Re-Flex

The British new wave act Re-Flex scored a single Top 40 hit with the 1983 track “The Politics of Dancing,” a song that later became a regular fixture on ’80s-themed compilation albums during the 1990s even though it had largely faded from memory. Baxter supplied vocals and guitar while Paul Fishman handled keyboards, Nigel Ross-Scott played bass, and Roland Vaughan Kerridge sat behind the drums. The group borrowed so freely and obviously from Heaven 17, Gary Numan, and David Bowie that their overall sound came across as thoroughly imitative. “The Politics of Dancing” in particular was close enough in style that listeners could easily have mistaken it for a Heaven 17 recording. Even so, Re-Flex knew how to write hooks that worked on the radio, and the phrase “the politics of ooo feeling good” proved especially effective both in clubs and on new wave playlists. The single climbed to number 24 on the Billboard charts by November 26, 1983. Footloose producers nevertheless turned it down, choosing Shalamar’s “Dancing in the Sheets” instead. The band’s debut album, also titled The Politics of Dancing, appeared in 1983; they completed the follow-up album Humanication in 1985 before disbanding. Interest in the earlier hit revived on ’80s retrospectives throughout the 1990s, and the full-length finally received a CD release. In 2000 Fishman teamed with former Frankie Goes to Hollywood drummer Peter Gill to launch the experimental project London, Ltd., which issued About Eight Minutes in 2001.