scene involving the murder-mystery film subplot in which Jo Callis appears to shoot Catherall (and later in the video repeated with Oakey shooting Sulley) with a pistol from a car window (a Saab 99 turbo). The scene is cut out of the DVD version and usually when shown on music television, replaced with a montage of other shots from the video edited in slow motion. The other car used in the video is a gold W-reg (1981–82) Rover SD1. In a 1995 interview, Catherall mentioned that the car Callis was driving had to be pushed into shot as he could not drive at the time, to which Sulley added "he still can't!"
The video was released in December 1981.

Don't You Want Me - The Human League


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Human League’s Phil Oakey admits by rights he should be driving a taxi cab not fronting a pop band
The Human League are shocked they’ve become musicians and that people still want to see them perform 40 years on

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

Phil Oakey of pioneering electronic band The Human League is still waiting for the day the phone stops ringing.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the League forming, although their career endurance is due to 1981’s classic album Dare, home to Don’t You Want Me, Love Action and The Sound Of the Crowd.
“I can’t believe all the times we have managed to keep the band going,” Oakey admits.
“We don’t deserve it. I know I should be driving a taxi somewhere.”
Those Dare hits, and further singles Human, Tell Me When, Fascination, Mirror Man, Louise, Life On Your Own, Heart Like a Wheel and The Lebanon, continue to keep The Human League on radio stations and concert stages globally.

Joanne Catherall, Susan Ann Sulley and Phil Oakey are The Human League. Pic: suppliedSource:Supplied


Robbie Williams has covered Louise, George Michael sampled Love Action on Shoot the Dog and Don’t You Want Me remains a retro compilation — and karaoke — staple.
“Our manager says we’re very lucky to have what he calls ‘a good catalogue’,” Oakey says.
“That’s almost the difference between a band that can last and one that doesn’t. It just happens that your recordings are ones that may not be great but they touched people. Music changed in the 1980s and we were right at the corner of the change. Our songs are songs people fell in love to or got married to or divorced to and that’s managed to keep it going.”
Oakey’s 1984 collaboration with Giorgio Moroder, Together In Electric Dreams, has become an honorary Human League song — upgraded to uplifting encore at their concerts.




“A lot of people don’t realise it’s not a Human League song. It’s one of the songs that gets on adverts, it’s on the radio all the time still. But Don’t You Want Me is the one that makes the most money. I’m funny about that one being used on ads, but I wrote it with two other people so I don’t like to prevent them earning money from it. Things have to be pretty naff before
I say no.”
Oakey admits he rushed the simple chorus of Don’t You Want Me out of necessity.
“The producer locked me in a room and wouldn’t let me out until I’d written the chorus. I’m surprised how repetitive it is if you analyse it. But it worked.”
Two years ago, the band released a boxset (A Very British Synthesizer Group) spanning their entire career, meaning earlier, more experimental singles Being Boiled and Empire State Human have come back into the live set. However, it is never at the expense of playing their big hits.
“We are very happy people like us. Being big David Bowie fans, we lived through the Tin Machine era where he wouldn’t play his biggest hits. That is a mistake — you have to give the people what they want. Although I have to say I think the Tin Machine albums are underrated, I love them ...”
In 1986, the Human League decamped to Minneapolis to work with Jam & Lewis on the
R&B-driven album Crash. It was there he met Prince.
“Prince was the most talented guy of his generation. We used to bump into him in Minneapolis. Prince hugged me twice. Twice! The guy had so much talent, so much insight.
“I love Human. I’m very proud of that song; one of the joys of my life is I sang a record that
got to No. 1 (in the US) without writing it. I always thought
I was only an adequate singer, I only got by on singing — that proves I can’t have been really terrible.”

The Human League during the Dare era, in May 1982. Pic: VirginSource:News Limited

Oakey turned 62 last month, but says he doesn’t take any notice of age or birthdays.
“I just breeze through in a strangely masculine way, considering the amount of makeup I used to wear. I’m more like a grumpy old man now. I just plod through life.”
Oakey was romantically involved with both band mates Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley — at different times — but now they’re all happy to be purely business partners.
“Between the three of us, we can cope with anything the business side throws at you.
The music side is easy, we just get the band to deal with that.
“Somehow we just became musicians. Which I can’t quite understand. We weren’t born to be musicians. We’re not natural musicians. We were lucky enough to make records people liked and that enabled us to slowly become professional.
We weren’t very professional for decades. Now we take the job very seriously.”
Oakey is a huge fan of mammals, and still calls being in a field with a cassowary as one of his highlights of previous Australian tours.
“I’ve still yet to see a platypus or echidna,” he says. “A koala attacked Joanne when I wasn’t there, which I would have liked to have seen.”

