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Heaven 17 are an English
new wave and
synth-pop band that formed in
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire a ...
in 1980. The band were a trio for most of their career, composed of
Martyn Ware
Martyn Ware (born 19 May 1956) is an English musician, composer, arranger, record producer, and music programmer. As a founding member of both the Human League and Heaven 17, Ware was partly responsible for hit songs such as "Being Boiled" and " ...
(keyboards) and
Ian Craig Marsh
Ian Craig Marsh (born 11 November 1956) is an English musician and composer. He was a founding member of the electronic band the Human League, writing and playing on their first two albums and several singles, until leaving in 1980 to form the ...
(keyboards) (both previously of
the Human League
The Human League are an English synth-pop band formed in Sheffield in 1977. Initially an experimental electronic outfit, the group signed to Virgin Records in 1979 and later attained widespread commercial success with their third album ''Dare' ...
), and
Glenn Gregory
Glenn Peter Gregory (born 16 May 1958) is an English singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose music career spans more than 40 years. He came to prominence in the early 1980s as co-founder and lead singer of the new wave and synthpop b ...
(vocals, keyboards). Although most of the band's music was recorded in the 1980s, they have occasionally reformed to record and perform, playing their first ever live concerts in 1997.
Marsh left the band in 2007 and Ware and Gregory continued to perform as Heaven 17.
History
1980s
Origin and Formation
Ian Craig Marsh
Ian Craig Marsh (born 11 November 1956) is an English musician and composer. He was a founding member of the electronic band the Human League, writing and playing on their first two albums and several singles, until leaving in 1980 to form the ...
and
Martyn Ware
Martyn Ware (born 19 May 1956) is an English musician, composer, arranger, record producer, and music programmer. As a founding member of both the Human League and Heaven 17, Ware was partly responsible for hit songs such as "Being Boiled" and " ...
were the founding members of pioneering Sheffield electro-pop or synthpop group
the Human League
The Human League are an English synth-pop band formed in Sheffield in 1977. Initially an experimental electronic outfit, the group signed to Virgin Records in 1979 and later attained widespread commercial success with their third album ''Dare' ...
; Glenn Gregory (who had previously been in a punk band called Musical Vomit with Marsh) had been their original choice when seeking a lead singer for the band but as he had moved to London to work as a photographer at the time, they chose Ware's school friend
Philip Oakey
Philip Oakey (born 2 October 1955) is a British singer, songwriter and record producer. He is best known as the lead singer, songwriter, and cofounder of British synth-pop band the Human League. Aside from the Human League, Oakey has enjoyed an e ...
instead. When personal and creative tensions within the group reached a breaking point in late 1980, Marsh and Ware left the band, ceding the Human League name to Oakey. They formed the production company
British Electric Foundation
B.E.F. (British Electric Foundation) was a band/production company formed by former Human League members Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh which became largely eclipsed by its best-known project, Heaven 17 (with lead singer Glenn Gregory).
Histo ...
(B.E.F.).
1981: B.E.F. and Penthouse and Pavement
B.E.F.'s first
recordings were a
cassette
Cassette may refer to:
Technology
* Cassette tape (or ''musicassette'', ''audio cassette'', ''cassette tape'', or ''tape''), a worldwide standard for analog audio recording and playback
** Cassette single (or "Cassingle"), a music single in th ...
-only album called ''Music For Stowaways''
and an LP called ''Music For Listening To'', which was re-released on CD in 1997 with two extra tracks. Shortly after, they completed their line-up when they recruited their friend, photographer Glenn Gregory, as vocalist. Taking their new name from a fictional pop band mentioned in
Anthony Burgess
John Anthony Burgess Wilson, (; 25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993), who published under the name Anthony Burgess, was an English writer and composer.
Although Burgess was primarily a comic writer, his dystopian satire ''A Clockwork ...
