Tuesday 23 July 2013

Berlin 'Take My Breath Away'

Chart Peak: 1

YouTube
Charted on 21st October 1986 at No. 37, had flown to No. 1 by 4th November. It stayed at the top throughout the month and was still in the British Top 50 in late January 1987. The song was the love theme from the hit movie Top Gun.
When people talk about Giorgio Moroder, it's fair to say that this isn't usually the first song they mention, but he did indeed produce the track, and co-write it with his car mechanic Tom Whitlock. It must be one of his biggest sellers. I suppose the slow, reverberation synthesised bass line does hark back to his days as an innovator of electronic music, but it's somewhat concealed by the washes of fake-string pads and Terri Nunn's vocal, which expresses the sort of emotion that only exists in Eighties power ballads. I'm not sure whether any of the other members of Berlin even contributed to this track, but by the end of 1987 they'd split due to disagreements over their direction; other members apparently thought they were a serious New Wave band and didn't want to carry on in this direction. A Simple Minds-like breakthrough was not to be for them.

Nunn eventually took ownership of the name and tours with a version of the band to this day. According to their website they play the Mid-California State Fair on Thursday, and a new album is in the shops in September. I did actually like this when I was a kid (too young to see the film of course) but I think it was mainly for the squelchy noises. It's aged better than Mental As Anything, I'll give it that.

Available on: Top Gun - Motion Picture Soundtrack (Special Expanded Edition)

No comments:

Post a Comment