Throwback Thursday: You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) // Dead or Alive

‘You Spin Me Right Round (Like A Record)’ by Dead or Alive perfectly encapsulates everything that is good and pure with New Romantic music: it’s upbeat, it’s a bit electro, and the fashion included within the video is iconic still (pirate eye patch included). Although the exact date I first heard this song escapes me, I will always remember immediately loving it, and although I did not know it at the time, it foreshadowed my future adolescence of queer New Romanticism rather fabulously.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGNiXGX2nLU&w=750&h=428]

Even included in the soundtrack to the amazing 2014 film Pride, this song is the perfect level of camp and fun. It remains to this day one of those songs that everyone can sing along to, as Pete Burns’ distinctive vocals combined with his gender-flux androgyny truly make this one of the best pop songs to come out of the eighties. This song has since been covered and remixed by numerous artists, though none of the later editions managed to beat the original UK number one in the charts.

Pete Burns of Dead or Alive has since continued on to write an autobiography, release a few solo tracks, appear on Celebrity Big Brother and Celebrity Come Dine With Me, and is now a spokesperson for the charity gAID which focuses on helping those who have experienced domestic violence in gay relationships.

Words by Charlie Ginger Jones
@MinistryOfQueer