LYRICS

 Release date: 1983 

"No Easy Way Out" climbed into the Top 40, reaching #22 on Billboard's Hot 100 in 1986, and momentarily putting Tepper in the public eye. Several European labels, including Ministry of Sound, released "No Easy Way Out" with their own dance versions, resulting in regular airplay on German radio stations that continues today (in particular evening dance and party programming in Munich featured on Charivari 95.5 and Radio Gong 96.3).

Born in Bayonne, New Jersey, Tepper moved to New York where he became a staff writer. He paired up with fellow singer Benny Mardones, and together they wrote Mardones' hit ballad "Into the Night," which earned them a Grammy Awards nomination.

 Album: The Best of Rocky Balboa

Lyrics

Release date: 1995 

Take That first sang this song at the 1995 Brit Awards, and it created such a stir that its release date was brought forward and the song was made available to radio stations 6 weeks before its release. This won the 1996 BRIT Award for Best Single and two Ivor Novello Awards.

It sold 350,000 copies in the UK in its first week of release, the highest amount in 10 years, and became Take That's biggest UK seller, selling 959,582 copies. It also hit #1 in many countries abroad and was Take That's only US Top 40 hit.

Album: Nobody Else

Release date: 1994 

Richard Curtis approached Wet Wet Wet about recording a cover song to soundtrack his film Four Weddings and a Funeral. The band got to pick between three choices of songs, the other two being "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor and "Can't Smile Without You" by Barry Manilow. Singer Marti Pellow related that the decision to pick "Love is All Around" was an easy choice "because we knew we could make it our own".

The song spent a further 22 weeks in the UK Top 75. It has sold 1.88 million copies in the United Kingdom, making it the country's best-selling love ballad of all time.

Album: Picture This

Release date: 1987 

It is one of The Blow Monkeys best known singles, and hit the top 5 on the UK Singles Chart. The song was featured in the 1987 comedy film Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol.

The Blow Monkeys are a British new wave/sophisti-pop band that formed in 1981. They subsequently enjoyed a successful career with several hit singles and albums across the 1980s before splitting up at the beginning of the 1990s.

Album: She Was Only a Grocer's Daughter

Release date: 1984 

The idea for the song came from longtime Duran Duran video director Russell Mulcahy, who wanted to make a full-length feature film based on the surreal and sexual 1971 novel The Wild Boys: A Book Of The Dead by William S. Burroughs. He suggested that the band might create a modern soundtrack for the film. The band wrote the song for the movie, which was never made.

In the book, packs of adolescent humanoids ravage the civilized nations of the Earth. When wholesale slaughter erupts, the battle continues underground where the survivors evolve into The Wild Boys.

Album: Arena

Release date: 1984 

It was released as the album's lead single in the UK on February 25, 1984 and became the group's highest-charting hit to-date on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number-six.

Lyrically, "Your Love is King" describes a love that is so deep and beautiful that the narrator can not get enough and said love comes before all else in life, as exemplified by the lyrics "touching the very part of me/it's making my soul sing/I'm crying out for more/your love is king."

Album: Diamond Life

Release date: 1997 

"The Real Thing" is a song written by Stansfield and Ian Devaney and produced by Devaney and Peter Mokran, received positive reviews from music critics who noted that Stansfield "belts her heart out in a voice that's smooth and pliant."

It reached number four in Italy and number nine on the UK Singles Chart. In August 1997, it was featured on the Money Talks soundtrack. Later, it was included on The Remix Album (1998) and Biography: The Greatest Hits (2003).

Album: Lisa Stansfield