516 Goodbye Leo Sayer - Unchained Melody

Chart  entered :  8  February  1986

Chart  peak  : 54

Thankfully  our  ten  hits  rule  means  that  this  is  our  only  encounter  with  pop's  most  boring, over-rated  song.

After  his  breakthrough  in  1973,  Leo's  stock  rose  for  the  next  four  years  until  1977  when  " When  I  Need  You"   made  number  one  after  several  near  misses. In  the  US  the  news  was even  better  as  "You  Make  Me  Feel  Like  Dancing"  got  to  the  top  as  well. Then  that  autumn "Thunder  In  My  Heart "  ( one  of  his  better  singles, I  thought )  the  lead  single  for  an  album of  the  same  name  failed  to  make  the  Top  20  and  suddenly  he  was  struggling to  get  heard  in the  din  of  punk .  1979's  "Here"  contained  no  hits  at  all  and  though  he  had  a  number  2  hit with  a  retread  of  Bobby  Vee's  "More  Than  I  Can  Say"  in  1980  it  only  compounded  the impression  that  he  had  become  a  middle  of  the  road  balladeer , largely  reliant  on  other people's  songs . He  had  intermittent  success  for  the  next  few  years , 1983's  "Orchard  Road" being  his  last  Top  40  hit.

"Unchained  Melody "  saw  Leo  back  with  Alan  Tarney  after  his  previous  single  with  Dollar  producer  Christopher  Neil  flopped. With  Tarney's  generic  synth  textures  backing  him  up, Leo  takes  the  meta  implications  of  the  song's  title  to  heart  and  sets  the  tune  free  altogether  replacing  it  with  a  new  one  of  his  own. You  don't  know  from  one  line  to  the  next  where  he's  going  to  go. It's  not  good  , in  fact  it's  bloody  awful, but  compared  to  the  robotic  horrors  to  come  Leo  at  least  stamps  some  personality on  the  song. With  no  new  album  on  the  horizon  this  was  recorded  for  the  movie   Car  Trouble  , itself  an  atrocity  which  killed  the  film  career  of  Ian  Charleson.

His  next  single  "Real  Life"   written  by  Terry  Britten  and  Sue  Shifrin  was  intended  to  be  the  title  track  for  a  new  album  that  never  materialised. Leo's  in  good  voice  but  the  song  sounds  like  Cliff's  Dreaming   slowed  down  a  bit  and  very  dated  for  1986 . Chrysalis  gave  him  a  last  shot  later  that  year  with  "Solo "  a  song  written  by   Camel's  Pete  Bardens  which  had  flopped  for  a  group  of  the  same  name  the  previous  year.  Bardens  produced  both  versions. It's  not  a  bad  example  of  contemporary  AOR  in  a  Mike  and  The  Mechanics  vein  with  a  nice  synth  solo  in  the  middle  eight  but  it  got  no  airplay  and  disappeared.

By  this  time  Leo's  personal  life  had  unravelled  and  the  divorce  proceedings  from  his  first  wife  Janice  had  revealed  that  he  had  money  problems  too  thanks   to  the  financial  genius  of  his  manager  Adam  Faith. Leo  now  commenced  what  turned  out  to  be  lengthy  litigation  proceedings  against  him.

He  re-surfaced  briefly   in  1989  to  sing  "Love  Hurts "  ( another  little-covered  song  of  course )  as  the  theme  for  the  rather  better  Wilt.  He  performed  his  low-key  version , produced   and  arranged  by  Anne  Dudley  on  The  Les  Dawson  Show  but  it  wasn't  enough  to  resuscitate  him.

The  following  year  Leo  and  Tarney  decided  to  reinvent  themselves  as  The  Pet  Shop  Boys  with  the  album  "Cool  Touch"  recorded  by  just  the  two  of  them  though  it  came  out  under  Leo's  name. I've  only  heard  one  track  from  it  which  was  OK, the  blander  side  of  Erasure  if  you  will,  but  the  album  sank  without  trace  and  it  would  be  15  years  before  he  recorded  anything  new.        

In  1992  he  settled  out  of  court  with  Faith,  reportedly  for  £650,000. In  1993  a  compilation   LP  "All  The  Best "  made  number  26  and  a  reissue  of  "When  I  Need  You "  was  a  minor  hit. Leo  was  soon  back  in  court  trying  to  regain  the  rights  to  his  songs  from  Chrysalis   then again  to  sue  his  management  over  a  mishandled  pension  fund,  a  suit  he  had  to  abandon for want  of  funds. In  1998  he   was  credited  on  a  single  by  production  outfit  Groove  Generation who  re-tooled  "You Make  Me  Feel  Like  Dancing "  and  reached  number  32.  The  decade closed with  Leo  out  on  the  road  playing  his  hits. He  was  helped  by  a  concerted  campaign  by  The Sun  to  re-launch  his  career  which  got  him  TV  appearances  and  more  gigs  on  the  university circuit  but  tellingly  not  a  new  recording  contract.

