Day Thirty
Your Favourite Song
My favourite song isn't exactly that deep or meaningful. It doesn't remind me of anyone. It isn't especially moving. And it doesn't bring up memories of sadness and lost love...
Mainly because my favourite song is 'You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)' by Dead or Alive. I first saw the video for this on 'Countdown' in the eighties and was immediately obsessed with the sound, lyrics, and energy of the track. The video has since been dismissed by DOA frontman Pete Burns as 'cheap' but I was in awe of it's 'glamour'. From the first blurred shot of the mirrorball through to the pan up as Pete belts out the final refrain I wore out my VHS recording, playing it again and again, the drum machine distorting as I turned up the volume on our mono Rank Arena colour television as high as it would allow.
A couple of months later I went to the city in the school holidays and found the 12" vinyl with extended mixes, which I snapped up with some money kindly given to me by my grandmother. Mum bought me a dark blue satin kimono and I'd re-enact the video in my bedroom, wearing black track pants and a matching t-shirt with the kimono over the top, complete with Mum-made pirate eyepatch with silver sequins glued to it. All that was okay but I wasn't allowed the hairstyle so I made do with growing a long fringe and teasing it up as high as it would go with a comb and some hairspray.. thankfully no photos exist and I moved on to using the Thompson Twins for style inspiration before I hit high school.
'Spin Me' was produced in collaboration with famous UK producers Stock/Aitken/Waterman who had previously only had success with drag performer and John Waters muse Divine. In biographies released by Stock and Waterman it's been mentioned that the band were very argumentative and didn't like the direction the song was taking until an all night mix session resulted in the version we know today.
At the time the most popular club/disco lights were the set of three 'traffic' colours - each colour reacting to a different frequency sound. When testing mixes of 'Spin Me' in a club the producers realised that the large amount of percussion and cowbell caused these lights to go berserk, in turn creating more crowd excitement. To make the final mix they brought all of these elements to the fore, creating a non-stop high energy sound that to me just makes the record.
The track has been remixed, covered and re-released too many times to mention and amassed over 500,000 single sales on it's original release.
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