Naked Eyes is an English synthpop band,
best known for their first single, a cover of the Burt
Bacharach / Hal
David standard "(There's)
Always Something There to Remind Me" (Bacharach himself has cited the cover as a personal favourite).
The song reached number one in the UK
in 1964 for Sandie Shaw. Some versions of this song
(including that of Naked Eyes) has the word "(There's)" dropped from
the title.
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Contents
- 1 Career
- 2 Singles
- 3 Albums
- 4 External
links
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Career
Naked Eyes was the very first band
to make significant use of the Fairlight CMI on a pop recording. Peter
Gabriel and Kate Bush had used the sampling
synthesiser
on prior efforts, but these albums were not regarded as pop music, and the
usage had been far less than Naked Eyes would employ on their debut
effort. The debut album was produced by Tony
Mansfield and re-touched in places by Alan Tarney.
Interestingly, Mansfield's work would again be doctored by Tarney when
he produced the debut album for A-ha (Hunting
High and Low).
The group consisted of childhood friends from Bath,
England,
Pete Byrne on vocals and Rob Fisher
on keyboards. The two had formerly
played in a band called Neon with future members of Tears
for Fears and stayed together as a duo
after the group broke up. Naked Eyes is one of the few to have enjoyed
significant success outside their country of origin, notably in the U.S.,
yet remain almost unknown in their homeland.
Their second and third singles, "Promises, Promises" (which
appears in an episode of the TV series, "Knight
Rider") and "When the Lights Go Out", were also hit
singles, mainly in the U.S., as their previous track. However, their
second album,
Fuel for the Fire and the single "(What) In the Name
of Love", were not as well-received and the group broke up soon after
its release. Byrne ended up doing session
work (he is heard on Stevie Wonder's "Part-Time Lover", and
wrote
and produced "I Am the Cute One" for Mary Kate and Ashley
Olsen in 1992) while Fisher joined another duet, Climie
Fisher.
Fisher died 25 August 1999 from complications following stomach
surgery.
Byrne released a solo album, The Real Illusion
in 2001, which featured some of the last tracks he wrote with Fisher
for a proposed third Naked Eyes album.
More recently, the Naked Eyes version of "Always Something
There To Remind Me" was used in the trailers of the Vince
Vaughn/Jennifer Aniston hit comedy "The Breakup".
On July 31, 2007, Naked Eyes, featuring Byrne, released Fumbling
With The Covers, an all-new CD which consists of covers
of Bob
Dylan, The Beatles, Elvis
Costello, along with all of the Naked Eyes hits.