MADONNA THE QUEEN OF POP’S DANCE FLOOR LEGACY

RETROP OP SEPTEMBER 2022

ALTERED
IMAGES
Back with new
music after four
decades away

SHAKESPEARS
SISTER
Menopausal
memories of
Hormonally MARTIKA
Yours
From the
RETROPOP
Vault!

STEPS Pop legends celebrate

ISSUE 7 | £4.99

25 years at the top!

PLUS
RICKY ROSS HOT CHIP JAMES BOURNE THE VAMPS
Deacon Blue star Synth-pop giants On solo endeavours Embrace 10 years of
looks back regain control and Busted's future boy band success
 RETROPOP | from the editor

RETROPOP
ISSUE 7 | SEPTEMBER 2022
Irresistible Ltd., Floor 3, 86-90 Paul Street,
London EC2A 4NE

RETRO POP
Est. April 2020
HEY THERE!
retropopmagazine.com
@RetroPopMag
ho knew when
EDITOR
Connor Gotto
connor.gotto@retropopmagazine.com
W I was bopping
along to Steps at
the school disco, leading
all my friends in the 5,6,7,8
ART DIRECTOR dance routine, that they’d
Owen Connolly still be here 25 years later?!
owenconnollydesign.com Celebrating their
unrivalled pop legacy, it’s
CONTRIBUTORS
a pleasure to have Claire
Ian Berriman
Richards, Faye Tozer, Ian
Simon Button
‘H’ Watkins, Lisa Scott-Lee
Paul Hollins
and Lee Latchford-Evans
Darren Scott
on the cover of RETROPOP,
COVER IMAGE as they look back on a lifetime of hits.
All copyrights and trademarks are They’ve been on fire these past few years, releasing
recognised and respected. two new albums and embarking on two massive UK
tours since 2020, and they truly are some of the nicest,
ADVERTISING most joyous guys you’ll meet in the music industry!
Media packs available on request. Sticking with the celebratory theme, we mark the
Please direct enquiries to release of Madonna’s ‘Finally Enough Love’ remix
ads@retropopmagazine.com collection with a trip down memory lane, exploring
her finest club moments and dance floor legacy,
GENERAL ENQUIRIES while Shakespears Sister’s Siobhan Fahey talks 30
Please direct enquiries to years of their seminal second album ‘Hormonally Yours’
contact@retropopmagazine.com - and 40 years in the music industry - in a fabulous
interview feature.
Printed in the UK by Stephens and George
Also back on the scene is Altered Images, with leading
on behalf of Irresistible Ltd. Distributed by
lady Clare Grogan discussing the events that lured her
Select Publisher Services, Marion Manor,
back into the studio to record the group’s first long-
62 Wimborne Road, Bournemouth, Dorset
player in four decades. It’s an excellent comeback!
BH3 7AR.
There’s loads more on offer: Deacon Blue frontman
selectmagazines.co.uk
Ricky Ross launches his new solo album and memoir
Tel: +44 (0)1202 586848
with a reflective chat, looking back on his chart legacy;
ISSN 2754-7841 we dive into the vault and unearth a gem of an interview
with Martika; Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard discusses the
All contents © 2022 Irresistible Ltd. or published creation of their new album ‘Freakout/Release’ and
under license. All rights reserved. No part of skipping their 20th anniversary celebrations during
this magazine may be used, stored, transmitted Covid; and The Vamps look back on a decade of success
or reproduced in any way without the prior as they prepare to celebrate 10 years as a group.
written permission of the publisher. Irresistible I’m so excited to share this issue with you and I
Ltd. (company number 13729328) is registered hope you love it! Don’t forget to give us a follow on
in England and Wales. Registered office: Floor @RetroPopMag - it’s always great to read your
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information contained in this publication is for Enjoy, and I’ll see you again in a couple of weeks…
information only and is, as far as we are aware,
accurate at the time of going to press. Irresistible
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or inaccuracies in such information.

Connor Gotto, Editor

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 3
 RETROPOP
CONTENTS
14

38
INTERVIEWS 26 FEATURES

14 JAMES BOURNE group tell all about their journey 18 FROM THE VAULT -
Having launched his solo to the top and the highlights of MARTIKA
career during the pandemic, their extraordinary career In an archive 2012 interview, the
the Busted star reveals how the eighties icon looks back on her
challenges of Covid inspired 46 SHAKESPEARS pop legacy and reveals why she
him to go it alone SISTER quit music in her early 20s
As ‘Hormonally Yours’ turns
22 RICKY ROSS 30, Siobhan Fahey candidly 38 MADONNA
With a new solo album and looks back on the record With an epic new remix
memoir on the way, the as she celebrates her four collection chronicling the Queen
Deacon Blue frontman decades in music of Pop’s dance floor legacy, we
looks back on his life and look back on four decades of
career while celebrating 54 ALTERED club hits
his chart legacy IMAGES
Following a four
26 STEPS decade absence,
Amid they’re back - and
their 25th frontwoman
anniversary Clare Grogan
celebration, reveals why now
the UK’s is the right time
biggest pop for new music

22 18
4 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM

46
62
RETRO
R E V I VA L
62 HOT CHIP
After missing their 20th
anniversary at the height of
Covid, the group dives deep into
their brand new album of synth-
pop excellence
70 THE VAMPS
Marking their 10th anniversary,
the boy band reveals how social
media brought them together
and helped launch one of the
decade’s most successful groups
78 DEAD METHOD
Rising pop star reveals his
biggest inspirations and tells
all about his brand new album
‘Future Femme’
RETROPOP | contents
78
54
70
REGULARS
8 NEWS
Stay in the loop with your
87
favourite pop superstars
13 TOP OF THE POPS TALES
Revisiting Manic Street Preachers’
1994 Faster performance
REVIEWS
82 ALBUMS
Erasure, Lauv, William Orbit
and more…
92 REISSUES
David Bowie, Elton John,
Toni Braxton and more…
95 COMPILATIONS
NOW! Music and more…
98 POP QUIZ
Test your knowledge of the
biggest pop anthems and artists of
98
the past four decades in an all-out
celebration of the genre
RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 5
 GEORGE EZRA • CAMILA CABELLO FEAT. ED SHEERAN • LADY GAGA • SAM RYDER
CALVIN HARRIS, DUA LIPA & YOUNG THUG • DAVID GUETTA X BECKY HILL X ELLA HENDERSON
CAT BURNS FEAT. SAM SMITH • LIZZO • TION WAYNE X LA ROUX • JACK HARLOW • LF SYSTEM
LATTO • BECKY HILL & GALANTIS

29.07.22
LINE-UP
NEWS | INTERVIEWS | RETROSPECTIVES

22
RICKY
ROSS
Deacon Blue’s
frontman looks back
with new memoir
and solo LP

13 14 18

MANIC STREET JAMES BOURNE MARTIKA

PREACHERS ‘Sugar Beach’ and From child star to
Revisiting Faster on the future of Busted global success
‘Top of the Pops’

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 7
LINE -UPN E W S
DARREN HAYES
RETURNS TO
THE STAGE
Darren Hayes is back and better
than ever as he celebrates his pop
legacy with his first UK tour in
over a decade.
The ‘Do You Remember?’ trek
will commemorate 25 years of
Savage Garden, his well-established
solo career and his sensational
comeback with new music.
Kicking off March 21, 2023 in
Nottingham, the jaunt includes
stops in Birmingham, Cardiff and
Newcastle, among other cities,
plus a massive gig at The London
Palladium.
The tour wraps at Manchester’s
Bridgewater Hall on April 2.
“You never know how much you
love something until it’s taken away
from you,” says Darren of his return
industry, I feel like we’ve grown up
together. To sing these songs again
after all we’ve been through is going
to feel like a family reunion.
“I’m beyond excited to return.”
Earlier this year, Darren returned
with his brand new single Let’s
Try Being In Love and speaking to
RETROPOP, he teased there’s plenty
more to come.
“I wanted to get some of the more
electronic and fun, effervescent
stuff out first just because the world
has been in a really dark place,”
explained the star. “Overall, it’s a
pretty layered piece and I’m excited
to get more material out.
“By the time the tour actually
starts, there will be a lot more new
music from me,” he added. “It’ll be
PHOTO LINDSAY ADLER

to the stage next spring. “After
almost a decade out of the spotlight
and all this time in lockdown I
found myself really missing the
electric feeling that only a live
audience can bring.
“After 25 years in the music
a true retrospective and it’s the first
time I’ve been able to do that and I
think time allows you to do that.”
Tickets for the ‘Do You
Remember?’ tour - which also plays
Australia in January - are on sale
now.

Betty Boo bounces back with ‘Boomerang’

Betty Boo is back with
‘Boomerang’ - her first album
in 30 years!
The long-awaited follow-
up to her 1992 album ‘GRRR!
It’s Betty Boo’ features 12 new
tracks, including the singles
Get Me To The Weekend and
Shining Star.
“I’ve made the record I should
have made when I was 25,” says
the pop legend.
In addition to the new
material, ‘Boomerang’ features
three collaborations: Miracle
with Chuck D, Right By Your
Side with David Gray, and a
remix of Shining Star with
Sophie Ellis-Bextor.
Speaking to The Guardian’s
Observer magazine, Betty
Boo recently reflected on her
new music and penchant for PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
“bringing together retro things
and making them sound
modern”.
“It’s a continuation of where I
began,” explained the 24 Hours
singer. “Doin’ the Do sped up
Reparata and the Delrons’
Captain of Your Ship, after all.”
‘Boomerang’ is out October 14
and available to pre-order now.

MARTIN KEMP will SHANIA TWAIN has released KAKKO has released her SPARKS

IN THE
release his new memoir Not Just a Girl, her first single first new music in three have begun
‘Ticket to the World: in five years, alongside her decades - a rework of her work on a

LOOP My 80s Story’ on

November 10
Netflix documentary of the
same name
debut single We Should
Be Dancing
new album

8 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
 LINE-UP | news

SUGABABES SET
FOR SWEET 20TH
ANNIVERSARY
Sugababes are hitting the
road later this year for their
first UK tour in over two
decades.
The original line-up -
starring Keisha Buchanan,
Mutya Buena and Siobhan
Donaghy - will kick off dates
in Bristol on October 16, 2022,
with a total 17 shows hitting
Leeds, Manchester and Cardiff,
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
“We’ll be hitting the road in
October and November – can’t
wait to see you all there.”
The trio originally reunited
in 2012 and released the single
Flatline, under the moniker
Mutya Keisha Siobhan - or MKS
- in 2013, and they’ve been
playing the unreleased track
Tonight during recent gigs.
Many of the recordings later

among other cities. leaked online but, speaking

The trek also includes a
headline show at London’s
Eventim Apollo, before
wrapping at the O2 Academy,
Glasgow on November 7.
Announcing the shows, the
band said: “We’re so excited to
come full circle and announce
our own headline UK tour.
to The Sun’s Bizarre column,
the group admitted they’re still
keen to release the project.
“It’s some of our best work,”
said Siobhan. “The tracklisting
that we like for it, I think, is just
banger after banger, it really is.”
Tickets for the group’s 2022
UK tour are on sale now.

Pet Shop Boys are heading
back to the UK stage with their
‘Dreamworld: The Greatest Hits Live’
tour in 2023.
Hot on the heels of their triumphant
Glastonbury set, Neil Tennant and
Chris Lowe have announced a string
of new dates, including a stop at
London’s Wembley Arena.
‘Dreamworld: The Greatest Hits Live’
is Pet Shop Boys’ first ever greatest hits
tour and has seen them play shows in
the UK and across Europe.
The new tour dates kick off with a
show in the capital on June 17, before
taking in Aberdeen and Liverpool, and
closing in Leeds on June 24.
efforts from the duo in recent times;
at Glastonbury, they introduced Years
& Years’ Olly Alexander on stage
for a performance of their single
Dreamland, while earlier this year they
teamed up with synth-pop giants Soft
Cell on Purple Zone.
The song was originally intended
to be remixed by Pet Shop Boys but
quickly became a full collaboration,
with Soft Cell’s David Ball calling it
“probably our finest pop moment
since the early 1980s”.
“Working with the Pet Shop Boys
was a pleasure, and this track is the
perfect combination of us and them,”
added Marc Almond, while Neil

PET SHOP BOYS Following their show-stopping and Chris said: “We are thrilled to
PHOTO PHIL FISK

appearance at the Worthy Farm event collaborate with such an inspirational

RETURN TO this summer, Pet Shop Boys are set to

hit the stage Stateside with New Order
duo as Soft Cell on this gorgeous
song.”
DREAMWORLD for ‘The Unity Tour’.
It’s one of a number of collaborative
Tickets for ‘Dreamworld: The
Greatest Hits Live’ are on sale now.

JANET JACKSON will BLUE have released a KYLIE MINOGUE and AVRIL LAVIGNE
release new music “at some cover of 112’s R&B classic JASON DONOVAN are proved her vocal
point” - but right now she’s Dance With Me from reissuing Especially For prowess with a
focussing on being a mum their new album ‘Heart You to coincide with their sensational alt-rock
and Soul’ ‘Neighbours’ return cover of Adele’s Hello
for Spotify

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 9
 LINE -UPN E W S
Gabrielle
celebrates 30
years of dreaming
Gabrielle is hitting the road
next year for her ‘30 Years of
Dreaming’ tour.
The British soul sensation
made her chart debut back
in 1993 with Dreams, which
topped the UK charts and
featured on her debut studio
album, ‘Find Your Way’.
Next year, she is celebrating
three decades since the
release of her signature song
with a trek across the UK
throughout October and
November 2023.
The run kicks off on
October 6 in Guildford, and
includes a stop at London’s
Royal Albert Hall on October
31, before wrapping in
BACKSTREET BOYS GET
FESTIVE WITH FIRST
HOLIDAY ALBUM
ALPHAVILLE will
IN THE
release their orchestral
album ‘Eternally Yours’
LOOP on September 23
10 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
Southend on November 1.
“Going on tour to celebrate
30 years of Dreams is just
amazing,” says Gabrielle.
“I can’t wait to party with
everyone and celebrate the
record that launched my
career three decades ago!
“Time sure does fly when
you are having fun.”
Speaking with RETROPOP “I was like, ‘Yeah, of course
back in 2021 following the I can.’ So I went home and
release of her latest album ‘Do then, a couple weeks later, I
It Again’, the Rise star opened was on the train to Surrey, and
up about writing the single, I was meant to have written
revealing: “When I went to over Fast Car.
the studio, I was played [Tracy “I had my little book of
Chapman song] Fast Car and poems and the one that I was
asked, did I think I could write blagging in the studio trying
on it? to put it together – pretending
Backstreet Boys will release
their very first Christmas
album later this year.
The group - starring AJ
McLean, Kevin Richardson,
Nick Carter, Howie Dorough,
and Brian Littrell - will unveil
‘A Very Backstreet Christmas’
in the autumn, marking their
first festive offering.
“We’ve been wanting to
do a Christmas album for
nearly 30 years now and we’re
beyond excited that it’s finally
happening,” Howie shared.
“We had such a fun
experience putting our BSB
twist on some of our favourite
Christmas classics and can’t wait
to be part of our fans’ holiday
TAKE THAT are SPICE GIRLS have
working on their first teased plans to
album in five years, celebrate 25 years of
with plans for a world
tour in 2024
‘Spiceworld’
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
that I’ve done my homework
– and I pulled it out of the bag
and started fitting it to the
backing track. And it was born
that way, so that’s it.”
She added: “I can’t believe
so much time has passed…”
Tickets for the ‘30 Years of
Dreaming’ tour are on sale
now.
season.”
Tracks on the LP include
renditions of White Christmas,
Silent Night, and Have Yourself
A Merry Little Christmas, along
with originals Christmas In New
York, Together, and Happy Days.
Backstreet Boys are currently
on the North American leg of
their ‘DNA World Tour’, which
kicked off in April and will
conclude on September 14.
PHOTO DENNIS LEUPOLD
They’ll begin shows in Europe
and the UK on October 3,
running through 2023, with
dates in New Zealand and
Australia.
‘A Very Backstreet Christmas’
is out October 14 and available to
pre-order now.
DAVID BOWIE
documentary film
‘Moonage Daydream’
will debut in cinemas
on September 16
 LINE-UP | news

TOM CHAPLIN REACHES

HIS MIDPOINT
Tom Chaplin has announced
his latest solo album ‘Midpoint’.
Work on the Keane frontman’s
new LP began two years ago
when the group’s ‘Cause and
Effect’ tour was interrupted by
the pandemic.
The songs, all founded on
reflection and imagination, were
recorded in six weeks, building
on the emotional warmth of his
2016 debut ‘The Wave’.
“I was like, wow, these are bare
compared to what I’m used to,”
Tom admits. “And it did find it
frightening because with Keane
records there’s so much layering
to thicken things up and fill up
the spaces. But this is a sparse
record.”
PHOTO DEREK HUDSON
He adds: “There’s space
for something nuanced that
explores a part of life that
everyone goes through.
“If I can get some of that
across and it can resonate with
something people are feeling in
their lives - well, I’d be more than
happy with that.”
Its lead single and title track is
out now.
In support of the album, Tom
will hit the road with a UK tour
this autumn, beginning October
6 at Leicester’s De Montfort Hall
and finishing up at the London
Palladium October 22. Tickets are
on sale now.
‘Midpoint’ is out September 2
and available to pre-order now.
A-HA GO
ALL IN WITH
ORCHESTRAL
COLLECTION
a-ha are back with ‘True North’ - their first studio
album in seven years.
The synth-pop giants recorded their latest project in
Bodø, the Norwegian city located 90km above the Arctic
Circle, with the Arctic Philharmonic orchestra.
Their first release since 2015’s ‘Cast In Steel’
is preceded by the single I’m In, which Magne
Furuholmen, who penned the track, says is “about total
commitment and a show of support for someone who
is troubled. Real commitment is a leap of faith.
“Everyone knows how difficult it can be to offer
commitment and support unconditionally, but this is
what it takes to make anything worthwhile happen –
love, friendship, change, self-improvement, careers,
a better world. Easier said than done of course but it
begins with an attitude, then uttering the words.
“After this it is all hard work to realise whatever
potential your commitment has in the world. Without
this attitude everything just gets bogged down with
conflicting thoughts, doubts and fear. Just say it: ‘I’m in’.”
‘True North’ features 12 new tracks - six written
by Magne, and six by Paul Waaktaar-Savoy - and is
accompanied by a film of the same name.
“First, we had the idea to record a studio session live,”
says Paul. “Then, to film a studio session. That grew into
more of a production with the Norwegian orchestra, the
Arctic Philharmonic, who we have collaborated with.”
In the movie, a-ha perform and record with the
PHOTO STIAN ANDERSEN

orchestra, as Magne, Paul and Morten Harket discuss

the creation of the LP. Meanwhile, recurring vignettes
see actors portray life in the north, with the narrative arc
embodying the spirit of the new songs, according to a
press release.
‘True North’ - the album - is out October 21. The film
hits cinemas in late summer 2022.

TOYAH will join Billy Idol
on the road for the UK leg
of ‘The Roadside’ tour in
October
SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR
has finally released
Hypnotized - a song she
debuted live this spring -
across digital platforms
AMY WINEHOUSE
biopic ‘Back To Black’
has named Sam Taylor-
Johnson as its director
DENISE VAN OUTEN
celebrated Pride Month
with a shimmering cover
of Patsy Gallant’s disco
classic From New York
To LA

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 11
JUST CAN’T GET
ENOUGH OF THE
80s and 90s?
Then you’ll love Totally 80s and Totally
90s with Gary King! Listen every week
for free at www.X1Player.com
 RETROSPECTIVE | Top of the Pops

Top Of The Pops tales

Step back in time as we revisit classic moments from the ‘Top of the Pops’ archives!

Well, it’s one

way to cover
up a zit...

#4 MANICS’
MILITARY EXERCISE TOP 10
THE OFFICIAL CHART
June 9, 1994: FOR JUNE 5, 1994
Manic Street Preachers - Faster
1 WET WET WET
arly on, Manic Street Preachers some viewers assumed the band must be IRA

E had a twisted plan for generating

outrage. “We had this dream of
performing self-immolation on ‘Top
of the Pops’,” singer James Dean Bradfield
told Total Guitar in 1997. But nothing so
drastic was required.
The Manics always made an effort for
‘Top of the Pops’, stamping Warhol Marilyns
on their arms and squeezing into skinny
white jeans – or, in bassist Nicky Wire’s
WORDS IAN BERRIMAN PHOTOS BBC / TOP OF THE POPS
sympathisers.
Bradfield swears that they didn’t see this
coming. “A balaclava is synonymous with
all urban terrorist movements,” he noted to
Melody Maker. And, as he told The Guardian
Love Is All Around
2 BIG MOUNTAIN
Baby I Love Your Way
3 THE MANCHESTER UTD
FOOTBALL SQUAD
in 2006, “Because we were all dressed in army
Come On You Reds
regalia, it felt like we were parodying the use
of legitimate power, like the special forces. It 4 MAXX
didn’t enter our heads that people would see it Get-A-Way
as an Irish paramilitary symbol.”

case, a flowery dress. But by 1994, the band
had swapped leopard-print blouses for
military chic: camouflage, army overcoats,
and sailor suits. Speaking to Noisey in 2018,
Wire explained this in terms of, “feeling like
it was us against the world. Defined within a
uniform.”
So it wasn’t that big a leap for Bradfield to
don a balaclava. “I asked James to put it on
for a photo session,” Wire later explained,
“And when ‘Top of the Pops’ came along, it
just seemed the right thing to do.” It was a
menacing look – albeit one undercut by Tipp-
Exing “JAMES” across the front. And at a time
when The Troubles were still rumbling on,
5 EAST 17
The BBC logged 17,500 complaints. “The
Around The World
day after,” Wire told Q in 2013, “Sony were
saying, ‘It’s the most complaints ever’ and, 6 THE PRODIGY
‘You’ll never get on ‘Top of the Pops’ again’.” No Good (Start The Dance)
And they didn’t that year, despite charting in 7 ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS
August and October. However, on returning
Absolutely Fabulous
as a trio in 1996, they became regulars again.
And the band did generate a little income 8 STILTSKIN
from the controversy. Not long after, there Inside
was an addition to their merch range: a 9 DAWN PENN
Manics-branded balaclava…
You Don’t Love Me (No, No, No)
OFollow @TOTPFacts on Twitter for 10 GUNS N’ ROSES
live trivia commentary on the BBC Four Since I Don’t Have You
repeats.

