Skipworth & Turner ‎– Thinking About Your Love (1985)

Skipworth & Turner are a male R&B duo, consisting of Rodney Skipworth (from Syracuse, New York) and Phil Turner (from Memphis, Tennessee).Their biggest hit came in 1985, when they went to #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart with “Thinking About Your Love.” The track reached #24 in the UK Singles Chart, and a further release, “Make It Last” peaked at #60 in the same chart in January 1989.

Thinking About Your Love                                 8:04

Thinking About Your Love (Dance Hall Edit)        5:21

Thinking About Your Love (Instrumental)             6:00

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Shannon ‎– Give Me Tonight (Remix) (1984)

Shannon Brenda Greene  (born May 2, 1958), better known by her stage name Shannon, is an American recording artist and singer/songwriter. She is best known for her 1983 million-selling record single “Let the Music Play”,as well as the hits “Give Me Tonight” and “Do You Wanna Get Away”.

In 1983, Shannon was enrolled at York College and toured with the New York Jazz Ensemble. Quintin Hicks, an associate of the production team of Mark Liggett and Chris Barbosa, later saw Shannon singing with a live band in her cousin’s recording studio. Shannon auditioned for Liggett and Barbosa with the song “She Can’t Love You Like I Do”. They introduced her to the track “Fire and Ice”, which would later evolve into Shannon’s signature song, “Let the Music Play”. This would also be the name of Shannon’s debut album.

In September 1983, the “Let the Music Play” single was released and Shannon was invited back to record more songs with Liggett and Barbosa. The single reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Billboard R&B and Hot Dance Club Play charts. It was later ranked #23 among Billboard’s best dance songs of all time.

Her debut album, Let the Music Play, was released in February 1984. The follow-up single from the album was “Give Me Tonight” which, although not a major pop hit, reached the number-one spot on the R&B and Hot Dance Club Play charts. It was one of Billboard’s top 30 dance songs for the year 1984.

Give Me Tonight (Special Extended Version)      7:42

Give Me Tonight (Original Long Version)            6:03

Give Me Tonight (Dub Version)                           6:11

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Nuance Featuring Vikki Love – Loveride (1984)

Nuance was an American dance music/freestyle group. It was formed by the producer and arranger, Ron Dean Miller, and featured Vikki Love on vocals. They charted three hits on the US Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in the 1980s, including “Loveride,” which hit #1 in 1985. The same track peaked at #59 in the UK Singles Chart in January 1985.

The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart for one week. The single did not crossover to the pop chart, but did peak at number thirty-four on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.

A sample of Vikki Love saying “Ooh…” in the song would later be used on the album version of Nu Shooz’ “I Can’t Wait”, the U.S. version and 12″ remix of M|A|R|R|S’s “Pump Up the Volume” and Lisette Melendez’s “Together Forever”

“Loveride” was mixed by Jay Burnett and Mark Kamins and edited by The Latin Rascals.

Loveride                          6:45

Loveride (Dubride)           7:30

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Donna Allen ‎– Serious (1986)

Donna Allen is an American dance pop singer, born in Key West, Florida, and raised in Tampa. At one point a cheerleader for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, she got her start performing in the bands Hi-Octane and Trama before launching a solo career.She also sang backup on tour for Gloria Estefan for nine years. Her first disc was the Lou Pace-produced 1986 album, Perfect Timing, and over the next few years she launched several hits on the US Billboard Hot Dance/Club Play chart. She had two Top 10 hits in the UK Singles Chart with “Serious” (1987, #8) and “Joy and Pain” (1989, #10).

Serious (Long Version)                 5:35

Serious (Short Version)                3:40

Serious (Dub Version)                  7:55

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Ric Ocasek ‎– Jimmy Jimmy / Connect Up To Me (1983)

Ric Ocasek (born Richard T. Otcasek; March 23, 1949 in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American musician and music producer. He is best known as lead vocalist (along with Benjamin Orr) and rhythm guitarist for the rock band, The Cars.

Ric Ocasek’s breakout success was as a founding member of the new wave band Cap’n Swing, later renamed The Cars, which had numerous hit songs from 1976 to 1988. He played rhythm guitar and sang lead vocals on many tracks, as well as playing keyboard instruments and bass. Ocasek was the principal songwriter of the band, and wrote nearly all of The Cars material, sharing credit on only a few songs with bandmate Greg Hawkes as co-writer. During his time with The Cars, Ocasek developed a reputation as a successful producer, and took this role for many up-and-coming bands of differing genres including, but not limited to Weezer, Bad Brains, Bad Religion, Nada Surf, No Doubt, Guided by Voices, Bran Van 3000, and Suicide, as well as some of The Cars albums and singles.

The singer released his first solo album in 1982. Beatitude is a somewhat more experimental variation of The Cars’ New Wave rock sound. It was released by Geffen Records and features Greg Hawkes of The Cars on keyboards, as well as Jules Shear and Stephen Hague from Jules and the Polar Bears.

Geffen released Jimmy Jimmy & Connect Up To Me as extended & remixed versions on the US 12″ single, “Jimmy Jimmy” was mixed by Ian Taylor And Ric Ocasek while “Connect Up To Me” was remixed by Francois Kevorkian and Mark Fotiadis.

Jimmy Jimmy (A New Extended Version)                        5:07

Connect Up To Me (Remix / Extended Version)             7:20

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Data – Blow (1984)

Data was a UK electro pop group formed in 1979 by Georg Kajanus (formerly of the group “Sailor”), George was responsible for rhythm and melodic programmes, keyboards and FX vocals and was joined by Frankie Boulter (lead and FX vocals), Phil Boulter (vocals), Henry Marsh (additional keyboards) and Simon Boswell (additional keyboards).

