Stacey Q

Stacey Q first captured widespread attention through her 1980s dance-pop single "Two of Hearts," whose Madonna-like image and her own youthful energy drew interest from both teenage listeners and dance-club crowds during her brief period of visibility. Born Stacey Swain, she began her performing career with the Ringling Brothers Circus before joining the synth-pop group Q—named after the gadget specialist in the James Bond films—in the early 1980s. With attention shifting toward the new lead vocalist, the band became SSQ (short for Stacey Swain) and secured a contract with Enigma, which issued the album Playback in 1983. That release attracted little notice, prompting the artist, now billed as Stacey Q, to launch a solo career.

She later joined Atlantic Records and delivered her first solo album, Better Than Heaven, in 1986. Its opening track, "Two of Hearts," climbed to the upper reaches of the Billboard Hot 100, landing inside the pop Top Five and elevating her profile; she appeared on the sitcom The Facts of Life and followed with another Top 40 entry, "We Connect." Maintaining that momentum proved elusive. Neither of the two Atlantic follow-ups—Hard Machine in 1988 and Nights Like This in 1989—yielded further substantial chart success, leaving her overshadowed by the surge of teen-focused pop acts at the time.

A greatest-hits collection appeared in 1995, yet it emphasized remixes and tracks from the Playback period while omitting material from her final pair of Atlantic albums. In 1997 she issued the modest comeback album Boomerang, a departure from her earlier dance-pop sound that mirrored her embrace of Buddhism and leaned toward acoustic pop and rock. Throughout the 2000s she participated in several stage productions, contributed voice-over work, and recorded sporadically. Released independently in 2010, Color Me Cinnamon marked a return to dance music.