's
dystopian novel, ''
A Clockwork Orange
''A Clockwork Orange'' may refer to:
* ''A Clockwork Orange'' (novel), a 1962 novel by Anthony Burgess
** ''A Clockwork Orange'' (film), a 1971 film directed by Stanley Kubrick based on the novel
*** ''A Clockwork Orange'' (soundtrack), the film ...
'' (where The Heaven Seventeen are at number 4 in the charts with "Inside"), Heaven 17 was intended to be just one of the musical projects for British Electric Foundation.
Like The Human League, Heaven 17 used synthesisers and
drum machines heavily (the
Linn LM-1
The Linn LM-1 Drum Computer is a drum machine manufactured by Linn Electronics and released in 1980. It was the first drum machine to use samples of acoustic drums, and one of the first programmable drum machines. Its designer, the American e ...
programmed by Ware).
Session musicians were used for bass guitar and guitar (John Wilson) and
grand piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...
(Nick Plytas). Whereas the band's former colleagues the Human League had gone on to major chart success in 1981, Heaven 17 struggled to make an impact. Their debut single "
(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang
"(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang" is a song by British synth-pop band Heaven 17
Heaven 17 are an English new wave and synth-pop band that formed in Sheffield in 1980. The band were a trio for most of their career, composed of Martyn ...
" attracted some attention and, due to its overtly
left-wing political lyrics, was banned by the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
due to concerns by
Radio 1 Radio 1 or Radio One most commonly refers to:
*BBC Radio 1, a music radio station from the BBC
** BBC Radio 1Xtra, a digital radio station broadcasting black music
*CBC Radio One, a talk radio station operated by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporatio ...
's legal department that it libelled
Ronald Reagan, who had recently been elected President of the United States.
Neither this nor any other of the four singles taken from the band's debut album ''
Penthouse and Pavement
''Penthouse and Pavement'' is the debut studio album by English new wave and synth-pop band Heaven 17, released in September 1981 by Virgin Records.
"(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang" was released as a single, but did not achieve char ...
'' managed to reach the
Top 40
In the music industry, the Top 40 is the current, 40 most-popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or "cont ...
in the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
.
The album itself proved to be a success, peaking at Number 14 on the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...
, and was later certified
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...
by the
BPI in 1982.
Around this time, Ware and Marsh produced two further albums as B.E.F., the first being ''Music of Quality & Distinction Volume One'' featuring Glenn Gregory,
Tina Turner
Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock; November 26, 1939) is an American-born Swiss retired singer and actress. Widely referred to as the " Queen of Rock 'n' Roll", she rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue before ...
,
Paula Yates
Paula Elizabeth Yates (24 April 1959 – 17 September 2000) was a British television presenter and writer. Yates is best known for her work on two television programmes, '' The Tube'' and ''The Big Breakfast''. She was the girlfriend of musicia ...
,
Billy Mackenzie,
Hank Marvin
Hank Brian Marvin (born Brian Robson Rankin, 28 October 1941) is an English multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and songwriter. He is widely known as the lead guitarist for The Shadows, a group which primarily performed instrumentals and was the ba ...
,
Paul Jones,
Bernie Nolan
Bernadette Therese Nolan (17 October 1960 – 4 July 2013) was an Irish actress, singer and television personality, formerly lead vocalist of the girl group the Nolans. She was the second youngest of sisters Anne, Denise, Maureen, Linda and ...
, and
Gary Glitter. The tracks were
cover version
In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song release ...
s of songs that Ware, Marsh and Gregory had grown up listening to. The album peaked at number 25. The second album was ''Geisha Boys and Temple Girls'' for the
dance troupe Hot Gossip
Hot Gossip (1974–86) were a British dance troupe who made television appearances and in 1978 backed Sarah Brightman on her single " I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper".
Formation
Arlene Phillips moved to London to learn and teach developi ...
, which used songs formerly recorded by the Human League and Heaven 17, and a track each from
Sting and
Talking Heads
Talking Heads were an American rock band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991.[Talki ...](_blank)
. B.E.F. took over production duties when
Richard James Burgess
Richard James Burgess (born 29 June 1949) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, composer, author, manager, marketer and inventor.