 

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"Maneater" is a song by the American duo Hall & Oates, featured on their eleventh studio album, H2O (1982). It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on December 18, 1982. It remained in the top spot for four weeks, more than any of the duo's five other number-one hits, including "Kiss on My List", which remained in the top spot for three weeks.

In an interview with American Songwriter in 2009, Daryl Hall recalled,

John had written a prototype of "Maneater"; he was banging it around with Edgar Winter. It was like a reggae song. I said, "Well, the chords are interesting, but I think we should change the groove." I changed it to that Motown kind of groove. So we did that, and I played it for Sara Allen and sang it for her…[Sings] "Oh here she comes / Watch out boy she’ll chew you up / Oh here she comes / She's a maneater… and a…" I forget what the last line was. She said, "drop that shit at the end and go, 'She's a maneater,' and stop! And I said, 'No, you’re crazy, that's messed up.'" Then I thought about it, and I realized she was right. And it made all the difference in the song.

Hall also opined, "We try and take chances. Our new single "Maneater" isn't something that sounds like anything else on the radio. The idea is to make things better."
John Oates has explained that while it is natural to assume the lyrics are about a woman, the song actually was originally written "about NYC in the ’80s. It's about greed, avarice, and spoiled riches. But we have it in the setting of a girl because it's more relatable. It's something that people can understand. That's what we do all of the time", after describing how they took a similar approach with the earlier song "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)"
The Hall & Oates music video opens with a woman (Aleksandra Duncan) walking down a red staircase, and the band playing in a dimly lit studio with shafts of light projecting down on them. The band members step in and out of the light for their lip sync. A young woman in a short party dress is shown in fade-in and fade-out shots, along with a black jaguar, hence the song line "The woman is wild, a she-cat tamed by the purr of a Jaguar." (in the lyrics' context, the Jaguar in question is the car manufacturer) The song's chorus is "oh, oh here she comes; watch out boy, she'll chew you up; oh, oh here she comes, she's a maneater."
In an interview in a 1983 issue of Juke Magazine, Oates was asked about whether conflicts arose. He replied that "we have our creative differences but we reconcile them". He said that if they both came up with a different way of doing something, they'd try it both ways and whatever sounded the better of the two they would use.
The duo never really liked to be referred to as "Hall & Oates." In an interview with Esquire, Oates said, "There isn't one album that says Hall and Oates. It's always Daryl Hall and John Oates, from the very beginning. People never note that. The idea of 'Hall and Oates,' this two-headed monster, this thing, is not anything we've ever wanted or liked.

Daryl Hall & John Oates - Maneater



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[postnew]

Alphaville - Forever Young

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Marian Gold (born Hartwig Schierbaum; 26 May 1954) is a German singer-songwriter who gained fame as the lead singer of the German synth-pop recording act Alphaville, but also has recorded as a solo artist .
Born in Herford, West Germany, Gold became part of the Berlin art collective the Nelson Community, where he formed the band Chinchilla Green in the late 1970s, which also included future Alphaville colleague Bernhard Lloyd.
In 1982, he joined Lloyd and Frank Mertens in the band Forever Young, which soon became Alphaville. He sang lead vocals on Alphaville's 1980s pop singles, including "Forever Young", "Big in Japan", "Sounds Like a Melody", "Dance with Me" and "Jerusalem." He is known for his soaring tenor multi-octave vocal range, His work is characterized by his English language lyrics, and this contributed to the Alphaville's considerable commercial success in the UK and US during the 1980s.
Since the early 1990s, Gold has taken Alphaville from a studio-based project to a successful live act and has established the band's website, Moonbase.
He is the only remaining founder member of the band, whose latest album Strange Attractor was released in 2017.
On May 25 and May 26, 2018 Marian Gold and Alphaville held a two day concert at the Whisky a Go Go club in Hollywood. The two concerts were also live streamed.
In the late 1980s, Gold lived in Münster with his then wife Manuela.
Gold has seven children by four different women.

