Category Archives: Pop music

2012 ➤ Diamond Dogs snarl denial over Bowie / Heroes The Musical

Posted on 27 Nov 2011 | Leave a comment

Guy Peellaert’s sci-fi cover for Bowie’s Diamond Dogs album, 1974... That year Elle magazine named the Belgian pop-artist “the Michelangelo of Pop”

➢ Nov 27 Update at davidbowie.com: Following news reports in today’s UK press, such as The Observer, here is the official statement from his spokesman…

“ Neither the David Bowie Organization, nor its co-publishers EMI Music and Chrysalis, has issued a license for this performance at the O2. There are no negotiations pending for a long-running musical featuring the music of Mr Bowie ”

❏ Nov 29 update: Julian Stockton at The Outside Organisation confirmed today: “That statement put out by me at the weekend still stands, there has been no change.” When I suggested that his phrase “long-running” doesn’t actually rule out a one-off show, and asked “Are negotiations pending for a one-off musical?” he replied: “To the best of my knowledge no there are not.”

➢ Dec 1 update: A Guardian blog today surmises that Bowie made “the right artistic call” over this jukebox musical, yet no correction to last Sunday’s report has been published or explanation of whether the reporter checked the facts with Bowie’s management.

Heroes the Musical ,website,David Bowie ,Deep Singh, IndigO2,

SORRY, FANS, THIS HEROES SHOW IS A DEAD DUCK

❏ Despite the official denials expressed above, the website for Heroes the Musical is still announcing a performance on Sunday March 11, 2012… and its Facebook page says tickets go on sale 9am January 5. Meanwhile an email from Shapersofthe80s seeking clarification from the producers remains unanswered.

➢ Original report Sunday Nov 27 by Vanessa Thorpe in The Observer newspaper and still online without retraction Monday Nov 28:

“ PLANS HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED this weekend for the first full-scale musical based on the songs of the totemic British performer David Bowie. A futuristic fantasy called Heroes: The Musical will tell the story of Major Tom, as well as the starman and a “young dude” called David and will have its world premiere in March at the IndigO2, the nightclub venue with a flexible capacity of 2,400 inside London’s former Millennium Dome.

Bowie, who is one of Britain’s most successful songwriters, rarely gives permission for his songs to be used and has never allowed them to be used in this way before. Deep Singh, a former screenwriter who wrote the musical, believes that Bowie gave consent because he emphasised that his story was set in the future and aimed to show the timeless relevance of Bowie’s lyrics.

The villains of Singh’s story are the patrolling Diamond Dogs and the “ruthless Smart Simon” who has created, and now controls, a dystopian empire set in an indeterminate future… ”/ continued online

➢ A feast of Bowie-ana served in waffeur-thin slices
in Kevin Cann’s new book

➢ Discovered last week, a Bowie smile flashed to an amateur
cine camera in 1965

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1984 ➤ Band Aid: The smash hit that earned 47 artists three platinum discs each

Posted on 25 Nov 2011 | Leave a comment
Band Aid , Do They Know It’s Christmas?

The Band Aid band, Nov 25, 1984: most of the pop stars who performed, plus artist Peter Blake who created the record sleeve for Do They Know It’s Christmas?

◼︎ SPANDAU BASSIST MARTIN KEMP REMINDS US via Twitter that on this day in 1984, he and about 40 other mainly British superstars went into the studio under the group name of Band Aid to record the fund-raising single, Do They Know It’s Christmas? This collabarative gesture in the name of charity held the record for 13 years as the UK’s biggest selling chart single of all time. It raised millions for the Ethiopian famine and led directly to Live Aid, the globally televised rock concerts in 1985. Kemp said today: “It still gives me a tingle when I hear it” and then proudly posted a picture of the three platinum discs he and every other participant received a year later after it had clocked more than 3 million sales in the UK.

➢ Band Aid ’84, when pop made its noblest gesture but the 80s ceased to swing
➢ Ure and Kemp on the shenanigans that led up to Band Aid

Martin Kemp, Band Aid,BPI, Do They Know It’s Christmas

Martin Kemp’s three platinum discs presented by the BPI for sales of Do They Know It’s Christmas?

❏ iPAD, TABLET & MOBILE USERS PLEASE NOTE — You may see only a tiny selection of items from this wide-ranging website about the 1980s, not chosen by the author. To access fuller background features and site index either click on “Standard view” or visit Shapersofthe80s.com on a desktop computer. ➢ Click here to visit a different random item every time you click

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➤ Spandau’s Gold enlisted to sell chocolate and boost the Olympic spirit

Posted on 25 Nov 2011 | Leave a comment

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❚ ON NOV 28 SPANDAU BALLET’S 1983 chart hit Gold is re-released as an iTunes download newly remixed by superstar trance deejay Paul Oakenfold. But there’s a twist involving 20 fans who stepped up to the mike to record the chorus of the song that has echoed throughout sporting arenas the world over.

In 1981, Cadbury launched its Wispa chocolate bar with bubbles as a competitor to Rowntree’s Aero. Now that Cadbury is the Official Treat Provider of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the bar is relaunched as Wispa Gold with caramel, retailing at 56 pence. The London 2012 Games offer a billion-pound retail opportunity that is unlike anything Britain has experienced before and a quarter of these sales are likely to be made in the final months of this year. When 25m Brits watched the recent Royal Wedding, total revenue hit £50m, so retailers are keen to capitalise on London 2012.

