Dead or Alive (band)

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Dead or Alive
Dead or Alive in a promotional photo for their Youthquake album, circa 1985.
Background information
Origin	Liverpool, England
Genre(s)	Pop, Dance, New wave, Disco, Progressive Rock, Hi-NRG
Years active	1980-present
Label(s)	Epic Records Sony Japan Cleopatra Records
Website	"The Right Stuff": Official Dead or Alive website
Members
Pete Burns Steve Coy Jason Alburey
Former members
Wayne Hussey Timothy Lever Mike Percy

Dead or Alive is a British New Wave band from Liverpool that rose to popularity during the 1980s.

They are best known for their #1 UK hit single "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)", though the band have gained their biggest following in Japan, where they have attained 18 number 1 hits.

Contents 1 Band members 2 Overview 2.1 Early career of band 2.2 Chart success 2.3 Later releases 3 Dead or Alive in concert 4 Notable hits 4.1 You Spin Me Round 4.2 Turn Around and Count 2 Ten 5 Recent activities 5.1 Celebrity Big Brother 6 Trivia 7 Quotes 8 Discography 8.1 Albums 8.2 Singles 9 See also 10 External links

[edit] Band members

The band members have included the following musicians.

• Pete Burns (1981-present): Vocalist of the band and chief songwriter. Burns did not play any instruments but mimed with an electric guitar in some music videos. Burns was the main focus of the band and other members were often completely overlooked.
• Wayne Hussey (1982-1984): An early member of the band who wrote most songs in 1982-1983, plus the Epic singles Misty Circles and What I Want. Hussey departed in early 1984 to join The Sisters of Mercy for one year, and then formed The Mission in late 1985.
• Mike Percy (1982-1990): Bass player. Percy was noted for his mullet hairstyle and, along with Lever, wrote most of Dead or Alive's songs from 1984 until 1990. Percy wrote and performed the backing track for the hit song "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)".
• Steve Coy (1982-Present): Drummer for the band. The youngest member of the band, Coy wrote music for the band but did not delve into the world of lyrics. As of 1996, Coy took over the job of producing Dead or Alive's videos starting with the David Bowie cover "Rebel Rebel" from the album Nukleopatra.
• Timothy Lever (1983-1990): keyboards, saxophone, guitars. Lever and guitarist Mike Percy were responsible for most of the songwriting for the band.
• Jason Alburey (1996-Present): Eventually replaced Percy and Lever in the musical department, Alburey was instrumental in the formation of Dead or Alive's modernising sound. Alburey appears in the 2006 video for the re-release of "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" despite having nothing to do with the song itself.

[edit] Overview

[edit] Early career of band

Dead or Alive (DOA for short, not to be confused with punk band D.O.A.), was founded in 1980 in Liverpool by Pete Burns, who was encouraged by local music promoters to gather a band together based on his outrageous appearance alone. It was only after rehearsing in 1978 with some friends that Burns realized he really did have a powerful singing voice, and his first band was an outfit he formed with friends Julian Cope and Pete Wylie. Dubbing themselves The Mystery Girls, they played only one gig before disintegrating. Burns returned in 1979 with a new band, Nightmares in Wax, featuring a gothic post-punk sound. Nightmares in Wax released their only recording, a three-track 7" EP titled Birth of a Nation in 1979/1980.

In 1980, just before they were to record a radio session for John Peel, Burns changed the name of the band to the more marketable Dead or Alive. The band went through several different lineup changes over the next three years while recording a series of independent singles. Burns' eccentric appearance began attracting attention, often leading to comparisons with Boy George, lead singer of the band Culture Club. The two singers had frequented the same New Romantic clubs in the early 1980s and were known rivals; each claiming the other had stolen his gender-bending image.

