My love for pop princess Sandra has been well documented over the years. Her early work in girl group Arabesque has been less featured however.
Sandra joined the group in 1979 at the age of 17. Arabesque was a disco group also consisting of Michaela Rose and Jasmine Vetter and they had previously released one hit album when Sandra became the band's lead singer. At the same time Sandra met a keyboardist named Michael Cretu who would later become her husband and produce most of her solo material, as well as creating the hugely successful musical project Engima.
Arabesque became successful with their cheerful music and flamboyant, sometimes daring costumes, winning a massive following in Japan and Eastern Europe and scoring a top 10 hit in Germany in 1981 with "Marigot Bay". After nine albums, emerging differences in musical interests of group members and decreasing popularity of disco music signaled the group's break-up. Sandra and Michael, at that point romantically involved, moved to Munich and started work on her solo career.
Sandra was not entirely comfortable with the "silly", naive sounds of Arabesque and she left the group in 1983 (although a couple of singles featuring her vocals were released in the following years). The other two girls continued under a new name, Rouge, but found limited success. Sandra later said that she was left with huge bills for the whole group after she left, which took her some time top pay off.
The sugar coated sounds of Arabesque may not be very noteworthy compared to Sandra's solo material. But I am a sucker for tacky music, and the girls certainly fit the the bill. I recently bought several of their Japanese 7" singles for my Sandra collection - including this perky little number:
And a cover by Russian group Serebro:
Have a great Easter everyone!
2 comments:
It takes an awful lot of effort to make The Dolly Dots sound accomplished - in fact Arabesque make Baccara seem like The Supremes in comparison. Saying that, they were a damn sight better than that attempted cover by Serebro.
And I think they will always have a place in my heart, sharing as we do a love for all things cheesy and kitsch!
Jx
Just be thankful I didn't choose to feature such "classics" as "Billy's Barbecue" or "Peppermint Jack"!
That said, of all the tacky girl groups from this era (The Dolly Dots, Luv etc), Arabesque are my favorite. Of course it just might have a lot to do with Sandra but I do actually enjoy some of their songs, for more than tacky/camp reasons.
Baccara, of course, are completely in a league of their very own...
Post a Comment