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 13
 ALONE IN
PARADISE
Having topped the charts as one-third of
Busted, James Bourne is going it alone as he
embarks on the next chapter of his career as a
solo artist with his new album, ‘Sugar Beach’.
WORDS CONNOR GOTTO

14 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM

ames Bourne rose to fame in
J the early 2000s as one-third of
one of Britain’s biggest pop-
punk boy bands, Busted.
Alongside Charlie Simpson and Matt
Willis, he scored a string of massive hit
singles, including What I Go To School
For, Year 3000, Air Hostess and Crashed
The Wedding, but now he’s going it
alone and forging a solo career with the
release of his latest LP, ‘Sugar Beach’.
Written during a 16-day layover
on his way home to California at the
height of the pandemic, the album
sees James document his experiences
alone in paradise at a £1,000/night
five-star resort, as the world around
him shut down.
Looking back on that time, he opens
up on the creative burst that led to him
penning his latest long-player and
reveals how his solo plans align with the
future of Busted.
Your new album ‘Sugar Beach’ was
written in St Lucia during lockdown.
Tell me about that time.
I wrote the album in the Caribbean
because I had to go to the Caribbean
to get home, because of the travel ban.
Because I don’t have a green card -
I have a visa - and the travel ban made
it really hard for Visas. Green cards
were allowed but O-1 visas couldn’t do
it easily.
I bought a house [in the Hollywood
Hills] four years ago, so I had to come
here because my garden here is
enormous. I was getting messages from
the fire department that my garden was
overgrown and I needed to deal with
it - there were so many reasons to come
back. It was quite stressful, but in the
end I found a way back through Sugar
Beach.
Many people would think that sounds
idyllic, but what was it really like?
It was kind of the backdrop of the
pressure of actually trying to get home.
But being there and accepting that
I’m going to be there for 16 days or
whatever, that was quite nice. It was
amazing. It was almost a shame that
I couldn’t share it with anyone. So
that’s kind of where the songs started
happening.
It was my way of documenting and
creating - if I can’t share the moment
with someone, maybe I can capture a
moment in the song and I can share it
with the people that listen to my music.
That’s kind of how it started.
The lead song Sugar Beach pretty
much encompasses the themes of
the album, but what’s striking is the
contrast of the light, breezy melodies
with heavy lyrics.
All the songs on the album were
inspired by whatever was going on at
that time. It was a real freeze-frame of
the situation, captured in album form
and in song form. Each song on the
album has a different feel and
talks about a different thing. Even
though some of the songs are
delivered in a more light-hearted
way, it’s that thing
where you make a
light-hearted way out
‘Sugar Beach’
of a bad situation. was my way of
It’s weird because
I was in a five-star
documenting
resort - and it was and creating -
expensive! In some
ways, it was a dream if I can’t share
come true and the moment with
I’m definitely not
complaining about someone, maybe
it. But I’m just trying
I can capture a
to communicate
how the album came moment in the
to be because not
a lot of people will
song.
understand. Like, ‘Oh,
you were on holiday.’
But not really…
If you spend £1,000 a night
to stay somewhere, you’d like to
think you’re sharing that moment with
your girlfriend or whatever. I don’t go
lavish when it’s just for me. I don’t eat at
really nice restaurants alone. I don’t go
on really amazing, expensive holidays
by myself. I’m quite normal when I’m
by myself; I settle for quite average stuff.
I like to share great experiences with
people.
It did turn out to be a great experience
and there were so many reasons to
make the album - because I could
write the whole thing off as a business
experience. [Laughs]
Q&A | James Bourne
There have been so many ‘lockdown
albums’ over the past year, so it’s
refreshing to hear something that
comes from a different place.
It was like, there’s a vibe here. There’s
a thing that’s going on right now that
I’m never going to forget. And I’m going
to tell that story forever; everyone’s
going to tell their pandemic stories
forever. I’m just glad that I have this
really cool album to show from my
experience. Everyone’s circumstances
were so unique and individual - and
this was mine.
A lot of people were writing songs
about Covid and I wasn’t. In a way, my
lockdown album can be a lot more
relatable and a lot more timeless,
because you’re dealing with
things that actually cross over
to a world where there isn’t a
pandemic. And when
the pandemic goes
away, a lot of the
songs on the album
still feel relevant
because the themes
are wider and they’re
more universal and
relatable.
‘Sugar Beach’ is
focused on a limited
period of time during
lockdown - how did
you spend the rest of
that 18 months?
I’ve been really
focused on this
project because
it’s my second album, which is
important for me. I wouldn’t say
that my career right now is at its
most relevant; I’m making solo music
independently and when you’re in
that position, you approach it in a way
where you have no option but to try and
make something timeless. You have
to make timeless stuff, which actually
makes it really exciting because you feel
like you’re making music that is gonna
live forever.
There’s a real passion that comes
alongside that and I think it’s a real,
authentic way to create - even more so
than when you’re being hammered by
the big labels and they’re spending
RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 15
 huge money on pushing you. Anyone
who doesn’t really love making music
wouldn’t be making it in my situation.

v e r y o ne i s
E
. I fe l t
Is there a satisfaction that comes with
working independently, compared n o w
with say Busted, where you’re perhaps s ol o a re al
’d b e
tailoring your music to other people’s like it I g ot h i
t
expectations? e i f
Yeah, it’s been amazing. I’ve got two sh a m a n d my
u s
albums now and I just toured a couple
by a b a ge h a
d
of months ago. I toured both albums
t i f y p
- because my first album came out in Sp o s o n it .
o n g
2020. no s
It’s weird because Busted was still
playing in 2019; we did festivals, played
Glastonbury and it was all happening.
So in 2020, we were always going to
take a break, without knowing that the
pandemic was around the corner.
So two years goes by and I played a
full set of solo material that had been
made in the last two years - and that
was really cool to have people come
and sing the words to those songs. I
really feel like I’m starting a long-term
thing. Writing music brings me a lot
of joy and happiness, so I’m building
something that I want to last and I want
to carry through.

A lot of people who are in groups see

their solo career as a side project, but
it sounds like this is your main focus
now. Do you have a long-term goal?
I think there are unrealistic goals and
there are realistic ones. I’m learning a
lot about the way the music industry
is now. I have about 2,000 monthly
listeners on Spotify, which is crazy to
me because my songs have been on
zero editorial playlists. I don’t feel like
I’m entitled to any of that stuff but, for
example, I sign artists as well so, rather
than being stuck in the past, I get to
experience the current music business
and how it really is.
I want to have Spotify playlists just
like some 18-year-old kid that gets It’s so refreshing to hear someone what I wanted out of my music now; I
signed tomorrow wants to have Spotify take that approach and be prepared want to be seen on a level playing field,
playlists. I want to share my music now to build a fanbase organically - you know, I don’t want to be seen as
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

just as much as I did in the beginning.
I haven’t lost my enthusiasm for my
music and, fortunately, I’m in a really
lucky place to where I get to continue
on no matter how well it does. So it’s a
really interesting place to be because the
success of my music now impacts my
life less than it ever has. But it means just
as much - or more - to me now than it
ever has.
particularly when you’ve had massive
success already.
Yeah! I’m signing a new publishing
deal with Warner Chappell and the
reason I’m moving there is that I’m on
a team that treats me like I’m making
music now. I was with Kobalt and the
reason I went there was because all
my favourite songwriters were there.
But I told [Warner Chappell] a lot about
someone that’s been around for 20 years
- even though that’s inevitable. I want
people to see my songs for what they
truly are.
Everyone is solo now. Going solo
after being in a band used to be a real
statement, but now everyone’s solo all
the time because everyone has their
own social media and everyone is
promoting their own art and projects. I

16 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM

don’t really have any crazy desire to do
much different stuff - it’s still music for
me - so I felt like it’d be a real shame if I
got hit by a bus and my Spotify page had
no songs on it.
As a writer, is there anyone you’re
itching to work with?
Yeah, I was DMing with Lewis Capaldi.
He came to our show with Busted in
Glasgow and we met each other. I didn’t
realise he followed me on Instagram,
so I followed him back and I messaged
him. I said, ‘You’re always welcome at
the house. I’d love to write,’ and I wrote
a song for him, to show him, because I
thought it was going to happen. But I’m
going to have it now. [Laughs]
You mention being around for 20
years, which is amazing, and you’re
still so successful. Busted’s last album
‘Half Way There’ got to No. 2 in the
UK charts!
It should have been No. 1 and it was a
shame that it wasn’t, because I went to
see if it was in a supermarket and there
wasn’t one copy. People can’t buy it if
it’s not there. So I think that, if we
get back together or if we don’t - it
would be a shame if we don’t… I
don’t know what will
happen with Busted,
but I think there’s a
I was DMing
No. 1 album in us still... with Lewis
There’s such a Capaldi. I said,
demand for it - ‘You’re always
particularly that
classic sound, which welcome at the
you went back to house. I’d love
on ‘Half Way There’
after switching things to write,’ and
up on ‘Night Driver’.
That’s what they
I wrote a song
remember and it’s for him - but I’m
what we were known
for and what we
going to have
became successful for. it now!
‘Half Way There’ just
sounded and looked
and felt like a Busted album.
People are really influenced by
marketing and nostalgia - and
you can’t change that, you have to be
thankful for that because it’s the reason
they love you. But ‘Night Driver’, for me,
is a quintessential Busted album.
A lot of people probably don’t realise
that, in all of your projects, you write
pretty much all of the material. How is
that for you?
There’s songs on the early Busted
albums - particularly on the second
Busted album - where we each went
off and had our own little moments,
but if you look at all the big songs and
the singles, it’s us. I don’t feel like I’m a
co-writer in the room, really. Obviously,
it’s more than one person putting
the puzzle together, but I feel like I’m
emptying the pieces of the puzzle on
the table to be put together. Does that
make sense?
Q&A | James Bourne
Absolutely. Are there plans to do
more together and celebrate the 20th
anniversary?
Yeah, we had lunch a couple of months
ago in London. I think we’d like to get on
the same page. I’m unsure of what it will
look like – ‘I don’t know’ is the answer,
because I’m just a part of it and there’s
three of us…
That’s another reason why I’ve really
enjoyed my solo stuff because making a
decision that I will write an album here
in the Caribbean was a decision I was
able to make by myself. You don’t have
to really consider anyone else and it’s a
refreshing place to be. But with
Busted, that will be a refreshing
thing to go back to because people
actually pay attention
to it. [Laughs] So there
are always pros and
cons.
Busted has had
the benefit of an
enormous push; we
were marketed like
crazy in the beginning
and we got launched
into the stratosphere
by Universal. That
was like a Usain Bolt
sprint, all guns blazing,
whereas my solo stuff
is going on quietly, out
the back door…
There are all these
things that it would be
nice if they happened,
but at the moment, the band isn’t
functional. So we’d have to decide
if we want to go and open that can
of worms because once you go back to
it, my life changes quite a lot because it
means that I’m back in England and not
at home. But if the three of all get behind
it and agree to the right terms, we could
do something really cool. It just hasn’t
been decided yet.
Before I let you go, do you have an idea
of what’s coming next from your solo
career after ‘Sugar Beach’?
Yeah, I do. I didn’t ever think I’d make an
album like ‘Sugar Beach’ but it just sort
of happened. I have songs I was writing
before ‘Sugar Beach’ happened and some
of those songs I want to make on the
next album. I feel like the third album will
be what my second album would have
been if it wasn’t for Covid.
O‘Sugar Beach’ is out now.
RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 17
 FROM THE VAULT

IN MARTIKA’S
KITCHEN, BABY!
In an archive 2012 interview, ‘80s superstar Martika looks back
on her pop career, revealing how she landed her first gig in ‘Annie’
at the age of 12 and why, after two smash hit albums, she stepped
away from the music industry altogether!
INTERVIEW DARREN SCOTT WORDS CONNOR GOTTO

n the late 1980s, 19 year old it was amazing,” she smiles. the eye of songwriter and producer

I Martika took the charts by storm

as she launched onto the scene
with a fresh brand of pop music
that made her a global star.
Having topped the US charts with her
“At the time I just had no idea what
an incredible privilege it was to walk on
to the soundstage at Columbia Pictures
at 12 years old and work with John
Huston, Carol Burnett, Albert Finney,
Michael Jay, who was to become a
key collaborator throughout Martika’s
musical career.
Of the first time he heard her vocals,
he recalls: “My sister Laurie worked on
classic single Toy Soldiers, her self-titled Bernadette Peters - it was just the TV show and I remember one
debut was a hit and, when it came to fabulous. Tim Curry, I didn’t day meeting my sister at the set
working on its follow-up, she teamed even realise who he was at the for lunch. I was gonna take her to
up with Prince on a number of tracks, time [because] I hadn’t lunch, and they were
including the hits Love… Thy Will Be seen ‘The Rocky running behind, so I
Done and the title song of her second Horror Picture Show’ I THINNK IT WAS had to wait for them
LP, ‘Martika’s Kitchen’. when I was 12. I wish I TOO MUC CH, to film a scene where
But after releasing its final single knew then! Martika was singing
Safe in the Arms of Love in early 1993, “It was pretty TOO SOO ON, TOO lead - and I was just
Martika stepped away from the industry intense. I have lots of blown away by her!”
altogether in favour of a more private life gossipy stories, which
YOUNG. I DIDN’TT
During their
away from the bright lights and media I don’t have time for LIK
KE LIFE IN THE lunch break, Michael
circus of the pop world. right now. Lots of told Laurie how
Looking back on her career, the stage mothers on that
PUBLIIC EYYE AT impressed he’d
singer-songwriter opens up about her ‘Annie’ set - oh my THE TIM
ME, SO I been by what he
big screen beginnings and reflects on God, you would not heard and shared
the highs and lows of finding fame at believe how catty little SORTT OF SHIE ED his desire to “get that
such a young age. girls can be. Wow!” AWAY FR R OM girl in a studio and
After appearing in start making some
GET INTO THIS the movie, Martika IT ALL FOR A records”. “Laurie said,
At the age of 12, Martika landed her first was cast as Gloria on LONNG TIME.. ‘Fine, I’ll introduce
taste of the limelight in an uncredited the long-running you to Martika’s mum
role as one of the girls in the 1982 big children’s show ‘Kids and you can take it
screen adaptation of ‘Annie’ - a project Incorporated’. In the from there,’ which is
she looks back on with great fondness. series, she appeared as one of a what happened,” he says. “I talked
“A lot of people were just really surprised group of neighbourhood children my way into getting Martika
that I was in it. So, when they find out, who found fame by singing staged to come into the studio and do some
they’re so pleased to know about the productions at a corner malt shop - and demos with me and that became a really
experience and what that was like. And, her involvement in the project caught good relationship between me and

18 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
FROM THE VAULT | Martika

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 19
 her - and me and her mum and dad as
well, because she was 16 or 17 when I
met her.”
Having recorded a bunch of demos,
Martika found herself at the centre
of a “little bidding war between
five major labels,” and eventually
scored a deal with CBS, on which
she released her self-
titled debut album.
However, things WHE EN I WAS
could have turned out YOOUNG, INN MY
particularly differently,
as new label boss EARLY TEENS ,
Tommy Mottola
came in soon after
MTV CAME OUTT
her signing, which ANND I WAS SO
brought with it the
threat of a cull.
MASSIVELY Y INTTO
“He could’ve BRITISH P OP, LIKKE
dropped her, but
he listened to the CULTTURE CLU UB,
album and he loved DURAN N DURAN,
it. Jellybean helped us
with that too, because EURYTHHMIC CS ,
he did some of the
mixes for us - of More
SP
PANDAU
Than You Know and BAALLE
ET…
everything - and
Jellybean was a good
friend of Tommy Mottola, so
he sort of helped us get that
record released.”
THE EARTH MOVES
More Than You Know made waves as
the album’s lead single, landing the
rising star in the Top 20 of the UK and
US charts, but it was follow-up Toy
Soldiers that took Martika’s career to
new heights. Not only did the track
top the charts in her home country, it
became one of the most recognisable
songs of the 1980s and, 15 years after
its release, was given new life courtesy
of Eminem, who featured her vocals
on the chorus of his reworking, Like
Toy Soldiers.
“They had to ask my permission in
order to sample and use it and I was
obviously very flattered and honoured,
so said ‘yes’ immediately,” she smiles.
“I’ve been a fan of Eminem and the
work that he and his producers and
collaborators have done ever since the
very first time I heard it on the radio, so
that was really cool.”
With themes of drug addiction, Toy
Soldiers was a far cry from the glossy
pop on the rest of the album, but it
“totally exploded, and I think that sort
of put more pressure on me having
to be a little bit more of a serious idol much, too soon, too young.
as opposed to my very kitschy, high- It was very overwhelming for
energy stuff,” she admits, as she set me at the time and the pace
to work on her second long-player, didn’t feel like a human pace.
‘Martika’s Kitchen’. If you want the truth, I didn’t
Arriving three years after her like life in the public eye at the
debut, the record was a departure time, so I sort of shied away
in musical styles from her first from it all for a long time.
release, incorporating “I just wasn’t really prepared.
elements of jazz, Nobody really talked to me
funk and R&B. and walked me through,” she
While she once remembers. “I was so young and
again collaborated I didn’t really understand or learn
with Michael on what would be entailed, what
tracks such as Safe would be expected of me,” she
in the Arms of Love, adds. “It was just like, ‘Oh really,
Martika found a new wow,’ and within my inner circle
co-writer in funk - within my organisation - there
legend Prince, who were things coming apart. It was
contributed to two of just one of those things…”
her best-loved hits, Although becoming a star at
title track Martika’s such a young age was initially
Kitchen and the challenging, exiting the industry
classic Love… Thy and leaving her fame behind gave
Will Be Done. Martika a fresh perspective on her
“I knew that for success. “I think stepping away from
the second album I my career gave me some peace of
would have to give mind that I had given a message
the world something like that to the world, something
that had that kind of really from the heart and soul, and
serious weight to it; something
that had more meaning than
just, ‘Everybody have fun, party
and dance…’,” she recalls.
I knew that I wanted to
say something, give some
kind of spiritual message
to the world, and that’s
where Love… Thy Will Be
Done came in.”
Of the track, which
she and Prince co-wrote,
Martika remembers: “It
was really just a prayer that
I wrote, and Prince turned
it into a vocal pop hymn.
When it was coming to life, I
thought it was just beautiful
and the kind of message I
really wanted to give. I really
couldn’t think of anything
more that I wanted to say than
that at the time. I also just felt
like, if that’s all I ever said, then I
said something right.”
Following the release of her
second album, Martika stepped
away from the music industry
aged just 22, citing burnout and
feeling overwhelmed with her
newfound fame. Looking back,
she admits: “I think it was too

20 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
 FROM THE VAULT | Martika

made-up black eye make-up. That

whole pop star scene, the first time I
went over, was just crazy. Plus, I think
also I wasn’t expecting that my career
was just so big, so fast.”
Although successful in her home
country, Martika admits she didn’t
realise the extent of her fame overseas
until she was greeted by “paparazzi
and fans outside hotels” when she
arrived in the UK for the first time. “I
really wasn’t expecting that, so it was
pretty overwhelming and amazing.
But I got an incredible reception
there,” she beams. “I also remember
they used to call me Spooky in the
teen magazines. [Laughs] They
called me Spooky Martika because
I was into crystals and spirituality
and that. The ‘spooky’ terminology
was new to me - we were more
like ‘new-age’ in LA - I never heard
‘spooky’. [Laughs]”
She adds: “You all really
welcomed me with a really
wonderful feeling. Especially
like I said, to be welcomed into
a country that I had so much
respect for.”
Back in 2012, Martika
returned to the music scene
with the single Flow With The
Go, intended to be part of a
comeback album, titled ‘The
Mirrorball’, that would see
her return to her pop-dance
roots and that she called “the
best Martika album
uplifting,” she explains. “I had no idea George and - I can’t ever”. To date, the
THEERE IS A
PHOTOS DPA PICTURE ALLIANCE / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

what would have been if I would even remember all of full project has yet
have made the next album at that the people that were BOOOK IN N ME, to be released and
time, but I’m sure that I probably there! But it was just the single remains
would have wanted to explore so amazing because,
BUT I PRROBABLY the only taste of
some of those spiritual themes. Not when I was young, in WON’T EVER the album that has
exclusively, obviously, but that was my early teens, MTV materialised. While
definitely part of the message that I came out and I was WRIITE IT - UNLLESS the future of her
would want to explore more of.” so massively into I’MM REALLY, pop career remains
British pop, like uncertain, however,
SPIRIT Culture Club, Duran REALLLY OLLD, she does tease plans
In spite of the challenges she Duran, Eurythmics,
AND D MOSTLLY to look back over
faced, however, Martika looks Spandau Ballet… her life in a tell-all
back fondly on her musical “It was just a trip for EV
VERY YBOD DY’S
S memoir - although
success and, when it comes to me to finally get over as fans have come to
stand out memories, it’s a Smash to London, because I
DEAAD! expect, we might be
Hits! Awards after-party at a just loved the fashion in for a wait.
skating rink that she remembers and the music and “There is a book
with glee. “I think I performed everything. Being from the States, in me, but I probably won’t ever
there, and then there was a party and in LA, it was a dream come write it - unless I’m really, really
afterwards,” she shares. “It was true to even be able to get to the UK - old, and mostly everybody’s dead,” she
just so surreal, because I was let alone to be able to perform there! laughs. “Because, it wouldn’t be fun
roller-skating and there were all Eurythmics were there, and there was unless you tell the good, juicy stuff,
these pop stars around, like Boy Siobhan [Fahey] with her very heavily right?”

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 21
 GOIN G H O M E
Celebrating 35 years since the release of Deacon Blue’s iconic
album ‘Raintown’, frontman Ricky Ross talks about life in-and-out
of the band, his new solo album ‘Short Stories Volume 2’, and his
memoir ‘Walking Back Home’.
eacon Blue were in full
D flow promoting their ninth
studio album ‘City of Love’
when, in early March 2020,
the world shut down.
Released weeks prior to the first UK
lockdown, the LP delivered the band
their highest chart position since
1993’s ‘Whatever You Say, Say Nothing’,
peaking at No. 4 in the UK and No. 1 in
their native Scotland.
It was the latest in an uninterrupted
run of creative success - starting in
2012 with their comeback album
‘The Hipsters’ and continuing with
2014’s ‘A New House’ and 2016’s ‘The
Believers’ - with the group selling out
concerts across the globe, which saw
Deacon Blue play shows in Europe
and Australia for the first time since
their classic heyday.
FOUNDATIONS
“The schedule was looking pretty
intense,” explains frontman Ricky Ross,
who quit his job as an English teacher
and formed the band back in 1985. “But
when the pandemic started, I basically
22 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
WORDS PAUL HOLLINS
caught Covid. We didn’t get tested at that
point, but immediately I stopped.”
With numerous festival dates, TV
guest appearances, promotional
activities, and a sold-out tour in the
diary for the end of the year, the band
- also starring Dougie Vipond (drums),
James Prime (keyboards), Gregor
Philp (guitars), Lewis Gordon (bass)
and Ricky’s wife Lorraine McIntosh on
vocals - quickly realised they’d have to
re-think their strategy going forward, as
the global situation worsened.
“When I could go out of my isolation,
Lorraine got it, and she was in isolation
for 10 days. That was when I really got
down to writing and recording ‘Short
Stories Volume 2’,” explains Ricky of his
latest solo album - the follow-up to his
2017 offering, ‘Short Stories’.
That album was recorded in
Hamburg, Germany in just two days,
but the process this time around was
significantly different, with the hitmaker
working from his home in Glasgow,
Scotland and relishing the luxury of
spending a little longer on the writing.
“I had songs half-written. I often do
that,” he recalls. “I have things that are
just ideas, but I hadn’t really had time
to fully work on them. And I started
trying to finish them. So I thought,
‘Well if I record them on my own studio
setup using the digital piano, I could fix
something quickly’.”
He adds: “The recording didn’t take
that long, and it was all done in the room
that I’m in now. It’s really just me - there
was no one else allowed in the room.
Then Gregor [Philp] mixed it all remotely
up in his studio. So that’s just how we
did it.”
After the recording sessions were
finished, the tracks were augmented
with lush strings courtesy of Pete
Harvey (who Ricky has worked with
before), with Lorraine also contributing
to a number of the recordings.
Lead single Spanish Shoes might be
a far cry from the stadium-sound of
Deacon Blue, but there’s no escaping
Ricky’s powerful lyrics and ear for
melody, with the singer explaining: “It
was written in the middle of lockdown
when the only thing we were allowed to
do was go for walks for like an hour a
 INTERVIEW | Ricky Ross

It was all meant to

happen at a nice
gentle pace. But
because things got
put back, it just feels
that everything is
running into itself.

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 23
 day or something. Lorraine and I would
go for these long-ish walks through the
town with empty streets. And when we’d
been in Spain, I don’t know, just maybe
a year before on tour or whenever it was,
somewhere like at Barcelona Airport, I’d
found this really great pair of trainers that
I’d never really had a chance to wear very
much. And I just thought, ‘Yeah, when
this is all over, I’m going to wear these.’
And that was the line.”

