After many successes and a series of quarrels, lawsuits, separations and reunions much longer than the history of the group, Spandau Ballet celebrate the forty years since the signing of the first contract with a Greatest Hits consisting of a box of three CDs or double vinyl which also contains the unreleased cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer".
Everything will go on sale starting November 27th.
Their golden season lasted about ten years, more or less until 1989: then quarrels and tensions prevailed over the music: today Tony Hadley, the singer with the big voice, seems to be Tom Jones' embroiled son;
Gary Kemp, author of all the songs as well as guitarist with some acting evidence shared also with his bassist brother Martin, is the only one with a career: he plays in the superband "Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets", the project that the drummer has dedicated to Pink Floyd season with Syd Barrett.
The attempts at reunion have been various but did not last long, as on the other hand the attempt, made last year, to get back together with a replacement for Hadley, Ross William Wild, lasted the time of a tour.
But if there is a country where Spandau Ballet have never been forgotten, it is Italy.
Yet in the 1980s it seemed that the world, actually Europe, was divided in two: on one side the fans of Duran Duran and on the other those of Spandau.
This rivalry was the element that turned the New Romantic movement into a colossal business.
At the end of the 70s, the world of pop focuses on image and ambiguity: the Prince Charming, better known as Adam Ant, dictates the codes of the look Stuart Leslie Goddard.
Today few people remember him, but it is he who paved the way for the trend of the various Culture Clubs, Wham and the like.
With the advent of electronic instruments and technological advances in recording studios, the image becomes the essential element: being "cool" is much more important than knowing how to play.
The British, who from this point of view are unbeatable, as had happened with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones (everyone knows that in reality they have always been friends) and as it will then happen with Oasis and Blur, create a fierce rivalry between the Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet which were less glamorous but sounded better, so to speak.
For the fans it was a real cult, defended with adolescent fundamentalist fury.
And it didn't matter if live bands, especially Duran Duran, were embarrassing.
Music journalists who dared to write it remember it well.
At the time, in the middle of the 80s, together with the legendary colleague Paolo Zaccagnini of the "Messaggero" we cut down a concert in Rome by the Spandau Ballet.
My article was published in the "Corriere della Sera" which was flooded with letters of protest - and already, then letters of protest were written - and insults against me.
Quantitatively, it went worse for Zaccagnini who replied by publishing the following day an image of him in mugshot style (but with sunglasses): like "I'm the culprit".
As for me, I received a phone call from the then director Ugo Stille who inquired about what had happened and, fortunately, had nothing to complain.
None of those teenagers who wrote furious letters but full of hearts and fan drawings imagined that already in 1989 the Spandau story would be over and that history would have established that the derby with Duran Duran was swept by Simon Le Bon and his companions.
Spandau Ballet, especially in Italy, remain an important moment in the coming-of-age novel of a generation: an emotion that revolves around songs like "True", "Through The Barricades", "Lifeline", "Gold", "Only When You Leave "," I'll Fly For You "and that has freed itself from that aura of glossy artificiality thanks to the docu film" Soul Boys of the Western World ", which, presented a few years ago, tells the parable of a group of friends who lived a decade as a pop star and then failed to stick together after the huge success.
