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Prefab Sprout
Prefab Sprout are an English pop/rock band from Witton Gilbert, County Durham who rose to fame during the 1980s. Formed in 1978 by brothers Paddy and Martin McAloon and joined by vocalist, guitarist and keyboard player Wendy Smith in 1982, they released their debut album '' Swoon'' to critical acclaim in 1984. Their subsequent albums, including 1985's '' Steve McQueen'' and 1990's '' Jordan: The Comeback'', have been described by Paul Lester of ''The Guardian'' as "some of the most beautiful and intelligent records of their era". Frontman Paddy McAloon is regarded as one of the great songwriters of his time and the band have been credited with producing some of the "most beloved" pop music of the 1980s and 1990s. Nine of their albums reached the top 40 on the UK Albums Chart and one of their singles, " The King of Rock 'n' Roll", peaked at number seven on the UK Singles Chart. The band's other popular songs include " When Love Breaks Down" and " Cars and Girls". The band ...
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Swoon (Prefab Sprout Album)
''Swoon'' is the debut studio album by the English pop band Prefab Sprout, released in March 1984 by Kitchenware Records. Written over a period of seven years, the record was produced with David Brewis on a low budget. The group mostly chose to avoid recording the material they had played live over the years, preferring to make a more intricate record of mostly recent material. The album is less immediate and accessible than their later albums, with songs incorporating acoustic guitars and keyboards. The songs were written by the band's leader Paddy McAloon, whose unorthodox and literate approach to pop songwriting earned the band a cult following. Upon release, ''Swoon'' was widely acclaimed. Several reviewers highlighted its sophisticated musical style and unconventional lyrics, and it reached number 22 on the UK Albums Chart. Background and recording Prefab Sprout, formed by brothers Paddy and Martin McAloon, first played live in 1979, having been joined by drummer Michael Sal ...
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Steve McQueen (album)
''Steve McQueen'' is the second studio album by English alternative pop band Prefab Sprout, released on 10 June 1985 in the UK by Kitchenware Records. On 3 September 1985, the album was released by Epic Records in the United States as ''Two Wheels Good'' in anticipation of legal conflict with the estate of American actor Steve McQueen. The album cover references McQueen's lifelong passion for Triumph motorcycles and his 1963 film '' The Great Escape''. The album released to highly positive reviews from critics and was a modest commercial success, reaching number 21 in the United Kingdom. Four singles from the album entered top 100 of the UK Singles Chart, with " When Love Breaks Down" reaching the top 30. Retrospectively, ''Steve McQueen'' has received lasting critical acclaim, widely credited as an indie pop benchmark and ranked by many British publications among the greatest albums of all time. In 2007, it was reissued as a "legacy edition" double CD, featuring a remastered ...
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Limoges
Limoges ( , , ; , locally ) is a city and Communes of France, commune, and the prefecture of the Haute-Vienne Departments of France, department in west-central France. It was the administrative capital of the former Limousin region. Situated on the first western foothills of the Massif Central, Limoges is crossed by the river Vienne (river), Vienne, of which it was originally the first ford crossing point. The second most populated town in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine, New Aquitaine region after Bordeaux, a University of Limoges, university town, an administrative centre and intermediate services with all the facilities of a regional metropolis, it has an urban area of 323,789 inhabitants in 2018. The inhabitants of the city are called the Limougeauds. Founded around 10 BC under the name of Augustoritum, it became an important Gallo-Roman culture, Gallo-Roman city. During the Middle Ages Limoges became a large city, strongly marked by the cultural influence of the Abbey of Saint Mar ...
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Cars And Girls
A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people rather than cargo. There are around one billion cars in use worldwide. The French inventor Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot built the first steam-powered road vehicle in 1769, while the Swiss inventor François Isaac de Rivaz designed and constructed the first internal combustion-powered automobile in 1808. The modern car—a practical, marketable automobile for everyday use—was invented in 1886, when the German inventor Carl Benz patented his Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Commercial cars became widely available during the 20th century. The 1901 Oldsmobile Curved Dash and the 1908 Ford Model T, both American cars, are widely considered the first mass-produced and mass-affordable cars, respectively. Cars were rapidly adopted in the US, where they replaced horse-drawn carriages. In Europe and other pa ...