When Dead or Alive's singles started placing high in the Indie charts, Epic Records took notice and signed the band in 1983. Their first release for Epic was the single "Misty Circles", which failed to chart. At this point, the band was a five-piece consisting of Burns, Mike Percy (bass), Tim Lever (keyboards/sax), Steve Coy (drums), and Wayne Hussey (guitar). Two more singles, "What I Want" and "I'd Do Anything", were club hits but mainstream success continued to elude the band.

The debut album, Sophisticated Boom Boom, was released in May 1984 and featured Dead or Alive's first Top 40 UK single, a remake of the 1975 hit by KC and the Sunshine Band "That's the Way (I Like It)". Hussey departed Dead or Alive just before the album's release, despite having had a hand in writing much of the material that appears on it. The single peaked at #22 in the UK and the album at #29.

[edit] Chart success

Now a stable four-piece, in 1985 they released the album Youthquake, produced by the then-fledgling songwriting/production team of Stock, Aitken and Waterman (SAW). The single "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" went to #1 on the UK singles chart after having lingered outside the Top 40 for over two months after release; the song was SAW's first chart-topping single and remains a club favourite two decades later. It reached #11 in the US, #3 in Australia and experienced Top 10 status in numerous countries. Several other tracks from the album were released as singles: "Lover Come Back to Me", "In Too Deep" and "My Heart Goes Bang", all becoming huge dance hits.

In 1986, Dead or Alive released their third album, Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know, also produced by SAW. The album included one of the band's best-known songs, "Brand New Lover", which was more successful in the US (#15) than in the band's native UK (#31). Three additional singles from the album were released, all of them meeting some sort of controversy. The most successful of these singles in the UK (a #12 hit) was "Something in My House", tonally very Gothic and with a sleeve depicting Burns in front of what appears to be a Satanic altar, featuring an inverted crucifix. A 12" version of the song, the 'Mortevicar Mix', featured sampling of dialogue from the soundtrack of The Exorcist. A third single, "Hooked on Love", suffered from very little promotion due to what the record company felt was a "Gothic" overtone that had been added to the song in a post-production remix, and barely managed to scrape into the UK top 70. The picture sleeve to the fourth single, "I'll Save You All My Kisses", originally featured Burns with a metal "Sex" belt buckle in front of his lips, but Epic covered up the word "Sex" with a sticker that said "Kiss" after retailers objected. The video was banned by MTV because of its overtly gay content, which depicted Burns in black tights and a leather jacket singing the song from a baseball diamond while a number of men, some of them shirtless, clung to a fence and ogled him. However, despite these setbacks, the band continued to have chart success in Australia, Europe and (particularly) Japan, where they had reached superstar status with nine #1 singles up to 1988.

In 1988, they parted ways with Stock, Aitken and Waterman and in 1989 released the self-produced Nude, which featured the hit "Turn Around and Count 2 Ten", a single that spent seventeen weeks at #1 on the Japanese charts. It was followed-up by "Come Home with Me Baby", which hit #1 in Brazil. Elsewhere, the single was a club hit, but it failed to generate significant radio play, partially due to a reactionary attitude toward the song's seemingly casual attitude toward sex at a time when AIDS awareness was coming into the public consciousness^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Later releases

1990 saw the release of Fan the Flame (Part 1); however, the album was only released in Japan. The album was a radical departure in style. Instead of high energy dance beats, the album had more of a 1970s disco style crossed with lounge-style vocals. The album had three singles, "Your Sweetness (Is Your Weakness)", "Gone Too Long", and "Unhappy Birthday". Fan the Flame (Part 1) also is notable because it contains the very first ballad that Dead or Alive ever recorded, a seasonal track called "Blue Christmas" (an original composition and not a cover of the song popularized by Elvis Presley).

For several years, Dead or Alive was mostly inactive in the recording studio, until Pete Burns resurfaced in 1993 as vocalist on a single for the Italian techno outfit Glam. Burns helped write the single, "Sex Drive", which was a major return to the dancefloor. Burns and Coy flirted with the idea of recording under the name International Chrysis, and released a single as such in 1994, a cover version of David Bowie's "Rebel Rebel".

