BURNING THE GROUND Hi NRG Exclusive 1985

Front Cover

Harris Glenn Milstead (October 19, 1945 – March 7, 1988) was an American singer and actor best known by his drag persona Divine. He starred in many of John Waters’ films, including Mondo Trasho, Multiple Maniacs, Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Polyester, and Hairspray, as part of Waters’ regular troupe of actors known as Dreamlanders. The New York Times said of Milstead’s films in the 1980s, “Those who could get past the unremitting weirdness of Divine’s performance discovered that the actor/actress had genuine talent, including a natural sense of comic timing and an uncanny gift for slapstick.”

On the evening of March 7, 1988, a week after Hairspray was released, he was in Los Angeles staying in the Regency Hotel. The next day, he was due to audition for a part in the Fox network’s television series Married… with Children.

After dining with friends, Milstead returned to the hotel, and before entering his room he leaned over the balcony and sang “Arrivederci Roma”. Known for his punctuality when working, people became concerned when he did not appear on the set the next morning. His manager, Bernard Jay, went to the hotel at noon to check on him, and used his pass key for access. The autopsy found he had died in his sleep of an enlarged heart at the age of 42.

Hi NRG Diva:

In the 1980s, Divine released several dance music records which were club music hits in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. Divine’s records comprised synth-heavy Hi-NRG  music, most of it composed, created, performed, and produced by Bobby Orlando. In the United States, Divine’s highest-charting songs were “Native Love”, peaking at #21 on the Club Play Singles chart, and “Shoot Your Shot”, which reached #39 among Club Play Singles.

Divine’s early UK releases on the Design Communications label included “Love Reaction” (which “borrowed” elements of New Order’s big hit “Blue Monday”), “Shake It Up”, and “Shoot Your Shot”. All of these releases were big gay club hits and minor mainstream chart hits.

The Stock, Aitken & Waterman-produced song “You Think You’re A Man” was Divine’s most successful UK hit, reaching #16; the song was also a Top 10 hit in Australia, reaching #8 (thanks in part to a popular promotional tour in that country which included an appearance on the popular Australian music show Countdown.) Among the material Divine released on the Proto label in the United Kingdom was “I’m So Beautiful” (the follow-up single to “You Think You’re A Man”), “Walk Like A Man” and “Twistin’ the Night Away”.

This rare 10 minute medley mixed by Ian Levine features some of Divine’s biggest Hi NRG classics as well as the 1984 remix of “Native Love”.

DISCOGS LINK

RELEASE/PRODUCTION INFORMATION
Label: Proto Records
Catalog#: ENA(T) 132
Format: Vinyl, 12″
Country: UK
Released: 1985
Genre: Electronic
Style: Hi NRG
Credits:  Artwork By [Sleeve Design] – Paul Savory
Mixed By – Ian Levine
Producer – Barry Evangeli , Bobby Orlando , Stock, Aitken & Waterman

NOTES
Special thanks to
Juergen Kordeletsch
In Tune Music Ltd.
Mastermind Productions “Herbie, My Man”

Management for DIVINE
Bernard Jay management Inc.
New York

‘Divine line’ Fan Club
25 Hungerford Lane, London WC2

SIDE A
(A) You Think You’re A… Medley 10:00
(a) Love Reaction
(b) Shake It Up
(c) Walk Like A Man
(d) You Think You’re A Man
(e) I’m So Beautiful
(f) Shoot Your Shot
(g) Native Love

SIDE B
(B) Native Love ’84 6:05

Back Cover

CLEANING AND GRADING INFO
UK 12″ Housed In A Picture Sleeve.
Vinyl Grade: Near Mint.
Vinyl cleaned using a VPI HW 16.5 Record Cleaning Machine and Gruv Glide.

FLAC INFORMATION
All vinyl rips are recorded in full 24bit 96khz resolution and then resampled to 16/44 and encoded from wave to FLAC Lossless level 8.
FLAC files can be played using Foobar2000 media player and it’s free!
What Is FLAC?

TECHNICAL INFORMATION
Media Used:
Vinyl 12″ Single
From My Personal Collection.
Artwork Scanned from Original 12″ Single @ 600 dpi
With Brother MFC-6490CW Professional Series Scanner
Edited and Restored Using Adobe Photoshop CS4

HARDWARE USED
Turntable: Pro-Ject Debut III
Cartridge: Ortofon Super 20
Bellari VP130 Tube Phono Preamp
Soundcard: ESI Juli@

SOFTWARE USED
Audition 3.0:
Recording (32bit/96kHz float using ASIO drivers)
*Manual removal of remaining clicks
*Editing and splitting of tracks
*DC bias correction

CLICKS REMOVED USING CLICKREPAIR
DeClick Level: 10 DeCrackle: Off
Converted Wav to very high quality Mp3/320 kbps using dBpoweramp 13.1

PW: burningtheground

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