STILL WALKING
Deacon Blue is effectively nine studio
albums old whereas ‘Short Stories Volume
2’ is Ricky’s eighth solo long-player -
however his career predates the group,
with his earliest cassette-only release,
‘So Long Ago’ (1984), helping to secure
his original songwriting deal with ATV
Music. That album was later given a
limited re-release on CD by a small
independent Scottish label, but it wasn’t
until Deacon Blue’s breakup in 1994 I had songs half-
that he signed a major label solo deal
with Epic Records, and went on to
written. I often
release ‘What You Are’ in 1996. do that. I thought,
Musically, ‘What You Are’ was quite
a rocky departure from the trademark ‘Well if I record
Deacon Blue sound, as Ricky’s deeply them on my
personal lyrics touched on his father’s
death (What You Are) and the birth own studio setup
of his daughter (Love Isn’t Hard It’s
Strong). However, after lead track
using the digital
Radio On scraped into the UK Top 40 piano, I could
at No. 35 and follow-up Good Evening
Philadelphia failed to make an impact
fix something
on the charts, he departed the label quickly’.
– on his 40th birthday, no less – and
established his own label, Internazionale,
for the largely acoustic 1997 release
’New Recording’.
It paved the way for a full band
reunion - firstly for a charity show,
followed by a string of live dates and,
later, the ‘Homesick’ album in 2001 - with
the group and Ricky joining Papillion
Records, on which he released ‘This Is
Life’ in 2002.
It was probably Ricky’s most accessible
solo album to date, however it came just
as Papillion imploded and, as a result, the
album got lost without any real support
from the label.
“It was almost like watching a car crash
happen in slow motion,” Ricky muses of
the experience, after which it took three
years before he re-emerged in 2005 with
the 12-track ‘Pale Rider’. In that time,
Ricky had sadly lost one of his closest

24 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM

friends, Deacon Blue’s original guitarist
Graeme Kelling, who had been battling
pancreatic cancer.
Even now, Ricky and Lorraine
maintain contact with Graeme’s widow
Julie and their two children, Alexander
and Grace, but following the loss
Ricky turned his attention to writing
with other artists, including James
Blunt, Ronan Keating and KT Tunstall,
amongst others, for a while. However,
eight years later, in 2013, he returned
with the intimate ‘Trouble Came
Looking’ and, while balancing his work
with Deacon Blue, Ricky has managed
to keep both careers burning bright.
NEW WORLD
It was in 2017, following a trio of
Deacon Blue albums, that Ricky
recorded the first in the ‘Short
Stories’ series. “It was an album of
some new songs and I revisited
some of my older ones too,” he
says of the long-player, which
features new takes on Deacon
Blue favourites such as Wages Day
and Raintown, along with The
Germans Are Out Today, from his
hard-to-find debut solo record.
It was warmly received by fans
and critics, so it’s no surprise that,
five years later, he’s following a
similar formula on ‘Short Stories
Volume 2’, which is accompanied
by a UK tour in the autumn and
coincides with the release of the
musician’s memoir. Although a
project of its own, Ricky’s latest
solo venture comes hot on the
heels of the final dates of Deacon
Blue’s ‘City of Love’ tour, which
was recently ticked off the ‘to do
list’ after two years’ worth of delays
and rescheduling.
“It was all meant to happen at a nice
gentle pace,” he laughs. “But because
things got put back, it just feels that
everything is running into itself. And of
course, then throwing the book into the
mix has been quite challenging.”
The tome touches on the Dignity
star’s formative years growing up in
PHOTOS SIMON MURPHY
Dundee, his early forays into music
and the band’s extraordinary success,
subsequent fall-out, and the re-
emergence of Deacon Blue.
“On the Deacon Blue album ‘City of
Love’, there’s a song called On Love,
which was much more like a prose
thing than it was a song,” he remembers.
“Just around that time, I remember
being in Australia, and then when we
got to New Zealand, we had a few days
off at the end of that tour, I would write
these ideas on my phone.”
The title for the autobiography
evolved after Ricky rejected an initial
idea for the book to be named ‘Call
Me Deacon Blue’. Following a little
negotiation, he floated the idea, “how
about ‘Walking Back Home’?” - a nod
back to the title of a Deacon Blue song
and compilation album that marked
their 1999 return, following the band’s
split five years earlier - and the publisher
loved it.
Song titles make up many of the
chapter names, he reveals. “Some are
actually other people’s songs and there’s
a whole chapter about [my] early days in
Dundee called Back Here In Beanoland,
so it sort of works in that sense.”
Throughout his expansive musical
catalogue, Ricky has always been a
strong storyteller, so it’s no surprise
that he writes movingly and with great
wit about the people and places that
have meant the most to him, as well as
his relationship with faith, politics, and
the ever-changing challenges of being
a musician.
But why is now the right time
for ‘Walking Back Home’? “I had no
INTERVIEW | Ricky Ross
intention of ever doing it. I think that
sometimes, in terms of public books, it’s
guys that have lost their legs and climbed
Everest, or guys that are rock and roll who
have near death experiences - sex and
drugs and rock and roll. Well, none of
these things are true of me,” he insists.
“But then I thought, ‘Well, that’s not
what I enjoy reading. I enjoy reading
deep truths and human stories. That’s
what my songs have really been about.
They’re not really big dramatic deals;
they’re just about human truths.”
Faced with the mammoth task of
documenting his life and career, Ricky
became all-consumed by the process, but
ultimately managed to deliver a record of
his experiences that he’s proud of.
I had no intention
of ever doing
it. I think that
sometimes, in terms
of public books,
it’s sex and drugs
and rock and roll.
Well, none of these
things are true
of me!
“I would wake up thinking, ‘Oh, yeah, I
remember that story about [whatever], I’ll
write about that and see what happens...’
And it was very, very creative,” he
reflects. “[But] then in the middle, when
it became like, ‘Oh, now we need to tell
a more complete story,’ it just became
a pain. Then for some reason I got over
that hump and, towards the end, it got
enjoyable again.”
O‘Short Stories Volume 2’ is out
August 5 on Cooking Vinyl. ‘Walking
Back Home’ is out August 4 on
Headline Books. Ricky’s solo tour
starts in Aberdeen on September 20.
RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 25
 Here a n d

26 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
 COVER FEATURE | Steps

now
With 25 years of pop excellence
under their belts, Steps are looking
back on their legacy with their stellar
‘Platinum Collection’ - an album
born of blood, sweat and tears as
they fought to be accepted by the
music industry and earn their place
in the history books!
WORDS CONNOR GOTTO

n late 1997, the face of British music changed forever when

I a shiny new pop group made their chart debut with a techno
line dancing anthem that would become one of the most
recognisable hits of the decade.
The song was 5,6,7,8 and the group Steps - formed by the writers
of the track, Steve Crosby and Barry Upton, alongside manager Tim
Byrne, following a set of auditions of hopefuls who answered an ad
in The Stage newspaper - and so began one of the most successful
careers in chart history.
From 1997 to 2001, the group released three studio albums and
enjoyed a mammoth run of hits, before parting ways following the
release of their first retrospective compilation. But a decade on,
Steps reunited for a UK tour and in 2017 began a new era with ‘Tears
on the Dancefloor’, their first album of original material in 16 years.
Now, they’re celebrating 25 years of success with an epic best-
of release, dubbed the ‘Platinum Collection’, and a summer tour
celebrating their incredible legacy. And as Claire Richards, Faye
Tozer, Ian ‘H’ Watkins, Lisa Scott-Lee and Lee Latchford-Evans look
back on their storied past, the group hints at what’s to come from
the future of Steps.

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 27
 I am very grateful
that we are still here
and still doing what
we love. I think this
is the cherry on the
top of the cake that we
weren’t expecting.
A very big cake!
CLAIRE

28 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM

STEP ONE
“From the day that we auditioned, we could not have
seen this coming, to be honest,” laughs Faye, as she
recalls the group’s early beginnings. Auditions for the
band were tailored around their now-iconic debut, but
initially the face of Steps looked very different.
“Myself and H were found, if you like, from the first
set of auditions. And there was an alternative line-up,”
explains Lisa. Alongside the duo, Derek O’Brien, Maddy
Chan and Mitch Stevens completed the original band,
but as work commenced on their debut, it became
clear something was off.
“In all honesty I don’t think it would have been the
right line-up,” she admits. “The three other members
at the time were more into a different genre of music,
more into R&B - they were not into pop. So they were
more into, probably in their words, slightly ‘cooler’
music, and me and H, we didn’t
mind - we love our pop and we
were very proud to represent this
new pop group.”
During the next set of auditions,
Claire, Faye and Lee were recruited
to join the band, completing the
new line-up that was to take the
charts by storm. But despite her
powerhouse vocals that the group
admit made waves throughout the
audition room, Claire was unsure
of her chances when it came to
showing off her moves.
“The dance part of the audition
was to do 5,6,7,8, which is probably
the only reason I managed to get through - because it
was line dancing,” she laughs. “Rodeo Ruth, bless her,
was on the stage teaching everybody!”
It also presented a challenge for Lee, who had two
numbers prepared for his big moment - but was
stumped when they asked him to perform something
altogether different: an off-the-cuff rap! “They said
to me on the audition day, ‘Can you just make up
something on the spot? Can you just rap something?’ I
had two songs prepared for the audition and they were
like, ‘No, can you just make something up?’” he recalls,
admitting he “should have known” he was being lined
up for the lead part on the verses.
Already a member of the band, H had a lucky escape
and avoided rapping altogether, as Claire jokes: “That’s
probably why Lee did it. A rap, in Welsh, with a Welsh
accent - that’s what it would have been!”
Having been selected, the group was good to go,
but for Lee it was a decision he had “a few days to
think about,” because he already had another offer on
the table. “I was offered a musical at the same time,
so I had to choose which way I was going to go,” he
remembers. “And obviously Steps wasn’t what it is now
back then – it was just an audition, really. But we all got
COVER FEATURE | Steps
on great on the day, we ticked all the boxes, and once
we started with it, it was obvious that we were all gonna
put 100 per cent into it and make it work the best way
possible.”
Of course, he chose the band and the rest, as they
say, is history. “For me, that was the day that Steps was
born - the Steps as we know it,” beams Lisa. “I think we
all remember it; it’s like an iconic day now, it’s gonna
be engraved in our memory forever, because it was
the first day that we all met together. Me and H went
along to help pick and the three guys stood out. It was
definitely the right fit. We all have the same kind of
vision and ethos and work ethic, and we have so much
in common. It was the right thing to do.”
With the line-up nailed down, the group hit the
studio to lay down vocals and, in November 1997,
unleashed 5,6,7,8 - complete with a sun soaked music
video filmed on a Spanish beach,
#H-CAM with H and Lee riding jet skis and
the five-piece performing the now-
iconic routine at a beachside bar.
“The best thing is H walking behind
me in the video on the beach
looking - or trying to look - really
cool,” Lee laughs.
The single debuted at No. 18 on
the UK Singles Chart and peaked at
No. 14 in its eighth week, spending
a total of 18 non-consecutive weeks
on the rundown. It remains one
of Steps’ lowest chart positions of
their initial run, but has become
the third-best-selling single of
their career - and the sustained interest in the group
compelled Pete Waterman to continue working with
them on a follow-up.
STEPTACULAR
It was six months before Steps returned in April 1998
with the follow-up to their debut hit: an amped-up
cover of Bananarama’s Last Thing on My Mind, which
the pair originally released five years prior. The duo’s
recording, lifted from their sixth album ‘Please Yourself’,
stalled at No. 71 in the charts, but Steps’ version gave
them another hit and marked their Top 10 debut,
peaking at No. 6.
The track signalled the beginning of Steps’ epic Top
10 streak and allusions to ABBA didn’t go unnoticed,
with Pete famously referring to the group’s sound as
“ABBA on speed”. It also gave them a blueprint when it
came to their future material - uptempo, feelgood beats
juxtaposed with deep, meaningful lyrics. “That’s where
Pete Waterman was so savvy and so clever. All of the
other bands that appealed to the teen market had very
childlike lyrics,” says H. “They were very sweet, I guess -
and that’s no disrespect to any of those groups, because
some of those records are fucking great.
RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 29
 “But our lyrics went darker and deeper than that;
they still had great pop banging beats on top, but I
just felt our lyrics translated and that’s why all of these
children’s parents didn’t mind coming to our concerts.”
Lee agrees: “There’s a lot of depth and meaning,
usually heartache, going on in our lyrics. And then
when you come out in bright colours and do a dance,
there’s a massive contrast within the Steps world. But
maybe that’s why it works?”
Summarising the Steps formula, Claire poses: “I think
it’s got to be a really, really good lyric, a really massive
banging chorus, generally a key change, and me
wailing over the last chorus.”
Last Thing on My Mind is another song that came
armed with a glossy music video, this time recorded
in Cuba, and a dance routine that became another
signature part of the Steps brand. Its follow-up One
For Sorrow had the same
package - although it
#H-CAM
wasn’t all glamour, as
the clip was recorded in
a sunflower field next
to a sewage plant, with
Claire remembering the
group was “trying to look
happy and smiley, singing
One For Sorrow without
breathing in.”
However, she fondly
remembers: “We were
lucky to go to some
amazing places. As we
got busier and more
successful, we were just in
a studio in Park Royal and
that’s kind of where we
ended up. But we have got memories from all of
those videos.”
The videos may evoke memories for each of
the band members, but if there’s anything they’ve
forgotten, H’s habit for capturing all of their escapades
on camera often comes in handy, with the group
delving into his archive for their ‘Platinum Collection’
package.
“It was a bit of a running joke back then. I document
everything - I don’t want to big myself up, but I guess
I was the original content creator,” he jokes. “I literally
have everything, from filming our rehearsals from our
first tour, to being on planes, in TV studios in Australia…
all on my snappy camera.”
In his archive are snaps of him with Jennifer Lopez
and Britney Spears - with whom the group toured the
US - plus shots of Will Smith doing the iconic Tragedy
pose. “This is mind blowing the stuff that I was so
fucking cheeky to ask and I got away with,” he says.
“And that is my motto - ‘Why not?’ Because they can
only say no, right?”
30 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
Although possibly embarrassing at the time, the
group are delighted that H had the foresight to keep
an account of their adventures. “The beauty of it is, he
did save everything and he documented everything,”
smiles Lisa. “I’m so pleased and actually, going back
years ago, we would be at an awards event and there
would be some really cool stars and me and the guys
would be like, ‘Oh my goodness,’ and H would run
up to them with his camera and be like, ‘Can I have a
photo?’ We’d be like, ‘Oh no, here he goes,’ but now in
hindsight, it’s an amazing thing, because he did keep
everything and it’s so beautiful.”
Faye agrees: “The fact that H is who he is with H
cam, he’s brought all those lovely memories back to life
again and it’s so lovely to be able to show the fans these
little snippets of where we were back in the day that no
one has seen before.”
BUZZ
In late 1998, Steps released
Heartbeat as the fourth
single from their first
long-player ‘Step One’
and, as a double A-side,
included a new recording,
a cover of the Bee Gees
hit Tragedy. In its eighth
week on the chart, the
release hit No. 1 in the UK,
giving the group their first
chart-topper - a triumph
for Steps, with H admitting
it “felt like slow and steady
won the race”. “It was a
slog. It was a simmer and
then a boil,” he reflects. “All
of our peers had multi million pound record company
machines behind them and they went straight to No. 1.
Acts like Five and S Club, they literally all went straight
to No. 1 - we never had that.
“We climbed the charts steadily with every release
and I think that’s why we never took it for granted. We
fought for everything. We fought tooth and nail
to get played on the radio, for television, even
to get an extra outfit for our performances.
But that’s the way it was. We’d turn up to the
Smash Hits Poll Winners Party in the same
outfit that we’d been wearing for months
on the same TV campaign. We wouldn’t
have a dressing room - we would have to
change behind some boards - whereas our
peers would be dripping in Gucci and Prada.”
The group made a name for themselves
with their epic cover versions and another track
 COVER FEATURE | Steps

When we released our

first single, everybody
laughed at us. 25 years
later, none of those
cool cats are around, all
those music execs have
probably been ditched,
and we’re still here.
H

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 31
 written by the Gibb brothers, Chain Reaction, which
was originally a hit for Diana Ross, gave Steps another
Top 5 single. Now, it’s become one of their signature
tunes and, when watching the Motown legend
perform during Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee
celebrations, even Claire’s daughter was unaware of
its origins.
“We were sat there and a half way through it and
she said, ‘Mummy, why is she singing your song?’
She’s only ever seen us do it,” she laughs. “She knows
that we’ve done other covers because she tells me
off for stealing. ‘Why do people do that? I can’t
understand, why do they do that?’ But yeah, she did
think Diana Ross was singing our song. I said, ‘I don’t
know. How dare she - she obviously didn’t get the
memo’. [Laughs]”
On the ‘Platinum Collection’, Steps tackle another
classic, Three Degrees’ The Runner, while lead single,
Hard 2 Forget, is another lesser-known cover version,
originally released by rising US star VINCINT on his
2021 album ‘There Will Be Tears’. After hearing the
track, it became a firm favourite of the group’s, with
Lisa musing: “We get a lot of songs put on the table
for us to listen to and choose from. I think, especially
with Hard 2 Forget, there’s songs that are a bit more
obscure that we do bring to light, because we feel like
they need to have that air time. They’re really great
songs and maybe they haven’t had that. It hasn’t
reached that big of an audience and so we feel like
those songs are worth us giving it a shot, because we
personally absolutely love them as well.”
On his BBC radio show Friday Night H, the singer
is a staunch champion of up-and-coming talent
and devotes a large portion of the programme
to LGBTQ+ artists in search of a platform. The
LGBTQ+ community, of course, accounts for a large
proportion of Steps’ fan base and H believes it’s the
appeal of their hits to that demographic that’s helped

There’s a lot of depth and

meaning going on in our
lyrics. When you come out
in bright colours and do
a dance, there’s a massive
contrast. But maybe that’s
why it works?
LEE

32 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
 COVER FEATURE | Steps

keep the Steps brand alive.

“I don’t know whether that’s because they’re high
camp, but they hit that sweet spot with the LGBTQIA+
community,” he reflects. “I always say that the queer
community are such incredible pop barometers; they
have their finger on the pulse, they know what’s going
to be hot or what’s not before anybody else, which
means we are better than anybody else - just saying!
[Laughs]”
On a more serious note, he adds: “Music is therapy
to a lot of people and we pride ourselves on
creating that safe space, especially for the
LGBTQ+ community, which I am a massive
member of. It’s something I never had
when I was a young, queer kid. I wish
I’d had that safe space or found my
tribe. We always say that Steps is an
open door policy. It doesn’t matter
how you identify, what ability, what
colour - you come and you live your
best life, you be your authentic self and you
have no judgement. You just experience pure joy
and authenticity. I’m so proud of that.”

TEARS ON THE DANCEFLOOR

Steps’ initial pop reign continued through 2001, with
the group scoring a run of 19 UK Top 10 singles from
their first three studio albums - ‘Step One’ (1998),
‘Steptacular’(1999) and ‘Buzz’ (2000) - along with their We all have the
‘Gold’ greatest hits release in 2001. In that time, they
topped the charts once again with Stomp, and scored
same kind of
hits such as Love’s Got a Hold on My Heart, Deeper vision and ethos
Shade of Blue and Summer of Love, however prior
and work ethic,
#H-CAM and we have so
much in common.
LISA

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 33
 to going on stage on the final night of their ‘Gold’
tour, Claire and H handed in their resignations to the
remaining members of Steps, closing a chapter in
pop history amid their ongoing unhappiness with the
band’s hectic schedule and gruelling itinerary.
Looking back on that time even now, Claire admits
she has few memories of some of their biggest gigs.
“The scary thing is when you see a TV performance
or something, and it’s very clearly you, but it doesn’t
even trigger a memory of being there and doing it,”
she reflects. “That’s quite scary. It just shows how long
we’ve been doing it.”
The subsequent fall-out is well documented, as H
& Claire went on to form a duo, Lisa launched a solo
career and Faye and Lee immersed themselves in
various projects as they embarked on new chapters
in their lives and careers. But in 2011 - 10 years
after their split - the group reunited for a four-part
Sky Living documentary, focussed on the interim
years, and released their ‘Ultimate Collection’. The
retrospective was promoted with a UK tour in 2012,
which showcased the band’s biggest hits and featured
a new cover of ABBA’s Dancing Queen, but it would
be another five years before they sensationally
returned with the first new album of original
Steps material in 16 years.
Preceded by the UK Top 40 hit
Scared of the Dark, ‘Tears on the
Dance Floor’ (2017) peaked at No. 2 From the day that
in the UK and began a bright new we auditioned,
chapter for the group - but their
comeback was scoffed at by record we could not have
labels who, according to H, didn’t
want to know about it.
seen this coming,
“When we came back with new to be honest.
music, nobody wanted to sign us,”
FAYE
he insists. “We knocked on every
label’s door to sign us and they all
said ‘no’. So we formulated our own
record company and we did it ourselves. Now,
all of the major companies follow our business
model, which is crazy. And then with our last album,
everybody wanted to sign us!”
For their follow-up ‘What The Future Holds’ (2020),
the group inked a deal with BMG but, days before they
were set to launch the album, Covid lockdowns were
enforced in the UK and the project was put on hold
until later that year. The delay resulted in a planned
November tour being pushed back 12 months, during
which time they recorded ‘What The Future Holds Pt.
2’ (2021) and, although the threat of the pandemic was
still present, the group hit the road in November 2021
for their long-awaited ‘What The Future Holds’ tour,
during which they were forced to play shows as a four-
piece when Faye and Lee were each struck by the virus

34 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM

at different times.
“We were battling against a lot, we really were,” says
H. “We were the only band that put on a show of that
scale during the tail end of a pandemic. Everybody else
cancelled or they reduced their shows. But we didn’t
and we almost finished it. We almost did it but we had
to put our hands up and we were beaten on two dates.
But I felt like we brought a lot of joy to people in a very
dark time.”
WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS
More than two decades since they first started and
with a recent body of work as prolific as their initial
run, Steps have more than earned the right to tap into
fans’ longing for nostalgia and celebrate the fruits of
their labour. While they’re responsible for one of pop’s
most consistent catalogues of
work, Claire insists it “doesn’t
feel like 25 years at all” since
the band started out.
“If you think about how
old we were when we started
and where we are now - and
everything that’s happened
in between…” she muses.” I
am very grateful that we are
still here and still doing what
we love. I think this is the
cherry on the top of the cake
that we weren’t expecting. A
very big cake! [Laughs]”
For Lee, the anniversary
evokes an altogether different
memory: “When I turned
25, the first thing my dad said to me at the time was,
‘You’re halfway to 50 now son. Well done.’ Oh great,
thanks dad. Cheers!” Claire chimes: “You’re more than
halfway to 50 now!”
The group allowed Lisa to travel and see the world,
while Faye remembers their Stateside experiences with
Britney Spears as a highlight of their career to date.
Meanwhile H cites proving the critics wrong as the feat
he’s most proud of. “It’s beautiful. It feels euphoric,” he
says. “It also feels bittersweet as well, that it’s taken us
this long for people to be loud and proud Steps fans.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
“When we released our first single, everybody
laughed at us. All of the cool cats laughed at us. The
record company big-wigs wanted us to go away
and then with every single they laughed louder, they
laughed harder. And then 25 years later, none of
those cool cats are around, all those music execs have
probably been ditched, and we’re still here.”
With time, the group has come to develop a way of
working that suits them, scheduling time in between
Steps projects for solo endeavours, family life and
COVER FEATURE | Steps
personal commitments. Claire admits it makes the new
era of the band far more enjoyable. “I appreciate it more
now; I think when we were young, we worked so hard
and it was constant, so we never had a chance to stop
and appreciate what we had,” she confesses. “We were
so on the go and we didn’t really see it from an outside
perspective. We were in that bubble and nothing else
existed outside of Steps, really.
“Now, obviously, other things do exist; we’ve got
families, we’ve got spouses, we’ve got other things that
we do. So I feel like now, the times that we are in Steps
and we’re doing stuff, it’s better for me in a way. I enjoy
it much more, because we get a chance to appreciate it.”
When it comes to future projects, the band has an
all-or-nothing policy. ”We are very careful to not water
down or tarnish our legacy that we are so proud of. We
made a group decision that
#H-CAM it’s all five of us or nothing,”
says H. “I think that’s where
a lot of bands have not been
successful. No disrespect to
them, you do what you have
to do, but we have said it’s five
or nothing.
“We will take not months,
but years to plan new music
and a new album. So when
our tour is on, we’re already
planning our next album - we
don’t just rock up on stage and
press play. There’s so much
that goes into it: we have
creative meetings, we have
songwriters pitching records,
incredible artists digging in their vaults for something
that fits our brief. There are songs that we’ve had
submitted from incredibly established worldwide artists
that we say ‘no’ to because they don’t fit our brief. And
we have the luxury and the privilege of that now.”
With the group currently performing a string of live
dates across the UK, it does beg the question - are they
working on new music right now?
“I think we’ve come to realise since we got back
together in 2011 that it is good for us to have little gaps
here and there,” reflects Claire. “It also reminds people of
the whole nostalgia of Steps as well, which is a massive
part of what we are. So, we don’t want to keep ramming
ourselves down people’s throats.
“Once we’re done with all the summer shows to end
this little chapter, we’ll start thinking about the next
one…”
O‘Platinum Collection’ is out August 19 on Sony.
Steps’ 2022 summer tour is playing now across
the UK.
RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 35
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RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 37
 yocuan
38
dd a n c e !
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RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM

