1959 – Corinne Drewery, British singer (Swing Out Sister)
Song Review by Stewart Mason
[Bio & Info © allmusic.com]
Swing Out Sister’s 1986 single “Breakout” (it didn’t become a US hit until the belated release of the UK trio’s debut album, It’s Better To Travel, in late 1987) is one of the most intoxicating pure-pop tunes of its era. A sophisticated and richly-arranged dance pop groove far removed from keyboardist Andy Connell and drummer Martin Jackson’s former groups A Certain Ratio and Magazine, “Breakout” has the near-symphonic glamour of one of Petula Clark’s classic Tony Hatch singles of the mid-’60s married to an up-to-the-minute electronic gloss that, thanks to the judicious use of real strings and horns, doesn’t sound nearly as dated as, say, Bananarama’s hit singles from the same year. Corrine Drewery’s warmly appealing vocals (she sounds like a somewhat less mannered Tracey Thorn) and sweetly optimistic lyrics are at the song’s center, and combined with an inventive hand-colored video that extensively featured Drewery’s idiosyncratic beauty, with a jet-black pixie haircut and bright red lipstick framing the widest mouth in pop music this side of Liza Minnelli, gave Swing Out Sister an enormous American chart hit that they, unfortunately, never quite followed up.