In  2002  he  agreed  to  participate  in  Louis  Theroux's  The  Entertainers  and  didn't  come  across too  well  but  why  anyone  ever  agrees  to  get  stitched  up  by  Theroux  is  beyond  me. That series  saw  him  recording  a  new  album  in  Los  Angeles  and  it  eventually  saw  the  light  of day  in  2005  as  "Voice  In  My  Head ". The  first  of  any  of  his  albums  to  be  completely  self-written,  it's  not  too  bad. It's  over-long  and  some  of  the  songs  are  a  bit  too  bland  but  it  has  an  old-fashioned  charm , Leo's  voice  is  fully  intact   and  there's  the  odd  gem  like  the  rock  and  roll  survivor's  tale  "We  Got  Away  With  It" , the  bleak  "Candygram " with  its  sad  jazz  trumpet  and  the  gorgeous  strings  on  the  closer  "Maybe".

It  was  pretty  much  ignored  and  that   seemed  to  make  up  Leo's  mind  to  re-locate  to  Australia with  long-term  partner  Donatella   although  it  hadn't  charted  there  either.  As  they  were   packing  up  Leo  took  a  call  from  an  LA-based  DJ  called  Meck  asking  for  permission  to  do  a  re-mix  job  on  "Thunder  In  My  Heart ". Leo  gave  his  consent  and  next  thing  he  knew  he  was  back  at  number  one  with  the  song  whose  relative  failure  almost  thirty  years  before   had  started  the  slide  in  his  popularity. Meck  didn't  use  the  whole  song  , repeating  the  first  verse  instead  but  there  was  certainly  a  huge  slice  of  Leo  on  the  record. It  featured  on  a  new  compilation  which  made  number  30  that  year.

Unfortunately  it  went  to  his  head. Appearing  on  Celebrity  Big  Brother  the  following  year   he seemed  to  be  under  the  impression  that  it  had  restored  him  to  the  top  rank  of  entertainers and  he  was  lecturing  the  likes  of  Jo  O' Meara  on  how  to  conduct  themselves  as  celebrities. He  also  proved  a  nightmare  housemate  , Dirk  Benedict  taking  him  to  task  for  constantly interrupting  people. While  swallowing  the  appearance  of  comedy  punk  Donny  Tourette  ( remember  him ? )  who'd  slept  with  Donatella  , Leo  apparently  couldn't  bear  to  be  filmed washing  his  underwear , took  a  frying  pan  to  the  outside  door   and  quit .  It  should  be  noted that  he  was up  for  eviction   and  perhaps  wanted   to   avoid  the  result .  We  then  saw  him grappling  with  security  guards  twice  his  size  while  delivering  an  expletive-filled  rant  at  the producers   during  which  he  said  "I  want  to  go  back  to  Australia. I  want  to  leave  your   fucking  stupid  country ". We  love  you  too  Leo !  He  certainly  owed  Jade  Goody  &  co  a  drink or  two  for  ensuring  this  incident  was  quickly  forgotten.    

Leo  split  with  Donatella  shortly  afterwards  but  became  an  Australian  citizen  in  2009 . In   2008  he  released  "Don't  Wait  Until  Tomorrow"  featuring  re-workings  of  his  old  hits  but  only Down  Under.  In  2013  he  had  a  cancer  scare.  He  also  wrote  a  song  for  the  anti-fracking  campaign  in  Australia. Despite  his  rant  he  still  tours  in  the  UK, most recently  last  year  to  promote  a  new  album "Restless  Years ". It's  entertainingly  schizophrenic  in  places ; how  he  can  segue  from  the  mortally  embarrassing  "Competing  With  A  DJ"  to  the  touchingly self-aware  "How  Did  We  Get  So  Old  ?"  is  anyone's  guess. "One  Green  World "  touches  on  his  new-found  ecological  concerns  but  goes  on  far  too  long. Overall  it's  a  solid  album  and  you  get  the  feeling  that  if  say  Sting  had  recorded  it  it  would  have  got  a  bit  more  attention. As  it  is  it  was  only  a  hit  in  Australia. He's  undoubtedly  a  prat  but  as  an  artist  he  remains  somewhat  underappreciated.