As the Queen of Pop celebrates
her club legacy with the epic ‘Finally
Enough Love: 50 Number Ones’
remix compilation, we journey through
Madonna’s most iconic dance floor
moments and the collaborators who
helped shape her ever-evolving sound.
WORDS SIMON BUTTON
S
ince becoming a global superstar in the
early 1980s, Madonna has never been one to
look back.
She’s been in constant motion, mining new
trends, refining new images, seeking out hot new
collaborators, bringing the underground to the masses,
pushing the envelope with books about sex and videos
about S&M, refusing to bow to ageism and turning
down a reported $1 billion for a Vegas residency
because that would mean staying in the same place,
singing the same songs, for far too long.
The woman who declared herself ‘I’m Breathless’
on her 1990 album of music from and inspired by the
‘Dick Tracy’ film has seldom paused for breath since
she was born Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone in
Bay City, Michigan, in 1958. Not content with being
the world’s best-selling female singer of all time, she’s
also the planet’s most successful solo touring artist
ever. She’s been in movies too - which have often
been the subject of much scrutiny
- and directed them, and even her
divisive Instagram posts serve as
a way for Madonna to continue to
cause a commotion, but nothing
detracts from her unbeatable run of
hit records.
STRIKE A POSE
After four decades, it’s surprising and
also fantastic for fans that the Queen
of Pop has at long last decided to
embrace her legacy. Last year she
announced she’d be curating deluxe
editions of her 14 studio albums
along with soundtracks, compilations
and live recordings - an unexpected
move from a performer who will
have been in the business for four
decades when her debut single
FEATURE | Madonna
Everybody turns 40 in October. Unlike other artists with
such expansive catalogues, however, in the time since
she’s only issued three greatest hits packages and one
collection of ballads.
Madge has been equally stubborn on stage. After
2004’s glorious ‘Re-Invention World Tour’, packed
with hits as damage control after relatively poor sales
of the accompanying ‘American Life’ album, she has
compiled setlists that are heavy on new material and
light on golden oldies.
So why has she suddenly decided to open her heart
to a musical past that she’s only cherry-picked from for
aeons? The Material Girl moves in mysterious ways but,
with a self-directed film in the works about her life and
judging by advance orders for her first legacy release -
a compilation of dance remixes called ‘Finally Enough
Love’ - it’s a canny move.
The album comes as a 16-track version for the
lightweights and a 50-track set subtitled ’50 Number
Ones’ as a nod to the fact Madonna
has achieved the record-breaking feat
of scoring that many chart-toppers
on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs
rundown, starting with Everybody in
1982 and ending - for now at least -
with I Don’t Search I Find in 2020.
The remixes were picked by the
superstar herself from fan favourites
and rare re-workings by such top DJs
as Shep Pettibone, Junior Vasquez,
Bob Sinclair, Pet Shop Boys, Victor
Calderone, William Orbit, Felix da
Housecat, Avicii, Tracy Young and
Honey Dijon. They span a reign
that proves Madonna isn’t just the
Queen of Pop - she’s also the Queen
I Rise gave Madonna of Dance. “Only when I’m dancing
her 48th US Dance can I feel this free” she declared as
Club Songs No. 1 she sang Into The Groove at ‘Live Aid’
RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 39
FEATURE | Madonna
back in 1985, as a 26-year-
old performer on top of the
world. As she marks her
64th birthday in August,
she hasn’t stopped dancing
yet.
INTO THE
GROOVE
Madonna’s journey to the
dancefloor began when,
around age 15, she took
ballet lessons under the
tutelage of Christopher
Flynn. Although she’d tried
piano lessons previously
- but was too restless and spirited to sit still for long -
Flynn became her mentor, taking her to concerts and
art galleries in Detroit and introducing her to the gay
club scene, where she forged what would become a
lifelong affinity with the LGBTQ+ community.
Randy Frank, co-founder of the city’s hottest club
Menjo’s, later recalled: “Madonna used to come here
and act all crazy and giddy and dance around. She was
the centre of attention.” And where better to be the
centre of attention than New York? So that’s exactly
where Madonna headed when, having won a dance
scholarship to the University of Michigan, she quit
halfway through the course to seek the bright lights of
the big city.
Legend has it that in July 1978, a month before her
20th birthday, she arrived in the Big Apple with just
$35 dollars in her pocket and a hunger to make it as a
professional dancer. With ‘Saturday Night Fever’ riding
high at the box office, there’d never been a better time
to get into the groove and - living in the East Village
and supporting herself by working at Dunkin’ Donuts
- she studied with such luminaries as Alvin Ailey, Pearl
Lang and Martha Graham, before landing a gig as a
back-up dancer for French disco star Patrick ‘Born to be
Alive’ Hernandez in Paris and Tunisia.
The next year she was in NYC again, living with
her musician boyfriend Dan Gilroy. Together, they
founded a new wave band called The Breakfast Club,
with Madonna on vocals, drums and guitar - though
presumably not all at the same time! She left The
40 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
Breakfast Club to work
with former college beau
Stephen Bray in the
short-lived Emmy and the
Emmys before making a
demo tape to hawk around
the clubs with the end
game of landing a solo
recording contract.
Eventually the demo
tape did just that. DJ Mark
Kamins spun the tracks
With her troupe on the at legendary hotspot
‘Blond Ambition’ tour Dancetaria and got her a
meeting with Sire Records
president Seymour Stein,
who signed her to a two-single deal with an option
for an album. When Everybody and Burning Up set
the dance charts alight, an album was a shoo-in and
her 1983 self-titled debut long-player established the
young upstart as a pop-dance force to be reckoned
with. Remixed by John ‘Jellybean’ Benitez with not a
ballad in sight, the album spawned three huge hits in
Holiday, Lucky Star and Borderline and went on to sell
10 million copies.
But that was nothing compared to follow-up ‘Like
a Virgin’ (1984), which shifted an almighty 21 million
copies and topped the charts in both the UK and US.
Having worked miracles for the likes of Sister Sledge
and David Bowie, Chic’s Nile Rodgers was drafted in
as producer. He wasn’t convinced the title track should
be the first single but Madonna was - and she was
right. It was her first No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100
and the video, where she writhed around on a gondola
in Venice, caused a stir - as did her performance of
the song in a wedding dress at the 1984 MTV Video
Music Awards.
VOGUE
The release the following year of the seductive slowie
Crazy For You from the film ‘Vision Quest’ hinted that
the singer, who had comically flounced around to Like
a Virgin on ‘Top of the Pops’ in a pink wig, wanted to be
taken seriously. More ballads followed over the years,
of course, but time and time again Madonna has been
drawn back to the dance floor.
Under the guise of Mistress
Dita, Madonna pushed
boundaries with ‘Erotica’

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 41
FEATURE | Madonna

The Queen of Pop was

ahead of the game with her
mid-’00s disco revival

42 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
 ‘Ray of Light’
launched the pop
legend back into the
charts in the late ‘90s
Was there ever, for
example, a more urgent call
to get up and boogie than
Into the Groove? With its
opening intonation of ‘You
can dance, for inspiration
/ Come on, I’m waiting’,
the song helped make the
‘Desperately Seeking Susan’
film a box office smash and
was a highlight on her first-
ever US tour. And ‘The Virgin
Tour’ was where all that
training came into play, with Madonna energetically
working her way through 13 songs from her first
two albums.
Mind you, it seemed like a rehearsal compared to
1987’s ‘Who’s That Girl’ extravaganza, where off the
back of the ‘True Blue’ album she sold out stadiums
around the world and solidified her status as one of the
most electrifying live performers of all time with one
high-octane routine after another.
Then came the legendary ‘Blond Ambition’, which
saw her refine live shows into an artform as she told a
story across a series of acts with eye-catching costume
changes (who can forget the conical Gaultier bra?),
homages to movies like ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and the
great MGM musicals, and dance routines that would
have had Broadway and West End stalwarts gasping
for a breather. She may have started out in ballet but
Madonna was equally adept with the party vibe of
Causing a Commotion, the religious fervour of Like a
Prayer and the showgirl swagger of Hanky Panky.
The highlight of the show, though, was Vogue.
Always an early-adopter, she’d seen dancers,
choreographers and leading lights on the Harlem
House Ball scene Jose Gutierez Xtravanganza and
Luis Camacho in action at the Factory club and was
inspired to collaborate with Shep Pettibone on a song
about the dance craze. Originally intended as a B-side
for Keep it Together, it was deemed single material by
the record company and became one of her biggest-
ever hits. She recruited Jose and Luis for the ‘Blond
Ambition’ tour too and they were featured heavily in
the David Fincher-directed Vogue video, which went
into heavy rotation on MTV and was done in black and
white to pay homage to many of the Hollywood stars
name-checked in its spoken-
word section.
Pettibone went on to
co-produce much of the
1992 ‘Erotica’ album, helping
Madonna fuse a harder-
edged sound that drew
on R&B, deep house and
electronica as well as the
flamenco-disco of Deeper
And Deeper. Somewhat
overshadowed by the furore
surrounding her explicit
‘Sex’ book, it was nonetheless rave-reviewed and paved
the way for ‘The Girlie Show’ tour, where she danced
up a storm again and paid tribute to everything from
Bollywood to ‘My Fair Lady’ via a discofied Express
Yourself and a downright dirty Why’s It So Hard, in
which Madonna and her dancers graphically groped
each other to a throbbing beat.
MUSIC
When the curtain came down on the highly successful
tour, little did fans and perhaps the singer herself
know she wouldn’t hit the road again for nearly a
decade. Motherhood took over and we saw a mellower
Madonna on 1994’s ‘Bedtime Stories’. A mix of laid back
R&B grooves and hip-hop, it featured collaborations
with the likes of Dallas Austin on slow groove Secret
as well as with Babyface and Nellee Hooper and, for
Bedtime Story itself, Björk. The latter song was given a
very club-friendly remix by Junior Vasquez that Madge
performed at the BRIT Awards.
Working with England’s William Orbit on ‘Ray of
Light’ in 1998, she reinvented herself as a Kabbalah
convert earth mother with a yen for techno-pop and
trip-hop, not to mention a vastly improved vocal range
thanks to vocal lessons for the ‘Evita’ film - through
which she’d scored yet another dance hit with a
camped-up version of Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,
aided by Latin remixers Javier Garza and Pablo Flores.
At the start of the new millennium she was in league
with Mirwais, who was relatively unknown outside of
France and helped her craft the acid-rock Music for the
album of the same name in 2000. It also introduced
the new cowgirl chic look that would serve her well
in the line dancing video for Don’t Tell Me, one of
RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 43
 The Bitch I’m Madonna
video features a cohort
of A-list stars
the highlights of the
‘Drowned World Tour’
when she chose to
strut her stuff again on
arena stages in 2001.
Teaming up with
Mirwais a second
time for ‘American
Life’ (2003) resulted in
arguably one of her
most accomplished and musically ambitious albums,
although some were put off by its politics and it didn’t
sell well, hence the celebratory ‘Re-Invention World
Tour’ the next year. But remixes of Die Another Day and
Hollywood were big club hits, as was the Britney Spears
collab Me Against the Music, which would appear on
the latter’s ‘In The Zone’ collection.
Next came ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor’ (2005).
Tasked with turning the beat around was superstar DJ
and songwriter Stuart Price aka Jacques Lu Cont, with
whom she fashioned her most consistently dancey
album to date. Sequenced like the old Donna Summer/
Giorgio Moroder records and paying tribute to the
Queen of Disco herself on the I Feel Love-flavoured
Future Lovers, it led to a worldwide smash with the
ABBA-sampling Hung Up and saw the Pet Shop Boys
get in on the remix action with their take on Sorry.
Taking the album on the road in 2006 under the
‘Confessions Tour’ banner, Madonna vowed, “I’m
going to turn the whole world into one big dance
floor” - and that’s exactly what she did, emerging
from a giant glitter ball at the start, mashing up Music
with Disco Inferno in a Travolta-style white suit and
donning a tighter-than-tight leotard that even Agnetha
and Frida would have had trouble getting into in
ABBA’s ‘70s heyday.
She had an eye on the dance charts again when
she recorded ‘Hardy Candy’ (2008) with the likes of
The Neptunes, Timbaland and Justin Timberlake at
the mixing desk and Pharrell doing the bulk of the co-
writing. The Timberlake duet 4 Minutes - with the pair
working out on treadmills in the visual - would prove
to be one of her last worldwide smashes as far as the
pop charts went, but the ‘Sticky & Sweet Tour’ was her
highest-grossing live venture to date and subsequent
44 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
releases like Girl
Gone Wild and
Living for Love (from
2012’s ‘MDNA’ and
2015’s ‘Rebel Heart’,
respectively) were
No. 1s on the Billboard
Dance Club Songs
chart.
GIRL GONE WILD
Determined to dance until she drops, Madonna went
on the road yet again in support of both the EDM-
heavy ‘MDNA’ and the more eclectic ‘Rebel Heart’. She
changed tack with 2019’s ‘Madame X’, with the Lisbon-
based soccer mum exploring Latin, trap and Portugal’s
fado music scene on the album and devising a less-
full-on dance spectacle for a tour of smaller venues -
due in part to the more languid style of music.
It no doubt came as a welcome relief, after she
sustained a knee injury on the Paris leg of the jaunt,
but if the Madonna we saw on stage struggled with
some of the moves, remixes of Medellín, Crave, I Rise
and I Don’t Search I Find added to that impressive
tally of club hits and the Blessed Madonna Remix
of Dua Lipa’s Levitating, with the hitmaker on guest
vocals alongside Missy Elliott, would probably have
taken the total to 51 had the Billboard chart not been
suspended due to the closure of clubs during Covid-
enforced lockdown.
And there are surely more reinventions of past hits
to come once she unlocks the vaults for those back
catalogue reissues. As she embraces a legacy that
no other contemporary popstar could come close to
matching, the woman who once sang ‘Don’t think
of yesterday, and I don’t look at the clock’ is finally
ready to step back in time - who knows what treasures
she’ll unearth? There are so many bootlegs out there
just crying out for a spit and polish so - come on,
Madonna, we’re waiting!
O‘Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones’ is out
on August 19 on Warner Music on 3CD and 6LP
Limited Edition Vinyl. A 16-track version is also
available on CD and vinyl
STEVEN KLEIN, MERT AND MARCUS, FRANK MICELOTTA, HERB RITTS
FEATURE | Madonna
PHOTOS ANNIKA ASCHBERG, FABIEN BARON, GEORGE HOLZ,

Forty years after her

first hit, Madonna
remains the ultimate
Girl Gone Wild

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 45
 TTU
URRNN
YYO
OUURR
R
RAAD
DIIO
O
ON
O N
Celebrating 30 years since the release of their seminal
sophomore effort ‘Hormonally Yours’, Shakespears Sister’s
Siobhan Fahey looks back on the classic album as she marks
four decades of success in the music industry!
WORDS CONNOR GOTTO

n February 1992, Shakespears Sister returned of reasons - not least of all its line-up.

I to the charts with their second studio album

‘Hormonally Yours’, unleashing what was to
become one of the seminal LPs of the 1990s.
Released off the back of their mega-hit single
Stay, the album quickly became a critical and
“When I made the first Shakespears Sister record,
commercial success, and remains to this day
the duo’s best-selling collection. In spite of
its accolades, including winning the 1993
Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary
Collection of Songs, the record was to be
Siobhan Fahey and Marcella Detroit’s final
album together and paved the way for a
turbulent period in the history of
Shakespears Sister.
Born of their hit debut and the
pregnancies of its members during
the album’s creation, Siobhan
looks back on ‘Hormonally Yours’
after 30 years, revealing how the
relationships within the duo changed during
the recording and why, three decades on,
she’s “proud” to have reunited with Marcella
to celebrate their masterpiece.
CATWOMEN
“It was very different,” says Siobhan of the overall
recording process. The project was a turning
point in Shakespears Sister’s history for a number
Marcy was a collaborator and we ended up co-
writing most of the stuff,” she explains. “I began
it with Richard Feldman, the producer of the
record, and he’s an LA writer. He was my
neighbour and we used to get together in his
home studio and experiment, trying to create
a new sound that expressed where I wanted
to go as an artist.”
Shakespears Sister’s first music came
less than a year after Siobhan stepped
away from her place in the world’s
biggest girl group, Bananarama,
in search of a new direction
following the trio’s recent
collaborations with Stock Aitken
Waterman. She left the band in early 1988 and by
October had released Break My Heart (You Really)
as the lead single from Shakespears Sister’s debut
long-player, ‘Sacred Heart’.
“I didn’t really want to be a solo artist; it was
just where I found myself at that point in my life,”
she insists. “[Richard] very quickly introduced me
to Marcy - but she was more like part of the team
on the first record. I found it so easy to work with
her and write with her, and her voice worked so
well with mine that I suggested [that we formed
a duo].

46 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
 INTERVIEW | Shakespears Sister

Shakespears Sister (l-r):

Marcella Detroit and
Siobhan Fahey

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 47
 “Especially after You’re History - that set up an
audience and an interest in the next record, and I
invited her to be part of that again, and she said, ‘I
want to be an equal member,’ and I said, ‘Fine.’ So we
became a duo.”
Discovering a collaborator she could write with so
easily was an unexpected joy for Siobhan. “I was just on
a creative roll and I love to meet people that I can work fourth-biggest-selling single of 1992, and peaking
with creatively,” she admits. “It’s funny, I’ve tried to write in the Top 5 of the US Billboard Hot 100. At the 1993
with friends before - I’ve written with many different BRIT Awards, Stay won the award for British Video of
people in my life - but the chemistry isn’t always there, the Year for its now classic visual, inspired by the film
that you mutually inspire each other. ‘Cat-Women of the Moon’, with Marcella and Siobhan
“I think, actually, we are two very complementary fighting over a comatose man, representing the fight
components that excite each other’s ideas and between life and death, respectively.
inspirations. I have quite diverse influences and It’s one of a number of reference points that the
musical ideas, but I can’t really execute them myself, pair leaned into while composing the record, with
so it’s amazing to work with somebody who’s actually Siobhan praising Marcella’s ability to take on board
a very adept musician and can interpret my ideas to a her inspirations and channel them into music. “She
very high standard. That’s exciting.” understood my references, she knew my references,
Starting sessions for their second album on an equal and could get on board with them and emulate them,”
footing presented another enticing possibility. “I said, she shares. “Very diverse - from The Cure to Sly Stone -
‘Well, if we’re a duo, we can pretty much and it was an absolute joy. It’s like, ‘Let’s
do everything ourselves…’,” she says. “I was try something that sounds like this,’ and
very excited by the fact that two women - an I was very excited she’s very positive and gets the picture
all-female duo - could do it between us. That by the fact that very quickly.
was a big shift in approach for the second “She’s absolutely great to write with. Of
record.” two women - all the people I’ve written with, I think I’ve
In October, 1991 - one and a half years written my best material with Marcy.”
after their last single release - Shakespears
an all-female
Sister unleashed the first track from duo - could do it OUT TO GROOVE
‘Hormonally Yours’, the moody, guitar- Although celebrating its 30th anniversary,
driven Goodbye Cruel World. With artwork
between us. That ‘Hormonally Yours’ has aged like a fine
featuring a slick new look and a music was a big shift in wine, with the tracks musically sounding
video that saw Siobhan and Marcy spoofing as fresh today as they did in the 1990s and,
famous melodramas such as ‘Sunset approach for the in many cases, the lyrical themes remaining
Boulevard’ and ‘What Ever Happened to second record. relevant in the present day. “I grew up
Baby Jane?’ - and sporting those iconic listening to ‘70s radio and I’m a huge fan
sequin catsuits, of course - it had all the of the 7” single. That to me is the most
makings of a sure-fire hit. But the track stalled at No. perfect art form,” explains Siobhan. “So, I think on all
59 in the UK charts, casting doubt on the fate of the the records I’ve made, each track is going for that kind
duo’s latest offering, as Shakespears Sister waited in the of perfection - that format and that idea. Although
wings with their “Trojan Horse” - the epic Stay. Black Sky was more of a sort of Hendrix-y, wig out
“Several people who’ve got really good ears, like dance groove.”
Chris Thomas who ended up producing it, heard the Pressed to pick a favourite from the album, she
demo and just went, ‘That’s the No. 1 record’,” Siobhan offers: “I think my absolute favourite has always been
remembers. “That took us by surprise, when he said Hello. It is a song that I am very satisfied with. I’m
that. It sounds different to the other tracks on the pleased that I managed to write that song and sadly, it’s
record because Marcy does the lead vocal, so in terms still very relevant. I really love performing that; it suits
of the identity of the album, it’s a Trojan Horse and a bit my voice and I can get emotionally behind it.”
of an anomaly. It’s one of five singles lifted from ‘Hormonally
“Though, we weren’t gonna go with that as the first Yours’, along with I Don’t Care and My 16th Apology,
single because we wanted to represent the actual all of which Siobhan insists “had nothing to do with
sounds of the album with Goodbye Cruel World first. what was going on in most of the charts”. Another cut
And so that’s why we went with it as the second single.” from the record, The Trouble With Andre, remains a
Stay was a global smash, topping the UK Singles favourite from the album, with the singer-songwriter
Chart for eight consecutive weeks, becoming the “amazed” by its popularity.
“It’s very quirky and it’s mysterious,” she explains. “It’s
not actually one of those, ‘Let’s try and write a single,’
moments. It’s a mysterious oddity of an album track.
But I love it and I’m proud of it.”
For the new reissue, the pair have unearthed a
number of rare alternate mixes and remixes from the
original era, along with the demos Out To Groove and

48 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
 INTERVIEW | Shakespears Sister

She’s absolutely
great to write with.
Of all the people
I’ve written with, I
think I’ve written
my best material
with Marcy.

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 49
 That label didn’t
really support me
as an artist. All the
way through, it
was always a battle
with them to be
supported.

