Fight for Ourselves

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"Fight for Ourselves"
Single by Spandau Ballet
from the album Through the Barricades
B-side"Fight… The Heartache"
Released14 July 1986
RecordedWinter 1986
StudioMusicland (Munich, West Germany)
Length
  • 4:19 (single/album version)
  • 7:30 (extended remix)
LabelCBS
Songwriter(s)Gary Kemp
Producer(s)
Spandau Ballet singles chronology
"Round and Round"
(1984) 		"Fight for Ourselves"
(1986) 		"Through the Barricades"
(1986)

"Fight for Ourselves" is a song by English new wave band Spandau Ballet, released as the first single from their 1986 album Through the Barricades. In their native UK, the song reached number 15 on the UK Singles Chart, and reviews were mostly negative.

Background[edit]

As Spandau Ballet was touring to promote their 1983 album True, they noticed an improvement in how they were performing together and wanted to capture the chemistry of their live shows on their next studio album.[1][a] They attempted this shift with True co-producers Tony Swain and Steve Jolley on their 1984 album Parade, but the band's songwriter/guitarist Gary Kemp was unsatisfied with the result: "I think we were a bit afraid of making a big jump after True. The trouble was that Parade the record wasn't like we did it live. People went home and were disappointed by the record." He explained, "We're a rock band now."[2]

The band decided to change producers since they did not feel Swain and Jolley could help them attain the sound they were after.[3][b] They chose to try out Gary Langan, a recording engineer they met while working with Trevor Horn,[3][c] in the role of co-producer of one song for their Parade follow-up to see if they worked well together before committing to an entire album with him in that capacity.[3][d] The song they chose for their test run was originally titled "Everybody (We've Got to Fight for Ourselves)".[4] They recorded what became known as "Fight for Ourselves" in the winter of 1986[5][e] at Musicland Studios[6] in Munich and decided to keep Langan on as co-producer for the entire album.[5]

Release and commercial performance[edit]

"Fight for Ourselves" was released in the UK on 14 July 1986[7] and peaked at number 15 on the UK Singles Chart, making it their first lead single from any album not to make the top 10 there.[8] It also got as high as number 5 in Italy,[9] number 7 in Ireland,[10] number 10 on the European Hot 100,[11] number 11 in Spain,[12] number 16 in Australia[13] and the Netherlands,[14] number 20 in Belgium,[15] number 23 in Switzerland,[16] number 32 in West Germany[17] and number 33 in New Zealand.[18] Lead singer Tony Hadley wrote in his 2004 autobiography To Cut a Long Story Short that the mostly unimpressive numbers "hardly squared with our hopes of global success".[19]

Critical reception[edit]

Most reviews of the song upon its release were negative. As a guest critic for Smash Hits magazine, singer and Parade cover model Samantha Fox opined that it was not very good.[20] Stuart Bailie of Record Mirror described it as "crummy", explaining, "There's a mid-tempo ordinariness about the whole thing, with Steve Norman playing that same old sax solo and a very indifferent vocal from Tony Hadley."[21] Roy Wilkinson of Sounds summed up the song as "absurdly paranoiac".[22] Number One's Andrew Panos, however, called "Fight" a "knockout". He thought its chorus was reminiscent of "Chant No. 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)" and liked Kemp's "funky guitar picking", Norman's "sexy sax work" and Hadley's "restrained" vocals.[23]

In a retrospective review of the Through the Barricades album, Dan LeRoy of AllMusic wrote, "Most of the tunes demand guitar and drum bombast; instead, the riff-rocking 'Cross the Line' and 'Fight for Ourselves', in particular, are undercut by the polite-sounding rhythm section."[24]

Music video[edit]

The story line for the music video involves two young women (one of whom is played by Paul Young's then-girlfriend Stacey Smith)[4] who sneak into a Spandau Ballet concert and use their power to make themselves invisible in order to make out with band members during the performance of the song. Chroma key was used for the disappearing and reappearing sequences. The video was directed by Simon Milne.[25] Concert venue exteriors were shot at 43 King Street, Covent Garden, London.

