Dead or Alive (band)

Dead or Alive were an English pop band that released seven studio albums from 1984 to 2000. The band formed in 1979 in Liverpool and found success in the mid-1980s, releasing seven singles that made the UK Top 40 and three albums in the UK Top 30. At the peak of its success, the line-up consisted of Pete Burns (vocals), Steve Coy (drums), Mike Percy (bass), and Tim Lever (keyboards), with the core pair of Burns and Coy writing and producing for the remainder of the band's career due to Percy and Lever exiting the group in 1988. In 2010, the moniker of the band was definitely archived, and Burns issued a solo single. Following Burns' death on October 23, 2016, the band ended.

In 2021, Fan the Flame (Part 2): The Resurrection, a "lost" album recorded in the 1990s, was completed and issued for the very first time.

Two of the band's singles reached the US Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100: "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" (No. 11 in August 1985), and "Brand New Lover" (No. 15 in March 1987). "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" peaked at No. 1 for two weeks in 1985 in the UK, then charted again in 2006 following Burns's appearance on the television reality show Celebrity Big Brother and on season 4 of Stranger Things. It also became the first of two singles to top the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart. In December 2016, Billboard ranked Dead or Alive as the 96th most successful dance artist of all time.

History

Formation and early career of band

thumb|Nightmares in Wax (March 1980)

In 1977, Burns formed a punk band with contemporaries Julian Cope, Pete Wylie, and Phil Hurst, calling themselves the Mystery Girls. They only had one performance (opening for Sham 69 at Eric's Club in Liverpool in November 1977) before disintegrating. Cope stated that Burns's performing style drew from the transgender punk performer Jayne County and Wylie recalled that "his head looked like someone had melted a load of black vinyl down into a kind of space quiff."

Burns continued in early-1979 with a new band, Rainbows Over Nagasaki (subsequently renamed Nightmares In Wax), featuring a gothic post-punk sound, with backing from keyboardist Martin Healy, guitarist Mick Reid, bassist Rob Jones (who left to be replaced by Walter Ogden), and drummer Paul Hornby (who also exited after the band's formation to be replaced by Phil Hurst). and recorded demos which included a cover of the Simon Dupree and the Big Sound song "Kites", a feature of their early shows. Their sole release under the name Nightmares In Wax was a 7-inch EP, Birth of a Nation, released in March 1980 on Inevitable Records. The EP featured "Black Leather", which turned halfway into KC and the Sunshine Band's "That's the Way (I Like It)".

In 1980, during a line-up change, Burns changed the band's name once more to Dead or Alive. The band went through several line-up changes over the next three years while recording a series of independent singles. Dead or Alive's singles started charting on the UK Indie Chart, beginning with 1982's "The Stranger" reaching No. 7. This prompted major label Epic Records to sign the band in 1983. Their first release for Epic was the single "Misty Circles", which appeared at No. 100 on the major UK Singles Chart in 1983. Two more singles co-produced by Zeus B. Held ("What I Want" and "I'd Do Anything") were released but mainstream success continued to elude the band.

The band's debut album, Sophisticated Boom Boom, was released in May 1984 and featured their first Top 40 UK single, "That's the Way (I Like It)", a cover of the 1975 hit by KC and the Sunshine Band. The album was a minor success in the UK where it peaked at No. 29. As Burns and his band achieved greater media exposure, his eccentric and androgynous appearance often led to comparisons with Culture Club and its lead singer Boy George as well as "Calling Your Name" singer Marilyn.

Chart success

The band released its second album Youthquake (US No. 31, UK No. 9) in May 1985, produced by the then-fledgling production team of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken, and Pete Waterman, known as Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW). "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" became the band's only song to reach No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart after lingering outside the Top 40 for over two months. The track also hit No. 11 in the US and No. 1 in Canada.

Burns said that the record company was initially unenthusiastic about the single to such an extent that he had to take out a £2,500 loan to record it. Afterward, he recalled, "the record company said it was awful" and the band also had to fund production of the song's video themselves. Additionally, Burns said that 12-inch singles comprised over 70% of the original sales of "You Spin Me Round", and because these were regarded by the record label as promotional tools rather than sales, the band had to threaten legal action against the label before they received the royalties on them.

Other album tracks released as singles included "Lover Come Back To Me" (No. 11), "In Too Deep" (No. 14), and "My Heart Goes Bang (Get Me to the Doctor)" (No. 23) which all reached the UK Top 30. Despite the international chart-topping success of Youthquake and its lead single, Burns said it was the album that he was "most dissatisfied with" and recalled that "one of the unhappiest days of my life was when Spin Me reached No. 1 – and I mean really unhappy. Because I knew it would be downhill all the way after that."

The lead single "Brand New Lover" became a modest UK hit, peaking at No. 31, but was more successful in the US where it reached No. 15 on the US Hot 100, and No. 1 on the US Billboard dance chart. The song also proved to be the act's final Top 40 hit with an original release in the UK, and their last Top 20 hit in Australia.

