Sunday, May 29, 2022

Katrina and the Waves - Best Of, Volume 2 (1985-1997)

A few days ago, I posted Volume 1 of the best songs from the band Katrina and the Waves. This is the second and final volume.

There's not much for me to say that I didn't say with Volume 1. In short, I think this band is underrated, and is a lot more than just a "one-hit wonder" type band.

But I will explain a little more about the band's history, picking up in 1985, where the music in this volume begins. 1985 is the year the band redid their 1983 song "Walking on Sunshine" and had top ten hits in the US and Britain with it. The band was willing to sound just as commercials as their record company wanted, which meant they often were overproduced. But despite this willingness, they were unable to follow "Walking on Sunshine" with any big hits, although they did have some minor ones.

The band kept putting out albums through the rest of the 1980s and 1990s. I must admit that I haven't listened to every song on every one. There's a lot of bad, cheesy music on them, to be honest. But they had some real winners too. I particularly like "Red Wine and Whiskey," and think it should have been a big hit.

Bit by bit, the band's sales were falling. It looked like they would fade away into obscurity. But in 1997, pretty much on a whim, they paid $250 to submit a new song the band had written, "Love Shine a Light," to that year's Eurovision contest. If you're an American like I am, you're probably unaware or only dimly aware of Eurovision. But in Europe, it's a very, very big deal. (There's a funny 2020 movie about the contest called "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga" that stars Will Farrell.) The band was chosen to represent Britain with their song. Then they went on to not only win the Eurovision contest, but they crushed it, with one of the highest vote tallies ever. The song then went on to become a huge hit in Britain (reaching number three there) and the rest of Europe, but didn't make a dent in the US charts.

This was a very unexpected and improbable comeback for a band that seemed to have been running on fumes for most of the 1990s. But, ironically, the song's success led to the break-up of the band that same year. Kimberley Rew, who wrote the song, was embarrassed by the cheesy Eurovision spectacle (see the Will Farrell movie for a general idea why), and was the only band member not to perform it during the contest. The band had already been fairly poppy, but the song's success pegged them even more or a pop band than a rock band, which meant playing the European cabaret circuit instead of rock venues. Rew didn't like that and broke the band up.

All the songs here are from the band's albums from 1985 to 1997, except for one. The last one is kind of a bonus track, because it's from ten years later, and is a solo release from the band's lead singer, Katrina Leskanich. It's a cover of the Clash song "Hitsville UK" that I happen to really like, so I've added it to the end.

This album is 45 minutes long. I believe all the songs are originals, except for the Clash one.

01 Red Wine and Whiskey (Katrina & the Waves)
02 Walking on Sunshine [Second Version] (Katrina & the Waves)
03 Love That Boy (Katrina & the Waves)
04 Is That It (Katrina & the Waves)
05 Money Chain (Katrina & the Waves)
06 Lovely Lindsey (Katrina & the Waves)
07 Sun Street (Katrina & the Waves)
08 [I Can] Dream about It (Katrina & the Waves)
09 Rock 'n' Roll Girl (Katrina & the Waves)
10 That's the Way (Katrina & the Waves)
11 Love Shine a Light (Katrina & the Waves)
12 Hitsville U.K. (Katrina Leskanich)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15260768/KtrinatheWves_1985-1997_BstOfVolume2_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from 1986. For the band's name, I used the font and colors from one of their albums.

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