![]() ![]() Rex in " All the Young Dudes" so was pleased to reference another artist in a song. And I'd loved Mott the Hoople singing about T. So namechecking Marvin Gaye was a defiant statement aligning us with the London soul boy culture stretching back to mod. They didn't like soul because it was aspirational, all about dancing, wearing great clothes and having sex. The inky press loved blues and reggae because they were about suffering. We were massive soul boys: we loved … The Face magazine and all that glossy stuff, so this was us taking an anti- rock stance. The bit that goes "Listening to Marvin all night long" was a reference to me and Steve Norman, the band's saxophonist. His love of their music factored heavily into writing the title track, even to the point of paying tribute to Gaye on a first-name basis: Kemp was primarily listening to soul artists Marvin Gaye and Al Green as he developed songs for the band's next album. He told Creem magazine in 1984, "For the first time, I was trying to write songs that were emotional release for me-me just writing about myself and the way I felt." Ĭlare Grogan (pictured in 2009) of Altered Images inspired the lyrics of "True". : 11:15 allowing him to focus more on the melody. This later inspired the "True" lyric "I bought a ticket to the world". He told John Wilson in a Mastertapes interview in 2013 that, because they were unable keep the audience they initially attracted, "here was a sense of, 'e have to move on from here,'" a desire to expand to a broader audience. That rebound brought a stark realisation for Kemp: the nightclub crowd Spandau Ballet originally catered to was no longer interested in them. The poor chart performance of its next two singles, " Paint Me Down" and " She Loved Like Diamond", resulted in a remix of its more pop-sounding track " Instinction", which became a number 10 hit on the UK Singles Chart in spring 1982. 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)", but otherwise disappointed critics with its more experimental material. Their second album, Diamond, had a successful stab at funk with its lead single, " Chant No. ![]() It reflected their desire to represent the clientele of the trendy London nightclub the Blitz with its focus on what Kemp called "white European disco music". Spandau Ballet's first album, Journeys to Glory, was released in 1981. He intended the relationship to be platonic since he already had a girlfriend, but he was also competing for her attention with two other men: actor John Gordon Sinclair, who starred with her in Gregory's Girl, and artist David Band, who had designed cover art for Altered Images he would later do so for Spandau Ballet with the single " Communication". ![]() For his birthday that year, she gave him a copy of the novel Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, whom they had discussed. In 1981, Spandau Ballet guitarist/songwriter Gary Kemp met Altered Images lead singer Clare Grogan and felt an "instant connection" in part due to their conversations about writers. Dawn, who went to number one in the US with " Set Adrift on Memory Bliss" in 1991. Other artists have sampled it in their own hits, most notably P.M. It has been covered by Paul Anka in a swing style, and used in films such as Sixteen Candles and 50 First Dates, as well as TV series like Modern Family. The song has since become the band's signature hit. DJs were so enthusiastic about playing the title song that the band knew it would be their next single. The True album was then released as " Communication", its first single, was climbing the UK Singles Chart. "True" was recorded with most of the other tracks from the album at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas. Kemp wanted to shift the sound of Spandau Ballet into soul and incorporated band member Steve Norman's newfound interest in the saxophone into his writing the band also updated its look to suits for the song's music video and tour. It eventually reached number one on the UK chart in April 1983 and made the top 10 in several other countries, including the US, where it became their first song to reach the Billboard Hot 100. It was written by the band's guitarist/songwriter Gary Kemp to express his feelings for Altered Images lead singer Clare Grogan, influenced musically by songs of Marvin Gaye and Al Green he was listening to at the time, and lyrically by Green and The Beatles. " True" is a song by English new wave band Spandau Ballet, released in April 1983 as the title track and third single from their third studio album. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |