“Snobbery And Decay” by Act

"Snobbery and Decay" was Act's opening shot, a debut single ZTT spread across a stack of formats on May 5, 1987. Claudia Brücken has said the concept grew out of the TV show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and she wanted a duet to introduce her and Thomas Leer, so the pair play two characters picking over that gilded world, with an orchestral arrangement by David Bedford.

The remixes piled up: the 12-inch "That's Entertainment!" version drops in Liza Minnelli's dialogue from the film Cabaret and then Joan Rivers. The 12-inch and cassette also added a cover of "I'd Be Surprisingly Good for You" from Evita, picked, Leer said, because neither of them could stand Andrew Lloyd Webber. It stalled at 60 in the UK and resurfaced seven weeks later on Laughter, Tears and Rage, the only album Act made.

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