1982 The Flirts – Jukebox (Don’t Put Another Dime)

1982 The Flirts – Jukebox (Don’t Put Another Dime) 

Don’t you simply hate it when you catch yourself humming a small portion of a song you haven’t heard in a long time and can’t quite place the name or the group? 

I can remember that happening to me with the phrase, “Don’t put another dime in the jukebox.” It was probably the late eighties or early nineties, and at the time, I had some difficulty placing the song. Now that we have the web and online files of lyrics, it’s easy enough to jump into a search engine and find the song, the group, or even a video. Not having those resources made the task of identifying the song annoying, but I did eventually remember seeing the video on Night Flight on the USA Network in the early eighties. The video finally showed up again and looks like a weak clone of Bananarama.

In 1977, when disco was king, producer Giorgio Moroder worked with Donna Summer to create the song I Feel Love. Donna talked about the song in an interview: “This song became a hit because it has a high-energy vibe.” After that description became rewritten as Hi-NRG, the term became applied to a subset of disco.

Meanwhile, synthesizers became available to musicians. Bobby Orlando, an American producer who had been working on disco music in the late seventies, formed the group The Flirts using a handful of models/singers. He also began using synthesizers in the group’s music. 

Their first single, Jukebox (Don’t Put Another Dime), came out in 1982. MTV picked up the video and the song quickly reached the top thirty on the US Dance Chart.

Perhaps the most important recording Bobby did with the Flirts was their follow-up single, Passion, which reached #21 on the US Dance Chart.

While that might not sound too important, the use of synthesizers on that single impressed Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe enough for the pair to sign a recording contract with Bobby. That led to the eventual success of the Pet Shop Boys as detailed on my blog:

https://whatwasleftin.blog/2022/08/08/1986-pet-shop-boys-opportunities-lets-make-lots-of-money/

The Flirts had a rotating list of members and continued cranking out dance hits through 1986.

Bobby eventually moved into EDM (electronic dance music) and continued producing an astonishing large catalog of music with endless artists.

The Pet Shop Boys 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Orlando
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi-NRG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flirts

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