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U2, "Bloody Sunday"

For "Sunday Bloody Sunday", Bono, leader of U2, pays tribute to his drummer Larry Mullen in his autobiography "Surrender".

The martial roll of drums ideally opens this piece evoking "Bloody Sunday", one of the darkest days of the Northern Irish conflict.

On Sunday, January 30, 1972, in Londonderry (locals prefer to say Derry, Londonderry being synonymous with British rule), British paratroopers opened fire on a peaceful protest by Catholic activists, killing 13 people.

Died later from another cause according to the official inquest, one injured that day is considered by families to be the 14th death on "Bloody Sunday".

This title is worth threats to the Irish group, coming "from people on both sides of the sectarian divide", mentions Bono.

But this hit, on the 3rd album "War", makes U2 above all a stadium-filling machine.

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Madonna, "who we don't see coming"

In 1983 the album "Madonna" by an unknown woman of the same name appeared, with a first hit "Holiday".

"We see this singer coming... who we don't see coming, few people imagine what she will become," Eric Jean-Jean, host of "Bonus Track", a behind-the-scenes show, told AFP. songs on RTL radio.

Madonna at the Cannes Film Festival, May 16, 1991 © Mario GOLDMAN / AFP/Archives

History is on.

"She already has the fangs, knows what she wants", summarizes the co-author of the book "60 years of pop music".

At the time, as Eric Jean-Jean said, Madonna "didn't control anything about production".

In 1984, she will choose Nile Rodgers, guitarist of Chic, to produce her second album, "Like A Virgin", that of the international explosion.

Rodgers, not chosen at random, has just produced "Let's Dance" by David Bowie.

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Bowie finally dances to the sound of success

"He was counting on me to make him sound that would appeal to as many people as possible," Rodgers says of his meeting with Bowie in a New York bar in "David Bowie: Rainbowman", a reference work by Jérôme Soligny.

With "Let's Dance", an album carried by the song of the same name, "Bowie, who had a tight audience, finds himself in the turmoil of a huge success, with early fans who blame him for becoming big public", develops Eric Jean-Jean.

David Bowie (left) during the presentation of the film "Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence" by Nagisa Oshima (right), May 11, 1983 at the Cannes Film Festival © RALPH GATTI / AFP/Archives

When Bowie first played the song "Let's Dance" for Rodgers, "strummed like that, on the acoustic guitar, it had nothing to do with a hit".

"But he was convinced it was," he recalls.

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New Order, depression and jackpot

New Order, a group born from the ashes of Joy Division after the suicide of its leader Ian Curtis, enters the charts without wanting to, unlike Bowie.

"Blue Monday", with a harsh text and a format of almost eight minutes unsuitable for radio, becomes the best-selling 45 rpm maxi in history.

"The thing is a UFO, it's electronic music from a trending new wave rock band," describes the "Bonus Track" host.

"I'm bad with the money (...) + Blue Monday + was just another nail in the coffin", retains the bassist of the group Peter Hook in his book "Substance".

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A very Gory Depeche Mode

"Everything Counts" marks a revolution at Depeche Mode.

This is the first time that Dave Gahan, the singer, takes care only of the verses, the chorus returning to Martin Gore, multi-instrumentalist.

"At the time, it was Martin Gore who made the songs and Dave Gahan who sang them", says Eric Jean-Jean.

"There, Martin Gore discovered what is called German industrial music and with this piece the new wave gets into politics, against the background of Thatcherite England, and denounces the race for permanent profit", concludes the radio host .

© 2023 AFP