50 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM

The End, which Siobhan had “forgotten even existed”.
“I was like, ‘Wow, why didn’t we finish that song? That
was really good, we could have gone somewhere
with that’,” she laughs, “but you know… It’s just a raw,
early idea of a song that’s just slapped down. So it kind
of shows you the rudimentary state that a song is in
before it gets finished off.”
Also included is the new Luke Mornay mix of The
Trouble With Andre, offering an alternate take worlds
away from the original production. Although Siobhan
is a fan of the new edit, she maintains nothing beats
the album version. “The thing about it is, honestly, the
record we made is, to me, the most fully-realised vision
of the tracks that we had. So I don’t know that you can
improve on that,” she smiles. “I’m very happy for other
people to do their own interpretation of my work; I’m
not precious at all about that, and I love it when people
sample shit and turn it into a totally new track.”
Back in 1995, Tricky sampled Shakespears Sister’s
Moonchild on his single Overcome and, more recently,
Pussycat Dolls reworked her song Bitter Pill into Hot
Stuff (I Want You Back), featuring a sample of Donna
Summer’s disco classic, in 2005. “That
was really great,” she admits. “I was in the
wilderness at the time, nobody wanted to I grew up listening
know about Shakespears Sister or me. I to ‘70s radio and
had no management, no record company,
making a fourth Shakespears Sister record in I’m a huge fan of
my back garden.”
Although she says the group “bastardised”
the 7” single. That
the track, Siobhan laughs: “It’s fine, because to me is the most
it paid for me to make my record. Their
album sold six million, so it’s nice to have a
perfect art form.
co-write and co-production on one of the
tracks. God moves in mysterious ways.”
EMOTIONAL THING
Following the release of ‘Hormonally Yours’, Marcella
exited Shakespears Sister and, while Siobhan set about
writing and recording a follow-up to their multi-
million selling LP, the project was cancelled by London
Records after the lead single I Can Drive peaked at No.
30 in the UK charts.
“It was an incredibly painful period in my life,” she
admits while looking back on the time, which saw
her fight to regain the rights to the completed album,
which was eventually released in 2004 as ‘#3’. “Some
of the songs on that record are, certainly lyrically, some
of my finest work. And I am very proud of that record.
There are a few songs on there, like Opportunity
Knockers - I love that song - and it was another record
that I felt, ‘There’s five singles on it, you’re telling me
there’s no singles on this record? I don’t understand…’
Like, ‘I’ve just come off a million selling album and
actually I’ve created two very successful bands for you
INTERVIEW | Shakespears Sister
as a label, so why would you not trust my instincts here
and get behind me?’
“It was classic sexism within the music industry and
that label didn’t really support me as an artist. All the
way through, it was always a battle with them to be
supported.”
Despite her successful stint with Bananarama on
the label and subsequent acclaim with Shakespears
Sister, Siobhan insists bosses at the company back then
“didn’t trust in people’s artistic vision, but they trusted
in formula”.
“They didn’t ever expect Shakespears Sister to be
successful - in fact, I heard through the grapevine
that they were thinking of dropping me after I left
Bananarama, but they didn’t. They picked up the
option and they hung on to me,” she
shares. “They weren’t expecting anything
to happen with Shakespears Sister, but
when it did, of course, this new formula
emerged. This huge record was a duo and
it was me and Marcy. So, now I wasn’t
working with Marcy anymore, they couldn’t
get behind me.”
Siobhan adds: “Obviously, everything’s
changed now and I have no idea what it’s
like to be a young artist signed to a label
now, but it was all major labels back then.
There were a few independent labels - but
to be signed to a major back then… You were lucky to
get a record deal, but it became more and more like
that by the late ‘80s.”
Now, she’s happily back working with London
Records under label manager Laura Kelly and, in 2018,
Siobhan and Marcella reunited for the greatest hits
retrospective, ‘Singles Party’, and later issued an EP of
new material, titled ‘Ride Again’. “I’m very proud of that
EP that we released in 2019 - which thank God we did,
because Covid kicked in a couple of months after we
finished,” she says of the duo’s latest era. “So yeah, I love
that latest body of work and I love the videos and I love
that they’re writing a lovely ending to that story.”
When it comes to the future of the act, however,
more new material from Shakespears Sister as a duo
is unlikely. “I don’t imagine that’s imminent. I haven’t
seen Marcy for a couple of years; it’s not like we’ve been
in each other’s lives or getting together to write,” she
confesses. “I think she threw herself into churning out
songs and making a record, and I spent a lot of the time
in remote places and travelling. So it’s just different
ways of dealing with a very weird situation on planet
Earth.”
However, having released half of Shakespears Sisters
studio catalogue as a solo artist, that doesn’t necessarily
spell the end of the act. “I can’t say I’ve got exciting
new plans in the works yet. When I stop being a rolling
stone and get a really strong idea, because I work very
RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 51
 much from like… I’ve got to see, I’ve got to get the
whole feeling and musical direction and get excited
about that - and then I’ll start rolling,” she reflects,
adding, “I don’t really see a division between myself
and Shakespears Sister.”
BLACK SKY
Having begun her career with Bananarama in the
early 1980s, Siobhan is this year celebrating the 40th
anniversary of her chart success. Looking back, she
admits it’s been “like some crazy dream with these
snapshot memories”. “So many extraordinary
situations - even the first time you’re on ‘Top of the
Pops’ and it’s with The Fun Boy Three,” she beams,
remembering that early performance of It Ain’t What
You Do as a highlight.
“That was amazing. It was mind blowing to be on a
show that I’d grown up watching. And I knew when
I was on there that everybody that had been in my
class at school and had given me such a hard time was
probably watching. I suppose the fact that I’ve been
able to live my life a little bit outside of society, that I’ve
had the privilege to be able to do that, has managed to
sustain those ‘fuck you’ feelings.”
While celebrating the many highs of her
life and work, Siobhan’s defiance in the face
of adversity stands out, most notably when
it comes to Shakespears Sister’s 2009 album
‘Songs From The Red Room’ - her final to
date. “I self-financed and struggled alone
with it,” she recalls.
“After that, I was like, ‘Well, nobody wants
to know. I just should find something else to
do with my life.’ Because it’s soul destroying
to put your heart and soul into something
that you think is beautiful and you want it to
be heard, and it doesn’t get heard. So, then
you start to go, ‘Is it just my ego? Maybe I’m
rubbish. Blah, blah, blah…’ You know, don’t
fight the universe; the universe is trying to
tell you something.
“So it was so amazing when I got the call to do
Bananarama again and write a better ending to that
story. That was my first marriage and it was a really
wonderful experience, the reunion,” she says of the
band’s 2017 ‘The Original Line-Up’ tour, which saw the
trio - also starring Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward -
celebrate their pop legacy with performances across
the UK and North America. At the time, they revealed
plans to record a single together and Siobhan says they
set to work writing their first music together in three
decades with production and songwriting team Biffco,
before the project was axed.
“If I’d have had my way, it would have come out.
Once again, I think it’s a hit single,” she insists. “It was
a work in progress that could have been fantastic, but
52 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
someone pulled the plug. It was pretty devastating,
because I rejoined the band, I packed all my life up here
in LA and went back to the UK. Like, if I’m going to do
this, I’m going to do it 100 per cent, because I don’t do
things unless it’s with my heart and soul. Let’s take the
tour around the world, let’s make a new single - and
the girls seemed to be totally behind that idea. Then all
of a sudden, halfway through the record, I started to get
these strange messages that someone didn’t think it
sounded like Bananarama, which I found weird.”
Describing the track as “harking back to the early,
mid-80s sound of Bananarama,” Siobhan maintains
that it was “shaping up to be really good and I was
hoping to go in the studio with them and work on
the backing track, but the phone stopped ringing,”
and the group’s recording sessions came to an end.
However, Siobhan is optimistic. “To have the
opportunity to do the same with
Shakespears Sister, it was like, ‘Wow, I
This huge record could never have anticipated that this
would happen’,” she says. “That was a
was a duo and great opportunity to create new music
it was me and with Marcy, with a whole new version of
London Records.”
Marcy. So, now I Having scored massive success as a
wasn’t working member of one of pop’s most successful
girl groups and all-female duos, it begs the
with Marcy question why she’s never put pen to paper
and written her memoirs. It’s something
anymore, they she’s considered: “I still feel like I’m in the
couldn’t get process of living my life and it’s unfolding.
But there is a part of me that thinks I should
behind me. start to lay down my memories before they
disappear. Because having lived the life
I’ve led and being a woman of a certain
age during a certain time in British musical history, I
would hope that it might be interesting sociologically.
A record for future generations or whatever. But I don’t
know. I haven’t got anything finished yet.”
What’s most refreshing, though, is Siobhan’s humility
when facing up to her impressive achievements. “I was
really lucky. That sounds like I bought a lottery ticket
and lucked out - it wasn’t that - but a lot of people make
music and are prolific and dedicated and it doesn’t
happen for them,” she insists. “And also, a lot of people
are flashes in the pan and can’t sustain it. It’s a very
tough industry and they say, ‘You’re only as good as
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
your last hit.’ That’s what they would often say, and,
‘Artists are like buses, there’ll always be another one
along in a minute.’ You’re working in and reliant on a
business that has that kind of attitude.
“So it’s amazing that I’ve managed to actually do it in
two different scenarios,” she smiles.
O‘Hormonally Yours - Menopausal Memories:
30th Anniversary Edition’ is out September 30
on London Records.
INTERVIEW | Shakespears Sister

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 53
INTERVIEW | Altered Images
Preparing to unleash their first new music in almost four decades,
Altered Images frontwoman Clare Grogan opens up about the
band’s comeback LP ‘Mascara Streakz’ and reveals what lured her
back into the studio after all this time.
WORDS SIMON BUTTON
t’s been nearly four decades since Altered
I Images last released music, but Clare Grogan
and co. are finally back with their shimmering
new album ‘Mascara Streakz’.
On their latest long-player - the group’s
fourth overall - they revive the band’s classic
I know that a lot
synth-pop sound for an album of all-out pop of people ended
gems that harken back to their early years up being quite
while remaining in fitting with the current
sounds lighting up the pop charts. creative in the first
While she rarely stopped performing, the
project was born over the past two years
lockdown, but for
when Clare’s work schedule was wiped, me I literally did
leaving her with plenty of time on her hands
to pick up where she left off in the ‘80s, and a
nothing except
drive to pen one track soon turned into a full watch Netflix,
album - a venture she never imagined she’d
revisit. drink wine and
eat crisps.
MASCARA STREAKZ
Although born of an unprecedented moment
in recent history, Clare had no grand ideas of creating a
lockdown album in March 2020, when she first found
54 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
herself without work. In fact, the first lockdown was
very different, as she admits: “I know that a lot of people
first time round ended up being quite creative, but
for me I literally did nothing except watch
Netflix, drink wine and eat crisps.”
Clare, who can usually be found at her
home in North London, adds: “I was in
Scotland at the time, doing a play, and we
opened on the Saturday and closed on the
Monday. In my head I was thinking, ‘I’ll see
you in a month’s time and we’ll pick up
where we left off,’ but of course, that didn’t
happen.
“Then the second lockdown happened
and we’d all had some time to think about
where we were in life. It was quite interesting
having these pauses because I realised the
thing I really missed was singing. I was like,
‘I need to do something with this time’.”
Clare and her bandmate and husband of
28 years, Stephen Lironi, decided to make
some new music. “It started with one song called
Colour of My Dreams and no intention to do more.
RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 55
 I wasn’t thinking, We were quite
‘I’m going to write
an album of songs,’ hard workers. We
but it grew and grew always were as
from there.”
Having embraced a band and we
the retro circuit since
the early noughties
wanted to get it
and after supporting right, in our way
The Human League
on their 2021 ‘Dare’
and on our own
tour, she continues: terms. I think that
“I kept thinking
about all the people sometimes made
who have come to us seem quite
the shows and said
to me afterwards awkward and
‘You should write
some new music’.
maybe difficult.
I thought the best
thank-you I could give to all
those people who keep turning
up would be to do just that and
give them some new songs. Once I got started again
I couldn’t stop.”
Clare has already apologised for running five
minutes late for our chat, but what’s a few minutes
when we’ve waited nearly four decades for an album
as stonkingly good as ‘Mascara Streakz’? It’s a homage
to that unmistakable ‘80s Altered Images synth-pop
sound, with lots of guitars and disco beats, but very
much updated for 2022. It’s such a cool, confident set
of songs that it’s hard to believe Clare and Stephen
haven’t worked together under the Altered Images
banner since they put out their third album, ‘Bite’,
shortly before the band split in 1983.
Although their initial record-releasing run was
limited to just three years, the band remains one of
the most iconic acts of the decade, with the Top 10 to find a way of making it reminiscent of what Altered
hits Happy Birthday, I Could Be Happy and Don’t Talk Images were, but also how they would sound now.
to Me About Love quintessential tracks of the new That was really important to Stephen and I. On songs
wave movement. Flash forward four decades and its like Your Love is Mine the guitar sound is very Altered
a sound lighting up the charts once again, so after Images but it was about taking these tracks and
writing six songs for the new long-player, they sent making them very now.”
them to Simon Watson - an old friend who manages The title track is all about having a great night out. It
The Human League as well as Clare herself - who was inspired by the singer’s 17-year-old daughter Ellie
told her, ‘You’ll get a record deal with this’. And he and her “thinking about what I was up to when I was
was right, as Claire gleefully admits: “It gave me that her age”.
boost of confidence to keep going and see what I could “This song is my homage to all the crazy nights out
make happen!” that I’ve had. I think it’s a metaphor for life! The fun, the
Of their creative process, she explains: “Stephen dancing, the drama, the tears, the tequila shots, the lust!
comes up with some kind of loop, I start singing a It was inspired by so many artists I’ve danced to around
melody and we construct a song from there. I wanted the world from Kraftwerk to the Tom Tom Club,” she

56 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
 INTERVIEW | Altered Images

I was so disappointed
at the way I was
treated. They made me
feel like an absolute
failure, like I wasn’t
good enough. I lost
my confidence on a
massive level when
they decided not to put
my solo album out.

beams, adding, “A DJ saved my life many times.”
Clare continues: “I was absolutely out there doing it
all to a certain extent. Well, within reason, within my
boundaries. I got to thinking about how important a
big night out was when I was young and how they
never quite panned out as expected.
“Sometimes the unexpected bit was the best bit, and
I still love a big night out. There’s always a drama, isn’t
there? There’s always a point where somebody breaks
down and has to be put back together again. Although
my big nights out now are usually my gigs and I’m one
of the few sober people there. I’m a bit dull because I’m
either working or at home.”
Or she’s probably crying. The new album’s Beautiful
Thing, co-written with Robert Hodgens (aka Bobby
Bluebell of The Bluebells fame), is an ode to how Clare
is prone to blubbing, whether it’s when she’s overcome
with emotion on stage, watching TV or listening
to people’s sad stories. “Everything sets me off,” she
admits. “I cry all the time. It’s something I used to try
and suppress, but now I just rejoice in it.” As if to prove
the point, she starts welling up. “Life is just so precious
and we are all so vulnerable. I’ve grown to really love
crying and not try to hide it.”
DOUBLE REFLECTION
The aforementioned Colour of My Dreams also has
personal resonance. The singer was approaching her
60th birthday in March when she began pondering
about how she might be perceived by the outside

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 57
58 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
 INTERVIEW | Altered Images

world. “I hated the idea of being looked at as an age
and not as a person. Quite often people ask you about
retirement. That’s fine if it’s what you want to do and
how you want to live, but there are a lot of us who
are not finished. I don’t want to fade into the
background. The song is about saying, ‘I’m
not done yet, I’m still willing to put
myself out there’.”
It annoys her that female
pop stars like, say, Madonna
are still expected to have
a shelf life when Rolling
Stones frontman Mick
Jagger is celebrated
for bopping ‘til he
drops. “I wish it
wasn’t still the case. I
do think it’s getting
better, but women
are held to a very
different standard
to men right across
the board, not
just in the world of
music, acting and
performing. It makes
me very angry at times.”
That said, Clare has
never stopped working since
Altered Images broke up. She’s
hosted TV and radio shows and
acted on stage, film and TV, in hit
shows such as ‘EastEnders’ and ‘Skins’. It
was acting, in fact, that gave the Glaswegian her
first big break. Leaving convent school at
age 17, she was cast in hit comedy ‘Gregory’s
Girl’ and was a member of the Scottish Youth
Theatre before forming the band with a
bunch of schoolmates.
She sang in the school choir but, after
Altered Images signed with Epic Records
and began work on their 1981 debut album
‘Happy Birthday’ with Steve Severin from
Siouxsie and the Banshees handling the
production, she recalls: “I got frightened
of my own voice and started to imitate the
singers I admired, like Siouxsie Sioux and
Debbie Harry. When I listen to that first album
I don’t sound totally myself.
“But I remember really trusting Steve and
thinking, ‘This is going to be great’. We had a really
good time and it didn’t feel pressurised, although I
suppose I was trying to impress him with my best
Siouxsie approach to songs. It was a precious time
because there was no expectation at that point. We
were quite hard workers. We always were as
a band and we wanted to get it right,
in our way and on our own terms.
I think that sometimes made
us seem quite awkward and
maybe difficult, but I’m
really glad that we held
onto what we thought
our identity was.
When you grow up
in the spotlight you
can lose yourself.”
First single Dead
Pop Stars scraped
into the charts at
No. 67 but Happy
Birthday soared
to No. 2. It was a
deliberate shot at
scoring a hit single.
“We were determined
to have a hit so we
thought, ‘Let’s give it a big
commercial title’. It was a
blatant attempt to write a song
that everybody could relate to.”
I Could Be Happy, from follow-up
album ‘Pinky Blue’, reached No. 7, by which
time the band was basking in the glory of being
crowned best new act by the music press
of the time. “We seemed to have this wide
We were appeal that we didn’t expect,” Clare recalls,
determined to “and it didn’t rule out us still being a bit edgy.
We were just doing our thing. You can’t
have a hit so decide everyone is going to love you on that
we thought, level and then make it happen. It either does
or it doesn’t.”
‘Let’s give it a Stateside success, however, eluded them.
“We did well on the East coast and the West
big commercial coast but no one in the middle really got us.
title’. Happy We had a good fan base out there but we
never quite cracked it. You need to spend a
Birthday was a lot of time there and we never got round to
blatant attempt to that.”
Third album ‘Bite’ yielded the fantastically
write a song that
everybody could
relate to.

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 59
INTERVIEW | Altered Images

poppy Don’t Talk to Me About Love - another No. 7 it was a one-off but the revival has lasted longer than the
smash - but it was the beginning of the end. Clare was ‘80s itself. We get to play nice venues for fantastic crowds,
tired of being on the move all the time. “I probably just but I had to remind myself to look forward as well as
needed a really good holiday,” she feels with hindsight. enjoying recapturing my youth.”
“We’d lived in each others’ pockets for five years and it Hence the new album, much of which was written
was so intense. As a lot of bands say, it was great around the star’s kitchen table she’s sat at today,
fun until it wasn’t fun anymore.” with Clare, Stephen, Robert and former
Suede guitarist turned songwriter and
HOME producer Bernard Butler (who lives
Clare returned to Glasgow to nearby) all getting their heads
star in ‘Comfort and Joy’ for together. “I was surprised
‘Gregory’s Girl’ director by my need to do it,” Clare
Bill Forsyth and that says. “We wrote the songs
was effectively the in a beautiful, calm way,
end of Altered then it was the fine-
Images. She tuning where I drove
signed to London everyone nuts. But
Records as a I ended up making
solo artist four an album that I love
years later, but with people I love.
the single Love How amazing is
Bomb flopped that?”
and her planned With an Altered
debut album Images tour this
‘Trash Mad’ was September, she
shelved. promises a mix of
“I was so new tunes and old
disappointed at the favourites. And there’s
way I was treated,” a two-album deal, so
Clare sighs. “They made a follow-up to ‘Mascara
me feel like an absolute Streakz’ is definitely on the
failure, like I wasn’t good cards. “But I’m going to make
enough. I lost my confidence the most of this moment,” Clare
on a massive level when they maintains. “When I get around to
decided not to put the album out. making the next album I think it will

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

I don’t own it but I’d love to hear it again
because I honestly don’t think it was that
bad. But I don’t lose sleep over it. It was a
long time ago.” I probably just
Acting and presenting kept her busy, “but needed a really
it bugged me that I hadn’t had the chance to
finish what I started,” she admits. When she good holiday.
was approached by the promoters of the
‘Here and Now’ tours, she couldn’t get her
We’d lived in each
head around the idea of being in her 40s others’ pockets for
singing Happy Birthday, “but the money
was pretty interesting and before I knew it I
five years and it
was jumping out of a cake every night and I was so intense. As
loved every minute of it. I honestly thought
a lot of bands say,
it was great fun
until it wasn’t fun
anymore.
be very much about what’s happened with
this one.
“During that second lockdown I thought,
‘I cannot keep going with the same songs,
I’ve got to create again’. I’ve co-written with
Stephen for other artists and that was great
fun but I couldn’t imagine what I would do
until it suddenly became clear what I wanted
to do. I don’t know why it took so long but it
did. Now just feels like the right moment.”
O‘Mascara Streakz’ is out on August 26
on Cooking Vinyl. Altered Images tour the
UK from September 8.

60 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 61
FREAKOUT!
iss their
Having been forced to m
ight of
20th anniversary at the he
pushed
the pandemic, Hot Chip
r eighth
forward with creating thei
- an ode
album ‘Freakout/Release’
gaining
to taking the reins and re
curveball!
control when life throws a
TTO
WORDS CONNOR GO

62 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
 INTERVIEW | Hot Chip

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 63
 n March 2020, Hot Chip were riding high on the
I success of their seventh album ‘A Bath Full of
Ecstasy’ - a UK Top 20 hit that ranked high on
the 2019 end of year countdowns - when they,
along with the rest of the world, were forced out of
work and into lockdown.
What was due to be a massive year for the band,
exactly two decades since they formed back in 2000,
saw their slate wiped and the five-piece facing a
choice: sit back and wait for the storm to pass or set to
work on a brand new album for the post-Covid world.
Fortunately, they chose the latter and, with
‘Freakout/Release’ finally due out this month, multi-
instrumentalist Joe Goddard looks back on the creation
of the album, including the mindset that helped the
group through the challenging period, and reveals his
excitement at Hot Chip’s latest chapter.
DOWN
“We worked on it in little bits and pieces,” explains the
musician of the process behind the group’s eighth
long-player. Although recorded during a difficult
period, their changing schedule sparked inspiration
and, following months of stay at home guidelines,
they were eventually able to hit the studio and begin
crafting a new set of tracks that they’d been working on
individually. “We started to get together at this amazing
new studio in Shoreditch that we built and we did a
week here and there when we had new song ideas that
we were excited about that we wanted to get together
and finish,” he recalls. “So it started quite early - I don’t
remember exactly when. We’re always working on new
demos and new bits and pieces at home, so I think the
first songs were started just after we finished touring in
2020 and then it developed slowly from then until the
beginning of this year, when we finished it.”
The past 12 months has seen a surge in ‘lockdown
albums’ that directly reference the events of the past
two years, but Hot Chip had the foresight to look
beyond the immediate circumstances they found
WE WERE ALL GOING THROUGH
SOMETHING THAT WAS PRETTY CRAZY
AND VERY STRESSFUL AND IT WAS
WHAT WE WERE ALL EXPERIENCING.
SO IT’S VERY DIFFICULT FOR THAT NOT
TO LEAK INTO YOUR SONGWRITING.
64 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
themselves in and create music for a post-pandemic
audience.
“We were all going through something that was
pretty crazy and very stressful and it was what we were
all experiencing. So, it’s very difficult for that not to leak
into your songwriting and your lyric writing,” admits
Joe. “At the same time, in my head it was the thought
that, now that we’re through the worst of it, I don’t
know how much people really want to revisit lockdown
and what we’ve been through. I think everyone’s a little
bit tired of the whole subject.”
It’s a fine line to tread more than 24 months on from
the beginning of the pandemic, but over the course of
11 new tracks the group explores that period through
an alternate lens, focussing largely not on the situation
at hand, but the desire to be freed and liberated from
the control and restrictions of lockdown. Looking back
now, much of his memory of that time is limited to the
songs on ‘Freakout/Release’, with Joe admitting he’s
forgotten several aspects of that period.
“I guess there was just so little going on, we’ve kind
of brushed it away now,” he muses. “In terms of the
record, there’s the title track, Freakout/Release, which
was [written] in the middle of lockdown, when we
wanted to create something inspired by the feeling
of how good it was going to be to emerge from the
pandemic and be able to get together and celebrate,
party together and dance and whatever. To really
have that moment of catharsis that we could finally
congregate again. So, I found it could be inspiring in
some ways.”
Another song, Time, deals with the uncertainty of
the situation and the effect it had on people from all
walks of life, which Joe observed directly. “There were
moments during the pandemic when, as a musician,
you’re just incapable of doing what you love: playing
in front of people, playing for audiences around the
world,” he says. “There was also a long period when
we didn’t know how long this was going to last for; we
didn’t know if it was going to be a year, I remember
some people saying it was gonna be two or three years
before normality was returned to.
“I was actually really feeling for younger people at
that time. We had this assistant in the studio who had
just come down to London to go to uni and suddenly
he wasn’t able to make friends with other people on
his course or anything like that,” he reflects. “So those
years, those crucial moments in your life when you’re
supposed to be experiencing all of this new stuff -
going clubbing, meeting the friends you’re gonna have
for the rest of your life - that was taken away
from people.”
Another point of inspiration was the “cultural
avalanche” that Joe predicted would follow the
 INTERVIEW | Hot Chip

IT’S BECOMING NORMAL FOR PEOPLE TO

JUST BE AWARE OF ALL OF THIS DIFFERENT
MUSIC AND BE ALLOWED TO LIKE IT. WHICH IS
CLEARLY A REALLY, REALLY GOOD THING.

