Go West

Were another succesful pop duo in the 1980s leading into the early 1990s. The lads Peter Cox and Richard Drummie hailed from the London region.

The success of the band was the vocal talents of Peter Cox. He had the old fashioned soul voice and he could sing with a rasping sound or a more tender elegance on more of the ballad songs. There were many in the UK who tried to convey the soul sound with a hint of pop and rock with George Michael and Mick Hucknall to name but a few.

Cox and Drummie set up the band and for two years they perfected there craft before they landed a deal with Chrysalis records and set about recording a album under the stewardship of producer Gary Stevenson. The album was heavilly dominated by synthesisers and sequenced drums and the self titled album was what was going on in the mid eighties. The album saw the release of there first single 'we close our eyes' reach number 5 in the single charts in 1985 and the album also reached the top 5 a month later. The year got more succesful when the follow up singles 'call me', 'don't look down' and the ballad 'goodbye girl' all reach the top 30 in the UK single charts.

The studio success saw the duo take the show on the road late in 1985 with the 'bangs and crashes' tour and earned good reviews from publications such as NME despite there strong teen pop appeal. In 1986 the success continued with a BRIT award for best newcomer and the release of 'bangs and crashes' which featured live recordings, 12 inch singles and a new song 'one way street' which featured on the Rocky IV soundtrack.

They set to work on the next album 'dancing on the couch' but were beset with production problems and missed the original release date, eventually the album was released but it's reaction was lukewarm. The album lyrics showed the band were developing by talking about emotions and politics however, the sound was more downbeat and therefore the teen following were lost.

They released further singles with 'true colours' a familar sounding eighties pop tune but the next release ' I want to hear it from you' had a more rock edge to it with the help of Alan Murphy guitar who was the unoffical third member (he had worked with Kate Bush, Level 42 and Mike and the mechanics). another single was released 'The king is dead' which featured Kate bush on backing and the change in direction saw the band enter the cocktail lounge music with a more jazz sound backed with a piano and Cox soulful sound.

The band went quiet for the rest of the decade and it wasn't until the release of 'king of wishful thinking' for the Hollywood blockbuster Pretty Woman that bought the band back into the mainstream. The duo released two studi albums in the 1980s which both hit the top 20 and 11 singles of which only one hit the top 10, that was 'we close our eyes' which peaked at number 5 in 1985.
 
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