SotD82 - Part 14

Inspired by our series of articles looking back at music released 30 years ago, Jimmy Hunter takes a step further back in time to give us some more Songs of the Day from 40 years back, SotD82...

Find Jimmy's other SotD82 articles here

Don’t stop reading as soon as you find out the first of this week’s records!

There’s a good reason the film was titled Fame! and the TV series The Kids from Fame when releasing records – there’s a definite change in maturity level from Alan Parker’s film to the much-sanitised TV series. I’d quite forgotten how long it lasted but yes, I watched at least the first series. Don’t hate me.




Ok, now we can talk about something. Or, can we? [make your mind up! – ed] Although 1982 saw the rerelease of African and White, it’s subsequent records, i.e. Christian, for which China Crisis would become famous. However, it deserves some attention – I’ve raked through many articles and interviews with the band and it rarely, if ever, gets a mention – only to say the rerelease from 1981 became the band’s first hit. At this point the band was in possession of one of the first drum machines in the UK so getting it to pump out a fairly complicated initial rhythm was no mean task. Erroneously credited in places with “lifting a Nile Rogers baseline” (anyway, it was Bernard Edwards, as regular readers will know!)

Here's a rare live version and the original 12” version

And because we’re all about the records, here’s an amazing Steve Proctor remix from 1990 that I’d forgotten about.

Having scored a couple of hits earlier in the year, The Associates’ time in the commercial spotlight would begin to reduce. Thankfully, however, this did not apply to their creativity or critical acclaim. I’ll say it – 18 Carat Love Affair is not one of my favourites.



And here’s a very interesting extended version of the band’s re-imagining of Diana Ross’s Love Hangover.




During her time with ABBA Frida released one solo album as a follow up to her initial solo album in her pre-ABBA days, (give it a listen, her vocals are astonishing). I remember an interview from 1982 when the album from which this single came was released and Phil Collins (producer of the project) said Frida had wanted to something more “rocky”. Well this production of Russ Ballard’s I Know There’s Something Going On isn’t rock, but it’s good. Her first and most commercially successful solo effort after ABBA sadly wasn’t maintained and it proves to me that, sometimes, it’s a synergy in a brief moment – much like the Summer/Moroder/Bellotte holy trinity of disco.