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 65
 Hot Chip (l-r): Felix Martin,
Al Doyle, Alexis Taylor, Joe
Goddard, Owen Clarke

66 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM

pandemic, which they address head-on in the lyrics
to The Evil That Men Do. The track features Canadian
rapper Cadence Weapon, with whom Hot Chip toured
the US and Canada a decade ago.
Of the song, Joe says: “The Evil That Men Do has
this kind of hip-hop feel and we felt like having a guest
verse from a rapper would really make it feel more
authentic, and would be a great addition to the song.
It just happened that he was in London, I saw from his
Instagram that he was in town while we were making
it, and we got him to come down to the studio. He just
nailed it really quickly.
“I’ve been listening to his most recent record, which
is very political, and that song, The Evil That Men
Do, deals with some kind of political issues that are
going on at the moment about the ‘anti-woke brigade’
that we have here in the UK and my annoyance of
that. So I just felt like it would be like the right kind of
collaboration for that song to get him to be involved.”
MISS THE BLISS
Hot Chip was formed in London in 2000 by Joe and
co-founder Alexis Taylor and, after a few EPs, they were
joined by current members Felix Martin, Al Doyle, and
Owen Clarke for the release of the group’s debut studio
album ‘Coming on Strong’ (2004). The LP earned
the band a devout fanbase, but it was follow-up ‘The
Warning’ (2006) that impacted the charts, marking Hot
Chip’s UK Top 40 debut off the back of hit single Over
and Over.
Subsequently, the five-piece has released five Top 20
records rooted in their signature electronic, synth-pop
sound, but it’s the myriad of influences that inform
their work that makes Hot Chip one of the most
exciting bands on the scene today. Joe credits “a lot
of forms of dance music” for inspiring his direction -
“whether it’s modern UK stuff, like Ben UFO and Hessle
Audio, friends like Kieran Hebden/Four Tet, quite
modern experimental dance music stuff, or digging
into the past and listening to ‘80s disco and electronic
music” - but he insists what’s most important is the
way a track makes the audience feel.
“I think that would be the main inspiration - when
I find a record, whether it’s new or old, that I just
feel is sonically interesting, and watching how that
goes down on a dance floor,” he muses. “Trying to be
inspired by that and learn from that.”
Over time, the band have remained faithful to their
classic sound, but when it comes to creating new
music, Joe insists they “try to not limit themselves” and
experiment with “very different tempos and styles”.
“We also love a lot of pop music. For instance, I play
INTERVIEW | Hot Chip
this remix of Green Light by Lorde all the time in my
DJ sets, this disco mix, and I just think that’s such an
amazing pop record,” he smiles. “So we’re open to
actual pop stars as well as trying to draw from more
underground, more ‘trendy’ stuff. We’re really into
proper pop music as well, like Charli XCX and ABBA.
We’re really lovers of pop music in all of its forms. So we
try to balance those things out a little bit.”
It’s ironic that, in 2022, ABBA are cited among
current chart favourite Charli XCX as an example
of “proper pop” but, as Joe points out, the Swedish
supergroup’s music and enduring legacy is as relevant
today as it was more than four decades ago. “There’s
moments of ABBA that’s the cheesiest stuff you’ve
ever heard, but Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! is one of the
biggest records around at the moment in disco and
house music circles,” he notes. “Everyone loves that
song so much. It’s just undeniably amazing.”
The group’s renaissance isn’t a one-off: Fleetwood
Mac’s ‘Rumours’ is, once again, one of the best-selling
albums of the year and Kate Bush just spent three
weeks at No. 1 with her 1985 single Running Up That
Hill, after it featured on Netflix’s ‘Stranger Things’.
“I’ve seen that kind of process happening for so
long now,” explains Joe of the renewed interest in
classic artists. “Thirty years ago, it was much more
normal to dress in a certain way and just be into a
certain kind of music. And you’ve just seen people
open their horizons continually since then until it’s
become normal for people to be aware of all of this
different music and be allowed to like it. Which is
clearly a really, really good thing.”
It comes down to, in part, the advent of streaming,
which has opened people’s eyes to the vast catalogues
and repertoires of pop music from artists who began
their careers decades ago, making their discographies
available at the touch of a button. But before Spotify
and Apple Music reigned supreme in the music world,
Hot Chip - along with many artists in the early 2000s -
came up against a far greater threat.
“When we were starting, it was just at the beginning
WHEN WE WERE STARTING, IT WAS JUST
AT THE BEGINNING OF ILLEGAL FILE
SHARING. THAT’S ONE OF THE BIGGEST
ISSUES THAT WE WENT THROUGH IN
THAT PERIOD, WHEN PEOPLE WERE NOT
SPENDING ANY MONEY ON MUSIC.
RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 67
 of illegal file sharing. That’s one of the biggest issues WE’RE OPEN TO
that we went through in that period, when people were
not spending any money on music - they were just ACTUAL POP
sharing MP3s on Napster or whatever, and the music
industry was really suffering at that point,” he recalls.
STARS AS WELL AS
“It’s come out of that and it’s actually earning a lot of TRYING TO DRAW
money through things like Spotify, Deezer and Tidal, all
these streaming services. The labels are starting to earn
FROM MORE
quite a lot of money. I remember a point when people UNDERGROUND,
were really depressed about the future of the music
industry. Before these streaming services came in, MORE ‘TRENDY’
people just didn’t know what they were gonna do. STUFF. WE’RE
“Labels had no budget, because nobody was buying
their products anymore. So that’s probably the biggest REALLY INTO
thing that I’ve seen happen and it’s obviously a positive
PROPER POP
thing that labels are able to earn money and develop
new artists. There are a lot of issues that go along with MUSIC AS WELL,
it that are still being fought over, but fundamentally it’s
a good thing that there’s some kind of money in
LIKE CHARLI XCX
the industry.” AND ABBA.
Another source of income is the resurgence of
physical formats, most notably vinyl records, which
have increased in popularity year-on-year in recent
times. “That’s a really interesting issue as well,” says Joe.
“I’ve always been a fan of vinyl. I absolutely love it. I buy
records and I love my Hi-Fi, my vinyl and speakers and
whatever - it’s a big deal for me. I find it super cool that
young people are interested in playing records again. I
think it’s a fantastic format, so I’m super, super pleased
about it.”

NOT ALONE
With new music in their armour, Hot Chip are set to hit
the road throughout the autumn with a string of tour
dates, kicking off with a four night residency at the O2
Academy Brixton in London and followed by a set of
European gigs - with the group itching to get out and
play the new tracks live.
“The super exciting thing about those dates in
London, and the rest of the European tour that follows
on from that, is that’s where we’re launching the new
record,” beams Joe. “We’ll be playing quite a lot of new
songs from the album that we’re really excited to learn
and play together and then we’ll be redesigning the
show and the lighting and all of that stuff. So it feels like
a fresh start.
“These gigs that we’ve been doing so far are a
hangover from the pandemic; they should have
happened in 2020. Obviously, everything just got
PHOTOS POONEH GHANA

cancelled, so we’re just finishing off the festivals that

were supposed to be done a while ago. But from
September onwards, it’s a whole new start, so we’ve
got a few weeks rehearsing before that and it’s a really
exciting moment for us to be getting our teeth into
some of the new songs that we’re really proud of on the
record. I can’t wait for that moment, honestly.”

68 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
 INTERVIEW | Hot Chip

The reunion with fans can’t come soon enough -

particularly as the pandemic wiped out plans for Hot
Chip to celebrate their 20th anniversary. According
to Joe, they had a year of touring planned which was,
of course, wiped out by Covid, but ahead of the next
milestone - their 25th - the group are already looking at
ways to celebrate.
Could there be plans to dig into the vault for a series
of reissues? “We haven’t really started making plans
of that nature,” insists Joe, before adding, “It’s a
really good idea, actually, to do something like
that. We’d have to speak to our label Domino
about what they want to do. We love to mark
anniversaries like that.”
He goes on to reveal: “We’ve been talking
about maybe doing one of those shows
where you play a specific record that
people are really into. Like, if we were to
do a tour and play our second album, ‘The
Warning’, or something like that. Maybe,
potentially….”

O‘Freakout/Release’ is out August

19 on Domino. Hot Chip play four
nights at London’s O2 Academy
Brixton beginning September 21.

WE’VE BEEN
TALKING ABOUT
MAYBE DOING ONE
OF THOSE SHOWS
WHERE YOU PLAY A
SPECIFIC RECORD.
LIKE IF WE WERE TO
DO A TOUR AND PLAY
OUR SECOND ALBUM,
‘THE WARNING’...

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 69
 ALL N I G H T
L O N G

Looking back on a decade of chart success,

The Vamps reveal how they connected on social
media to take the world by storm as they set about
celebrating their best-loved hits with a mega UK tour!
WORDS CONNOR GOTTO

70 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
 INTERVIEW | The Vamps

n 2012, the boy band market was saturated with the likes of

I One Direction and The Wanted dominating the charts, leaving

little room for another act to throw its hat into the ring.
But having made their early beginnings on YouTube over a
decade ago, during which time they nurtured legions of fans via their
online presence, The Vamps had no reservations about taking on the
heavy hitters and having their shot at success.
It’s a risk that paid off and, after five Top 10 albums - including
the chart-toppers ‘Night & Day (Night Edition)’ (2017) and ‘Cherry
Blossom’ (2020) - Bradley Simpson, Tristan Evans, James McVey and
Connor Ball are celebrating their career to date with an epic tour slated
for the autumn.

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 71
 Ahead of their return to the road, the boys share their
enthusiasm to reconnect with fans once more, as they
look back on how the Internet brought them together
and helped craft one of the most successful groups of
the past decade.

WAKE UP
“I was really trying to find Brad for like 18 months
before we met,” says James, who played a key role in
the formation of the group. “I met quite a few really
nice people, but musically we were quite different. And
then when Brad and I met it was pretty natural.”
With management in tow, James was on the hunt
for musicians when he stumbled upon his future
bandmate’s YouTube channel, on which he’d shared
clips of himself performing.
“Before meeting Brad I was ruthlessly trying to find
people, but as soon as we met, it just started happening
really fast, really very organically, which is, I think, quite
rare,” he reflects, citing shows such as ‘The X Factor’ as
the standard origin for groups at that time.
The pair wrote songs together in late 2011, and they
met drummer Tristan Evans through Facebook in 2012.
The three of them then met Connor Ball through a
mutual friend. While there were no formal auditions
for the group as such, there were numerous musicians
involved in early iterations before Tristan and Connor
joined the fold.
Brad recalls: “There was an Irish lad - it was when we
were trying to find the fourth member. There were a
couple before and there was a lad called Jack, who was
a really lovely guy who wasn’t right for us. But super
creative - really lovely, artistic guy.
“I saw him like a year and a half ago on Instagram
and he is starting to really take off as a painter. He’s
doing really well. He has this really cool concept where
he listens to songs and then does a painting in the time
of the song, and he names it after the song. He’s doing
really well, he just moved to London and he’s got an
installation.”
By the time the line-up was complete, James and
Brad had already settled on a name, selecting The

T I N G B R A DI
EE
BEFORE M LESSLY TRYING
W A S R U T HE O P L E , B U T A S
TO FIND P E MET, IT JUST
S O O N A S WA P P E N I N G R E A L L Y
S T A R T E D HI C H I T H I N K I S
FAST, WH E.
QUITE RAR
JAMES

72 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
 INTERVIEW | The Vamps

A A C T U A LLY
DM
MY GRAN Y THOUGHT I
G E N U I N E LL L H O R A N F O R
WAS NIA SHE’D COLLECT
A WHILE. HINKING IT WAS
POSTERS T S AND IT WAS
THE VAMP ONE DIRECTION.
ACTUALLY
TRISTAN

The Vamps (l-r): Bradley

Simpson, James McVey,
Connor Ball, Tristan Evans

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 73
 Vamps from a list of potential monikers, and they
swiftly set about writing and recording music. With
a list of inspirations from AC/DC to Jamiroquai and
Damien Rice, the foursome blended their personal
flavours to craft their sound and, in the meantime, they
continued to tap into social media to build a fan base,
before striking gold in the summer of 2012 with their
rendition of One Direction’s Live While We’re Young.
It’s a connection that was particularly confusing
for Tristan’s grandmother, who often mistook her
grandson for one of the 1D boys. “My grandma actually
genuinely thought I was Niall Horan for a while,”
he laughs. “She’d collect posters thinking it was The
Vamps and it was actually One Direction.”
Their online success led to the group signing a deal
with Mercury Records in the November of that year
and, looking back on their swift rise to prominence,
Brad credits their commitment and determination
to succeed for steering them in the right direction. “I
think early on, it felt like it was gonna be good. It didn’t
ever feel like we needed to go and do anything else,”
he insists. “We were lucky that we had our parents to
support us, so we’d stay at our parents’ houses and
stuff like that so we could just focus on rehearsing and
getting as good as we could as a band.
“Quite early on, we were like, ‘We’re gonna do it’ - I
think you’ve got to have that level of commitment. If
there’s a Plan B, you’re immediately telling yourself that
Plan A is not gonna work”
With a deal in place, the quartet set about penning
tracks for their debut long-player - the aptly-titled ‘Meet
The Vamps’ - and in July 2013 they uploaded their
first original song, Wildheart, to YouTube, attracting
over 46,000 views within the first two days. The track
made waves, but it was their first official single, Can We
Dance, that propelled their career to new heights, with
its video receiving over one million views within two
weeks and taking the group to No. 2 in the UK charts, a
feat matched by their long-player the following Spring.

LET’S DANCE
In the years that followed, the group released a further
four albums, scored hit collaborations with some of
the world’s biggest artists, such as Demi Lovato, Shawn
Mendes and Sigala, and toured with the likes of Taylor

L E M A Y B E BUY
PEOP
Swift, Selena Gomez and McFly. It’s the kind of success
most artists dream of and, while sceptics might assume
O R T H R E E GIG
the group is the product of an industry machine, they
TWO Y E A R , SO IF
maintain that, from the very start of their career, they’ve
taken control. A
TICKETS E GOING TO BUY
PEOPLE AR ET TO OURS AND
“We’ve always been focused on our lane,” says
Tristan. “Obviously, people love to compare us [to
other bands] and would prefer to get a reaction out of
it, but realistically we’ve always been focused on The A G I G T I C KW E V E R M U C H I T
Vamps and whatever we are doing during that time, it’s
SPEND HO ED TO MAKE
IS, WE NE IT.
completely what we want to do.
“It is weird, because we have had a lot of control, both

IT WORTH
in the business side and the creative side. We’ve been
very hands on since we were teenagers and that’s quite
mad, actually, to think about how much control we had
with the label.”
BRAD
A fine example of the boys steering their own ship
is their most recent LP ‘Cherry Blossom’, for which

74 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM

they scrapped their initial tracks and steered the project in
a new direction. “I think the last album was a big turning
point. I think we experimented more as a band with our
style and the sound and the approach,” reflects Brad. “The
videos were a lot more hands-on, a lot more creative.
I think what that does is you’re purposefully pushing
yourself out of the box and, if it goes well, great, and if it
doesn’t then at least you’ve done it.
“That’s quite a freeing place to be and it was a conscious
decision to do that. That’s empowering, because it’s not
someone else doing it for you. I think what’s important is
that everything we’ve done within the band has been a
version of us. People get so wrapped up in, ‘Oh, it’s not
me, it’s not me,’ but that’s quite pigeon holed. People are
different around different things.”
It makes for a diverse repertoire that the group plans
to explore on stage during their ‘10 Years of The Vamps’
greatest hits tour, which plays across the UK in November/
December. “This is, for us, an excuse to play all of our
songs together,” says Tristan. “This is like the ‘Today’s Top
Hits’ playlist for The Vamps. Before, we’ve only promoted
specific albums, but for this one, it’s like this is ‘The Vamps
INTERVIEW | The Vamps
show’, so technically it’s like the first Vamps tour we’ve
ever done.”
With five albums worth of material to juggle, the
group is in the process of devising a setlist and,
according to Tristan, they often take to digital platforms
such as Spotify to analyse which songs are the most
popular with listeners. “That is such a good indication
of what people are liking and vibing with. It tells you
everything,” he says. “It tells you if the UK are liking it
versus America, how many people listen to it per day.
There’s a little bit of going through the statistics and
what’s going on with the music online.
“But then there’s also certain songs that
U S , A N E XCUSE
R
T H I S I S , F OL L O F O U R S O N G S
T O P L A Y A. T H I S I S L I K E T H E
TOGETHER OP HITS’ PLAYLIST
‘T O D A Y ’ S T A M P S .
FOR THE V
TRISTAN really kick off live that were not
hits, so we’ll play those. It’s just the
best selection of The Vamps - plus
some other cool stuff,” he adds,
with the group already set on a
couple of rarities.
“There’s a song called Lovestruck that the fans keep
asking for, so I think we’ll probably play that,” teases
Brad, while Tristan adds: “There’s this song called Too
Good To Be True, which we did with Machine Gun
Kelly, about four years ago. We haven’t actually ever
played that live. That will be played.”
But what’s most important to the group is ensuring
the shows are accessible to all fans, regardless of their
financial situation. “People maybe buy two or three gig
tickets a year, so if people are going to buy a gig ticket
to ours and spend however much it is, we try and keep
our prices low,” Brad says. “We need to make it worth
it and it needs to be like, ‘I need to see them again.’ I
think us as a live band is where we shine and that’s our
strongest point as a band.”
STOLEN MOMENTS
With their anniversary celebrations in full swing,
The Vamps have delved into the archive to unearth
never-before-seen, behind the scenes pictures from
their decade together, which will be shared with fans
in the form of a limited edition zine, due in October.
It’s a special project that the group sees as a thank you
to their loyal devotees who have stuck with them from
the very beginning up until now .
“When we were going through the build up to the 10
years, we wanted to do something that felt like a one-
off thing,” Brad reflects. “We’ve put together photos,
there’s interviews and stories about the band over the
10 years that we haven’t spoken about. It’s a throwback
and I hope the fans love it. It’s one of those things
RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 75
 hopefully they can keep for the rest of their lives.”
The irony that they’re in their late 20s and already
tapping into the nostalgia market isn’t lost on the boys,
with Tristan musing: “It’s like two different worlds.
There’s no middle. You’ve got the hardcore people
who really love the physical touch of something, like
a vinyl, and then you get the digital people who are
just completely all online. But I think people still do like
buying cassettes and stuff that they can’t even use…”
Of the process of looking back, Brad admits: “It’s
been really good. It’s been nice to celebrate and I think
it’s always important to go back over things. British
culture is very like, on to the next, don’t tell anybody
what you’ve done, play it down… Which is good in one
way, but then at the same time it’s important to go back
and celebrate it.”
However, it has brought back some embarrassing
memories, with James admitting he cringed at “most
of what I wore and how I had my hair”. “Seriously,
up until two years ago - I’d made eight years of bad
decisions. My wife sometimes finds old
pictures and she’s just like, ‘Why the hell was

A R T W R I TING
WE’LL ST LL BE THE SIXTH
WHAT WI THE MIDDLE
A L B U M I NE A R , B U T O U R
OF NEXT Y TO ALBUMS
APPROACH IFFERENT NOW
W I L L B E DM A Y B E B E A T A
AND IT’LL ACE.
SLOWER P
BRAD

I with you during this period?’,” he

laughs, as Tristan compares one
of his hairstyles to that of Mozart.
However, he’s soon reminded that, down the years,
he’s also fallen victim to a number of fashion faux-pas.
“There have been a couple of hats that have gone
missing. When I’m wearing something that’s not up to
standard with the rest of the dudes, they literally chuck
it away and say it’s gone missing,” he says, with James
recalling one particular incident while the group was “Anyway, thankfully you never lost it,” he says with a
out playing golf abroad. smile, and it’s refreshing to see a group that genuinely
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

“We were playing golf in Taiwan and Trist had this
hat on. I can’t remember what hat it was, but it was not
the best,” he remembers. “He rammed it into one of the
golf bags and we had caddies - a really nice guy that
was caddying for us - and he rammed it so far down
that we genuinely forgot about the hat. We thought,
‘Ah shit, we should go back,’ but then we all looked at
each other like, ‘I don’t know, man…’ So we went to the
car and the caddy came running with the hat. I think it
was white and it looked like a Donald Trump hat.
enjoys each other’s company and still finds pleasure
in what they do, despite 10 non-stop years together.
Looking to the future, they plan to stay on the road for
“a good six months, and then start writing,” Brad says.
“It’s open ended, but I think we’ll start writing what
will be the sixth album in the middle of next year. That’s
the loose idea at the moment,” he adds. “We are best
friends, so we look forward to getting in the studio
together. On the last album, we did Airbnbs, so we’d
book a week away together, take the studio with us,

76 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM

and it’s just fun. It’s work, but it’s a holiday too.”
That ethos runs through most of the band’s career and,
having reflected on the past decade, Brad suggests they
might not be quite so prolific going forward. “A lot of
bands wouldn’t put out five albums in the space of seven
years,” he reflects. “So I think there are certain things that
we’ve looked back on over the past 10 years that we’re
really glad that we did, but our approach to albums will
be different now and it’ll maybe be at a slower pace.”
One thing they don’t plan on winding down on is
touring, however, as Tristan beams: “Touring is a holiday,
if you think about it. Obviously you work and do the
INTERVIEW | The Vamps
show - and there’s a lot of work that’s been done before
that. That’s why you feel less guilty about enjoying
yourself while playing the show, because it takes so
much preparation and effort to get it to where it is.
“But when we’re on stage, we love it so much. And
then we go on the tour bus and travel. It’s like a massive
tour party. It’s amazing!”
OThe UK leg of the ‘Ten Years Of The Vamps’ tour
kicks off on November 23 in Manchester. The ‘Ten
Years Of The Vamps’ fanzine is out October 14 and
available to pre-order now.
RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 77

DEAD
METHOD
With his latest record ‘Future Femme’ out now,
Welsh pop star Dead Method looks back on the sounds that
shaped him as he prepares to take on the world!
ead Method taps into his
D LGBTQ+ journey on his
shimmering new album
‘Future Femme’.
Produced by Edward Russell,
the collection celebrates the rising
star’s identity, featuring a mixture of
English and Welsh language lyrics and
collaborations with MADITRONIQUE,
Jack Rua and Brendan Maclean.
Looking back on his life in music, the
musician shares his biggest influences
and reveals how his latest project has
informed the next steps in his career.
What’s your first musical memory?
My first music memory is at home,
listening to my parents’ favourite
albums and singing along. Those times
taught me how to use my voice and
really sparked my love for music.
What was the soundtrack to your
childhood?
The soundtrack to my childhood
was often whatever my parents were
listening to at the time, but one album
really stuck with me and that was ‘The
Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’. It started
as an album my mother would listen
to and eventually grew into one of my
favourite albums of all time.
What’s the first record you bought?
The first record I ever bought with my
own money was ‘Because I Love It’ by
Amerie. I remember being so excited to
hear the record and it didn’t disappoint -
it’s still a part of my CD collection today.
78 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
PROFILE
What’s the first song you ever
performed?
I used to sing a lot in the school choir
before I was confident enough to write
my own music, so I think the first song
I ever performed was Calon Lân. It’s a
classic Welsh language hymn about
being pure of heart that’s seared into the
brains of any kids that went to a Welsh
language school!
When did you realise you wanted to
be a singer?
I don’t think there was a moment where
I didn’t want to be a singer, it has always
been a part of who I am and I can’t
imagine being anything else.
Which song do you wish had been
yours?
Hung Up by Madonna. In my opinion,
it has the single greatest use of a sample
in any song ever. Every time I hear it, it
sparks euphoria. A god-tier song.
If you could go back to any musical
era, which would it be?
I would stay right where I am. Though
I love the sounds and aesthetics of ‘90s
music – as a queer person, there’s no
freer time to be making music than right
now. I think the industry is nearing a
turning point and I hope it won’t be long
until queer artists are properly valued for
what we bring to the table.
Which artists inspire your sound?
At the moment I am really inspired
by Madonna, Lady Gaga, Sam Sparro,
Marina, Rina Sawayma, and so many
others.
I’ve also been incredibly inspired by
the queer artists working around me,
especially during the last few years
where it’s been hard to feel inspired.
People like Tom Aspaul, Foxgluvv,
Kisos, Willetts, Mantaraybryn and
Zee Machine work so hard and are so
unique, it’s beautiful and inspiring to
see them winning!
How would you describe your music
in three words?
Camp, witty and candid.
Your new album ‘Future Femme’
explores your experiences as an
LGBTQ+ artist - what can you tell us
about that?
‘Future Femme’ is really all about
coming into my own. It documents
a few life changing experiences,
big and small and my struggle to be
heard in an industry that doesn’t
value queer voices.
It was a magical experience being
able to work with Edward Russell,
who produced the album. Having
the safe space and the freedom to
really dive deep into how I was feeling
made all the difference, and gave me
confidence when I thought I had lost it.
When we were making the album, I
kept returning to the same imagery -
the goddess Venus being born out of
the ocean - and applying that to the
power in embracing your queer side
and taking up space. So the thread of

this story is woven throughout,
along with the struggles that I’ve
faced as a result.
PHOTO JONATHAN DANIEL PRYCE
There’s a lot of push back in the
industry for queer people to water
themselves down and to be more
digestible for a straight audience. The
message of ‘Future Femme’, in essence,
is a big middle finger to those voices.
How has music influenced your
LGBTQ+ journey?
Music has really allowed me to explore
my LGBTQ+ identity and uncover
what that really means for me. It has
allowed me to share my story with
people who might identify with me,
or might not have understood me and
it has given me the opportunity to
connect with people I otherwise would
not have.
‘Future Femme’ feels like an
important record in your career.
Where do you see things going next?
‘Future Femme’ really is an important
PROFILE | Dead Method
There’s a lot of
push back in the
industry for queer
people to water
themselves down.
The message of
‘Future Femme’ is
a big middle finger
to those voices.
milestone in my career, it’s the most
‘me’ I’ve ever felt and there are more
people reaching out and telling me
they connect to it more than ever
before with my previous work.
I really want to take the album on
tour and share it with as many people
as I possibly can. I also have some
more music videos in the works and
eventually I’ll be working on the next
project. The future is bright…
O‘Future Femme’ is out now.
RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 79
 RELEASERADAR
A L B U M S | R E I S S U E S | C O M P I L AT I O N S

82 ONE FOOT IN THE PAST

Steps celebrate 25 years of hits with
their ‘Platinum Collection’

84 87 91

FINALLY DAY-GLO – BASED THE PAINTER

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

ENOUGH LOVE ON A TRUE STORY William Orbit returns

Madonna celebrates her Erasure revisit ‘The to music with a
dance legacy with her Neon’ for their most superb electronic
epic remix collection experimental release yet masterpiece

RATINGS EXPLAINED: +++++

+ BRILLIANT +++++ GOOD +++++ AVERAGE +++++ POOR +++++ TERRIBLE

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 81
 RELEASERADAR
A L B U M S | R E I S S U E S | C O M P I L AT I O N S
STEPS
PLATIMUN
COLLECTION
+++++
RELEASED: August 19 Sony
FORMATS: Standard CD,
Deluxe 2CD, Individual
Member CDs, 2LP Black Vinyl,
2LP Limited Edition Silver
Splash Vinyl (HMV & Indies
Exclusive), Picture Disc Vinyl
(Amazon Exclusive), Limited
Edition Glitter Cassette
teps celebrate their legacy as
S
Britain’s premier pop act as they
showcase 25 years of hits with
their ‘Platinum Collection’.
Coinciding with the milestone
anniversary of the group’s line-dancing
debut 5,6,7,8, the album boasts 21
tracks and commemorates a landmark
moment that not even the group
themselves saw coming.
“Someone recently mentioned that
the latest era of Steps has actually now
outlasted our original run which was
a delightful surprise,” said the five-
piece. “This anniversary marks the
perfect moment to take a look back at
everything we’ve achieved as a band.
“We realised that we’ve released a
full three new studio albums since our
last Greatest Hits so it felt like time to
combine all our hits on one package.
We’ve recorded two brand-new tracks
for the album and presto, the ‘Platinum
Collection’ was born.
82 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
“It was such good fun listening back
to 25 years of our songs and we hope
you enjoy this trip down memory lane
as much as we did”.
Opening with the group’s 2017
comeback hit Scared of the Dark,
the tracklist covers Steps’ complete
repertoire - sans 2012 festive collection
‘Light Up The World’ - and offers the
most comprehensive collection of
their work to date.
Featured are 11 UK Top 5 hits -
including the No. 1 singles Tragedy,
Heartbeat and Stomp - along with
Steps’ best-loved recordings from
recent years, such as What The Future
Holds, Neon Blue, Something In Your
Eyes, and Heartbreak In This City (feat.
Michelle Visage).
Furthermore, the album boasts two
brand new recordings that showcase
different sides of the group, who have
become masters of the cover version
over the past two decades. This time
around, they tackle VINCINT’s Hard 2
Forget for a contemporary dance-pop
sound, before tapping into the disco
revival with one of the movement’s
originals - Three Degrees’ The Runner
- for a sparkling slice of pop nostalgia.
Both are worthy additions to the
group’s catalogue, complementing
new and classic hits alike, while
for those who can’t get enough of
Steps’ pop gold, expanded editions of
‘Platinum Collection’ come complete
with a second disc of additional
singles, album tracks, remixes
and rarities - several of which are
previously unreleased.
Alongside the singles that didn’t
make the cut the first time around, Lisa Scott-Lee.
there are also album tracks (Paradise It once again demonstrates the
Lost, Happy), B-sides (Just Like The group’s commitment not only to
First Time) and four new remixes, their music, but also to their fanbase,
including the Flashmob edit of Deeper who remain as loyal today as they
Shade of Blue and Steps 25 Revisited did two decades ago. While it would
versions of One For Sorrow, Stomp have been easy for the group to flog
and Tragedy. alternate, signed covers to increase
It’s an added bonus for fans, along their sales, the personal curation of the
with individual member CDs which individual member editions of ‘Platinum
each include a further three tracks, Collection’ is symbolic of the attitude
which have been personally selected and ethos that’s resulted in Steps’
by Claire Richards, Ian ‘H’ Watkins, continued popularity after all this time.
Faye Tozer, Lee Latchford-Evans and The selections are varied and, while
 REVIEWS | albums

STEP BACK IN TIME

Throughout their career, Steps have
made a name for themselves with a
selection of standout cover versions -
here are some of their finest…
LAST THING ON
MY MIND
‘STEP ONE’ (1998)
Originally by Bananarama
The group’s second single was
selected by Pete Waterman,
who co-wrote the song with
Mike Stock and Bananarama
for their first duo album, ‘Please
Yourself’, in 1993.

