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D' ARBY, Terence Trent
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Active decade: 80s 90s Opgericht 15.3.1962 in New York, NY Genre -ROCK Terence Trent D'Arby emerged in 1987 amid a storm of publicity. Claiming his debut record was the best since Sgt. Pepper, his brash arrogance captured headlines throughout the U.K., eventually winding their way back to America, which, ironically, is the exact opposite of how D'Arby conducted his career. During the early '80s, Terence Trent D'Arby was a soldier for the United States Army. While posted in Germany, he joined a funk band called Touch, which marked the beginning of his musical career. After leaving the Army, he moved to London, where he recorded the demo tape that led to his record contract with CBS. D'Arby's first single, "If you Let Me Stay," rocketed into the U.K. Top Ten upon its release. Its accompanying album, Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D’Arby, was also a massive success, hitting number one and spending over a year in the top half of the chart. D’Arby didn't have a major hit in the U.S. unti11988, when the sparse funk of "Wishing WeIl" hit number one. The ballad "Sign Vour Name" folIowed it into the Top Five and IntrDducing ended up selling over two million copies. AI! of the success --both commercial and critical --had D’Arby poised as a major act, artistically and popularly. D’Arby's mix of soul, rock, pop and R&B recalled ~ in its scope and sound, yet his sensibility was grittier and earthier. At least they were at first. By the time of his second album, 1989'5 Neither Fish nor Flesh , his ambitions were more nakedly pretentious. The record carried the weighty subtitle "A Soundtrack of Love, Faith, Hope & Destruction" and attacked many self-consciously important themes, including homosexuality and environmental destruction. In addition to the self-import of the Lyrics, the music added a variety of new textures, from Indian drones to straight-ahead-'50s R&B. All of the added baggage was too much for his audience and Neither Fish nor Flesh dropped off the charts quickly, without so much as one hit single. It took D’Arby a full four years to record a new album. When Terence Trent D'Arby's Symphony or Damn, an album containing many of the same ideas as Neither Fish Nor Flesh, only better executed, was released in 1993, it received favourable reviews, as well as some airplay on modern rock radio stations and MTV. It was enough for D' Arby to regain same credibility, yet it wasn't enough to make the album a hit. Two years later, he released TTD's Vibrator, which received the same fate as Symphony Dr Damn.
