Dead or Alive (band)

"Nightmares in Wax" redirects here. For the DJ, see Nightmares on Wax.
"Steve Coy" redirects here. For the American artist, see Hygienic Dress League.

Dead or Alive
The band posing for a black-and-white photo
Dead or Alive, 1984. From left to right: Mike Percy, Steve Coy, Pete Burns, and Tim Lever.
Background information
OriginLiverpool, England
Genres
Years active1980–2016
Labels
Past members

Dead or Alive were an English pop band who released seven studio albums from 1984 to 2000. The band formed in 1980 in Liverpool and found success in the mid-1980s, releasing seven singles that made the UK Top 40 and three albums in the UK Top 30. At the peak of their success, the line-up consisted of Pete Burns (vocals), Steve Coy (drums), Mike Percy (bass), and Tim Lever (keyboards), with the core pair of Burns and Coy writing and producing for the remainder of the band's career due to Percy and Lever exiting the group in 1989. Burns died in 2016; with the death of Coy in 2018, the band ended.

Two of the band's singles reached the US Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100: "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" (No. 11 in August 1985),[6] and "Brand New Lover" (No. 15 in March 1987). "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" peaked at No. 1 for two weeks in 1985 in the UK, then charted again in 2006 following Burns's appearance on the television reality show Celebrity Big Brother and on season 4 of Stranger Things.[7] It also became the first of two singles to top the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart. In December 2016, Billboard ranked them as the 96th most successful dance artist of all time.[8]

  1. ^ Du Noyer, Paul (2007). Liverpool – Wondrous Place: From the Cavern to the Capital of Culture. Virgin Books. pp. 184, 198. ISBN 978-0-75351-269-2.
  2. ^ Ankeny, Jason. "Dead or Alive – Music Biography, Credits and Discography". AllMusic. Retrieved 19 March 2013.
  3. ^ Kreisler, Lauren (4 July 2012). "Inside The Hit Factory: Dead Or Alive – You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 28 January 2017.
  4. ^ Slotnik, Daniel E. (27 October 2016). "Pete Burns, Frontman for the Band Dead or Alive, Dies at 57" – via NYTimes.com.
  5. ^ Pilchak, Angela, ed. (2005). Contemporary Musicians: Profiles of the People in Music. Gale. p. 20.
  6. ^ "You Spin Me Round". AllMusic. Retrieved 27 August 2021.
  7. ^ "The 'Stranger Things' Season 4 Soundtrack Is the Ultimate Love Letter to the 1980s". Retrieved 27 May 2022.
  8. ^ "Greatest of All Time Top Dance Club Artists : Page 1". Billboard.com. December 2016. Retrieved 22 January 2018.