1995 saw a resurrection of the Dead or Alive moniker for the album Nukleopatra, which was eagerly anticipated by the band's large fan base. The album featured a smattering of previously released material, including "Rebel Rebel", "Sex Drive", and two tracks that originally appeared on Fan the Flame (Part 1), "Gone Too Long" and "Unhappy Birthday". The album also featured a cover of Blondie's "Picture This". Initially released in Japan only, Nukleopatra, unlike its predecessor, was also released in Australia, Singapore, South Africa, France and the U.S., and each release sported different cover art, tracklistings and song versions; many releases of Nukleopatra also included one or more remixes of "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)".

In 2000 Dead or Alive released Fragile, a compilation of remixes with several new tracks and remakes of U2's "Even Better Than the Real Thing" and Nick Kamen's "I Promised Myself", and another remix album, Unbreakable, in 2001. This was followed by a greatest hits album called Evolution: the Hits, released in 2003 which featured yet another remix of "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)"; both of them enjoyed, for the first time since Nude, a UK release, with "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" re-entering the top forty.

In 2004, Burns enjoyed solo success with the Pet Shop Boys-produced track "Jack and Jill Party". Although only released through the Pet Shop Boys website, the track reached number 75 in the UK singles chart and was an underground club hit.

[edit] Dead or Alive in concert

In 1987 the band embarked on their world tour which consisted of dates in Europe, Japan and the USA. The dates in Japan (Tokyo and Osaka) were filmed and released on VHS. For the tour, the band remixed several of their songs including 1984's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" and "My Heart Goes Bang".

It was widely believed that the concert was entirely mimed; however, parts of the show were live, while others were pre-recorded or mimed. Whereas Burns mimed to a vocal track, the band (Coy, Lever and Percy) played the backing track live while two dancers mimed the guitar solos.

The tour was re-released in 2003 on the Evolution DVD. It was also released as a Laserdisc and as a CD (though the CD version was not a live recording).

[edit] Notable hits

Although the 1984 song "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" may have been the band's biggest success in North America and at home, their biggest hit in Japan, the 1989 track "Turn Around and Count 2 Ten" topped the Japanese charts for seventeen weeks.

The band's other major UK hits were the 1986 track "Something in My House", 1985's "Lover Come Back to Me" and "In Too Deep" (of the same year).

[edit] You Spin Me Round

The single "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" has been released and re-released by the band on a number of occasions.

• The original 1984 release.
• With the 1996 pressings of the album Nukleopatra.
• A remix of the song, in conjunction with a 2003 greatest hits set.
• In 2006, after Burns' appearance on the UK television show Celebrity Big Brother.

[edit] Turn Around and Count 2 Ten

The band's biggest hit outside of Europe and America, this single topped the Japanese charts for 17 weeks in 1989. The track was the first single from the album Nude and marked the departure of former band members Tim Lever and Mike Percy.

[edit] Recent activities

• After their height of success during the 1980s, the original band parted in 1990 when songwriters and musicians Tim Lever and Mike Percy left to form careers as mixers and producers. The pair currently own and operate Steelworks Studios in Sheffield, UK [1]. As recordists, Lever and Percy have had more chart success than they ever did with Dead or Alive, writing and mixing number-one tracks from bands like S Club 7, Blue and Robbie Williams.
• Pete Burns and Steve Coy joined keyboard player Jason Alburey in 1996 and have continued to record and play venues ever since. Though they have never replicated the success of 1985, Dead or Alive still command a large international following.
• Dead or Alive (and sometimes Burns as a solo artist) have played international Gay Pride concerts since the mid 1990s. During the 1990s, Pete Burns was still married and had not publicly acknowledged his sexuality.

