Pete Burns in the mid-1980s.
Another artist who provided the soundtrack from my wonderfully misspent youth is no longer with us: Pete Burns, lead vocalist of the ’80s synthpop band Dead or Alive, died at age 57 from a cardiac arrest on Sunday.
He’s probably best known for Dead or Alive’s biggest hit, You Spin Me Round (Like a Record), from the album Youthquake, which was released in 1985…
…and covered to great effect in the opening sequence of Adam Sandler’s 1998 film, The Wedding Singer:
Dead or Alive tunes found their way onto many a mixtape that got played in the Deathmoble — my car of that era, a Volvo 245 DL station wagon, named after the car in Animal House — like the one pictured below:
This isn’t my car from the ’80s, but it could be its stunt double.
Again, not my car’s interior, but very, very close.
I’ll close this Pete Burns tribute with another favorite from Youthquake — In Too Deep. Requiescat in pace, Pete, and thanks for all the tunes.