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Sign upSabrina, Lian Ross, Tracy Spencer, Fun Fun - Italo Disco in a female voice.
30 articles newest first
1990: in Frankfurt Snap! "accidentally invent Eurodance". The formula crystallises - male rap in the verses, a female melodic vocal in the chorus, a four-on-the-floor kick around 140 BPM. A breakdown of the formula's origins, the studio vocalists and twelve tracks where it works in pure form: from Snap! to Ice MC and Robyx.
26 August 1986: Billboard #1 for 2 weeks. Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg wrote it about Steinberg's mother, dying of cancer. Lauper stripped the arrangement to the bone: voice, Yamaha C7 grand and a faint DX7, vocal cut on the first take. 1987 Kodak commercial at $500K. 26 June 1987 Gay Freedom Day in San Francisco, 500,000 strong - an LGBT anthem was born.
13 March 1981: a cover of DeShannon/Weiss's forgotten 1974 original becomes the longest #1 of 1981 - 9 weeks Billboard. Bill Cuomo's synth hook improvised in 10 minutes. Bette Davis sent a thank-you note.
July 1986: Ivana Spagna with producer Pignagnoli. UK #2 (blocked by The Communards), #1 Germany 5 weeks, #3 France. First Italian woman in UK top-3 with an English-language track - and one of the last Italo-disco UK mainstream hits before house.
September 1986: Liam Sternberg wrote the song after watching passengers on an English Channel ferry. Toni Basil, Lene Lovich and The Go-Go's all passed before The Bangles took it. #1 Billboard for 4 weeks, top-selling US single of 1987. After 9/11 CNN added the track to its list of 164 inappropriate songs.
June 1984: Lauper and Rob Hyman (The Hooters) write the song in half a day at The Record Plant. Title from a 1979 H. G. Wells film. #1 Billboard for 2 weeks, UK #3, 1985 Grammy for Best Pop Vocal. Yamaha CP-70 and Eric Bazilian's mandolin. Miles Davis cut a jazz cover in 1985 - 500+ versions followed.
January 1986: Prince wrote it for Apollonia 6, then gave it to Susanna Hoffs under the pseudonym “Christopher”. #2 Billboard - blocked by Prince's own “Kiss”. Sunset Sound, 6 vocal tracks from the three Bangles on the chorus. Album 8M worldwide; the song collects 15M Monday-morning streams every week.
1981, New York: 22-year-old Suzanne Vega writes verses inside Tom's Restaurant on 112th Street. A cappella recording in 1987 - one take, 2:08, no instruments. 1990: the DNA remix hits #5 UK/US. 1991: Karlheinz Brandenburg picks the song to tune the MP3 codec at Fraunhofer. Every MP3 file in the world was polished on Vega's voice.
May 1985: a modest UK #8 and US #9 on release. But by 2024 - 100+ ad campaigns (Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Samsung, BMW), 40+ films and 60+ TV series. Author Kimberley Rew earns $1M+ a year - $25M total across 40 years. The lyric works because it's universal, with no specifics.
September 1984: 25-year-old Sade Adu, a former model, releases her debut single. #5 UK and Billboard. Ray St. John's lyric about a con man. Power Plant Studios, producer Robin Millar. Stuart Matthewman's sax solo cut in one take after 12 hours of non-stop play. Diamond Life sold 10M and launched sophisti-pop.
January 1981: 20-year-old Kim Wilde's debut - lyric by 19-year-old brother Ricky, music by 50s pop star father Marty. Nobody in the family had been to America. UK #2, #1 in four European countries, US #25. Eden Studios, Roland Jupiter-4, 172 BPM, 3M+ copies. Ricky produced at 19.
March 1989: Madonna drops the single alongside a $5M Pepsi deal. Mary Lambert's video with burning crosses and the Andraé Crouch Singers - the Vatican calls it blasphemy; Pepsi pulls the ad in a week, Madonna keeps the money. #1 Billboard for 3 weeks, album 15M copies.
September 1983: Cyndi Lauper rewrites Robert Hazard's 1979 original from male gaze into first-person feminist manifesto. Billboard #2 (behind Van Halen's “Jump”), #1 in three countries. Eric Bazilian's mandolin, video shot in Lauper's mother's Queens flat. Video of the Year MTV VMA 1984.
March 1983: Giorgio Moroder, Keith Forsey and Irene Cara write the chorus in a car between Paramount and Hotel Sunset. #1 Billboard 6 weeks, #1 France and Italy. 1984 Best Original Song Oscar - first African-American woman in the category. LinnDrum, Moog Source, 6M copies.
August 1982: Laura Branigan reworks Umberto Tozzi's 1979 Italian hit with a fully rewritten Trevor Veitch lyric. #2 Billboard 3 weeks, 36 weeks on Hot 100 (matching “Hey Jude”), 8M copies. Branigan died of an aneurysm in 2004; in 2019 her “Gloria” became the St. Louis Blues anthem.
February 1983: Bonnie Tyler with Jim Steinman. The track had first been offered to Streisand, Donna Summer, Tina Turner - all declined. Tyler's husky post-1976 surgery voice over Steinman's Wagnerian production, 17 hours of vocal across 8 days. #1 Billboard 4 weeks, UK #1 2 weeks, #1 in 14 countries, 6M copies.
November 1984: the 26-year-old Madonna with producer Nile Rodgers; songwriters Steinberg+Kelly. Six weeks at Billboard #1 - her longest. Album 21M copies - the best-selling female album to date. The track had been offered to 20 artists (Tina Turner, Sting) before her - all passed. Venice video with a live lion.
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