Track listings[edit]

Charts[edit]

Weekly chart performance for "Fight for Ourselves"
Chart (1986–1987) Peak
position
Australia (Kent Music Report)[13] 16
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders)[15] 20
Europe (European Hot 100 Singles)[11] 10
Ireland (IRMA)[10] 7
Italy (Musica e dischi)[9] 5
Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)[28] 16
Netherlands (Single Top 100)[14] 18
New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ)[18] 33
Spain (AFYVE)[12] 11
Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade)[16] 23
UK Singles (OCC)[8] 15
West Germany (Official German Charts)[17] 32

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ "While we were on tour last year we really gelled together as a unit,… and we wanted to get some of that feeling into this LP. True was very different live from on record. With this LP we didn't want to have such a large gap."
  2. ^ "We wanted to move on from Swain and Jolley, we wanted a bigger, meatier sound, one more suitable to the arenas we were now playing."
  3. ^ "An engineer cum co-producer was what we were after and Gary Langan was our first choice. He'd been Trevor's engineer for years and had worked with us on the fateful Pleasure Project."
  4. ^ "We would go back to Munich and record one track to see how things went. If it worked, we’d take on the album with him."
  5. ^ "Working in Germany in the wintery new year of 1986, we got off to a great start with the song 'Fight For Ourselves' and rubber-stamped Langan through into continuing the co-production of the whole album with us."

References[edit]

  1. ^ Rimmer, Dave (7–20 June 1984). "Five Go Mad in Musikland". Smash Hits. No. 144. p. 8.
  2. ^ Simper, Paul (20 December 1986). "Glow for Gold". Number One. No. 183–184. p. 41. Retrieved 9 July 2023.
  3. ^ a b c Kemp 2009, p. 238
  4. ^ a b "Mutterings". Smash Hits. No. 188. 12–25 February 1986. p. 54. Retrieved 21 June 2023.
  5. ^ a b Kemp 2009, p. 242
  6. ^ Through the Barricades (record sleeve). Spandau Ballet. CBS Records International. 1986. CBS 450259 1.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  7. ^ "Spandau CBS debut set" (PDF). Music Week. 12 July 1986. p. 3. Retrieved 30 June 2023.
  8. ^ a b "Spandau Ballet: Artist Chart History". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 4 June 2023.
  9. ^ a b "Classifiche". Musica e dischi (in Italian). Retrieved 4 June 2023. Select "Singoli" in the "Tipo" field, type "Fight for Ourselves" in the "Titolo" field and press "cerca".
  10. ^ a b "The Irish Charts – Search Results – Spandau Ballet". Irish Singles Chart. Retrieved 4 June 2023.
  11. ^ a b "European Hot 100 Singles" (PDF). Music & Media. Vol. 3, no. 33. 23 August 1986. p. 16. OCLC 29800226. Retrieved 4 June 2023 – via World Radio History.
  12. ^ a b Salaverrie, Fernando (September 2005). Sólo éxitos: año a año, 1959–2002 (in Spanish) (1st ed.). Madrid: Fundación Autor/SGAE. ISBN 84-8048-639-2.
  13. ^ a b Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 286. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
  14. ^ a b "Spandau Ballet – Fight for Ourselves" (in Dutch). Single Top 100. Retrieved 4 June 2023.
  15. ^ a b "Spandau Ballet – Fight for Ourselves" (in Dutch). Ultratop 50. Retrieved 2 June 2023.
  16. ^ a b "Spandau Ballet – Fight For Ourselves". Swiss Singles Chart. Retrieved 4 June 2023.
  17. ^ a b "Offiziellecharts.de – Spandau Ballet – Fight for Ourselves" (in German). GfK Entertainment charts. Retrieved 2 June 2023.
  18. ^ a b "Spandau Ballet – Fight for Ourselves". Top 40 Singles. Retrieved 4 June 2023.
  19. ^ Hadley 2004, p. 188
  20. ^ Fox, Samantha (16–29 July 1986). "Spandau Ballet: Fight for Ourselves". Smash Hits. No. 199. p. 61. Retrieved 30 June 2023.
  21. ^ Stuart Bailie (19 July 1986). "Spandau Ballet: Fight for Ourselves". Record Mirror. Vol. 33, no. 29. p. 11. Retrieved 30 June 2023.
  22. ^ Wilkinson, Roy (20 December 1986). "The Chart Challenge" (PDF). Sounds.
  23. ^ Andrew Panos (19 July 1986). "Spandau Ballet: Fight for Ourselves". Number One. No. 161. p. 38. Retrieved 2 July 2023.
  24. ^ LeRoy, Dan. "Spandau Ballet: Through the Barricades". AllMusic. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  25. ^ "Spandau Ballet – The Making Of… Fight for Ourselves". YouTube. Spandau Ballet. 1986. Archived from the original on 26 July 2023. Retrieved 26 July 2023.
  26. ^ Fight for Ourselves (7-inch single liner notes). Spandau Ballet. CBS. 1986. A7264.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  27. ^ Fight for Ourselves (12-inch single liner notes). Spandau Ballet. CBS. 1986. TA7264.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  28. ^ "Nederlandse Top 40 – week 32, 1986" (in Dutch). Dutch Top 40. Retrieved 4 June 2023.

Bibliography[edit]

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