Oakey, Queensland

Oakey /ˈoʊki/ is a rural town situated in the Darling Downs region of Queensland, Australia. It is situated 160 kilometres (100 mi) west of the state capital, Brisbane, and 29 kilometres (18 mi) west of the regional city of Toowoomba. At the 2011 census, Oakey recorded a population of 4,529.

History

Oakey and the creek around which the town is located, were named for the river oaks that dominate the banks of the creek. The town was surveyed in 1868, with the first sale being 28 June 1870. Originally named Oaky, the spelling of Oakey was officially adopted in August 1940. The area was first settled in the early 1840s when pastoralists moved into the area and found the land to be suitable for grazing. The building of the Western railway line through the area prompted the growth of a township to service the pastoral community. Growth of the town was slow, however featured some enterprising ventures, including a short-lived meatworks near the town, which planned to tin and export kangaroo and wallaby under the marketing name 'Australian Game'. The enterprise was unsuccessful and closed down in 1876.

Philip Oakey

Philip "Phil" Oakey (born 2 October 1955) is an English composer, singer, songwriter and producer. He is best known as the lead singer, lead songwriter, frontman and co-founder of the English synthpop band The Human League. Aside from the Human League, he has had an extensive solo music career and collaborated with numerous other artists and producers. He is also an occasional DJ.

Oakey was one of the most visually distinctive music artists of the early 1980s. His synthesizer composition and songwriting helped make his band The Human League one of the highest profile pop bands of the early 1980s. At the height of their success, The Human League released the triple platinum album Dare and Oakey co-wrote and sang the multi-million selling single "Don't You Want Me", which was a number one single in both the U.S. and UK, where it remains the 25th highest selling single of all time. Oakey has been a key figure in the music business and has been lead singer of The Human League for over 30 years, with whom he has sold more than 20 million records worldwide. He continues recording and performing internationally to this day.

Giorgio Moroder

Giovanni Giorgio Moroder (Italian: [dʒoˈvanni ˈdʒordʒo moˈrɔːder]; born 26 April 1940) is an Italian record producer, songwriter, performer and DJ. Moroder is frequently credited with pioneering synth disco and electronic music.

When in Munich in the 1970s, he started his own record label called Oasis Records, which several years later became a subdivision of Casablanca Records. He produced huge hits for Donna Summer during the late-1970s disco era, including "Bad Girls", "Last Dance", "Love to Love You Baby", "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)", "Dim All the Lights", "MacArthur Park", "Hot Stuff", "On the Radio", and "I Feel Love", and is the founder of the former Musicland Studios in Munich, a recording studio used by many renowned artists including Electric Light Orchestra, Led Zeppelin, Queen and Elton John.

Moroder also produced a number of electronic disco hits for the Three Degrees, two albums for Sparks, and a handful of songs on Bonnie Tyler's album Bitterblue as well as her 1985 single "Here She Comes". In 1990 he composed "Un'estate italiana", the official theme song of the 1990 FIFA World Cup. He also created a score of songs for performers including David Bowie, Kylie Minogue, Irene Cara, Janet Jackson, Madleen Kane, Melissa Manchester, Blondie, Japan and France Joli. Moroder has stated that the work of which he is most proud is Berlin's "Take My Breath Away".

The Human League

The Human League are an English electronic new wave band formed in Sheffield in 1977. Dare (1981), the band's most popular album, yielded the single "Don't You Want Me", a No. 1 hit in the pop charts of UK, US and many other countries. After its UK success, their first single, "Being Boiled", was reissued and became a top ten hit at the beginning of 1982. They received the Brit Award for Best British Breakthrough act in 1982. The success of "Don't You Want Me" is seen as the beginning of the MTV-driven Second British Invasion of the US. Other international hits include: "Love Action", "Open Your Heart", "Mirror Man", "Fascination", "The Lebanon", "Human" (a US No. 1) and "Tell Me When".

The only constant band member since 1977 is vocalist and songwriter Philip Oakey. Originally an avant-garde all-male synthesizer-based group, The Human League evolved into a commercially successful synthpop band under Oakey's leadership. Since 1987, the band has essentially been a trio of Oakey and long-serving female vocalists Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley (both of whom joined the ensemble in 1980), with various sidemen.

Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder

Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder is a collaborative album released in 1985 by Philip Oakey, lead singer of the electronic band The Human League, and seminal electro producer Giovanni Giorgio Moroder (Italian: [dʒoˈvanni ˈdʒɔrdʒo ˈmɔːrodɛr]), whose early records had been a major influence on Oakey.

The album is most notable for containing the song "Together in Electric Dreams", which was the title track for the movie Electric Dreams and a major hit single. In fact, the album was essentially a spin-off project set up by Virgin records to capitalise on the success of the single.

The album consists mainly of sequenced beats, along with dinstinctly FM-generated bell-like sounds, and a number of sounds generated by analog synthesizers. This album uses very little sampling. Notable, also, is that the first five songs on this album (the entire first side on the original vinyl LP version) are seguéd together.

In 1985 two further singles were released from the album. In July 1985 "Good-Bye Bad Times" was released with a big-budget music video but only reached number 44 in the UK singles chart. This was followed up in August 1985 with "Be My Lover Now", which reached only number 74. The lack of success of the singles effectively put an end to the brief Oakey/Moroder partnership. After recording this album, Philip Oakey returned to work on the next Human League album, Crash, in early 1986. It would be Moroder's final studio album for 30 years.