Kool And The Gang Celebrate Topping The R+B Charts

Kool And The Gang : Celebration

[Purchase]

On the week ending December 20, 1980 Kool and The Gang topped the R+B charts with "Celebration". Ronald Bell, the band's saxophone player and arranger, describes the song's origin:

 "The initial idea came from the Quran. I was reading the passage, where God was creating Adam, and the angels were celebrating and singing praises. That inspired me to write the basic chords, the line, 'Everyone around the world, come on, celebration."

In February of 1981, the song would top the Billboard Hot 100. Since then, it has been inescapable. In fact, when American hostages were returned home from Iran after 444 days of captivity, they were greeted with this song. Not one asked to go back to Iran.

 

Simple Minds go Eurodisco on Empires And Dance

Simple Minds : I Travel

[Purchase]

In September of 1980 the Scottish new wave band Simple Minds released Empires And Dance, an album inspired by the Eurodisco they came across on their European tour. The sound is cool. The synths have come to the forefront. The hair has fallen in front of Jim Kerr's eyes.

 The first single, " I Travel", failed to chart but NME's Paul Morley called the opening track one of "the great disco-rock songs" and "the magnificent" "This Fear of Gods" the band's "most impressive work to date". 

Morley concluded: "Simple Minds have invented their own ways, melodramatic yet modernist. An authentic new torch music. I'm dancing as fast as I can."  

After setting up bandmates with lessons in mime with the legendary Lindsay Kemp, Arista Records allowed Simple Minds 30,000 pounds to record the album but only printed up five thousand copies of Empires And Dance.

"It was ridiculous," Kerr told Smash Hits years later. "We've got a cult following of 30 or 40 thousand that buy all of our records. Anyway, I've got about 8,000 friends!"

The band would move to Virgin in time for New Gold Dream, their American breakthrough.