Dead Or Alive (band)
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Dead Or Alive is an influential New Wave band from Liverpool that rose to popularity during the 1980s. They are best known for the hit single "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)".
Dead Or Alive (DOA for short, not to be confused with punk band D.O.A.) was founded in 1980 by Pete Burns, one of the most visible genderfuck performers of the decade. Steve Coy is the longest standing member of the band, and plays drums and percussion as well as sharing songwriting responsibilities. Other members of the band, besides Burns and Coy, are Tim Lever (keyboards/sax) and Mike Percy (bass).
The debut album, Sophisticated Boom Boom, featured their first Top 40 single, a remake of the seventies KC and the Sunshine Band hit That's The Way (I Like It).
In 1985 they released the album Youthquake, produced by Stock, Aitken and Waterman. The single You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) went to number one on the UK charts after having lingered outside the Top 40 for over two months after release, and twenty years later is still a dance-floor favourite. Several other tracks from the album, including Lover Come Back to Me and In Too Deep, also became dance hits.
In 1986 DOA released their third album, Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know, that included the dance-floor smash Brand New Lover. Two years later they parted ways with SAW, and released the self-produced Nude, which featured the hit Turn Around and Count 2 Ten, a single that spent seventeen weeks at number one on the Japanese charts.
1990 saw the release of Fan the Flame Part One, and 1995 the album Nukleopatra, which featured remakes of David Bowie's Rebel Rebel and Blondie's Picture This; initially released in Japan only, Nukleopatra, unlike its predecessor, was also released in Australia, Singapòre, South Africa, France and US, and each and every release sported different art covers, tracklistings and song versions; many releases of Nukleopatra also included one or more remixes of You Spin me Round.
In 2000 DOA 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, released in 2003 which featured yet another remix of You Spin Me Round; both of them enjoyed, for the first time since Nude, a UK release, with "You Spin Me Round" re-entering the Top 40.
External links
- Ultimate Band List profile of Dead or Alive (http://ubl.artistdirect.com/music/artist/bio/0,,421413,00.html?artist=Dead+or+Alive)
- Official Dead Or Alive Website (http://www.deadoralive.net)