True by Spandau Ballet

True, Spandau Ballet's third album, came out on Chrysalis on 4 March 1983, and it's the sound of the old Blitz Kids house band swapping the dancefloor for the velvet lounge. Gary Kemp, the guitarist who wrote their songs, had worked out that the club crowd they started out chasing had drifted away once the band moved from dance music toward pop, so he quit writing for them and steeped himself in Marvin Gaye and Al Green. Steve Norman's fresh obsession with the saxophone suited the plan, and so did cutting most of it at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas. After a false start with Trevor Horn, the band produced it alongside Tony Swain and Steve Jolley.

It paid off handsomely. "Lifeline" went top ten in Britain, "Communication" kept it rolling, "Gold" reached number two, and Tony Hadley's silky croon on the title track held the UK top spot for four weeks and took them to number four in America, their first Hot 100 hit. The album went to number one at home.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.