#foolish beat

Apparently, this:

Debbie Gibson’s ‘Foolish Beat’ (1987) and Sisters Of Mercy’s ‘Dominion’ (1988) were both inspired by 1984′s ‘Careless Whisper’ by Wham! - which was strangely credited only to George Michael when released in the UK, despite being one of the few songs cowritten with Andrew Ridgeley.

Safe to say they both went in very different directions!

Brooklyn/Long Island Debbie’s song story centres on love and trust lost (same as Wham!).

Despite being a massive fan of Brooklyn’s lyrical snarkster Billy Joel, her song topics were pretty Sweet Valley High - although the Pixies were major fans for some reason.

Leeds/Hamburg’s Andrew Eldritch song by contrast, which started off around the same premise, instead chose to swirl around Percy Shelley’s brilliant sonnet Ozymandias - juxtaposed against a world making the same mistakes political, social and economic mistakes as the ancients which caused their ruin.

The Sisters of Mercy song is sometimes done as a medley - some would say a ‘worked example’ - with ‘Mother Russia’ (about the global effect of the Chernobyl disaster) - not in the music video however, despite the video’s labelling, it’s just the extended version of ‘Dominion’ mixed with the instrumental track, ‘Sandstorm’.