Monday, April 21, 2008

New Shoes Or Nu Shooz?


Nu Shooz were the husband and wife recording team of John Smith and Valerie Day. Smith handled the songwriting whilst Day was the face and voice of Nu Shooz. Originating in Portland, Oregon, they had been performing since 1980, but it took until 1986 for them to breakthrough on a grand scale.

'I Can't Wait' was a catchy little tune accompanied by a very clever video clip (it reminded me a lot of the clip for Peter Gabriel's 'Sledgehammer' with ingenius use of stop motion video effects). The song found its feet at #3 on the mainstream U.S. Billboard chart, #2 in the U.K. and #11 in Australia. But Nu Shooz soon wore out their welcome on the charts and their follow up 'Point Of No Return' reached a turning back point at #28 on the U.S. charts. They would grace the singles charts once more in 1988 with 'Should I Say Yes?' peaking at #41.


It would be 20 years until Nu Shooz stepped out once more with an album release, with 2007's 'Then And Now' and combination of old and new material.


It's not often that a music video impresses me more than the song itself, but 'I Can't Wait' is an exception:

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