In what's turning out to be a music-laden week, I woke up thinking about Bucks Fizz's New Beginning (Mamba Seyra) this morning. Like you do.
So I had a look to see if I had it on my ipod and of course I do, along with 14 other tracks by them. Fourteen! I could hardly believe it myself. I gave the whole lot a listen on the way to work and I have to say, what an oeuvre. Needless to say I skipped through If You Can't Stand The Heat, Run For Your Life, Golden Days and One Of Those Nights, but the rest rocked.
It's not that I'm a recent convert. I think when I found a copy of My Camera Never Lies with fold-out poster sleeve in a charity shop in the early Nineties I thought perhaps I'd been a bit harsh and should give them another go. I was pleasantly surprised, but mainly there's a lot of nostalgia factored in too.
In their pomp I thought they were dreadful. The epitome of Eighties' cheesiness. Manufactured pap tainted by Eurovision, massively unfashionable at all times and a staple of Saturday morning kids TV. (Bear in mind I was 16 when they burst onto the scene in their velour tracksuits and rah-rah skirts. I thought Japan and Depeche Mode were the zenith of cool. And they were).
Anyhoo, I remember sitting in an art class probably in about May 1981 and someone saying I bet we all couldn't wait for the follow up single to Making Your Mind Up which was out soon, and were we all going to rush out and buy it? How we laughed. Nothing could be further from the truth.
True to form I shunned them throughout the rest of the decade. Only children and grannies liked them. Jay Aston may have been a poppet but really, they were a byword for naff. Even their coach crash didn't endear them to me. The sentiment behind New Beginning, you know, coming out of the dark like Gloria Estefan years later, was not lost on me, but I can safely say I never bought one of their records while they were in the charts.
More fool me eh. I remember almost being tempted by Now Those Days Are Gone, but thinking better of it. My favourite of all, which I don't remember from the time at all, is this one. What a corker. It could be any new wave band of the time, but it's them. What a tour de force.
So what I'm saying is, in retrospect I misjudged them.