At the end of 1988, Dead or Alive, now pared down to a duo of Burns and Coy, released the self-produced Nude (US No. 106, UK No. 82). In 2021, RetroPop Magazine retrospectively described Nude as the "perfect Dead or Alive album" and "their strongest offering overall". In the early phase of the album's production, Tim Lever and Mike Percy were fired from the band. The pair later formed careers as mixers and producers; both owned and operated Steelworks Studios in Sheffield and experienced success writing and mixing songs for acts like S Club 7, Blue, and Robbie Williams. From the information booklet in Sophisticated Boom Box MMXVI, Burns stated:

The album featured the single "Turn Around and Count 2 Ten" which reached No. 2 in the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart and No. 1 for a record-breaking seventeen-weeks in Japan. It was followed by the singles "Baby Don't Say Goodbye" which peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart and "Come Home with Me Baby" which spent thirteen-weeks at No. 1 on the US Hot Dance Music/Club Play due to a popular remix by producer Lewis Martineé. However, "Come Home with Me Baby" and the other singles struggled in the UK. This was attributed to the lyrical theme of casual sex being at odds with the AIDs epidemic of the time. An acoustic album Love, Pete was also made available during a US personal appearance tour in 1992 and was since widely bootlegged.

The band returned in 1995 with a new studio album and contemporary sound with Nukleopatra.

In 2000, Dead or Alive released Fragile, a collection of remakes with several new tracks and covers including U2's "Even Better Than the Real Thing" and Nick Kamen's "I Promised Myself". The first song on the album, "Hit and Run Lover", was a hit single peaking at No. 2 on the Japanese charts. A new remix album, Unbreakable: The Fragile Remixes, was released in 2001. This was followed in 2003 with a greatest hits album entitled Evolution: the Hits along with a video compilation that was also released on DVD. "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" was re-released as a single to promote the album with it reaching No. 23 on the UK Singles Chart.

2010s

On 7 September 2010, Burns's solo single "Never Marry an Icon", produced and co-written by the Dirty Disco, was released to the iTunes Store. The single was released by fellow band member Steve Coy's label, Bristar Records. Even though Burns stated Dead or Alive had ceased to exist in 2011, Coy later declared the moniker was still active and the band was not over. On 21 December 2012, Burns and Coy performed at the Pete Waterman concert Hit Factory Live at London's O2 Arena. Burns died of a cardiac arrest on 23 October 2016, at the age of 57, ending the band.

On 28 October 2016, a 19-disc box set titled Sophisticated Boom Box MMXVI was released by Edsel Records. The release was announced on September 8, via Demon Music Group as a "personally curated [by Burns and Coy] 19 disc set, featuring the original album tracks plus a plethora of rarities, live recordings, alternate mixes, instrumental versions and more than 12 previously unreleased remixes and tracks from their vaults, bringing a unique collection together from the band’s internationally successful career for the very first time." Coy died on 4 May 2018 at the age of 56. Coy was in Italy to work on a new studio album before he died at his Bogliasco home following an eleven-month battle with cancer.

Personnel

Members

Pete Burns – vocals, tambourine (1979–2016; his death)
Martin Healy – keyboards
Joe Musker – drums (1980–1982)
Sue James – bass (1980–1981)
Adrian Mitchley – guitars (1980–1981)
Mike Percy – bass, guitars, keyboards (1981–1988)

Wayne Hussey – guitars (1981–1984)
Steve Coy – drums, percussion, keyboards, guitars, bass (1982–2016; died 2018)
Timothy Lever – keyboards, saxophone, guitars, sequencers (1983–1988)
Peter Oxendale – keyboards (1989–1995)
Jason Alburey – keyboards, guitars (1995–2003)
Dean Bright – keyboards, keytar (1995–2003)

Nightmares in Wax members

Mick Reid – guitars (1979–1980)
Walter Ogden – bass (1979)
Rob Jones – bass (1979)
Paul Hornby – drums (1979; died 2015)
Phil Hurst – drums (1979–1980)
Pete Lloyd – bass (1980; died 2024)

Touring members

Sonia Mazumder – dancer, backing vocals (1982–1984)
James Hyde – dancer (1987–1990)
Adam Perry – dancer (1987)
Simon Gogerly – keytar, keyboards (1989)
B.J. Smouth – keyboards (1989)
Gary Hughes – dancer (1989)
Matt Selby – dancer (1989)
Tony Griffiths – dancer (1989)
Steve Agyei – dancer (1989)
Zeb Jamenson – keyboards (1990)
Tracy Ackerman – backing vocals (1990)
Tony Griffith – dancer (1990)
Philip Hurst – dancer (1990)
Mark Scott – dancer (1990)
Cliff Slapher – keyboards (2001)
Micki Dee – keyboards (2001)

Timeline

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Discography

Sophisticated Boom Boom (1984)
Youthquake (1985)
Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know (1986)
Nude (1988)
Fan the Flame (Part 1) (1990)
Nukleopatra (1995)
Fragile (2000)
Fan the Flame (Part 2): The Resurrection (2021)

Notes

References

External links