1980s

Marian Gold in 2013​

 

[postnew]

"The Great Commandment" is the debut single from German synthpop band Camouflage, taken from their debut album Voices & Images. The single had originally been recorded three years prior and was re-recorded in 1987, giving Camouflage their only number one dance hit. "The Great Commandment" stayed at the top spot for three non-consecutive weeks. The single became popular on independent stations and crossed over to the mainstream American pop charts, peaking at number fifty-nine in 1988. In their native Germany, "The Great Commandment" went to number fourteen, and reached the top ten in over twenty countries.
The music video depicts the band members amongst a crowd of children, who appear to be protesting against a spokesperson of some kind. One of the children discovers a control panel underneath the stage, and proves that the spokesperson is in fact a robot controlled by the mechanism.
In 2001, Camouflage re-recorded their debut single "The Great Commandment" and released it that year as a comeback attempt at their label's suggestion. Vocals were also re-recorded. The single was produced by London trio "Toy" and drums were provided by Christian Eigner, former tourmate of Depeche Mode. It reached #85 on the charts.

Camouflage - The Great Commandment
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[postnew]

A Taste Of Honey - Sukiyaki


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[postnew]

A Taste of Honey was an American recording act, formed in 1971 by associates Janice–Marie Johnson and Perry Kibble. In 1978, they had one of the best known chart-toppers of the disco era, "Boogie Oogie Oogie". After their popularity waned during the 1980s, Johnson went on to record as a solo artist and released the album One Taste of Honey which produced numerous minor hits. In 2004, Hazel Payne and Janice–Marie Johnson reunited for the first time in over 20 years to perform on the PBS specials Get Down Tonight: The Disco Explosion and My Music: Funky Soul Superstars.
Formed in 1971, A Taste of Honey hailed from Los Angeles, California. The members of the band consisted of Janice–Marie Johnson (vocals, co-writer, bass), Carlita Dorhan (vocals, guitar), Perry Kibble (keyboards, co-producer, co-writer) and Donald Ray Johnson (drums). Longtime friends Kibble and Janice–Marie Johnson were the original members of the band. Each had left a band to join forces, and after employing several drummers, they settled on Donald Johnson (no relation to Janice–Marie). Gregory Walker also replaced the lead singer (unnamed), who had left the band just prior to the successful release of "Boogie Oogie Oogie". Carlita Dorhan left the group in early 1976, and Hazel Payne was added.
The group began to improve its sound over a period of six years prior to being discovered by Capitol Records. Hitting major cities outside of Los Angeles, they also began doing USO tours, with spots in Spain, Morocco, Taiwan, Thailand, Philippines, and Japan. Upon returning to Los Angeles, while playing in a nightclub, they were spotted by record producers, Fonce and Larry Mizell, who convinced Capitol Records' then vice-executive-producer, Larkin Arnold, to give them an audition. They signed a five-album contract, and billed themselves after Herb Alpert's song, A Taste of Honey. The first single, "Boogie Oogie Oogie", from their debut album A Taste of Honey, spent three weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1978, and sold two million copies. The group was awarded two platinum records for the single and album, and won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist at the 20th Grammys on February 15, 1979. Janice–Marie Johnson calls the single her "lifeline" and credits Capitol Records executive, Larkin Arnold, with ensuring they owned their own publishing. Their subsequent disco releases, such as "Do It Good" (#79 in 1979) from Another Taste, and "Rescue Me" (1980) failed to attract attention, and by 1980 the group had become a duo consisting of Johnson and Payne.
When recording their cover version of the Kyu Sakamoto song "Sukiyaki", from their third album, Twice As Sweet (1980), they resisted suggestions to turn it into a dance tune. As a ballad it brought them their second and final major hit of their careers in 1981, when it reached #1 on the Billboard R&B and Adult Contemporary charts and #3 on the Hot 100.
A Taste of Honey released its final album, Ladies of the Eighties in 1982. It featured their final Billboard Hot 100 single, "I'll Try Something New" (#41). This cover of the Smokey Robinson and the Miracles hit from 1962 also went to #9 on the R&B charts and #29 on the Adult Contemporary.
While preparing to record their fifth album in 1983, Payne left the group and Johnson went on to record as a solo artist to fulfill contractual obligations, releasing One Taste of Honey, which produced the single "Love Me Tonight", a minor hit on the R&B charts. Payne went on to become an international stage actress, appearing in a number of theatre plays around the world including Oh! What A Night.
Upon moving to Calgary, Alberta, Canada, in the early 1990s to play in local night clubs and to write music for a television production, Kibble married a local music teacher, Anne-Marie LaMonde, in 1993, and become stepfather to her three children, Natalie, Marci and Gregory Pilkington. Kibble died in February 1999 of heart failure, at the age of 49. Donald Ray Johnson continues to live and play blues in Calgary, where he also married a local. Johnson released several blues albums under his own name. The following year Janice–Marie Johnson released her second solo album, Hiatus of the Heart. In 2004 Payne and Janice–Marie Johnson reunited for the first time in over twenty years to perform on the PBS specials Get Down Tonight: The Disco Explosion and My Music: Funky Soul Superstars.
Janice–Marie Johnson, who is of Stockbridge-Munsee-Mohican heritage according to her website's biography, was inducted in the Native American Music Association Hall of Fame in 2008.
Guitarist Suzanne "Minnie" Thomas died on June 15, 2015, at the age of 60.