DEEPER SHADE
OF BLUE
‘STEPTACULAR’ (1999)
Originally by Tina Cousins
One of Steps’ signature hits,
this Topham & Twigg penned
classic was originally recorded
by Tina Cousins, but went
unreleased - bar a few 12” promo editions
- until Steps took it on.

HERE AND NOW

‘BUZZ’ (2000)
Originally by Worlds Apart
The final single from the ‘Buzz’
album is another lesser-
known cover version, with the
original recorded by Brother
Beyond star Nathan Moore’s
group Worlds Apart.

highlighting some of each
member’s favourite cuts, also
demonstrate their songwriting
abilities, with Claire (Hand On
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
SOMETHING IN
YOUR EYES
‘WHAT THE FUTURE
HOLDS’ (2020)
Originally by Jenny Silver
Although Steps have shied
away from Eurovision, they
have delved into the history
pandemic, and embark on a full-
of the Contest for a number
scale arena tour across the UK,
of covers, including this gem from
their current celebration rounds
Melodifestivalen 2011.
out one of the most exciting and

Your Heart), Lisa (Never Get prolific eras in Steps history.

Over You), Faye (If You Believe),
H (Learn to Love Again) and Lee
(Turn Around) each selecting a
co-write for their personal version
of the album.
Coming off a two-year
campaign that saw the group
release two albums back-to-
back at the height of a global
The complete ‘Platinum
Collection’ is a testament to the
group’s drive,, showcasing their
work and commitment that,
25 years on from their debut,
continues their legacy as one of
the most successful pop groups in
chart history.
Long may their reign continue!
THE SLIGHTEST TOUCH
‘WHAT THE FUTURE
HOLDS PT. 2’ (2021)
Originally by Five Star
Closing out their latest album,
Steps went back to the 1980s
for a celebration of another of
Britain’s most successful five-
piece’s, the mighty Five Star!

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 83
 RELEASERADAR
A L B U M S | R E I S S U E S | C O M P I L AT I O N S
MADONNA
FINALLY ENOUGH LOVE:
50 NUMBER ONES
+++++
RELEASED: August 19 Warner
FORMATS: 3CD, 2LP Standard Black
Vinyl, 2LP Limited Edition Red Vinyl
(Indies Exclusive), 2LP Limited Edition
Silver Vinyl (Amazon Exclusive), 2LP
Limited Edition Clear Vinyl (HMV
Exclusive), 6LP Limited Edition Red And
Black Vinyl (Artist Store Exclusive)
adonna celebrates her dance floor
M
Number Ones’.
legacy with a personally-curated
selection of remixes from her 40 year
career on ‘Finally Enough Love: 50
Coinciding with the Queen of Pop’s latest
retrospective celebrations and off the back of her
scoring her record-breaking 50th No. 1 single on
the US Billboard Club Dance Chart, the anthology
release spans the mega-star’s four decades of
success, from her eponymous debut album -
released in 1983 - to her most recent long-player,
2019’s ‘Madame X’.
The result is a comprehensive look at her
enduring legacy, organised chronologically, and a
journey through the storied years of one of pop’s
greats. That in itself is a highlight, as she’s been
notoriously frugal when it comes to legacy releases
throughout her career, instead favouring creativity
and reinvention that’s kept her star shining so
bright for so long.
But with her latest milestone, she has one foot
firmly in the past, and ‘Finally Enough Love: 50
Number Ones’ is the first in a series of reissue
projects, which is set to cover Madonna’s studio
catalogue, along with soundtracks and live
recordings from the past four decades.
84 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
On this package - available as a complete 50-track
collection and an abridged 16-track release - she
focuses firmly on her club legacy and showcases
some of her biggest hits and fan-favourite releases
that have been reinvented by some of the biggest
remixers on the planet. The quality of the songs
doesn’t come into question; with hits such as Like
a Virgin, Ray of Light, Express Yourself, Like a Prayer
and Vogue all accounted for, the entire album serves
as an amped up greatest hits for one of music’s most
legendary artists.
Several of the opening songs initially appeared on
her classic remix collection ‘You Can Dance’ and a
choice decision is the inclusion of remix edits rather
than the full remixes, which were mostly conceived
as extended versions of the source material and
brought out new elements in the tracks that were
often buried in the mix. As a result, the ‘You Can
Dance’ remix edit of Into The Groove, for example,
loses some of the magic of the original eight-
minute version, conceived by Jellybean and ‘True
Blue’ producer Patrick Leonard for the compilation.
It’s surely a decision that’s been made due to time
constraints, but one that will undoubtedly jar fans
who have become accustomed to the full-length
mixes from various sources over time. However,
to have them all in one place, compiled in a neat
collection and easily accessible after so long, is most
definitely welcome.
On a more positive note, ‘Finally Enough Love:
50 Number Ones’ is a wholly varied set, spotlighting
a diverse range of collaborators and remixers, the
majority of whom put their signature stamp on the
music while remaining faithful and respectful to the
originals. Towards the latter half of the release, the
tracks arguably become more formulaic, probably
in line with the commercial club mixes that were
being produced at the time. But compared with
earlier takes on tracks that have, in some cases,
been adopted as definitive versions, it becomes
increasingly noticeable that some of her recordings
are more suited to contemporary chart trends than
others.
However, these are Madonna’s personal
selections and, after 40 years at the top, who are we
to tell her what she should do? Plus, there are some
absolute gems: Junior Vasquez’s mixes of Bedtime
Story and Secret are fantastic, as is the Miami Mix of
Don’t Cry For Me Argentina and Extended Club Mix
of Frozen. Pet Shop Boys’ take on Sorry sounds as
fresh 16 years on.
PHOTO MARIO TESTINO
When it comes to pop catalogues, Madonna’s
is the benchmark for excellence, and as an
introduction to the next era in her career ‘Finally
Enough Love: 50 Number Ones’ certainly whets
our appetite for what’s to come in the not-too-
distant future.
Whatever she’s got planned, we are ready!
 REVIEWS | albums

RE-INVENTION
Throughout her career, Madonna
has never been afraid to change
up her image or sound and has
delivered some absolute classics
along the way…

LA ISLA BONITA
(1987)
With two hit albums under
her belt, Madonna branched
into Latin Pop territory on
her third long-player ‘True
Blue’ with her fabulously
flamenco summer jam that’s
been on rotation ever since.

VOGUE (1990)
Bringing the moves of
the Harlem ‘House Ball’
community into the
mainstream, Madonna
kicked off a new decade
by launching a cultural
phenomenon with one of
her most iconic and best-
loved hits.

EROTICA (1992)
Never afraid to push
boundaries, Madonna
returned as her alter ego
Mistress Dita for the launch
of her provocative fifth
album ‘Erotica’ and her
explicit ‘Sex’ book, causing
a commotion in the process.

DON’T TELL ME
(2000)
Who ever thought Madonna
would make line dancing
cool? Not us! But she did,
with the country inspired
video for the second single
from ‘Music’, which earns
its place as an iconic visual.

HUNG UP (2005)
Madonna x ABBA is the
stuff of dreams - and it
became a reality when she
sampled Gimme! Gimme!
Gimme! (A Man After
Midnight) on the stellar lead
single from ‘Confessions on
a Dance Floor’.

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 85
 RELEASERADAR
A L B U M S | R E I S S U E S | C O M P I L AT I O N S
ALTERED IMAGES
MASCARA STREAKZ
+++++
RELEASED: August 26
Cooking Vinyl
FORMATS: CD, Standard
Black Vinyl LP, Limited
Edition Red Vinyl LP (Artist
Store Exclusive), Limited
Edition Silver Vinyl LP (Indies
Exclusive)
ltered Images make their
A triumphant return after
four decades away with
their stellar fourth album
‘Mascara Streakz’.
Recorded during the second UK
lockdown at the height of the pandemic,
the LP sees vocalist Clare Grogan and
her collaborator/husband Stephen
Lironi, along with The Bluebells’ Robert
Hodgens and former Suede guitarist
Bernard Butler, bring the group’s classic
sound up to date with a standout set of
original electro pop tunes.
Kicking off with lead single and title
track Mascara Streakz, it presents a
blueprint for the project, with a synth-
pop melody and contemporary beats
that pick up where the group left off
almost 40 years earlier while offering an
evolution from the band’s original spiky
guitar pop style.
With a lively, uptempo core running
through the collection, the record offers
escapism from the mundane realities of
life to a fantastical world backdropped by
shimmering synths and pulsing beats
86 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
that defy you to relinquish responsibility,
give in to your inhibitions and immerse
yourself in the music.
Take Colour of My Dreams, for
example, which sees Clare overcome
the “black and white” of everyday life in
favour of “psychedelic dreams,” as she
insists: ‘If you don’t see me then you’re
not worth my gaze’.
Glitter Ball is another all-out pop gem,
celebrating the freedom and liberation
that comes from dancing on the club
floor to a killer tune, while the bouncy
Double Reflection is a defiant anthem
for living life on your own terms.
Alongside the storming pop anthems
on ‘Mascara Streaks’ is a set of mid-
tempo tracks, reminiscent of the sounds
of the early 1980s, such as Changing
My Luck and The Flame, both of which
are underpinned by killer basslines
and lively synths that balance out
the collection, once again bringing
Altered Images’ classic sound into the
21st century.
Closing with the album’s sole ballad
Sleep - a lush, wistful electronic number
that showcases Clare’s unchanged
vocals - it shows a different side to the
band’s sound in 2022, highlighting their
versatility and brilliant ability to tackle
different styles with ease.
After a near-40-year absence, Altered
Images faced their biggest challenge
yet - staging a comeback that would
appease fans who have waited 40 years
for a follow-up to their 1983 album
‘Bite’ and appeal to a new generation
of listeners that is leaning into the
sounds of the 1980s off the back of chart
trends and cultural phenomena such as
‘Stranger Things’.
While today’s artists are drawing
influence from classic records, Clare
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
and co. excel in modernising their
signature sound while remaining
faithful to their roots, for a set that blends
perfectly with the group’s classic output
and holds the essence of Altered Images
close to its heart.
The result is a comeback that ticks
all the boxes and opens the door for a
bright new chapter in the history of one
of the best-loved bands of the 1980s.

ERASURE
DAY-GLO (BASED
ON A TRUE STORY)
+++++
RELEASED: August 12 Mute
FORMATS: CD, Fluorescent
Green Vinyl
rasure revisit their latest
E album ‘The Neon’ on ‘Day-Glo
(Based On A True Story)’ - a
collection of 10 new synth-
pop recordings.
Arriving two years after the duo’s 18th
studio record - which peaked at No. 4
in the UK, marking their highest chart
placement since 1994 release ‘I Say I Say
I Say’ - the largely instrumental set was
PHOTO PHIL SHARP
born of Vince Clarke’s lockdown project,
in which he began manipulating files for
tracks from the long-player.
Having discovered a new musical
landscape from within each of the
recordings, he handed over the
compositions to Andy Bell who, along
with long-time collaborator Gareth
Jones, began work on his parts with an
overarching sense of improvisation.
The result is a wholly unique album
that sits aside from the remainder of the
pair’s extensive catalogue, yet sounds
undoubtedly like an Erasure record,
with echoes of ‘The Neon’ supported
with sparse and often ominous vocals
from Andy, who veers away from the
traditional verse-chorus model.
It’s a new approach that’s equally
effective; opener Based on a True Story
contains elements of album track Tower
of Love - the moody mid-point on
Erasure’s latest LP. Evoking the track,
the new recording contains few lyrics,
instead favouring layered harmonies
that create an atmosphere once again
referencing the original.
Some cuts are more direct allusions to
their counterparts than others; Bop Beat
is linked to ‘The Neon’ lead single Hey
Now (Think I Got a Feeling) musically
and lyrically, with its title harkening back
to the track’s opening line, ‘I hear the
beat bop through my brain’, while looser
REVIEWS | albums
instrumental tracks such as Now are
evocative yet elusive when compared
with earlier versions.
What’s striking about ‘Day-Glo (Based
On A True Story)’ is its appearance
two years on from the launch of the
campaign and, with that in mind, Vince
and Andy’s determination to release
it out into the world - particularly when
it’s so left of their usual work. But while
it may not have the immediacy of the
pop gems the duo is known for, it’s an
intriguing listen that lures you into an
electronic world without boundaries
or rules.
Much like Saint Etienne’s experimental
2021 release ‘I’ve Been Trying To Tell You’,
the vocals are low in the mix throughout
much of the album, and often there’s
something left to discover. Take The
Conman, which beneath its light, bouncy
surface, laced with rousing harmonies,
features a call to arms to ‘rise up’ against
the forces in society that profit on lies.
Erasure - as one of the longest-
running partnerships in popular music
- are known for their tight pop anthems,
but almost four decades into their career
they’ve thrown a curveball and put out
an album filled with self-referential
gems and, although perhaps not to
everyone’s taste, it stands out as one of
the most intriguing, creative projects in
their catalogue.
RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 87
 RELEASERADAR
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RICKY ROSS
SHORT STORIES
VOL.2
+++++
RELEASED: August 5 Cooking
Vinyl
FORMATS: CD, Standard Black
Vinyl LP, Limited Edition Blue
Vinyl LP
icky Ross returns with a
R second album of short stories
expertly condensed into
three-minute songs.
Fresh off the road with Deacon Blue
as the band made good on a series of
rescheduled tour dates interrupted by
the pandemic, the singer-songwriter
this month unveils his latest solo
88 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
collection, composed over the past two
years between work on the group’s ‘City
of Love’ (2020) and ‘Riding on the Tide
of Love’ (2021) releases.
The album serves as the follow-up
and sequel to his 2016 solo outing
‘Short Stories’, which boasted new
compositions alongside reworks of hits
and fan-favourites from his four-decade
career.
“I’ve always been interested in telling
stories,” says Ricky. “Most of the stories
have become songs but some stories
take a little longer.
“A couple of years ago I started to
write down some longer memories
which didn’t fit as snugly into verses or
choruses. I hope people might enjoy
the stories as much as I have enjoyed
writing them down.”
The project was recorded at the
star’s home in Glasgow, Scotland, then
augmented with sumptuous strings and
brass, alongside contributions from his
fellow Deacon Blue cohorts Lorraine
McIntosh and Gregor Philp
It’s true that Ricky’s solo albums have
always been a little more experimental
than the band’s biggest hits, such as
Dignity, Real Gone Kid and I’ll Never Fall
In Love Again, and in this regard, ‘Short
Stories Volume 2’ doesn’t disappoint.
Clocking in at over five minutes long,
lead track Spanish Shoes is a rousing,
piano-driven number musing the end
of lockdown and the small pleasures
that come with the freedom we so often
take for granted.
Elsewhere on the album, standout
tracks include a stripped-back version
of Deacon Blue’s 1991 Top 30 hit, Your
Swaying Arms (originally from the
album ‘Fellow Hoodlums’); the reflective
I Was The Beatles; and the somehow
melancholy-yet-uplifting new song,
The Foundations.
Although not as hooky as fans of the
band may expect, ‘Short Stories Volume
2’ is an album to be listened to with fresh
ears, free of all preconceptions, and
a collection that exists outside of the
realms of Deacon Blue and firmly within
Ricky’s solo scape - after all, his work
away from the group is now almost as
extensive as that with the band.
Sticking with the narrative theme, the
album is released one day after Ricky’s
memoir ‘Walking Back Home’, in which
revisits his formative years growing up
in Dundee, his early forays into music
and the beginning, extraordinary
success, fall-out, and re-emergence
of Deacon Blue. The musician writes
movingly about the people and places
that have meant the most to him, as well
as his relationship with faith, politics,
and the ever-changing challenges of
being a musician.
Together, the album and book
are must-haves for fans who will
undoubtedly be thrilled with the fruits
of Ricky’s recent productivity. So while
PHOTO SIMON MURPHY
his latest offering may not be the
most commercial of his career, with
decades of hits under his belt he’s more
than earned the right to steer his own
ship and indulge in projects that fulfil
his creative instincts and satisfy him
personally and artistically.
 REVIEWS | albums

LAUV
ALL 4 NOTHING
+++++
RELEASED: August 5 Virgin

FORMATS: CD, Standard Black

Vinyl LP, Alternate Cover Black
Vinyl LP #1 (Indies Exclusive),
Alternate Cover Black Vinyl LP
#2 (Urban Outfitters Exclusive),
Limited Edition Blue and
Grey Vinyl LP (Artist Store
Exclusive), Limited Edition
Ocean Blue Vinyl LP (HMV,
Indies and Target Exclusive),
Limited Edition Green Vinyl LP
(Walmart Exclusive)

auv documents his journey

L to rediscovering himself on
his superb second album ‘All 4
Nothing’.
The follow-up to 2019’s ‘How I’m
Feeling’ sees the singer-songwriter -
whose meteoric rise to fame off the back
of a string of viral hits left him feeling
disconnected from his roots - explore
his place in the world across 13 of his
most personal tracks yet.
Opening with lead single 26, he
addresses that success directly, musing:
‘Can I tell you a story about a boy who
broke his own heart / He made a couple
songs and they got big / He thought that
he could do whatever he wanted / But it
all left him with a hole in his heart.’
It’s a candid beginning to an album
that sees him navigate different facets
of his personal life, from love and
relationships to alcohol, drugs and
dependency, which were born of
his newfound practice of inner child
meditation.
PHOTO KATE BIEL
of on tracks such as Kids Are Born Stars
and Hey Ari - a tender highlight that
sees him speak to himself, through
his anxiety and self-medication, and
address his personal happiness.
What stands out on ‘All 4 Nothing’,
though, is the positive energy that
radiates from the largely-upbeat
collection, as Lauv embraces the various
components of his personality.
On Stranger, for example, he identifies
with failed relationships and accepts
faults of the past, while Stay Together
sees him wash his hands of past
romances that were never meant to be
with an overarching sense of catharsis.
While creating the record, many of the
recordings began with freestyle ideas,
with Molly In Mexico demonstrative
his music, captures a moment in time.
It’s a joy that bleeds through certain
tracks, most notably the single All 4
Nothing (I’m So In Love), that presents
a clear path for the future for Lauv to let
loose, free himself of his inhibitions and
enjoy the process without giving in to
his hang ups.
Before then, closer First Grade brings
the journey full circle and sees him
emerge reborn.
If ‘How I’m Feeling’ was Lauv trying
to make a pop record, ‘All 4 Nothing’
sees him take the reins and deliver his
pop record; a statement album that
speaks to who he is beyond his stage
persona and brings him closer to his
fans than ever before.
It’s a necessary step in his career and

It sees Lauv visualise himself at
different points in his life and reconnect
with his childhood self, which in turn
helped him rediscover his drive, love
and passion for music, which he speaks
of that approach, resulting in what’s
perhaps not the finest or best crafted
lyric of his career, but a playful
highlight from the album that, through
relinquishing control and having fun in
one that paves the way for a liberating
new era, in which Lauv embraces all
aspects of his identity and channels
them into his music, for what’s surely
his most authentic release yet.

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 89
 RELEASERADAR
A L B U M S | R E I S S U E S | C O M P I L AT I O N S
HOT CHIP
FREAKOUT-RELEASE
+++++
RELEASED: August 19 Domino
FORMATS: CD, 2LP Standard
Black Vinyl, 2LP Limited Edition
Orange Vinyl (Artist Store
Exclusive), 2LP Limited Edition
Brown Vinyl (Indies Exclusive)
ot Chip return with their
H superb eighth studio
album ‘Freakout/Release’,
brimming with more
of the group’s signature
synth-pop excellence.
Clocking in at 11
tracks, the LP sees the
90 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
five-piece reach into the darkness of the
past two years and emerge with a rich,
thought-provoking collection that looks
to a brighter future through the lens of a
challenging past.
“We were living through a period
where it was very easy to feel like
people were losing control of their lives
in different ways,” says musician Joe
Goddard. “There’s a darkness that runs
through a lot of those tracks.”
Kicking off with the vibrant Down,
it represents the first track Joe, Owen
Clarke, Al Doyle, Felix Martin and
Alexis Taylor worked on for the record.
Underpinned by a sample of Universal
Togetherness Band’s More Than
Enough, it sparked a burst of energy that
lured the group into their Relax & Enjoy
studio in Shoreditch, east London,
from which they completed the LP in
between lockdowns and restrictions.
Not only was it the first music the
group created post-Covid - marking
the first time they gathered in the same
room following their touring behind
2019’s ‘A Bath Full Of Ecstasy’ - it’s also
the first time the quintet began work on
a new record all together.
“By the time we were able to be back
together, we were turning on a tap
and having a lot of ideas being
poured out quite quickly,” explains
Alexis, with tracks such as Broken, Not
Alone and Time all demonstrative of the
impact the pandemic had on each of the
band’s members.
The combination of deep, sometimes
dark, lyrical themes with pop beats is a
winning formula that paves an organic
way forward for the group, who recently
celebrated their 20th anniversary.
The collection also features
collaborations, with Canadian rapper
Cadence Weapon appearing on the hip-
hop influenced The Evil That Men Do,
which taps into current cultural issues
that engaged the group. Meanwhile,
British DJ and musician Lou Hayter
lends her vocals to the slinky Hard to
Be Funky, and production duo Soulwax
contribute additional magic to the
raucous title track.
In the wake of the pandemic, it’s
inevitable that material inspired by
the crisis is still being released, and
while oftentimes the subject matter
wears thin, ‘Freakout/Release’ adopts
a forward-thinking approach, crafting
music inspired by Covid yet tailored for
a post-Covid world.
The result is a pivotal album in the
group’s catalogue, which sees them
PHOTO POONEH GHANA
reflect the mood of their audience and
fan base while delivering a collection
that’s quintessentially Hot Chip, packed
with neatly crafted electronic
gems that sit comfortably
alongside their superb
discography.

