page_title: Music of the United Kingdom (1980s)
section_title: Hi-NRG
hierarchical_section_title: Music of the United Kingdom (1980s) / Pop / Hi-NRG
caption_attribution_description: Bananarama, Audley End, Essex, 28/07/07.
context_page_description: Popular music of the United Kingdom in the 1980s built on the post-punk and new wave movements, incorporating different sources of inspiration from subgenres and what is now classed as world music in the shape of Jamaican and Indian music. It also explored the consequences of new technology and social change in the electronic music of synthpop. In the early years of the decade, while subgenres like heavy metal music continued to develop separately, there was a considerable crossover between rock and more commercial popular music, with a large number of more "serious" bands, like The Police and UB40, enjoying considerable single chart success. The advent of MTV and cable video helped spur what has been seen as a Second British Invasion in the early years of the decade, with British bands enjoying more success in America than they had since the height of the Beatles' popularity in the 1960s. However, by the end of the decade a fragmentation has been observed, with many new forms of music and sub-cultures, including hip hop and house music, while the single charts were once again dominated by pop artists, now often associated with the Hi-NRG hit factory of Stock Aitken Waterman.
context_section_description: Hi-NRG ("high energy") is high-tempo disco music (often with electronic instrumentation), as well as a more specific, derivative genre of electronic dance music that achieved mainstream popularity in the mid to late 1980s. In the early 1980s hi energy disco had become popular in the gay scene of American cities like New York and San Francisco with acts like Divine, and The Weather Girls. In 1983 in the UK, music magazine Record Mirror championed the gay underground sound and began publishing a weekly Hi-NRG Chart. Hi-NRG also entered the mainstream with hits in the UK pop charts, such as Hazell Dean's "Searchin' (I Gotta Find a Man)" and Evelyn Thomas's "High Energy". In the mid-1980s, Hi-NRG producers in the dance and pop charts included Ian Levine and trio Stock Aitken Waterman, both of whom worked with many different artists. Stock Aitken Waterman had three of the most successful Hi-NRG singles ever with their productions of Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" (UK No. 1 & US No. 11 in 1985), Bananarama's "Venus" (US No. 1 & UK No. 8 in 1986), and Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" (UK No. 1 & US No. 1 in 1987). Their artists dominated British pop music and the charts in the late 1980s, including Bananarama, Rick Astley and Australian actress Kylie Minogue.
caption: The reformed Bananarama on stage in 2007.
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