Pop fashion from the 1980s isn’t the only thing making a stylish return from the New Wave era. The fashion-forward musicians who wore it first have also been staging comeback tours lately, including Duran Duran, Devo, Madonna, Orchestral Manoeuvres in The Dark, and most recently (and unexpectedly), Take On Me one-hit-wonder A-ha. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to give a returning warm welcome to British band Spandau Ballet. They were the first group to incorporate music, fashion and video, and most recently have released a documentary film all about their meteoric rise and fall, and ultimate reunion.
Now on its premiere world tour of film festivals, Soul Boys of The Western World serves as a riveting social and cultural document of the 1980s by focusing its lens on a group of London outsiders who became one of Britain’s biggest music groups, selling more than 25 million LPs and scoring 23 hit singles. From 1981 through 1989, Spandau Ballet danced their way to the top of the charts with melodic pop hits—including True, To Cut a Long Story Short, and Gold—before letting success go to their heads and imploding over clashing egos.
“It’s a three act story—I don’t think you could have written a better script for a band bio,” says Gary Kemp, Spandau Ballet’s guitarist and chief songwriter. “It’s a rags-to-riches story of a deep friendship riding [its] way through a decade of changes. We came from a really interesting movement in youth culture which was very much the next big thing after punk, but inspired a lot by glam rock and soul. And then we ended up falling out rather badly.”
With perfectly coiffed hair, pretty boy pouts, and stage costumes that mixed and matched elements from gangster, pirate and Robin Hood fantasies, Spandau Ballet were style trendsetters positioned at the apex of the New Romantics movement alongside fellow pop dandies Duran Duran, Adam and The Ants, Culture Club, and Ultravox. Directed by George Hencken, Soul Boys of The Western World is a highly-visual, brutally-honest story told though vintage clips and then-and-now commentary from the band members, namely Tony Hadley, John Keeble, Gary Kemp, Martin Kemp, and Steve Norman.
Spandau Ballet may no longer be a household name—though Gary and Martin Kemp continue to make names for themselves as actors in projects like EastEnders and Whitney Houston’s The Bodyguard, but Soul Boys does a fine job reminding us why they mattered. If nothing less, it will certainly get you to brush off those old records or inspire you to check them out for the first time on Spotify.