Cadbury is investing £8m in an advertising and sponsorship campaign plus another £1.5m on marketing, all aiming to support Team GB ahead of the 2012 Olympics with the slogan Keep Them Pumped.

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Fan, commuter bike, shoelaces: all gilded ready for the video of the remixed Gold

Six of pop’s greatest power training anthems have been re-recorded as campaign soundtracks to encourage athletes preparing for the July Games. New music videos have been shot for The Final Countdown, Simply the Best, Danger Zone while an epic video for We Will Rock You [below] has enlisted more than 200 inhabitants of Merthyr Tydfil to cheer on their Olympic hockey player Sarah Thomas.

Spandau’s sleek and glitteringly golden video for the Oakenfold remix features Team GB athlete and BMX champion Shanaze Reade, plus the 120 fans selected in online auditions who then came into the studio to give full voice to the chorus. Below, we see one of them definitely getting into the Olympic spirit. “The song will be equally at home in the charts as it will in the clubs,” reckons the optimistic sax player Steve Norman. Oakenfold has one word for it: “floor-filler”.

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➢ Spandau’s own website is offering a new Gold 2012 range of hats, T-shirts and other merchandise

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2012 ➤ Boy George reunites with Culture Club for New Year’s Eve — and a new album

Posted on 19 Nov 2011 | 1 comment
Culture Club, Roy Hay, Jon Moss, reunion, Boy Geoge, Mikey Craig,New Years Eve,Sydney Resolution,concert,video,interview

Culture Club on Sunrise this week: Roy Hay, Jon Moss, Boy Geoge and Mikey Craig

➢ Click the pic to view video interview with Culture Club on Sunrise, the breakfast show at Sydney’s Seven Television station

❚ HERE’S A PICTURE MANY SAID would never be taken: all four members of 80s supergroup Culture Club reunited. And a live concert imminent. In 1983 the New Romantic band with its gender-bending singer and unique reggae-based rhythms were prominent among the 18 new-wave bands who mounted the Second British Invasion of the US charts. In 1984 the band won the Grammy Award as Best New Artist and along with Princess Diana, Boy George became an international fashion emblem for the new Swinging London.

This week Boy George’s official website announces that the four original members of Culture Club have reunited for the first time since 2002 for a one-off concert in Australia on Jan 1. Before an audience of 30,000 at Sydney’s Glebe Island, overlooking the harbour, the band will play after the New Year’s Eve midnight fireworks on a bill with The Pet Shop Boys, Jamiroquai and other Australian acts.

More surprising is that the photo shows Roy, Jon, George and Mikey in a London recording studio where George said “we’re in the middle of writing for a new album” with their original producer Steve Levine. This first pic of the reunited Culture Club is grabbed from Sydney’s Seven Television in an interview on Tuesday when George said they’d include a couple of new songs in the “hit-packed” Sydney show. When Jon was asked why a reunion has taken so long, an agonisingly long silence followed until he managed to answer “I don’t know!” This did raise the laugh we see above, then he added “I think we have a ten-year cycle. It takes that long to recover from the last time we worked with each other.” Not a flicker of a smile from anyone. The six-minute exchange contained so many sidelong glances between the four and generally awkward body language that you might wonder whether they would survive the flight to Australia together.

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Romance blossoms: Drummer Jon Moss gives George a peck at Planets club in July 1981 way before Culture Club existed. Photographed © by Shapersofthe80s

Culture Club’s initial five-year career was blown apart after clocking ten Top 40 hits in the US, which included Karma Chameleon and Do You Really Want to Hurt Me. By 1986, however, George’s addiction to drugs was making tabloid headlines and his secret four-year romance with Jon was growing ever more explosive. A sanitised TV dramatisation titled Worried About The Boy provided an extremely one-sided version of events when aired last year. From 1998 a band reunion over four years yielded two chart hits and a platinum compilation album in the UK.

➢ NY Eve concert tickets are priced from $198 at Sydney Resolution

➢ Update: Boy George’s first live concert in ages, scheduled for Dec 8 in London, has been cancelled without explanation

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➤ Step up Dr Nick Rhodes, honorary scholar at Luton in Beds

Posted on 18 Nov 2011 | Leave a comment

Love the New Romantic outfits! Popstar Rhodes today with the eggheads of Bedfordshire. Photo courtesy Gerard Franklin

➢ From the newsdesk of Duran Duran:

❏ Star names from the worlds of music and cinema joined hundreds of graduates from the University of Bedfordshire at ceremonies today in Luton. Duran Duran keyboard player Nick Rhodes, music producer Peter Asher and film producer Katy Haber were among those being honoured during graduation week at St Mary’s Church. Each received an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree.

Nick Rhodes is being recognised for his contribution to the music industry as a songwriter, performer and producer. Katy Haber, who starred in films such as The Getaway and Cross of Iron and co-produced sci-fi classic Blade Runner, is recognised for her outstanding career in the film industry. Producer Peter Asher is being recognised for his distinguished career in the music industry, working with global stars such as Cher and Neil Diamond.

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