Fun Boy Three Explained

Fun Boy Three
Background:group_or_band
Origin:United Kingdom
Years Active:
Label:Chrysalis
Spinoff Of:The Specials

Fun Boy Three were an English new wave pop[1] band, active from 1981 to 1983 and formed by singers Terry Hall, Neville Staple and Lynval Golding after they left the Specials. They released two albums and had seven UK top 20 hits.

History

Fun Boy Three reduced the ska sound that they and Jerry Dammers had crafted with great success with the Specials and initially took a more minimal approach with the focus on percussion and vocals.[2] For their second album they assembled a six-piece backing group including a cellist and a trombone player, allowing the record to feature more diverse and expansive arrangements, and also enabling them to play live instead of being a purely studio group as previously. The band enjoyed six UK top 20 singles, starting with "The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Asylum)" and including the top 10 hits "It Ain't What You Do (It's the Way That You Do It)", "Tunnel of Love" and "Our Lips Are Sealed".[3] They created two albums of which the eponymous debut was the more successful. The follow-up album Waiting, produced by David Byrne, was well-received critically.[4] [5] [6]

Following the trio's last UK hit "Our Lips Are Sealed", co-written by Terry Hall and Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go's, who had a U.S. hit with the song a year earlier, they then toured the United States and split afterwards.

They were credited with helping launch the career in 1982 of Bananarama, whom Hall first saw in The Face magazine. The three women provided credited chorus vocals on the hit "It Ain't What You Do (It's the Way That You Do It)"; the Fun Boy Three later sang on the Bananarama song "Really Saying Something", both reaching the top 5 in the UK.

Discography

Artist:Fun Boy Three
Studio:2
Live:1
Compilation:3
Singles:9

Studio albums

Title!rowspan="2"
DetailsChart positionsCertifications
(sales thresholds)
UK
[7] [8]
AUS
[9]
NL
[10]
NZ
[11]
US
The Fun Boy Three 7841017

Gold[12]

Waiting
  • Released: February 1983
  • Label: Chrysalis
144711104
"–" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released in that territory.

Live albums

List of live albums, with selected details! Title! Details
Live on the Test
  • Released: 1994
  • Format: CD
  • Label: Windsong International
  • Note recorded 1983

Compilation albums

List of compilation albums, with selected details! Title! Details
The Best of Fun Boy Three
  • Released: 1984
  • Format: LP, CS
  • Label: Chrysalis
Really Saying Something: The Best of Fun Boy
  • Released: 1997
  • Format: CD
  • Label: Chrysalis
The Complete Fun Boy Three
  • Released: 4 August 2023
  • Format: 5×CD + DVD
  • Label: Chrysalis Catalogue

Singles

YearTitleChart positionsCertificationsAlbum
UK
[14]
AUS
IRL
[15]
NL
NZ
US Club Play
1981"The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Asylum)"20432846align=left rowspan="2"Fun Boy Three
1982"It Ain't What You Do (It's the Way That You Do It)" (Fun Boy Three with Bananarama)455533749
  • BPI: Silver
"Really Saying Something" (Bananarama with Fun Boy Three)57491616
  • BPI: Silver
Deep Sea Skiving (Bananarama album)
"The Telephone Always Rings"172949Fun Boy Three
"Summertime"1813
"The More I See (The Less I Believe)"68align=left rowspan="4"Waiting
1983"The Tunnel of Love"101438
"Our Lips Are Sealed"713
"The Farm Yard Connection" (Germany only)
"–" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released in that territory.

Notes and References

  1. Fun Boy Three Allmusic bio
  2. Green, Jim & Robbins, Ira "Fun Boy Three", Trouser Press, retrieved 27 January 2010
  3. Web site: Fun Boy Three . Official Charts .
  4. Review
  5. http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?id=1944 Fun Boy Three
  6. Web site: The Pop Life . Robert Palmer . The New York Times. 10 August 1983 . 2009-11-11 . Robert Palmer (American writer).
  7. Web site: Fun Boy Three Full Official Chart History. Official Charts Company. 19 January 2016.
  8. Book: Roberts, David. 2006. British Hit Singles & Albums. 19th. Guinness World Records Limited . London. 1-904994-10-5. 216.
  9. Book: Kent, David. David Kent (historian). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992. Illustrated. Australian Chart Book. St Ives. 1993. 119. 0-646-11917-6.
  10. Web site: charts.org.nz - Discografie Fun Boy Three. Hung Medien. 2011-09-09.
  11. Web site: charts.nz - Discography Fun Boy Three. Hung Medien. 2009-11-07.
  12. Web site: Albums in the Year 1982. © 2007-9, Steve Hawtin et al. 2009-11-07 .
  13. Web site: British certificates: searchable database . bpi.co.uk . 30 June 2010 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20090924015932/http://www.bpi.co.uk/certifiedawards/Search.aspx . 24 September 2009 .
  14. Book: Roberts, David. 2006. British Hit Singles & Albums. 19th. Guinness World Records Limited . London. 1-904994-10-5. 519.
  15. Web site: The Irish Charts . IRMA 2006 - 2008 . 2009-05-30 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100126040745/http://www.irishcharts.ie/ . 26 January 2010 .