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Pete Burns, lead singer of the 1980s British pop band Dead or Alive, has died, according to a statement posted Monday to his verified Twitter account. He was 57.
The “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” singer died Sunday of a “massive cardiac arrest,” according to the statement.
“All of his family and friends are devastated by the loss of our special star. He was a true visionary, a beautiful talented soul, and he will be missed by all who loved and appreciated everything he was and all of the wonderful memories the has left is with [sic],” the statement reads. “We have no more words, we will make a further statement when we have had a chance to come to terms with our devastating loss. He will live forever in our memories.”
Dead or Alive scored several seminal Hi-NRG dance hits in the ‘80s, most notably with the immortal “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record),” which hit No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1985 and was interpolated by Flo Rida on the Kesha-featuring No. 1 Hot 100 hit “Right Round” in 2011.
Aside from boasting that enduring hit, the band’s biggest album, 1985’s Youthquake (their second LP, following 1984’s Sophisticated Boom Boom), also featured the synth-pop gems “Lover Come Back (to Me)” and “In Too Deep.” The cover art introduced the wider pop world to Burns’ pioneering gender-bending, gothic approach to fashion as well.
The band’s next few albums (1987’s Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know and 1989’s Nude) produced a few minor Hot 100 hits in the U.S. After a quiet stretch, Burns returned to pop culture prominence in 2006 via his appearance on the U.K.’s Celebrity Big Brother (where he finished fifth).
Burns was most recently in the news after speaking openly about his plastic surgery fixation and how it led to several health scares in his past.
“I realized [in the 1980s] I was going to be a visual entity and that I had to look good. I had a broken nose. In the punk days, somebody head-butted me in Liverpool and it went over to one side,” Burns explained to The Daily Mail in September of how his obsession began. “The number of surgeries I’ve has is probably 300. I hope when I’m 80 and I get to heaven God doesn’t recognize me.”
This story first appeared on billboard.com
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