Dead or Alive: Rip It Up, 1987 / Rip It Up Live in Japan, 1988

Celebrating the peak era of Dead or Alive

How is it that a remix album is the truest representation of Dead or Alive?

But yet it is. As great as they were in their peak era, Rip It Up is a no-fat, all-meat feast of eight Dead of Alive singles from their two previous albums Youthquake and Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know, mixed together as a cohesive record. Despite their beginnings in the punk, post-punk, and goth worlds, Pete Burns and his band of merry men were really a pop/dance group; Burns would lean into that in the ‘90s and ‘00s, releasing endless remixes, often of older material. So it makes sense that to mix all of their Stock Aitken & Waterman-produced singles into one whole would make for a splendid listening experience — and it does. I wore out a dubbed cassette of Rip It Up as a teenager, and in some cases, the versions on here are still my preferred versions, cf. “I’ll Save You All My Kisses.”

And then, of course — and if you don’t already know, strap in — there’s the Rip It Up Live in Japan video. Combining a pair of Japanese concerts in a marvel of seamless editing (long before Beyoncé’s Homecoming), this is a giddy, glorious celebration of Dead or Alive, and especially Pete Burns. The entire band appears to be miming a la Top of the Pops — Burns is definitely lip-syncing whilst posing, dancing, and cavorting with a pair of lean, muscled dancers, occasionally all 3 of them thonged — and you won’t care a bit. This music is so good, and Burns so wildly charismatic, that it doesn’t matter. Dead or Alive weren’t a band made for live performance anyway; their peaks were always in the studio. Hearing propulsive SAW tracks with Burns singing atop them with, and this is crucial, guitar solos (many of their records featured them), was and continues to be special. And the songs are so good: not just “You Spin Me Round,” obviously, but “Something in My House,” “In Too Deep,” “Brand New Lover,” all impeccable pop. It will also always delight me that as the encore to these two Japanese shows, they did “Kisses,” which they’d already performed earlier in the set. That’s chutzpah, that’s knowing how good you are. And that was Dead or Alive in 1987. Glory in them; this is capital-e Entertain(t)ment.

We miss you, Pete.