Kajagoogoo were a British pop band best known for their first single, "Too Shy", which reached number one in the UK Singles Chart and number five in the U.S Billboard Hot 100 in 1983. The single was produced by keyboardist Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran and Colin Thurston who was, at the time, Duran Duran's in-house producer.

The band was founded in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, in 1979 as a four piece avant-garde instrumental group called Art Nouveau, with Nick Beggs on bass guitar, Steve Askew on lead guitar, Stuart Croxford Neale on keyboards and Jez Strode on drums. Art Nouveau released a track called "The Fear Machine". The single sold a few hundred copies, and was played on the John Peel show, but the band could not get a record deal.

In 1981, they advertised for and auditioned lead singers, and finally chose Christopher Hamill. He made his profile, and therefore that of the band, catchier by using an anagram of his surname for his stage name, becoming Limahl. The name of the band was then changed to Kajagoogoo. Writing out the phonetics of a baby's first sounds gave them "GagaGooGoo". With a little bit of "casual" alteration it became Kajagoogoo.

The band attracted the interest of three record labels (and Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes) while performing at the Embassy Club in London. The band was signed to EMI in July of 1982, and Rhodes was signed to produce their first album, White Feathers. In between they supported Birmingham New Romantic band Fashion on tour. The debut single "Too Shy" was released in January of 1983 and went to the top of the charts (before any of Duran Duran's singles had done so, Rhodes noted ruefully). Follow-up releases "Ooh to Be Aah" and "Hang on Now" both reached the UK top twenty as well.

As success came, tensions began to rise in the band which eventually culminated in Limahl being fired by the other bandmembers in 1983, with Beggs then taking over as lead-singer. The first single by the new four-piece Kajagoogoo was "Big Apple" which made the Top Ten in late 1983. Their next single, "The Lion's Mouth", made the Top 30, but then the hits dried up completely and the subsequent new album "Islands" was a commercial failure peaking at only #35 in the UK. Strode then left the band, and in an attempt to gain some credibility and lose their bubblegum image, the remaining three members relaunched as Kaja in 1985. This version of Kajagoogoo was a failure, and the band went their separate ways in 1986.

Similarly, Limahl enjoyed a briefly successful solo career, scoring a Top 20 hit with "Only for Love", and then a Top 5 hit with the Giorgio Moroder-produced "NeverEnding Story," the title track to the hit film of the same name in 1984. Limahl continued to record, working with producers Tim Palmer and De Harris. The result was his debut album Don't Suppose... released in 1984, but the album was a commercial failure, charting even lower than Kajagoogoo's "Islands" album the same year. It was later released in the U.S. in 1985 (with "NeverEnding Story" appended as a selling point). He then resumed his collaboration with Moroder, resulting in the 1986 LP Colour All My Days, his final project for EMI, but success eluded him. His last album, 1992's Love Is Blind, was released only in Germany on the Bellaphon label, and featured an updated take on their seminal hit, "Too Shy `92." [1]. Like the Kajagoogoo albums made after his leaving, none of Limahl's solo albums have been commercially successful in the UK. The band briefly joined forces again on VH1's Bands Reunited (26 January 2004, Season 1, Episode 6).

Following the VH1 reunion, the band had offers to continue to play in this line-up but there were still too many disagreements between band-members to make this possible. The band felt that the VH1 feature was unfairly editied to portray simplified reasons as to Limahl's departure and complained that it also suggested the band remained together in the "fairy tale" ending.

In 2007 Nick Beggs, Steve Askew and Stuart Neale continue to play together as Kajagoogoo and a new album is about to be released.

June 24th 2007 saw the release of 'Rocket Boy' the first KajaGooGoo single in 22 years. The single has received airplay on Steve Wrights Radio 2 show in the UK.

Discography

Studio albums

• 1983 White Feathers - #5 UK, #38 U.S.
• 1984 Islands - #35 UK (U.S. title Extra Play, as Kaja) - #185 U.S.
• 1985 Crazy People's Right to Speak (released as Kaja)

Compilations

• 1993 Too Shy: The Singles and More
• 1996 The Best of Kajagoogoo & Limahl
• 1996 The Very Best of Kajagoogoo
• 2003 Very Best of Kajagoogoo

Singles

• 1983 "Too Shy" - #1 UK, #5 U.S.
• 1983 "Ooh to Be Ah" - #7 UK
• 1983 "Hang on Now" - #13 UK, #78 U.S.
• 1983 "Big Apple" #8 UK
• 1984 "The Lion's Mouth" - #25 UK
• 1984 "Turn Your Back On Me" - #47 UK
• 1985 "Shouldn't Do That" (as Kaja) - #63 UK
• 2007 "Rocket Boy"

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