Burgess's music career spans more than 50 years. He came to prominence in the early 1980s a ...
of the band
Landscape was unable to complete the album.
1982-1983: The Luxury Gap and commercial success
In October 1982, Heaven 17 released their new single "
Let Me Go", which charted just outside the UK Top 40
(but reached the Irish Top 30). However, in 1983 the band's fortunes changed. Their next single, "
Temptation
Temptation is a desire to engage in short-term urges for enjoyment that threatens long-term goals.Webb, J.R. (Sep 2014). Incorporating Spirituality into Psychology of temptation: Conceptualization, measurement, and clinical implications. Sp ...
" (on which they were augmented by vocalist
Carol Kenyon
Carol Kenyon (sometimes spelt Karol; born 1959) is a British singer. She is best known for her vocals on the Heaven 17 hit song "Temptation", which reached number two in the UK Singles Chart in 1983. When the song was re-released as a remix by ...
and a studio orchestra), reached number 2 on the UK Singles Chart in spring 1983 and became their biggest hit.
The song was taken from their second album, ''
The Luxury Gap'', which featured further chart hits "
Come Live with Me" (UK #5) and "
Crushed by the Wheels of Industry" (UK #17).
The album itself charted at number 4 on the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...
, their highest ever position,
and was certified platinum by the BPI in 1984.
In the United States, their self-titled ''Heaven 17'' album was a re-working of ''Penthouse and Pavement'' with three songs deleted and replaced by "Let Me Go", "Who'll Stop the Rain", and "I'm Your Money" (along with a different mix of "
The Height of the Fighting"). American and Canadian
new wave audiences were most familiar with "Let Me Go", which received high rotation
airplay
Airplay is how frequently a song is being played through broadcasting on radio stations. A song which is being played several times every day (spins) would have a significant amount of airplay. Music which became very popular on jukeboxes, in n ...
on
alternative rock
Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commerci ...
and new wave format radio stations such as Los Angeles, California's
KROQ-FM, and
Long Island, New York's
WLIR
WLIR was a radio station that played a new music/modern rock format on the frequencies 92.7 FM, 98.5 FM, and 107.1 FM from the 1980s into the 2000s. Bob Wilson, longtime WLIR employee and historian, created the website WDARE (Dare FM), which m ...
, an CKOI-FM (Montreal), a regular Top Ten station, and additionally, frequent MTV exposure.
1983-1985: Collaborations and How Men Are
Towards the end of 1983, the band (under their B.E.F. guise and assisted by Greg Walsh) helped relaunch
Tina Turner
Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock; November 26, 1939) is an American-born Swiss retired singer and actress. Widely referred to as the " Queen of Rock 'n' Roll", she rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue before ...
's career, producing, and providing backing vocals on her hit "
Let's Stay Together", a cover of the
Al Green song. 1984 saw the release of Heaven 17's third studio album, ''
How Men Are'', which reached number 12 in the UK Albums Chart and was certified silver by the BPI. The album featured the
Earth, Wind & Fire
Earth, Wind & Fire (EW&F or EWF) is an American band whose music spans the genres of jazz, R&B, soul, funk, disco, pop, big band, Latin, and Afro pop. They are among the best-selling bands of all time, with sales of over 90 million reco ...
brass section
The brass section of the orchestra, concert band, and jazz ensemble consist of brass instruments, and is one of the main sections in all three ensembles. The British-style brass band contains only brass and percussion instruments.
They contain ...
, and two singles from the album ("
Sunset Now" and "
This Is Mine") both reached the UK Top 40, but would be the band's last singles to do so until various remixes were released in the 1990s.
The band also worked on the
Band Aid single "
Do They Know It's Christmas?
"Do They Know It's Christmas?" is a charity song written in 1984 by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise money for the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia. It was first recorded by Band Aid, a supergroup assembled by Geldof and Ure consisting of pop ...
" at the end of 1984,
with Gregory supplying vocals alongside
Midge Ure and
Sting, after a personal request from Ure that he attend. However, the band did not perform at
Live Aid the following year. Heaven 17's first "live" performance was in 1982 on the UK television programme ''
The Tube'' (though the band made use of backing tapes during this performance).