WILLIAM ORBIT
THE PAINTER
+++++
RELEASED: August 26 Warner
FORMATS: CD, 2LP Standard
Black Vinyl, 2LP Limited Edition
Red Vinyl (Amazon Exclusive)
illiam Orbit returns
W with a wistful, dreamy
collection of largely-
instrumental electronic
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
gems on his first solo LP in eight years,
‘The Painter’.
The long awaited follow up to his
2014 self-released ‘Orbit Symphonic’
sees the superproducer - who has
worked on mega hits with the likes of
Madonna, Blur, All Saints and Betty Boo
- team with an array of international
collaborators for a collection that
demonstrates the breadth of his musical
landscape.
Alongside reunions with Katie Melua
(Duende) and Beth Orton (I Paint What
I Can See, No Other World), the record
features contributions from electro
pop artist Polly Scattergood (Colours
Colliding), Mercury Award nominee
and pioneering synth-pop innovator
Georgia (Bank of Wildflowers), and
Colorado trip-hop sensation Natalie
Walker (The Diver), among other big
names.
While casual listeners may be better
acquainted with his pop classics, ‘The
Painter’ showcases a different side to the
musician’s catalogue, which began with
his first solo effort ‘Orbit’ back in 1987.
“I had been away from music making
for some years, holed up in a beach
town in California, painting, and writing
about my life and reflecting on general
observations,” he says. “Then, back
in London, inspiration struck with a
vengeance. I was feeling the same spirit
as I had in the mid ‘90s.
“It was a blessing to have the exquisite
contributions from the artists who
appear on the album. And a thrill to
explore new technologies. It is one of
my very best, with the difference being
gaining an understanding of a totally
REVIEWS | albums
new landscape of means to present it to
people’s ears.”
The album was born after the
hitmaker chanced upon a flyer for
‘vino and Van Gogh’ adult art classes, in
which “you turn up, get drunk and mess
around with cheap acrylics. I fell in love
with it!” It’s an approach he applied to his
creative process in the studio, throwing
out all rules for a collection that segues
between electronic beats and acoustic
piano, synth-heavy basslines and
trip influences, offering a newfound
freedom.
Across its 13 tracks, ‘The Painter’
alternates between sleek four-minute
compositions and extended, nine-
minute epics, with plans in place for
new mixes and interpretations down
the line.
Overall, ‘The Painter’ is a triumph
of an album and, while it may not be
everyone’s cup of tea, what can’t be
denied is Orbit’s enduring creativity
as a master of his craft. And for those
who don’t eat up his latest offering,
there’s good news. “I’ll work this album
really hard! And then, after all this, I’ll
go and produce for other artists again
and become a pop tart. Because… I like
making music again,” he beams.
RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 91
 RELEASERADAR
A L B U M S | R E I S S U E S | C O M P I L AT I O N S
ELTON JOHN
A SINGLE MAN;
BREAKING HEARTS;
LOVE SONGS; THE
CAPTAIN AND THE
KID
+++++
RELEASED: September 2 EMI
FORMATS: Standard Black Vinyl
LP
Elton John is looking back over his
career with a series of four vinyl
reissues spotlighting some of his
classic albums.
Beginning with 1978’s ‘A Single Man’
- one of the most eagerly anticipated
albums of his career as he worked
for the first time since 1967 without
collaborator Bernie Taupin - it features
two of Elton’s best loved hits, Part-Time
Love and Song For Guy.
As with all of the releases, it’s been
newly-remastered and comes pressed
on 1LP Black Vinyl.
Moving into the 1980s, ‘Breaking
Hearts’ built on the success of his
previous effort ‘Too Low for Zero’, which
had propelled the musician’s career to
new heights.
Replicating that formula, it features a
core musical team of Davey Johnstone,
Dee Murray and Nigel Olsson, and is
pressed on 1LP Black Vinyl.
Next up, the Rocket Man steps
into the 1990s for ‘Love Songs’, a 2LP
edition showcasing 18 of Elton’s best
loved ballads.
It’s a welcome release, considering
the vinyl version of the original edition
was so limited that copies change hands
for hundreds of pounds nowadays.
Finally, it’s his 2006 record ‘The
Captain and the Kid’ - Elton’s 28th
overall - which is a direct sequel to the
1975 album ‘Captain n Fantastic
And The Brown Dirtt Cowboy’.
Recorded in Atlanta,nta, it
chronicled the lives of Elton
and Bernie in the yearsears prior
and sees a return to the sounds
ecordings.
of the star’s earlier recordings.
It is, again, a 1LP edition.
All of the albums are faithful
nals,
reissues of the originals,
in terms of packaging ng and
configuration, and while
expanded editions would have
been welcome, it’s
enough to have these se
out of print gems
back in circulation
for now.

OASIS Oasis are celebrating the 25th now with a new lyric video.
BE HERE NOW (25TH anniversary of their third album ‘Be The original version of the song served
ANNIVERSARY Here Now’ with an expanded reissue. as the LP’s lead single and topped the UK
EDITION) The follow-up to the group’s 1994 charts, while the album itself similarly
+++++ debut album ‘Definitely Maybe’ and peaked at No. 1.
1995 sequel ‘(What’s the Story) Morning Although being reissued on new
RELEASED: August 19 Big Glory?’ is available as a silver-coloured formats to celebrate its milestone, the
Brother Recordings double heavyweight LP, plus a double release uses the same mastering as a 2016
picture disc and cassette. edition, somewhat lessening its appeal.
FORMATS: 2LP Silver Vinyl All editions include remastered audio, However, for the completists among
LP, Picture Disc Vinyl with taster trac
track D’You Know us, it’s a neat package - and picture discs
(Artist Store What I Mean? (NG’s 2016 a
and cassettes from the artist’s store will for
Exclusive), Rethink) out sure be a hit among fafans.
Clear Cassette
(Artist Store
Exclusive)

92 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
 REVIEWS | reissues

PAUL MCCARTNEY
MCCARTNEY I / II / III
+++++
RELEASED: August 5 Virgin

FORMATS: 3CD, 3LP Standard

Black Vinyl, Limited Edition
3LP Coloured Vinyl

Paul McCartney is
celebrating his solo legacy
with a new box set featuring
his three long-players.
Titled ‘McCartney’, the set
features The Beatles star’s albums
- McCartney (1970), McCartney II
(1980) and McCartney III (2020) -
and is available across CD and vinyl
formats.
It’s a neat package spanning over somewhat lessening the appeal. The music, of course, speaks for itself
50 years and comes complete with What’
What’s more, each of the albums and the packaging is pretty stunning,
three accompanying photo prints as an has been pressed over the past five but it’s unfortunate that no one had
added bonus. years on various coloured wax editions, the foresight to delve into the vault and
However, the set includes no making this almost exclusively unearth at least a couple of rare gems
additional material and features the a collection for newcomers and or unheard recordings to give it a bit of
albums in their original configurations, completists. a boost.

Blondie return with their first-ever

BLONDIE archive box set, the epic ‘Against The
AGAINST THE ODDS Odds 1974-1982’.
1974 – 1982 The set features 124 tracks - 36 of which
+++++ were previously unreleased - alongside
remasters of original analogue tapes,
RELEASED: August 26 UMC which have been cut to vinyl at London’s
Abbey Road Studios.
FORMATS: 3CD, 8CD Deluxe In addition to standard versions, a
Edition, 4LP Deluxe Edition Super Deluxe Collectors’ Edition of the
Black Vinyl, 10LP Super Deluxe box set contains Blondie’s first six albums
Edition Box Set – ‘Blondie’ (1976), ‘Plastic Letters’ (1977),
‘Parallel Lines’ (1978), ‘Eat To The Beat’
(1979), ‘Autoamerican’ (1980) and ‘The
Hunter’ (1982).
It also features a number of bonus
tracks, including a previously unheard
recording of Moonlight Drive, which was
released as a single.
“It really is a treat to see how far we have
come when I listen to these early attempts
to capture our ideas on relatively primitive
equipment,” says Debbie Harry. “When I
listen to these old tracks, it puts me there
like I am a time traveller.
“As bad as it was sometimes, it was also
equally as good. No regrets. More music.”
Offering a dive into the vaults from one
of music’s greatest groups, this one is not
to be missed.

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 93
 RELEASERADAR
A L B U M S | R E I S S U E S | C O M P I L AT I O N S
mid-noughties, peaking at No. 4 in
the US off the back of sultry lead single
Please.
It marks a return to form for the
diva, with a mix of impressive ballads
and uptempo material, laced with her
signature mellow style.
The album came at a time of highs
and lows for the star; after parting ways
with her original label Arista, she landed
on her feet with a hit record and the
Las Vegas residency ‘Toni Braxton:
Revealed’. However, health issues forced
TONI BRAXTON her off the stage and it would be five
LIBRA years before she released more new
+++++ music. With a host of additional material
released around the time of the album,
RELEASED: August 5 including the Il Divo collaboration
Blackground Records The Time of Our Lives, it’s unfortunate
the record hasn’t been expanded this
FORMATS: Standard Black time around. However, the original
Vinyl LP configuration speaks for itself.
Although not her most popular
album, ‘Libra’ has stood the test of time
Toni Braxton’s sixth studio album and, in 2022, sounds slick and fresh.
‘Libra’ is coming to vinyl as part of the So at a point where the majority of
Blackground 2.0 reissue series. Toni’s epic catalogue is out of print, it’s
Originally released in 2005, the LP a joy to see ‘Libra’ return to shelves -
marks the R&B superstar’s first album and, with any luck, will spark a complete
with the label and proved a hit in the reissue series.
line with the group’s recent reissues.
ROXY MUSIC Featured across 18 tracks are
THE BEST OF Roxy Music’s best-loved recordings,
+++++ including the hit singles Love Is The
Drug, Dance Away and Jealous Guy.
RELEASED: September 2 Although their original record-
Mercury releasing run lasted only a decade, the
LP showcases the group’s forward-
FORMATS: 2LP Standard Black thinking approach to their music and
Vinyl with a renewed interest in the sounds
of yesteryear, will no-doubt become
a go-to for younger listeners, in line
Roxy Music’s classic ‘Best Of’ with retrospective sets
collection arrives on vinyl from the likes of ABBA,
for the first time. Fleetwood Mac and
The set covers the group’s Queen.
eight studio albums, spanning It marks a nice closing
a decade of innovative style chapter to their recent
and showcasing the fruits of reissue campaign,
the band’s varying line-ups. celebrating 50 years of
It comes with a fresh music, and sits neatly
half-speed cut by Miles alongside glossy
Showell at Abbey Road pressings
Studios, London and of their
a gloss laminate impeccable
gatefold finish to studio
the artwork, in albums.
94 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
DAVID BOWIE
1. OUTSIDE (THE
NATHAN ADLER
DIARIES: A HYPER
CYCLE)
+++++
RELEASED: August 5
Parlophone
FORMATS: 2LP Standard
Black Vinyl
David Bowie’s ‘1. Outside’ is the
latest of his studio recordings
to be reissued as part of the
ongoing Bowie75 celebrations.
Marking what would have been
the late Starman’s 75th birthday,
his 20th record is now available
as a standalone 2LP vinyl edition.
Originally released in
September 1995, the LP reunited
the musician with producer Brian
Eno, who had been part of the
Berlin Trilogy of albums in the
1970’s.
It sees Bowie exploring
Industrial Rock and ambient
sounds, with its narrative based
on ‘The Nathan Adler Diaries: A
Hyper Cycle’. It carries through
into the album’s booklet in the
form of a diary, available with the
record.
Although met with a mixed
response upon its initial release,
the album remains one of
Bowie’s finest and, at 19 tracks, is
an essential body of work from
the music legend.
For those who picked up the
‘BRILLIANT ADVENTURE (1992
– 2001)’ box set, there’s nothing
new here, but when it comes to
essential Bowie this isn’t one to
be missed.
 REVIEWS | compilations

RELEASERADAR
A L B U M S | R E I S S U E S | C O M P I L AT I O N S

NOW PRESENTS…
ELECTRONIC
+++++
RELEASED: Auguat 19 Sony
FORMATS: 5LP Black Vinyl
Box Set

‘NOW Presents… Electronic’ highlights

the most innovative and enduringly
popular tracks of the genre in all their
glory.
Available as a 5LP set, the collection
includes era-defining 12”, extended, and
full-length versions, alongside single
edits, for a cohesive deep drive into
some of the defining sounds of decades
gone by.
Opening with a hit of ‘80s synth
pop, Queen’s Radio Ga Ga is followed
by tracks from Eurythmics (Sexcrime
(Nineteen Eighty-Four)), Soft Cell
(Torch), and Phil Oakey and Giorgio
Moroder’s iconic collaboration, Together
In Electric Dreams.
Segueing through classics such as
a-ha’s Take On Me and Dead or Alive’s
You Spin Me Round (Like A Record), also
showcased are hits from Tears For Fears,
Howard Jones, Orchestral Manoeuvres In
The Dark and The Buggles, for a release
that covers all aspects of the genre.
Following on from hits courtesy
of New Order and Bernard Sumner’s
Electronic, and classic Pet Shop Boys
collaborations with Dusty Springfield,
Eighth Wonder and Liza Minnelli, the
set closes with a journey back to the
beginning of the 1980s and tracks from
Ultravox, Visage, The Human League,
and Spandau Ballet, among others.
Clocking in at 68 songs, ‘NOW
Presents… Electronic’ is an essential
guide to classic electronic pop music.

In addition to rock ballads,

NOW THAT’S
WHAT I CALL
POWER
BALLADS:
TOTAL ECLIPSE
OF THE HEART
+++++
RELEASED: August 12
Sony
FORMATS: 4CD
Celebrating the best ballads
of the past five decades,
NOW Music offers up 70 epic
anthems for the ultimate
sing-along collection.
Launching with Queen’s
Who Wants To Live Forever,
it’s a killer run that doesn’t let
up, with iconic cuts from Bon
Jovi, The Police and Foreigner
bursting with air guitar
moments.
there are offerings from
Tina Turner (Private Dancer),
Toto (Africa) and Kim Carnes
(Bette Davis Eyes), making
the four disc set the perfect
accompaniment for late night
parties after a few too many
wines.
Title song Total Eclipse Of
The Heart from Bonnie Tyler
begins the second collection,
with divas like Celine Dion,
Cher and Laura Branigan
bringing the emotion with
classic offerings that, decades
on, still tug at the heartstrings.
Patti Smith’s Because The
Night is another ‘80s highlight,
while contemporary classics
including I’ll Stand By You
from Pretenders, U2’s With
Or Without You and Paradise
from Coldplay round out the
release, which ends with a run
of ‘90s and ‘00s airplay hits
from Train, The Calling, Lenny
Kravitz, 4 Non Blondes and
Lonestar.
It’s an eclectic selection
covering all corners of the
power ballad world, and you’ll
be hard pressed to not shed
a tear somewhere along
the epic ride.
NOW THATS
WHAT I CALL
MUSIC! 112
+++++
RELEASED: Out now
Sony
FORMATS: 2CD
NOW Music continues to
reflect the current musical
landscape with its 112th (!)
edition of recent chart and
radio hits.
Clocking in at 48 tracks,
the double-disc collection
includes an essential
selection of the UK’s favourite
releases from recent months.
True to form, it’s a mix
of genres and styles, with
George Ezra’s huge hit Green
Green Grass segueing into
tracks from Camila Cabello
and Ed Sheeran, Sam Ryder,
Lizzo, and Calvin Harris,
among others.
Club hits from David
Guetta x Becky Hill x Ella
Henderson and Diplo &
Miguel sit alongside pop-
dance anthems from the likes
of Ava Max and the mighty
Steps, showcasing the broad
array of music in the charts
today.
Disc one closes with a
Eurovision double-punch
- 2021 winners Måneskin’s
Supermodel and Stefania by
this year’s winners KALUSH
- before a second set opens
with Lady Gaga’s cinematic
Hold My Hand from ‘Top
Gun: Maverick’.
Alongside contemporary
favourites, there are nods
to the past courtesy of Liam
Gallagher and Mark Owen,
while the release closes with
the tribute Gold Forever –
For Tom from The Wanted,
in memory of their late
bandmate.
It’s another cohesive
collection and, for long
standing NOW fans and pop
aficionados alike, surely an
essential purchase.

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 95
 RELEASERADAR
NEW MUSIC Coming soon…
BETTY BOO TEGAN AND SARA
BOOMERANG CRYBABY
RELEASED: October 14 RELEASED: October 21 Mom + Pop
Betty Boo Records FORMATS: CD, Standard Black Vinyl
FORMATS: CD, Pink LP, Limited Edition Neapolitan Vinyl LP
Vinyl LP, Blue Cassette, (Artist Store Exclusive), Limited Edition
Pink Cassette Vanilla Vinyl LP (Rough Trade Exclusive),
Thirty years after her last Limited Edition Strawberry Vinyl LP
long-player, the Doin’ the (Urban Outfitters Exclusive), Limited
Do star returns with her Edition Orange Sherbert Vinyl LP (VMP
long-awaited third album Exclusive), Crybaby Deluxe Vinyl Boxset
of original material. (Artist Store Exclusive)
Having switched labels and found a new
musical home, the Canadian pop duo return
TOM CHAPLIN with their 11th studio album.
MIDPOINT
RELEASED: September 2 BMG
FORMATS: CD, 2LP Black
Vinyl, 2LP Deluxe Black Vinyl
The Keane frontman goes it alone
with his latest solo collection - his
first non-festive release since his
2016 debut ‘The Wave’.

BACKSTREET BOYS
A VERY BACKSTREET
CHRISTMAS
RELEASED: October 14 RCA
FORMATS: CD, Standard Black CRAIG
Vinyl LP, Limited Edition White Vinyl DAVID
LP (Indies Exclusive), Limited Edition 22
Red Vinyl LP (Artist Store Exclusive) RELEASED:
The ‘90s boyband return with their first September 30 BMG
holiday collection, featuring classic covers FORMATS:
and original compositions. Standard CD,
SIMPLE MINDS Standard Black
DIRECTION OF THE HEART Vinyl, Deluxe 2CD,
RELEASED: October 21 BMG Deluxe 2LP Black Vinyl
FORMATS: CD, Deluxe CD, Black The garage superstar’s eighth studio LP,
Vinyl LP, Limited Edition Silver celebrating 22 years since he released
LP, Orange Cassette (Artist Store his debut album ‘Born To Do It’ in
Exclusive) August 2000.
The Scottish group unveil the follow-
up to 2018’s ‘Walk Between Worlds’,
featuring lead single Vision Thing.
g SAM RYDER
THERE’S
NOTHING
BUT SPACE,
MAN!
BLANCMANGE RELEASED:
PRIVATE VIEW October 14
RELEASED: September 30 Mute Parlophone
FORMATS: CD, Standard Black Vinyl, FORMATS: CD
Limited Edition Orange Vinyl, Cassette Hot on the heels of his standout
Presenting their 11th album in 10 years, performance at the Eurovision Song
the synth-pop group are back with even Contest, the Space Man star is set to
more new music. release his first long-player.

96 RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM
 REVIEWS | coming soon

LOOKING BACK
BLUE
BL
HEA & SOUL
HEART
RELEASED:
RELE
September 9 BMG
Septe
FORMATS: CD, Gold
FORM
Vinyl, C
Cassette (Web
Exclusive)
Store Ex
Noughtie boy band
Noughties
royalty retu
return after
seven years with their
long-awaited new
long-aw
album, featuring the
single Haven’t Found
You Yet.

MARK OWEN
LAND OF DREAMS
RELEASED: September 23 BMG
FORMATS: CD, Standard Black Vinyl, Limited Edition
Coloured Vinyl (Artist Store Exclusive), Limited Edition
Coloured Cassette
Take That star does things his way on his first solo LP in almost a
decade, preceded by the single You Only Want Me.
ROBBIE WILLIAMS
XXV
RELEASED: September 9 Sony
FORMATS: CD, Coloured CD (Green, Pink, Red),
Deluxe 2CD, 2LP Black Vinyl, Coloured Cassette
(Green, Pink, Red), Blue Cassette (D2C Exclusive)
The pop icon marks 25 years of solo success with an album
of newly orchestrated recordings of his biggest hits and fan
favourite tracks.

RINA SAWAYAMA
HOLD THE GIRL
RELEASED: September 2 Dirty Hit
FORMATS: CD, Red Cassette, Standard Apple Red
Vinyl, Limited Edition Lava Vinyl (Artist Store Exclusive),
Limited Edition Lemonade & Galaxy Swirl Vinyl (Rough
Trade Exclusive), Limited Edition Black Ice Vinyl (HMV
Exclusive), Limited Edition Red Splatter Vinyl (Indies
Exclusive),
The second album from the rising star arrives three years after
her debut ‘Sawayama’ and features hit single This Hell.
TOYAH
ANTHEM
RELEASED: September 9 Cherry Red
FORMATS: 2CD/1DVD, Limited Edition Gold Vinyl LP,
Super Deluxe Box Set Edition 3CD/1DVD/2LP/7”
Celebrating its 40th anniversary, the new wave group’s most
successful LP is reissued with a host of bonus content.

WHIGFIELD
I&II
Released:
Autumn 2022
Plastic Pop
Formats: 2LP Yellow
w
Vinyl + Remix CD
The first two albums
from the ‘90s star
available on vinyl for the first time, along
dditional tracks.
with a bonus CD of additional

RETROPOPMAGAZINE.COM 97
QUIZ | Pure pop

PO P D ON ’T S T O P
Test your
knowledge of
four decades of
pop excellence as
we celebrate the
biggest and best
pure pop anthems
and artists from
down the years!
According to Pete Waterman,
1 the demo to Steps’ 5,6,7,8 sounds
like which Kylie Minogue classic?

2 ABBA scored numerous chart-

topping singles worldwide, but
9 Madonna co-wrote which hit
single for model-turned-singer
what’s their sole US No. 1 hit?
Nik Kamen? 15 Sibling group Five Star scored
a massive run of hit singles
throughout the 1980s/1990s and topped
the UK charts with which album?
Dead or Alive made their UK Top
3 40 debut with a cover of which
KC and the Sunshine Band classic?
10 Two songs from Bananarama’s
sixth album ‘Please Yourself’
were covered by Steps - can you
Pop worlds collided in 1996
name them?
16 when which Dollar star
joined Bucks Fizz?
4 Sinitta is the daughter of
which disco and soul star? Following the release of
11 Erasure’s ABBA-esque EP,

Mel & Kim scored a series of

which of the synth-pop pair’s
17 Spice Girls launched their
career with a stellar run of
5 hits with Stock Aitken Waterman,
but Kim Appleby later worked with
classic tracks did Bjorn Again
cover on Erasure-ish?
UK No. 1 singles, but what was
their first release to not hit the top
of the charts?
Mike Stock and Matt Aitken on
which solo single?
12 Which ‘90s dance star
launched a hugely-
Kim Wilde released a cover
successful songwriting career,
penning hits for Britney Spears, 18 of which Bee Gees classic
6 Which movie hunk left Shania
Twain less than satisfied on
That Don’t Impress Me Much?
Kylie Minogue and S Club 7? as the first single from her 1993
retrospective collection?

For over 20 years, Cher held

7 Wham!’s hitmaking career lasted

only five years, but how many
13 the record as the oldest
female artist to top the UK charts
19 Take That collaborated with
which Eurovision winner
on their hit single Relight My Fire?
UK Top 10 singles did they score in with which hit single?
PHOTO ALBUM / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

that time?

Alcazar’s pop gem Crying

8 Rick Astley landed a pair of

US No. 1 singles with which
14 Pet Shop Boys released the
1994 Comic Relief single
under the same moniker as and
20 at the Discoteque features
a sample of which 1970s disco
two tracks? based on which UK sitcom? classic?

14 ‘Absolutely Fabulous’; 15 ‘Silk & Steel’; 16 David Van Day; 17 Stop; 18 If I Can’t Have You; 19 Lulu; 20 Sheila and B. Devotion - Spacer
and Together Forever; 9 Each Time You Break My Heart; 10 Movin’ On and Last Thing On My Mind; 11 A Little Respect and Stop; 12 Cathy Dennis; 13 Believe;
ANSWERS: 1 I Should Be So Lucky; 2 Dancing Queen; 3 That’s the Way (I Like It); 4 Miquel Brown; 5 Free Spirit; 6 Brad Pitt; 7 11; 8 Never Gonna Give You Up

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