25 YEARS OF RECORD COLLECTING: MUSICAL MEMORIES 1982 - 2007

 

14. ‘Limahl’ and ‘Kajagoogoo’

 

Yesterday night I watched a programme on ‘Channel 4’ called ‘Celebrity Wife Swap’ which featured Pete Burns (from the ‘electro-goth’ pop group ‘Dead Or Alive’) and his husband Michael. Now, you may be wondering what does this fact have to do with ‘Limahl’ and ‘Kajagoogoo’, apart from being both were ‘Number One’ hit making artists of the 1980s. Well, the reason why I have mentioned this has less to do with music and chart positions and more to do with hairstyles and mannerisms, as it seems that Pete Burns has got married to a ‘Limahl’ look-a-like with the same tone of voice and two-tone haircut.

 

Now having been a student in the Britpop obsessed 1990s it is quite amazing to think that such an iconic bad mullet from the 1980s has, in the last few years, become very fashionable, especially on many of the patrons you see going down to ‘the Village’ in Manchester. I cannot remember if, in the ‘mullet spotting’ games of student past, a ‘Limahl’ was more or less points than a ‘Michael Bolton’ or a ‘Mike Score’, though maybe it will have been a high score as he was always portrayed as a figure of fun.

 

This obsession with bad 1980s hair creates a slightly unfair view of the recordings of both ‘Limahl’ and his former band ‘Kajagoogoo’. It is true that ‘Limahl’ has been the type of act that will turn up on cheaply produced albums singing his re-recorded hits, along side ‘Dr and the Medics’ and David van Day’s ‘Bucks Fizz’, and it is true that he has played up on his image by using a ‘Wiggy’ style ‘frightwig’ at his student gigs and PA performances. However I think that ‘Limahl’ and ‘Kajagoogoo’ released some great records in the 1980s, and records that should be listened to without any thoughts or ‘references’ to the ‘fashion crimes’ of the day.

 

Like many early 1980s pop albums, the first album ‘White Feathers’ may have included a fair share of filler such as ‘Ergonomics’, but it did include the pop-funk perfection of ‘Hang On Now’ along side the ‘Number One’ hit of ‘Too Shy’.

 

The second album was better, though your verdict of this may depend on whether you liked Nick Beggs vocals as much as (the recently departed) Limahl’s, whilst my favourite album by the band is actually the third album, which was called ‘Crazy Peoples Right To Speak’. This album included some great songs such as ‘Do I’, ‘Rivers’ and the single ‘Shouldn’t Do That’, which should have done much better in the charts. By this time the band had not only lost another member, becoming a three piece, but also had lost part of their name, becoming the more ‘grown-up’ sounding ‘Kaja’. It is a pity that this album failed as it was a great piece of mid 1980s pop, though Nick Beggs next album (with the band project ‘Ellis, Beggs and Howard’) was some consolation.

 

 

25 YEARS OF RECORD COLLECTING: MUSICAL MEMORIES 1982 - 2007

 

i liked 'big apple'.... (shame....lol)

Don't be, as that is a great record with a great vocal from Nick Beggs.

Don't be, as that is a great record with a great vocal from Nick Beggs.

 

yeah but i was 20 something and it was just after punk, liking pop was like regressing!