In 1985 Heaven 17 joined the
Red Wedge
Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...
collective.
1986-1988: Critical and commercial decline
After the
remix album
A remix album is an album consisting of remixes or rerecorded versions of an artist's earlier released material. The first act who employed the format was American singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson ('' Aerial Pandemonium Ballet'', 1971). As of 200 ...
''Endless'' peaked at number 70 in July 1986, the band's fourth studio album ''
Pleasure One
''Pleasure One'' is the fourth studio album by the English new wave music, new wave and synth-pop band Heaven 17, released on 17 November 1986 by Virgin Records. It was the band's last studio album chart entry within the UK Top 100.
Background ...
'' was released in November 1986 and featured the single "
Trouble
Trouble may refer to:
Film and television
* ''Trouble'' (1922 film), an American silent comedy-drama film directed by Albert Austin
* ''Trouble'' (1933 film), a British comedy film
* ''Trouble'' (1977 film), a Soviet drama film
* ''Trouble'' ...
" (UK No. 51, Germany #17). The album contained a number of songs that were originally intended for a French film project that never came to be. This was also the first Heaven 17 album to not mention production credits for B.E.F. and the abbreviation would not appear again until the ''
Bigger Than America'' album in 1996. It was followed up in 1988 with the album ''
Teddy Bear, Duke & Psycho'' (featuring the singles "Train of Love in Motion" and "
The Ballad of Go Go Brown"), although these two albums were poorly received and had little commercial success. In September 1988, the band appeared on the bill at the
Sport Aid
Sport Aid (also known as Sports Aid) was a sport-themed campaign for African famine relief held in May 1986, involving several days of all-star exhibition events in various sports, and culminating in the Race Against Time, a 10 km fun run held sim ...
event in Sheffield.
Heaven 17 were managed by Keith Bourton for Heavenly Management Ltd. during much of this period.
1990s
The early 1990s was a quiet period for the band, though Ware produced a second B.E.F. album in 1991, to follow 1982's original ''Music of Quality & Distinction.'' This album again featured
Tina Turner
Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock; November 26, 1939) is an American-born Swiss retired singer and actress. Widely referred to as the " Queen of Rock 'n' Roll", she rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue before ...
and
Billy Mackenzie, but this time also featured artists such as
Scritti Politti's
Green Gartside,
Lalah Hathaway
Eulaulah Donyll "Lalah" Hathaway (born December 16, 1968) is an American singer.
In 1990 Hathaway released her first album titled ''Lalah Hathaway''. After releasing another album, titled '' A Moment'' (1994), it debuted at number 34 on the To ...
,
Billy Preston, and
Chaka Khan. Ware also became a producer for the likes of
Terence Trent D'Arby
Sananda Francesco Maitreya (born Terence Trent Howard; March 15, 1962), who started his career with the stage name Terence Trent D'Arby, is an American singer and songwriter who came to fame with his debut studio album, '' Introducing the Hardl ...
,
Soft Cell
Soft Cell are an English synthpop duo who came to prominence in the early 1980s. The duo consists of vocalist Marc Almond and instrumentalist David Ball. The band are primarily known for their 1981 hit version of "Tainted Love" and their pla ...
's
Marc Almond
Peter Mark Sinclair "Marc" Almond, (born 9 July 1957) is an English singer. Almond first began performing and recording in the synthpop/ new wave duo Soft Cell where he became known for his distinctive soulful voice and androgynous image. ...
, and
Erasure
Erasure () is an English synth-pop duo formed in London in 1985, consisting of lead vocalist and songwriter Andy Bell with songwriter, producer and keyboardist Vince Clarke, previously known as co-founder of the band Depeche Mode and a membe ...
. Gregory, meanwhile, went on to form the band
Honeyroot
Honeyroot is an ambient dance collaboration between Glenn Gregory and Keith Lowndes, signed to the independent record label Just Music.
