Appreciation: Spandau Ballet's "Gold"

Listening to Spandau Ballet feels like home. Their sound was very smooth, laid back, with a hint of jazz (compared with Duran Duran whose concoctions were generally bombastic), and Tony Hadley's baritone truly complemented this sound. Spandau Ballet were extremely popular in the 80s (more so in the Philippines than in the US), but amazingly, I only got to know their most famous hit, "True," after P.M. Dawn incorporated its hook in their song "Set Adrift On Memory Bliss" in 1991.

I will forever associate the band though with their other huge hit, "Gold." I saw its video a lot back then, about this guy in this dusty location looking for a piece of a jigsaw puzzle made of gold. Never really understood it, even the lyrics, but every time I hear this song I become a 7-year old again, coming home from school at lunchtime to watch "MV2: The World of Music Videos" on BBC 2 (yes, that's what ABS-CBN was called during the last few years of the Marcoses). The song also reminds me of happy times in high school, when we danced the song's masterful 12-inch remix on stage, which would just be too embarrassing to recount here (it involved black leotards).

Spandau Ballet may be no more, but my heart will be shouting "Gold! (gold.)" until I die.