DATA – Living Inside Me
#quotefromthe80s
No, I've got no (inhibitions)
It's only you (I'm thinking of)
You're living inside me
Without a clue to where you're bound
#DATA #LivingInsideMe
One of the first memories dating back to 1983 refers to a group that was definitely less famous than others but had absolutely all the credentials to make it into the world of electronic and disco music. I have a feeling that perhaps this group lacked one thing above all, a record company capable of giving them visibility beyond the scope of discos, to get them into the real pop world, and it’s really a shame.
The soul of this group was Georg Kajanus, a musician who was anything but ordinary. Born in Norway but of noble Russian descent, he preferred to use the surname of his mother, a Finnish artist and sculptor, daughter to the second most famous Finnish musician after Sibelius, rather than his pompous family name Tjegodaiev (or Tchegodaieff according to Russian phonetics). Kajanus had already made various experiences in the 70s, and in particular he had been the voice and the main composer of Sailor, a group who had a certain visibility especially in England.
When Sailor disbanded, towards the end of the 70s, Kajanus started working on his new project, with two firm points: he should focus more on electronic music, given that the instruments available now allowed much more than in the times of Sailor, and considering that the new wave was now the dominant trend in most of Europe, and above all he convinced himself that he needed a different voice, and precisely a female voice.
As for the first point, Kajanus saw it as achievable: he had enough musical talent and experience to be able to create the new sounds and rhythms he had in mind without a need for outside help. As for the voice, fate helped him by crossing his path with two English sisters, Francesca and Phillipa Boulter, often indicated with the names of Frankie and Phil, daughters to a famous English tenor and also with experience in the growing sector of new wave and technopop.
And so 1981 marked the beginning of the story of DATA , the name Kajanus gave to the group he had just created. Just like INXS, DATA should also always be written in capital letters, even if the two groups certainly had very different visibility. In the first album Phillipa had a more visible role, but in 1983, the moment of greatest visibility for DATA, her role was very limited, and practically only Kajanus and Frankie Boulder appeared on TV, with a male-female lineup very similar to Yazoo or Eurythmics.
In the first period of the year, their second album was released, titled 2-TiME (note the lowercase i inside an all-caps title) which was truly an electronic pop masterpiece. In particular, a single was released with two spectacular songs on both sides. The first was the beautiful Living Inside Me, while at the back was A-O No Bungalow, which was successful a few months later, perhaps helped by the more summery rhythm and sounds. Phil Boulter will leave the group few months after the album release.
Strange letters appear on the album cover: the song title and other information are written in a font that graphically recalls the Cyrillic alphabet, perhaps a reference to Kajanus’ Russian origins.
Living Inside Me was the classic super-hit, penalized however by a somewhat limited distribution. The good Kajanus certainly deserved more, because the song had a resounding success in European and even American discos, where it really became a very famous hit. In Europe especially, in early 1983 Living Inside Me was really the song you heard every night in the clubs, along with hits like Last Night a DJ Saved My Life by Indeep or Masterpiece by Gazebo.
After all, the song didn’t even have a real video, so we have see the usual broadcast clips. Too bad, because the electronic sounds of Kajanus combined with Francesca’s hypnotic voice, her icy eyes and her truly regal standing, with very slow movements and a look often full of black leather garments, could really given a completely different destiny to the history of DATA.
DATA on Wikipedia
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