Dead or Alive

by Jason Ankeny
 
A British dance-pop group which found fame thanks to the antics of androgynous frontman Pete Burns, Dead or Alive formed in Liverpool in 1980. Burns first surfaced three years prior in the Mystery Girls, later heading the proto-Goth rockers Nightmares in Wax; he founded Dead or Alive with keyboardist Marty Healey, guitarist Mitch, bassist Sue James and drummer Joe Musker, debuting in 1980 with the Ian Broudie-produced Doors soundalike Im Falling. Number Eleven followed, but just as the group was gaining momentum they were swept aside by the emergence of the New Romantic movement, with Burns subsequently charging that fellow androgyne Boy George of Culture Club had merely stolen his outrageous image.
 
Undaunted, Burns forged on with a retooled Dead or Alive roster including future Mission U.K. guitarist Wayne Hussey and bassist Mike Percy; over the course of records including the 1982 Its Been Hours Now EP and the follow-up single The Stranger, the group evolved into a true dance band, and ultimately landed with major label Epic. A series of singles appeared over the course of 1983, including Misty Circles and What I Want; Hussey soon exited, and it was a line-up comprising Burns, Percy, keyboardist Tim Lever and drummer Steve Coy which scored Dead or Alives first major hit, a 1984 cover of KC and the Sunshine Bands disco classic Thats the Way (I Like It) which fell just shy of reaching the British Top 20.
 
Dead or Alives full-length debut Sophisticated Boom Boom also fared well with audiences, but they achieved true stardom in early 1985 with the Hi-NRG smash You Spin Me Round (Like a Record), the first Number One hit for the production team of Stock Aitken and Waterman. The succeeding LP Youthquake was also a smash, yielding further hits in the form of the singles Lover Come Back to
 
Me, In Too Deep and My Heart Goes Bang. 1986s Brand New Lover kept the group in the limelight, but the 1987 LP Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know proved disastrous at home and in the U.S., although a fervent following emerged in Japan. In the wake of 1989s Nude, both Lever and Percy left the group; the nucleus of Burns and Coy remained, additionally taking over production and managerial duties. Subsequent Dead or Alive LPs included Fan the Flame, Part One and Nukleopatra.