Chart entered : 17 November 1990
Chart peak : 40
The Britfunk trio had plugged away under the radar without looking likely to top their early peak of number 13, achieved by "Hanging On A String" in 1985. Latterly, there had been more misses than hits and composer Steve Nichol and singer Jane Eugene quit in 1989 leaving singer Carl McIntosh with the name. He recruited two new singers Linda Carriere , who'd previously written a few songs for Shalamar, and Sunay Suleyman and carried on. It looked quixotic since Steve had handled most of the musical chores but, like Phil Oakey. Carl defied expectations. The first single with the new line up "Don't Be A Fool" equalled the chart peak of "Hanging On A String" and became their second hit in the US. The parent album "Look How Long" made the UK Top 20 ; its predecessor had fallen well short .
"Love's Got Me" was the second single from the album. Like most R & B of the time, it utilises a Soul II Soul shuffle beat. Apart from a constant keyboard motif that reminds me of Talking Heads' Once In A Lifetime that 's about it for the instrumentation. Carl does a loose jazzy vocal in falsetto which the girls anchor with incessant repetition of the title. It's further proof of continued musical competence ( although two writers outside the band are credited ) but has little to attract the casual listener.
They released two more singles from the album. "Cheap Talk" has a slinky groove and a decent chorus. "Time Is Ticking" has the girls taking the lead and is very Soul II Soul. Both sound like more commercial propositions than "Love's Got Me " and might have outperformed it if chosen as the next single. As it was neither made the chart.
In 1992 a re-mix of "Hangin' On A String" by Frankie Knuckles got to number 25. It was followed by a renix of "Magic Touch" which scraped a week at 75, their last chart entry. That same year Linda quit the band .and was replaced by Laurnea Wilkerson.The new line up managed one last single "My Way" in 1993 which boasts some impressive singing but no hooks with which to break out of the clubs.
They then disbanded. The original line up reconvened in 1998, to appear in a video for Pete Rock's single "Take Your Time" which heavily sampled their song of the same name, and for a couple of appearances in the US in 2006 but since then Steve and Carl have been at loggerheads.
Steve and Jane relocated to LA after leaving the band. Steve has written songs for Big Daddy Kane, New Edition, Rakim, Michael Jackson and Mariah Carey. Jane tours her own version of Loose Ends in the US with occasional guest appearances from Steve. Carl has remained in the UK and worked as a producer in the nineties for Kwesi, Caron Wheeler , Beverley Knight and the first Sugababes singles, He was credited on a single by Avani "Watching You" which samples Loose Ends's 1988 single of the same name. He currently tours in the UK with his own version of Loose Ends.
Linda relocated to Germany where she established a solo career starting with a collaboration with the production outfit Sweep on a trance version of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" in 1993. In 1994 she released the self-written "Is This Life", a decent Eurodance effort. She also released a credible version of Tim Hardin's "How Can We Hang On To A Dream" in 2000 and "The Letter", a very good moody synth-pop number. I don't know if any of them were big hits in Germany but she had enough standing to be a support act for visiting megastars including Elton John, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion and Michael Jackson. In 2002 she tried to be Germany's representative in the Eurovision Song Contest with her dreary aspirational hymn " Higher Ground" but didn't get the nod. She doesn't seem to have been musically active in the last decade.
Sunay helped write Shara Nelson's 1994 hit "Nobody" but other than that I couldn't tell you what she's been up to.
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