A Taste Of Honey - Boogie Oogie Oogie


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[postnew]

"Easy Lover" is a song performed by Philip Bailey, of Earth, Wind & Fire, and Phil Collins of Genesis and jointly written and composed by Bailey, Collins, and Nathan East. The song appeared on Bailey's solo album Chinese Wall. Collins has performed the song in his live concerts and it appears on both his 1990 album Serious Hits... Live! and his 1998 compilation album, ...Hits.
The song was a No. 1 hit in several countries worldwide, including Canada, the Netherlands, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. In the U.S., it reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 on 2 February 1985, kept out of the top spot by "I Want to Know What Love Is" by Foreigner. In the UK Singles Chart, it reached No. 1, staying there for four weeks.[2] The single sold over a million copies in the U.S. and was certified gold, as the RIAA requirement for a platinum single disc was not lowered to one million units until 1989. In addition, "Easy Lover" has been certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry for sales of over 400,000 in the UK and platinum in Canada by Music Canada.
The single did not receive a local release in Australia due to a dispute between Bailey's record company, CBS, and Collins' record company, WEA. As a result, it was only available through imports from New Zealand, which is the reason for its poor showing on the Australian charts.
"Easy Lover" won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Overall Performance in a Video in 1985 and was Grammy Award nominated for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals in 1986.
In 1984, Phil Collins was hired as the producer for Philip Bailey's solo album Chinese Wall. According to Collins, Bailey approached him at the end of the sessions for the album and asked him to write a song together. In "Phil Collins: My Life In 15 Songs," a 2016 interview he gave to Rolling Stone magazine, Collins said of the song: "So we just started having a jam one night, and went round and round and turned it into a verse and a chorus. We recorded it that night so we wouldn't forget it. That song doesn't sound like any particular era. It's just fantastic." According to the Official Sheet Music, the Song is in the key of F Minor and has a Tempo of 105 BPM
The song's music video, filmed in London, England, humorously depicts the making of a music video. It was produced by Paul Flattery and directed by Jim Yukich.

Phil Collins -- Easy Lover


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"When I Need You" is a popular song written by Albert Hammond and Carole Bayer Sager. Its first appearance was as the title track of Hammond's 1976 album When I Need You. Leo Sayer's version, produced by Richard Perry, was a massive hit worldwide, reaching number 1 on the UK Singles Chart for three weeks in February 1977 after three of his earlier singles had stalled at number 2. It also reached number 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 for a single week in May 1977; and the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks. Billboard ranked it as the No. 24 song of 1977. Sayer performed it on the second show of the third season of The Muppet Show.

The melody of the "hook" line, or chorus of "When I Need You" is identical to the part of the Leonard Cohen song "Famous Blue Raincoat", where the lyrics are as follows: "Jane came by with a lock of your hair, she said that you gave it to her that night, that you planned to go clear". The melody of these lyrics matches the lyrics of "When I Need You" as follows: "(When I) need you, I just close my eyes and I'm with you, and all that I so want to give you, is only a heart beat away".

In a 2006 interview with The Globe and Mail Cohen said:

I once had that nicking happen with Leo Sayer. Do you remember that song 'When I Need You'?" Cohen sings the chorus of Sayer's number one hit from 1977, then segues into 'And Jane came by with a lock of your hair', a lyric from 'Famous Blue Raincoat'. 'Somebody sued them on my behalf … and they did settle', even though, he laughs, 'they hired a musicologist, who said, that particular motif was in the public domain and, in fact, could be traced back as far as Schubert.

The same melody can be heard in Elton John's "Little Jeannie" in the lyrics: "Stepped into my life from a bad dream / Making the life that I had seem / Suddenly shiny and new"

Leo Sayer - When I Need You
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British singer-songwriter, musician and entertainer Leo Sayer. Pic: PA Wire

Leo Sayer - Thunder In My Heart
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