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Scottish identical twins Charlie and Craig Reid formed their two man band, The Proclaimers, in 1983, but it wasn’t until 1986 that they would hit the big time. A fan sent a demo tape of theirs to English band The Housemartins, who were so impressed they invited them to tour with them. This led to an appearance on Channel 4 music show The Tube, which gave them their first UK hit single, Letter From America.
Instantly recognisable from their glasses, jeans and thick Scottish accent when singing, Letter From America made them household names when it shot to number 3 in the charts. They had a unique style at the time, being both pop and almost folk music at the same time, the folk influence coming from the warbling sections of the song which is probably why the song was so popular, as everyone loved joining in with that particular bit.
They followed up with I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) which reached number 11 and has now become something of an anthem for Scottish football fans. This song also featured further strange voice work, and I can imagine that going down very well when sung by a stadium of football supporters!
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Today, Kylie Minogue is looked up to as a very popular singer and an inspiration after her battle with cancer, but back in the eighties, she perhaps wasn’t taken quite so seriously.
The Eighties saw more than its fair share of musical styles, what with New Romantics, House, Sound Sample Mixing and several others. Much of the reason for this was the advances in music technology which brought us the synthesiser keyboard, and so was born Synthpop, and one of the biggest proponents of that particular style were Erasure.
Think back about the band Bros. If you remember them then I bet you immediately think of Matt and Luke Goss, the blonde twins in ripped jeans and leather jackets. If you weren’t a fan then you may have forgotten that Bros actually consisted of a third member, that being Craig Logan. Well, I’d forgotten about him, anyway.
In 1982 Musical Youth burst onto the charts with their first hit, Pass The Dutchie, a song which I still vividly remember to this day for its cool reggae beat and bizarre lyrics, especially the bom-bom-bom-bom-bom-bom-biddly-bom bit. The fact that the song was sung by a group of kids, the youngest of which was around my age at the time, also helped them win popularity from me.
The Eurovision Song Contest has had a lot to answer for over the years, but one thing I won’t hold against the contest is bring Bucks Fizz to the world. OK, the band may be looked back on now as being a bit cheesey, but at the time they were very popular and whilst I wouldn’t consider myself a fan as such I still remember many of their songs today, and hearing them always conjures up happy childhood memories for me.
Spandau Ballet have recently announced that they are reforming to tour the UK in October this year, so let’s take a quick look at the band as they were back in the 1980’s.
The decade that was the 1980’s can lay claim to many distinctive bands in both musical and visual style, unlike many of todays indentikit groups. One such band that had a string of hits during the early part of the decade were Dexys Midnight Runners.
