Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Icehouse - "Electric Blue" (1987)

"Icehouse" is an Australian rock band, formed as the name "Flowers" in 1977 in Sydney. Initially known in Australia for their pub rock style, they later achieved mainstream success playing new wave and synthpop style music and attained Top Ten singles chart success in both Europe and the U.S. The mainstay of both "Flowers" and "Icehouse" has been Iva Davies (singer-songwriter, record producer, guitar, bass, keyboards, oboe) supplying additional musicians as required. The name "Icehouse", which was adopted in 1981, comes from an old, cold flat Davies lived in and the strange building across the road populated by itinerant people.


Their best-selling album is 1987's Man of Colours, which contained the Australian hit singles "Crazy" which peaked at #3 in July, "Electric Blue", co-written by Davies and John Oates of U.S. band Hall & Oates, peaked at #1 in October, "My Obsession" #5 in December, "Man of Colours" #28 in February 1988 and "Nothing Too Serious" #29 in May 1988.


It was the first Australian album to have five singles charting in the top 30, it remained at #1 on the Australian album charts for eleven weeks and has sold over 700,000 copies. With U.S. chart success for "Crazy", which reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #10 on its Mainstream Rock chart, and "Electric Blue" peaked at #7 Hot 100 and #10 Mainstream, the band had reached their zenith of popularity, the album Man of Colours reached #43 on the Billboard 200. Man of Colours was lauded in Australia during 1988, it won two ARIA Awards, 'Album of the Year' and 'Highest Selling Album'; the associated song "Electric Blue" won 'Most Performed Australasian Popular Work' at the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) Music Awards for its writers Davies and Oates.

The video clip for Electric Blue was shot on the roof of 189 Liverpool Street, Sydney City, Australia. It is now the YWCA Hotel aka "Y On The Park".


John Oates became involved with Davies after contacting him to state he was a fan. The resulting collaboration produced this song and Oates has stated that if Davies had not released the song under the Icehouse name then it would have been a Hall and Oates track. In Australia, "Electric Blue" was available for a limited time on 7 inch blue vinyl.

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