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When Love Breaks Down
"When Love Breaks Down" is a single by English pop band Prefab Sprout, first released by Kitchenware Records in October 1984. It was the first single taken from their album of the following year, ''Steve McQueen''. In its first release, the single did not chart on the UK Singles Chart, but a reissue the following year in 1985 reached No. 25. The song was also the group's first chart appearance in the United States, peaking at No. 42 on the ''Billboard'' Top Rock Tracks chart in October 1985. "When Love Breaks Down" was recorded and mixed at RAK Studios, London. The song was re-released in March 2007, this time with an entirely new acoustic arrangement, recorded in 2006 by frontman Paddy McAloon to coincide with the two-disc Legacy Edition of ''Steve McQueen''. The B-side to the original single release was "Diana", which would later be re-recorded and included on the album ''Protest Songs'' (which was originally going to be released after ''Steve McQueen'' but was shelved unti ...
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The King Of Rock 'n' Roll
''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with nouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of the archaic pronoun ''thee' ...
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Single (music)
In Music industry, music, a single is a type of Art release#Music, release of a song Sound recording, recording of fewer tracks than an album (LP record, LP), typically one or two tracks. A single can be released for record sales, sale to the public in a variety of physical or digital formats. Singles may be standalone tracks or connected to an artist's album, and in the latter case would often have at least one single release before the album itself, called lead singles. The single was defined in the mid-20th century with the ''45'' (named after its speed in revolutions per minute), a type of 7-inch sized vinyl records, vinyl record containing an A-side and B-side, A-side and a B-side, i.e. one song on each side. The single format was highly influential in pop music and the early days of rock and roll, and it was the format used for jukeboxes and preferred by younger populations in the 1950s and 1960s. Singles in Digital distribution, digital form became very popular in the ...
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UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is the United Kingdom's industry-recognised national record chart for album, albums. Entries are ranked by sales and audio streaming. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts Company (OCC) on Fridays (previously Sundays). It is broadcast on BBC Radio 1 (top 5) and found on the OCC website as a Top 100 or on ''UKChartsPlus'' as a Top 200, with positions continuing until all sales have been tracked in data only available to industry insiders. However, even though number 100 was classed as a hit album (as in the case of ''The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums'') in the 1980s until January 1989, since the compilations were removed, this definition was changed to Top 75 with follow-up books such as ''The Virgin Book of British Hit Albums'' only including this data. As of 2021, Since 1983, the OCC generally provides a public charts for hits and weeks up to the Top 100. Business customers can require a ...
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Top 40
In the music industry, the Top 40 is a list of the 40 currently 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 " contemporary hit radio" is also a radio format. History According to producer Richard Fatherley, Todd Storz was the inventor of the format, at his radio station KOWH in Omaha, Nebraska. Storz invented the format in the early 1950s, using the number of times a record was played on jukeboxes to compose a weekly list for broadcast. The format was commercially successful, and Storz and his father Robert, under the name of the Storz Broadcasting Company, subsequently acquired other stations to use the new Top 40 format. In 1989, Todd Storz was inducted into the Nebraska Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame. The term "Top 40", describing a radio format, appeared in 1960. The Top 40, whether surveyed by a radio station or a p ...
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Album (music)
An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, digital. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records (78s) collected in a bound book resembling a photo album; this format evolved after 1948 into single vinyl LP record, long-playing (LP) records played at  rpm. The album was the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption from the mid-1960s to the early 21st century, a period known as the ''album era''. Vinyl LPs are still issued, though album sales in the 21st-century have mostly focused on CD and MP3 formats. The 8-track tape was the first tape format widely used alongside vinyl from 1965 until being phased out by 1983, being gradually supplanted by the cassette tape throughout the 1970s and early 1980s; the popul ...
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