Lihmal vs. Kajagoogoo

[WoodlandParkPunk]

I know the spelling is terrible, but which was better. Never Ending Story or Too Shy???

"You just pick a chord, go twang, and you've got music." ~ Sid Vicious

[InvisibleMan]

why wasn't Limahl's "Inside to Outside" a bigger hit in US? It seems it was never even released in US.
Such a great guilty pleasure from the 80's, I love it, great 80's disco tune! [8D]

[cygnus66]

IMHO, Islands is a far better album than White Feathers. And I could never get into Limahl's solo material.

That being said, Too Shy is a good tune. I like the b-side (Take Another View) better tho'.

I saw Nick Beggs play on Steve Hackett's recent tour. Good times.

[budaniel]

Only in the past decade did I invest in the Kajagoogoo CDs, and I was really impressed at the great new wave tracks on their first album. I'd already had both Limahl albums, and I'm not crazy about either of them. I actually bought the second album when it came out in the 80s because I love Giorgio Moroder productions of that period (Berlin, Phil Oakey, Limahl's Never Ending Story, Scarface soundtrack, Flashdance soundtrack, etc), so I was hugely disappointed to find that he went super light and fluffy on the rest of his productions with Limahl rather than his beat-heavy synthdance tracks.

[SomebodySomewhere]

Somebody sure dredged up an oldie...

They were all terrible songwriters, for the most part, but Kajagoogoo with Limahl had one song with an actual melody, "Hang On Now." After he was kicked out, they had none. Limahl's solo career was mostly crap, save for the tracks given to him by professional songwriters -- "Neverending Story," "Inside to Outside," etc. -- but those were certainly better songs than Kaja(googoo) had at that point, since his former bandmates were apparently too egotistical to realize they needed some help in that department.

As for "Too Shy," if ever there was a song whose hit status was due entirely to arrangement, that would be it. The thing had layers and layers of synths (and Nick's admittedly killer bassline) piled on top of each other to cover up how it has literally no vocal melody whatsoever.

[Sean]

Love Kajagoogoo, could never really get into Kaja for some reason. I preferred Limahl's solo stuff over Kaja. As for Neverending Story, one of the coolest songs of all times. In my opinion, Limahl was the key.

[Surly]

I've always been a fan. I know they don't get much respect. I think the first album is solid from start to finish, and even though they were stupid to kick out Limahl, I think "Extra Play (Islands)" and "Crazy Peoples..." are both pretty good. Nick really is an incredible bass player. I like the first Limahl solo album a lot; only about half of the second (and I agree that it is too slick and poppy).

"Words like conviction can turn into a sentence"

[InvisibleMan]

I love Limah's solo, don't understand why it wasn't a bigger hit commercially. The instrumental intro to Tonight Will be the Night is so good, and his vocals make it perfect 80's pop. And Don't Send for Me is just pure 80's fun [:D]

[Frank_Chickens]

[quote][i]Originally posted by InvisibleMan[/i]
<br>I love Limah's solo, don't understand why it wasn't a bigger hit commercially. The instrumental intro to Tonight Will be the Night is so good, and his vocals make it perfect 80's pop. And Don't Send for Me is just pure 80's fun [:D]
[/quote]

'Only For Love' was the only thing to bother Gallop greatly here. As for 'Neverending Story' that should be called a duet rather than a solo release since the woman on that sung all the difficult bits, was a hit though but a bit much calling if purely his.

As for his bandmates, 'Big Apple' proved they didn't need him to have a more successful follow up but soon fell into the Haircut 100 trap.

[Screen 13]

Never a huge fan of either, but I do have to admit that Nick Beggs is a great Bassist and that some of their singles are guilty pleasures ("Too shy" and "Big Apple").

In my opinion, a lot of the drop of Kajagoogoo's popularity after Limhal was out of the picture was slightly due to the lyrics getting more serious in most places, with "The Lion's Mouth" being quite a head turner to those who connected them with the Pop lyrics of "Too Shy." Sometimes a single can do everything. the conversion to Christianity possibly also turned fans away. From what I remember, both Nick and Sal Solo (Classicx Nouveaux) were converted around the same time/day...I think that was the story.

From what I remember, there was an interview in The Melody Maker around the time of "The Lion's Mouth" single which applauded Mike Read's negative reaction to the sleeve of Frankie's "Relax" which was a small news story at the time. If my memory is right, then I could see the hipness factor drop a little there as well. Please correct if I'm wrong, but I do recall something of that sort (I wish I still had that issue!).

Still, considering all, Islands at least did some business if not spectacular (#35) - far better than Haircut without Nick, and 1985's "Shouldn't Do That" peeped a little in the lower reaches, mainly on it's merits in my opinion. Back to '84, "Turn Your Back on Me" was also a good US Dance hit.

Actually, Limahl's debut solo debut album was in the Fall/Xmas season of '84, and was bound to be set aside in favor of albums by U2, Ultravox (The very successful in The UK Collection), Duran's Arena, Big Country's Steeltown, The Smiths' Hatful of Hallow, and Frankie's Welcome to the Pleasuredome. I don't think that Don't Suppose was that strong of an album, kind of a too little/too late kind of thing with music that really did not stand out from what I see. Still, according to statistics, it did fine in parts of Europe.

Trivia - Did anyone remember the German Musical movie Feel the Motion? Where I was living, there was a video store that had a tape of that and it had a small appearance by Limhal and one of his solo songs.