When the news of Pete Burns’ sudden death reached me through Twitter yesterday, I really wondered whether I could get away with writing a music blog about him. The only music I remember from him is “You Spin Me Round”, when he was fronting Dead Or Alive somewhere in the middle of the 80s.
With his big dark hair, he was a typical 80s rocker / pop star, especially with him wearing make-up. I didn’t think too much of it then, but I don’t think anyone could’ve predicted what he was about to get creative with.
It was quite some years later, when I ran across a more recent picture of him and was just as shocked as the next to see his altered face. As musical as Pete may have been in his life, I think his legacy lies more in his gender pushing alterations of his appearance. He was a true artist even when it came to that.
I think you could’ve called him a dreamer. He would always avoid being labeled in anything and I think he either became a celebrity just by being himself, or perhaps by hiding from himself. It depends on how you look at it.
Since the 00s, he was often asked to appear on TV-shows, either as a guest or as a reality personality, but musically, it’s hard to really figure out what his impact may have been. Though indirectly he’s definitely had a major impact on pop music.
I know for most people he may have been a musical one-hit-wonder, but Dead Or Alive were actually of huge impact. They were part of the very start of a sound that would dominate the rest of the 80s and beyond.
“You Spin Me Round” was already written by the band when a reasonably unknown production team in London collaborated with the band to put their spin on it. They were Stock, Aitken & Waterman.
The distinctive sound of the drums was different from anything else out, at that time, and would evolve into a bubbly, fun, synth pop sound that would overtake the charts, especially in Europe, for many years to come and generate stars like Rick Astley, Kylie Minogue and Bananarama, before even legendary stars couldn’t avoid the so-called hit factory. But all of that success started with that one hit by Dead Or Alive.
Pete Burns died October 24th 2016 at the age of 57 after suffering a cardiac arrest.