Career
The project had its origins in the 1997 album, ''Skyscraping'', by ABC. As ABC was essentially Ma ...
with Keith Lowndes, then Ugly with John Uriel and Ian Wright .
In late 1992, a
Brothers in Rhythm remix of "Temptation" reached number 4 and was followed by the compilation album ''
Higher and Higher – The Best of Heaven 17'' in 1993. Remixes of "
(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang
"(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang" is a song by British synth-pop band Heaven 17
Heaven 17 are an English new wave and synth-pop band that formed in Sheffield in 1980. The band were a trio for most of their career, composed of Martyn ...
" and "Penthouse and Pavement" were also minor hits in 1993. However, the band would not release any new material as Heaven 17 until 1996's ''
Bigger Than America''. The album failed to chart in the UK.
2000s
The year 2005 saw the release of a new studio album, ''
Before After'', which had a much more contemporary dance sound compared to previous albums. A CD composed entirely of
remixes of the song "Hands Up to Heaven" from the album reached number six on the US ''Billboard''
Hot Dance Club Play
Dance Club Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. It is a national look over of club disc jockeys to determine the most popular songs being played in nightclubs across the country. It was launched as th ...
chart in May 2006. In October of the same year,
Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman (musician), Tom Newman. It ...
issued a
greatest hits
A greatest hits album or best-of album is a type of compilation album that collects popular and commercially successful songs by a particular artist or band. While greatest hits albums are typically supported by the artist, they can also be crea ...
compilation album entitled ''Sight and Sound'', which included a previously-unheard version of "Temptation" with spoken vocals by an unknown student from Germany whom the band met in 1982. It had been discovered on 1-inch tape by Gregory's mother and was remastered by Simon Heyworth. In November 2005, Heaven 17 were filmed for a live DVD playing to a packed house at
The Scala in London. The DVD contains an in-depth question-and-answer session with both Ware and Gregory, along with fans' reactions to the gig.
In 2006, Marsh stopped making live appearances with the band. In an early 2009 interview, Ware stated that Marsh had left the band and was now studying at university. Beginning in the mid-1990s,
Billie Godfrey
Billie Godfrey is an English singer.
Background
Based in London and Brighton, Godfrey has been a vocalist for many artists and in her own right. She started her career as a radio DJ, playing the kind of music she would later go on to record.
...
worked with the band as a backing vocalist and appeared with them at concerts. She performed as part of the band on 21 November 2008 for their highest profile TV appearance of recent years on ''Now That's What I Call 1983'' on
ITV1
ITV1 (formerly known as ITV) is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the British media company ITV plc. It provides the Channel 3 public broadcast service across all of the United Kingdom except for t ...
.
In December 2008, Heaven 17
toured the UK as part of the Sheffield band-based Steel City Tour alongside the Human League and
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
. Coinciding with this was the release of their new album, ''
Naked as Advertised – Versions 08'', issued through the Just Music record label. The album contained re-workings of tracks such as "Temptation" along with versions of Ware songs best known from his time with the Human League, including "
Being Boiled" and "
Empire State Human", as well as a
cover
Cover or covers may refer to:
Packaging
* Another name for a lid
* Cover (philately), generic term for envelope or package
* Album cover, the front of the packaging
* Book cover or magazine cover
** Book design
** Back cover copy, part of co ...
of
the Associates' hit "
Party Fears Two". The band were managed by
Nick Ashton-Hart for much of the early 2000s.
In December 2009, Heaven 17 made appearances at the "Nokia
Night of the Proms
Night of the Proms is a series of concerts held annually in Belgium (since 1985), the Netherlands, Germany and Luxembourg. Regularly there are also shows in France, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Denmark, the United States and Sweden. The co ...
" in Germany.
2010s
On 16 February 2010, Heaven 17 joined
La Roux
La Roux ( ) is an English synthpop act formed in 2008 by singer Elly Jackson and record producer Ben Langmaid. The act's debut album '' La Roux'' (2009) was a critical and commercial success, winning a Grammy Award and producing hit singles su ...
to record a joint live session for the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
which was shown on the