20 Disco Greats / 20 Love Songs

Background

This album was a collection of cover versions, following on from their successful Sing 20 Number One Hits album released a year earlier. The songs contained were cover versions of hit songs from the UK charts spanning the years 1972 to 1981. The album was released by Warwick Records (United Kingdom) in November 1981, but failed to replicate the success of the previous one, thus ending their contract with the label. Some months later, the group commented on the album; "we recorded [the album] to keep the group together and get our faces on the TV screen where they were advertised". On the lack of new material present they said "we didn't bother to release a single or record a proper album because we knew they wouldn't make any impact". One of the musicians used on the album was Barry Upton (playing keyboards) who would the following year become a member of Brotherhood of Man, after Lee Sheriden left the band.

The album contained no single releases. The label on the 20 Disco Greats record gives the title as Dance Yourself Dizzy, while the label on 20 Love Songs gives the title as In Love. Although listed separately, the songs "Copacabana" and "I'll Go Where Your Music Takes Me" merge into each other, and have been listed as one track on subsequent compilation releases. The song "She's out of My Life" is listed as such, but is sung (by member Sandra Stevens) as "He's out of My Life". A noticeable trend on the album was the tendency to reverse the sex of the original performer. Where songs had been originally performed by males, they were performed here by the female members, such as Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" sung by Sandra and Nicky and Baccara's "Yes Sir I Can Boogie" by Martin and Lee.

Of the covers contained, the earliest was Harry Nilsson's version of "Without You", which was a No.1 hit in March 1972, while the most recent was Stevie Wonder's "Happy Birthday", which had reached No.2 in August 1981. Of the 40 tracks, 13 had been UK No.1s, while all the rest were UK top 20 hits apart from "Copacabana" and "I'll Go Where Your Music Takes Me", which reached No.42 and No.23 respectively. The album contained three songs by The Bee Gees, as well as Barbra Streisand's "Woman in Love", which was written by them. ABBA - a group Brotherhood of Man had been compared to many times during their career, were included with a cover of their song "Lay All Your Love On Me", which at the time was the group's most recent (although one of their less significant) hit.

The album was released on Vinyl and Cassette, and although has never been released on Compact Disc, many of the tracks have appeared on various compilation CDs of the group in recent years. The cover photos were taken at Tokyo Joe's night club (now defunct) in Mayfair, London. During the photo-shoot, the group were presented with gold discs of their previous album by Ian Miles, managing director of Warwick records.

Track listing

''20 Disco Greats''

''20 Love Songs''

Personnel

• Martin Lee – vocals
• Lee Sheriden – vocals
• Nicky Stevens – vocals
• Sandra Stevens – vocals
• Tony Hiller – Producer
• Colin Frechter – Arranger
• Paul Chave – Photography

References

References

1. [https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1309&dat=19820613&id=GOhLAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zo4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6781,2783520 ''New Straits Times'' "A Lightning flash in the pan?", 13 June 1982]
2. Fab Baz Sunshine TV. (2024-09-18). "Confessions Of A Pop Tart - Ep. 2 - The Pro Scandinavian Years".
3. Dutch Brotherhood of Man site. "Album Discography".
4. Official Charts. "Earliest hit ("Without You")".
5. Official Charts. "Latest hit ("Happy Birthday")".
6. "somewhere in the night {{!}} full Official Chart History {{!}} Official Charts Company".
7. "i'll go where your music takes me {{!}} full Official Chart History {{!}} Official Charts Company".
8. "abba {{!}} full Official Chart History {{!}} Official Charts Company".
9. Album sleeve information
10. "Inside the secret world of Clubs and Speakeasies {{!}} londonlaunch.com".
11. "News". Music Week.