Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know. by Dead or Alive

Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know, Dead or Alive's third album, came out on Epic in 1986 with Stock Aitken Waterman back behind the desk, and the title, borrowed from Lady Caroline Lamb's verdict on Lord Byron, fits Pete Burns like a glove. The Liverpool band, Burns out front with Steve Coy, Tim Lever and Mike Percy, stuck to their pumping Hi-NRG guns, and "Brand New Lover" and "Something in My House" hit like strobe lights.

The sessions were a scrap. The producers wanted the band edging toward house, Burns wouldn't budge or give up the songwriting, and he later said the fights made him ill, though the engineers remembered artistic quarrels more than bad blood, and one reckoned he thrived on the friction. Burns also griped that the label only released "Brand New Lover" once Bananarama scored with a "Venus" cover modelled on his band. Bob Carlos Clarke shot the cover, with Burns posed before a wall at the Château de Raray, where parts of La Belle et la Bête were filmed.

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