80's Music Junkies: Spandau Ballet

Spandau Ballet were a popular English band in the 1980s. Initially inspired by a mixture of funk and synthpop, the genre-defining New Romantic group eventually mellowed into a mainstream pop act. As with their rivals Duran Duran they 'broke America', albeit briefly.

Guitarist and songwriter Gary Kemp and his younger brother, bassist Martin Kemp, formed the band in 1979 with drummer John Keeble, lead vocalist Tony Hadley and Steve Norman, who initially played guitar but later switched to saxophone when the band changed musical direction. Some consider the band's manager, Steve Dagger, to have been an integral part of the band's initial and continuing success.

The band was initially called 'The Makers', but changed their name after a visit to Spandau (a borough of Berlin and home to a since-demolished prison for war criminals which at one time housed a sole inmate, Rudolf Hess, the inspiration being from graffiti one of their friends, BBC London 94.9 DJ Robert Elms, saw there. The band began performing and generating positive buzz around London at various unannounced parties and as the house band at the Blitz nightclub, which became regarded as the birthplace of a new 1980s music and fashion phenomenon called New Romanticism.

The band was involved in a major bidding war. They eventually signed to Chrysalis Records and released "To Cut a Long Story Short", produced by the cutting-edge electronic musician Richard James Burgess. Released just ten days after the band emerged from the studio in order to meet the huge demand created by the buzz the band had established, "To Cut a Long Story Short" was an instant British top 5 hit in 1980. This was followed by hits with "The Freeze", "Musclebound" and the well-received and genre-defining Gold certified album Journeys to Glory (February 1981). The sound of "Journeys to Glory" set the sound for the nascent New Romantic movement with chanted vocals, club/dance bottom end, splashy snare drum sound, lack of guitar solos and strongly rhythmic guitar parts.

Parade (June 1984), was critically drubbed for failing to move the band's sound forward. Nevertheless, the album and its singles were again big successes in the European charts, Australia and Canada, and the opening song "Only When You Leave" became their last American hit. At the end of 1984, the band performed on the Band Aid charity single, with Hadley taking a prominent lead vocal role; and in 1985, they performed at the Wembley Stadium end of Live Aid.

The "Other" New Romantic Group's Extended Mixes Are Essential for Any Fan of the Band and Quintessential for Any 80's Aficionado. Includes the Extended Version of the USA Top Ten Pop Hit "True" as Well as their European Hits "Chant No. 1", "Musclebound", "Gold", "Lifeline", "Communication", "to Cut a Long Story Short" and More.

By the time Spandau Ballet's fifth album appeared in 1986, the sun had set on the synth poppers of the second British Invasion and guitars were all the rage once again. Never ones to miss a trend, the former new romantics, who'd signed with a new label, Epic, and were determined to make a big splash stateside, declared their admiration for bands like Bon Jovi and made an album that likely surprised their diminishing fan base with its AOR aspirations. Rocking up Spandau Ballet's smooth white-boy soul, Through the Barricades manages to avoid utter disaster via the tuneful creations of songwriter/guitarist Gary Kemp. Some would argue Kemp had finally evolved into a first-class hack, but while his songs never avoid a cliché if it can be helped (and occasionally offer much worse; see "Virgin"), he does a credible job of supplying his bandmates with arena-ready material like "How Many Lies." Unsurprisingly, melodramatic vocalist Tony Hadley digs in with real gusto, but the production and mix prove the undoing of this effort. Most of the tunes demand guitar and drum bombast; instead, the riff-rocking "Cross the Line" and "Fight for Ourselves," in particular, are undercut by the polite-sounding rhythm section. Given that weakness, which affects much of the album, it's unsurprising that the best song by far is the title track, a Bic-flicking acoustic ballad that became a deserved hit.

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