Dead Or Alive
Youthquake

In December 1984, the list of singles released in the United Kingdom saw this obscure band release a track titled "You spin me 'round". The following year, there's panic on charts around the world. I say it before someone else suspects it, I'm touching quite a sore spot. Because, you know, the music reviewed here has to be of a certain type and above all, it has to be serious music! Instead, I'm proposing to you a glossy pop band that is ultimately insignificant for rock music. Does it make sense? I would have a better question: does it make sense to say no? I'm just saying that the single in question is beautiful. And I review beautiful things. So, I move on, ignoring your curses, you Aryan purists.

"Youthquake," the second studio album by the band from Liverpool, represents the musical consecration of a group of perfect strangers and a rather curious individual named Pete Burns. Beyond being the first major success of a trio of producers I'll discuss later. We're right in the middle of the infamous '80s, a musical decade many would like to overlook, one that has seen rivers of words spent and not all stones have been cast yet. A period in which showing off becomes more and more a fun game, often at the expense of substance. And so our aesthete spokesman for sexual (and primarily gay) perversion, the already mentioned Burns, finds his natural habitat. Coming from a debut album with the major Epic Records not particularly memorable (except for a charming cover of "That's the way (I like it)" by KC & The Sunshine Band), he presents himself to two then rather anonymous producers active in the Hi-NRG club scene: Stock, Aitken, and Waterman. Their production style, packed with synthesizers, excessive rhythms (typically Hi-NRG), overlapping percussion, and a melodic formula as easy as it is damn catchy, sends the quartet into orbit, literally breaking through all charts, including Italy.

The full album will be released in the spring of 1985. It will be a manifesto of the identity Dead or Alive had created, thanks to the undeniable eccentricity of their leader. Furthermore, it will be the springboard for Stock, Aitken, and Waterman, who from then on, for about five years, will produce mountains of records, almost always offering the same plasticky (and, after a while, boring) formula, propelling perfect strangers to success and solidifying the careers of acts like Bananarama, Rick Astley, Kylie Minogue, Samantha Fox, and the subsequent albums of Dead or Alive themselves. All pure and vulgar pop, at times quite banal, typically disposable.

"Youthquake," however, despite the general artistic emptiness of the production team, manages to be memorable and carve out a nice spot on the shelf of "pop albums to remember." Here's why: The start is explosive: the mentioned single "You spin me round" is a real bomb, both on the dance floor and on the radio, wherever and however you listen to it. It boasts countless covers, remixes, and various versions, in any musical genre, from pop to dance to Latin to metal to electronic. All the distinctive features of Stock, Aitken, and Waterman productions are present: synthetic and detached bass line, super-articulated drum machine (here it's the legendary Linndrum, recognizable by the clap), melody carried by the vocal part, very high bpm, use of the electronic sampler (and here we find another electronic legend of the '80s, the Fairlight CMI), excessive and pompous, almost hard, rhythm. Needless to say, it remains one of the best and most representative tracks of the band, born by mistake from some chord strumming by bassist Mike Percy. A particular gem is the super stylish music video, easily findable on YouTube. The pace doesn't stop with "I want to be a toy." Although this track was never released as a single, it remains an interesting excerpt of that subtle sexual perversion of Pete Burns, who screams to the wind, "I want to be your toy." As if to say, "Whip me, baby!"

The album drops in level with "Dj hit that button." The festive and carefree atmosphere of the previous two songs continues but, in the long run, it becomes somewhat cloying and boring. It's a track that neither adds to nor detracts from the album (which starts to resemble more a collection of singles). The pace slows with "In too deep," in my opinion, the best moment of "Youthquake" right after "You spin me round." The song, which boasts an atmosphere somewhat smooth jazz (it's there somewhere, and you can feel it) nonetheless overflows with samples. But that's not always a bad thing. Released as a single, it also caused a certain scandal for a possible double entendre in the chorus. Side A concludes with the forgettable "Big daddy of the rhythm," a pure manifestation of the dance that the trio Stock, Aitken, Waterman knew how to do: catchy, danceable, but rather predictable. Side B opens with another quite forgettable track with Oriental flavors, "Cake and eat it." Repetitive, but it passes quickly. The follow-up is much tastier: "Lover come back to me" is what one might call the cousin of "You spin me round." The sounds are quite similar, the rhythm, too, changes the melodic part that doesn't fail to embed itself in your head like a needle. Several diverse versions exist of this one as well. The Egyptian-themed music video is perhaps the best of their career (Burns with the eye patch was quite the turn on at the time). The final cartridge follows: "My heart goes bang," a distillation of synth and sequencer very "trendy" for the period, which would not be out of place in a gay club. The conclusion is entrusted to eight minutes of instrumental, a curious electronic track with Middle Eastern flavor that is, as far as the album from which it derives, rather ends in itself. Useful for adding minutes more than concluding the album. A surprise that is nonetheless very welcome.

With this, I conclude my review of this album that has the advantage, despite numerous highs and lows, of being nonetheless original. The composition is entirely new, no samples from other songs are used (a thing unfortunately recurring in many pop and dance albums produced later) and it doesn't fall into the tacky tunz-tunz. Two stars for the album. Three stars for "You spin me round".