[edit] Celebrity Big Brother

In 2006, Pete Burns took part in the TV show Celebrity Big Brother in the UK. His eccentric appearance, surprising behaviour and explosive attitude made him a staple character in the show, which received huge audiences. Burns became known for openly insulting actress Traci Bingham and performing modern dance with socialist politician George Galloway. Following the end of the show (Burns finished in fourth place), the Youthquake version of "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" was re-released and reached the top five in the UK singles chart. Burns himself expressed distaste for the re-release, he is quoted as saying "it's like wearing a school uniform at the age of 46".

[edit] Trivia

• Due to Pete Burns' slight resemblance to the more well-known gender-bending pop star Boy George during the mid-1980s, many outside of the UK assumed Dead or Alive was a response to, or a copy of, the band Culture Club. However Dead or Alive was formed a year before the formation of Culture Club.
• Pete was married to his wife Lynne, for about 25 years before they divorced recently.
• The album Youthquake sold 500,000 copies worldwide. Most were sold in the UK after the success of "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)".
• According to Steve Coy, the album name "Nukleopatra" had several meanings. It is intended to be pronounced "New Cleopatra", symbolising Pete Burns' ancient Egyptian theme in the mid 1990s.
• During the 1987 Rip It Up! Live tour, other artists including Michael Jackson cancelled dates in order to avoid clashing with the hugely popular Dead or Alive in Japan.
• Band member Tim Lever often wore hats and head coverings in videos and live appearances. This was due to his increasing loss of hair throughout the 1980s. Lever is absent from some videos including "I'll Save You All My Kisses" and "Turn Around & Count 2 Ten".
• Burns references homosexuality in some of his lyrics. The most obvious example of this is in the 1984 song "I Wanna Be a Toy".
• Pete Burns once turned down an offer for Dead or Alive to tour with Madonna, due to the fact that his mother had taken ill and was on the verge of dying.
• The music video for "Something in My House" ran into censorship problems due to a shot of Burns peeling a banana. Pete Burns jokes about this in the inlay text for the 2003 DVD release of Evolution.
• Around 1986, an independent club single called "Pistol in My Pocket" appeared by an artist called Lanah Pellay (a transexual, who later was to change sex once more & become Alan Pellay and feature in Comic Strip films). Due to the single's Hi-NRG sound, the gender-bending image of the singer on the cover, and most specifically the vocal styling (which emulated Pete Burns with uncanny accuracy), "Lanah Pellay" was rumored by many to actually be Pete Burns recording under another name. It wasn't, but the rumor still exists today, which is a little odd given that Lanah performed the song on Top of the Pops.
• Similarly, a 12" single exists recorded by a band called "The Mystery Girls", which many mistakenly believe to be a recording by the original early band featuring Pete Burns, Pete Wylie, and Julian Cope.
• "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" is featured on the shock site www.MeatSpin.com

[edit] Quotes

Long before "Big Brother" came into his life, Pete Burns had an unofficial Ph. D in tongue-in-cheek, often highly offensive sense of humour. He had become notorious in not only the music press, but the popular press early on for his acidic and brilliant sense of wit.

• "Then they said 'what do you think of Epic in America, Pete?' And I said 'I think it's got the best Mafia connections in the world, you should be able to get this record somewhere or you could bump the people off'. And he went 'quick! Stop the tape!' and you could see guys everywhere wiping their eyebrows. They said 'okay, we've got enough " , like 'get out!'." - Pete Burns

• "I got a real jerk pushing me on political questions and when he asked me about the nuclear bomb, I said I thought every home should have one." - Pete Burns

• "I WISH I'd recorded (Eartha Kitt's "I want to be evil"), but I haven't got the camp intonation. A highly offensive record, it's very "I'll wee on your carpet." My theme song. Nico was the ultimate femme fatale. Now she's about as fatale as a walnut whip".

• I don’t think we should go in search of UFO’s. I believe their message is ‘don’t call us, we'll call you.'

