“Candybar Express” by Love and Money

"Candybar Express" was Scottish band Love and Money's first single, out in 1986 as the opening taste of their debut album All You Need Is..., with James Grant as sole writer and Duran Duran's Andy Taylor behind the desk. Grant wrote it on the road with his old band Friends Again, aiming for something in the vein of Wham!'s 1982 hit "Young Guns (Go for It)", only more cynical. A 1985 recording was among the demos that won the band a deal with Phonogram's Mercury, and Taylor heard it and insisted on producing a new version.

It stalled at 56 in the UK but made number 10 on Billboard's dance club chart. Grant soon turned on it, saying it and the rest of the album fell short of what he could write, and in 1993 he called it "a joke that backfired".

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