The classically orientated title track of DATA’s first album, Opera Electronica, was used as the theme music to the short film, Towers of Babel (1981), which was directed by Jonathan Lewis and starred Anna Quayle and Ken Campbell. 

DATA released two more albums, the experimental 2-Time (1983) and the Country & Western-inspired electronica album Elegant Machinery (1985).

The first single to be released from Elegant Machinery was “Blow”, the track was written, produced and engineered by Kajanus and the US Sire Promo 12″ included remixes of both Blow and  “D.J.” which would later be mixed with “In Blue” for it’s own 12″ single release.

Blow (The Blow Out Version)                              6:20

Blow (The Blow Out Version Single Edit)            3:32

D.J. (The Club D.J. Version)                               5:32

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C.O.D. – In The Bottle (1983)

The late Raul A. Rodriguez was one of a group of legendary New York City Disco era DJs who not only spun at many local clubs, but also went on to remix Disco records.

Raul is most notable for his residency at New York-New York and Bonds International on Times Square and for his many classic remixes for Disconet including the highly sought after remix he did of Abba’s “Lay All Your Love On Me in 1980. He also produced such notable hits as Man Parrish’s “Hip Hop, Be Bop”.

Raul is perhaps best known for his work with the Sugarscoop group of labels (Sugarscoop, Disconet Program Service, & Importe/12),  as well as producing his own electro versions of two club classics under the name C.O.D.

The first of these singles was a cover of the Gil Scott-Heron classic “In The Bottle”

Raul passed away from complications from a stroke on January 4, 2012.

In The Bottle                                     5:59

In The Bottle (Instrumental)              5:42

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Wild Mary – No One Knows (1987)

“No One Knows” by Wild Mary began it’s life as 12″ single on Pantera Records in 1986 titled “No One Knows Where She Goes” by Mary’s Wild, it bacame an underground Miami hit and was picked up by Atlantic Records where the band’s name was altered, the track name shortened and given some hot Shep Pettibone remixes.

The track was co-written and produced by Michael Morejon who had a hand in writing a number of late 80’s Miami Freestyle hits for Olga, Laurie Miller and Sequal. In the 90’s, he would go on to work with Jon Secada and Gloria Estefan.

No One Knows (Vocal/Extended Mix)              6:40

No One Knows (Euro Mix)                               5:36

No One Knows (Bonus Beats)                         4:15

No One Knows (Dub Mix)                                6:35

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SPK – Machine Age Voodoo (Junk Funk) (1984)

In 1984, Australian industrial music band SPK released their third album “Machine Age Voodoo”.

For the album, SPK’s Graeme Revell and Sinan Leong were joined by Jeff Bartolomei on keyboards, Mary Bradfield-Taylor on vocals, Graham Jesse on saxophone, James Kelly on guitar, Sam McNally on keyboards and Phil Scorgie on bass guitar.Australian rock music historian, Ian McFarlane saw the album as “mixed mainstream disco-pop and sweet vocals with electronic experimentation (sort of like Blondie meets Kraftwerk)”.While Allmusic’s John Bush felt it was “another leap towards dance-rock and away from the group’s industrial past”.

There is a clear dichotomy between early industrial SPK (1978–83) and the more commercial music later favoured by Revell. Later releases, such as Machine Age Voodoo (1984), were more synthpop-oriented than industrial. Still later, the group moved into electronic orchestral work, with the release of Zamia Lehmanni: Songs of Byzantine Flowers (1986). This would ultimately lead to Revell’s long and and successful career as a film score composer. The SPK single “In Flagrante Delicto” was the basis for his first film score, for Dead Calm, which won him an Australian Film Industry award.

Machine Age Voodoo (Junk Funk) (Special Crash Mix)    5:53

Machine Age Voodoo (Junk Funk) (Special Crash Edit)    3:30

Metal Dance (Original Mix)                                               4:50

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Bohannon – Let’s Start The Dance III (1983)

Hamilton Bohannon (born Hamilton Frederick Bohannon, March 7, 1942, Newnan, Georgia) is an American percussionist, band leader and record producer, who was one of the leading figures in 1970s disco music.After 1980 he was usually credited simply as Bohannon.

He signed with Dakar/Brunswick Records and in early 1973 released the album, Stop & Go. This was followed by five more albums for the label over the next two years, on which he perfected his formula of heavy, thudding bass accents and aggressive rhythms. Although several of his tracks were club hits, he had limited chart success – however, in 1975 “Disco Stomp” made the Top Ten in the UK, and “Foot Stompin’ Music” later that year scraped into the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B Top 40.

In 1976, Bohannon signed to Mercury Records and two years later had his biggest success with “Let’s Start The Dance.” It made the R&B Top Ten and featured the singer Carolyn Crawford, whose subsequent albums Bohannon went on to produce.

Although he continued to release records through the 1980s using new vocalists Liz Lands and Altrinna Grayson, he met with diminishing success. Nevertheless, more recently his music has been widely sampled, most notably Chicago DJ/Producer Paul Johnson’s 1999 hit “Get Get Down” which heavily sampled Bohannon’s “Me and the Gang.”

The 1983 single “Let’s Start The Dance III” was mixed by Francois Kevorkian

Let’s Start The Dance III (Long Version)        7:40

Let’s Start The Dance III (Short Version)       4:09

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