• "See that shadow in the picture there? They've done a marvellous retouching job because that's (Boy)George's real chin. I'm thinking of sending George a subscription to Slimmer's Guide. "

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

Year	Album cover	Album	UK	U.S.	JP	GER	Additional information
1984		Sophisticated Boom Boom	29	-	1	82	1.9 million copies sold (most in Japan)
1985		Youthquake	9	31	1	14	selling 2.2 million copies (mostly Japan), certified Gold in the US.
1986		Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know	27	52	1	21	2.1 million copies sold (mostly in Japan)
1987		Rip It Up	62	195	1	36	1.1 million copies
1988		Nude	82	106	1	64	1.3 million copies sold
1990		Fan the Flame (Part 1)	-	-	1	-	Japan-only, 1 million copies sold
1995		Nukleopatra	-	-	1	-	one million copies sold
2000		Fragile	-	-	1	-	Japan-only, 400,000 copies sold
2001		Unbreakable	-	-	2	-	Japan-only, 268,000 copies sold
2003		Evolution: the Hits	44	89	1	42	Hits compilation, single and double disc versions.

[edit] Singles

Year	Song	UK	U.S.	U.S. Dance	JP	GER	AUS	Album
1980	"I'm Falling"	-	-	-	-	-	-	(independent release)
1981	"Number Eleven"	-	-	-	-	-	-	(independent release)
1982	"It's Been Hours Now" EP	-	-	-	-	-	-	(independent release)
1982	"The Stranger"	-	-	-	10	-	-	(independent release)
1983	"Misty Circles"	100	-	4	2	-	-	Sophisticated Boom Boom
1983	"What I Want"	88	-	-	1	99	-	Sophisticated Boom Boom
1984	"I'd Do Anything"	79	-	-	2	72	-	Sophisticated Boom Boom
1984	"That's the Way (I Like It)"	22	-	28	1	96	45	Sophisticated Boom Boom
1984	"What I Want" (re-release)	87	-	-	94	81	-	Sophisticated Boom Boom
1984	"You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)"	1	11	2	1	2	3	Youthquake
1985	"Lover Come Back to Me"	11	75	13	1	5	13	Youthquake
1985	"In Too Deep"	14	-	-	1	11	31	Youthquake
1985	"My Heart Goes Bang"	23	-	15	1	14	41	Youthquake
1986	"Brand New Lover"	31	15	1	1	22	21	Mad, Bad and Dangerous To Know
1987	"Something In My House"	12	85	3	1	16	19	Mad, Bad and Dangerous To Know
1987	"Hooked on Love"	69	-	-	1	60	33	Mad, Bad and Dangerous To Know
1987	"I'll Save You All My Kisses"	78	-	-	2	39	47	Mad, Bad and Dangerous To Know
1988	"Turn Around and Count 2 Ten"	70	-	2	1	6	30	Nude
1989	"Come Home With Me Baby"	62	69	6	1	26	52	Nude
1989	"Baby Don't Say Goodbye"	-	-	10	1	93	-	Nude
1991	"Your Sweetness (Is Your Weakness)"	-	-	-	1	-	-	Fan The Flame (Part 1)
1991	"Total Stranger"	-	-	-	1	-	-	Fan The Flame (Part 1)
1996	"Rebel Rebel"	-	-	-	1	-	-	Nukleopatra
1996	"You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) '96"	-	-	-	41	-	-	Nukleopatra
1996	"Sex Drive"	-	-	-	1	-	-	Nukleopatra
2001	"Hit and Run Lover"	-	-	-	1	-	-	Fragile
2003	"You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" (remixes)	23	-	21	7	96	-	Evolution
2006	"You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)"	5	-	13	4	-	-	-

[edit] See also

• List of number-one dance hits (United States)
• List of artists who reached number one on the US Dance chart

[edit] External links

• Official Dead Or Alive Website
• Ultimate Band List profile of Dead or Alive