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Fun Boy Three

The Fun Boy Three were a short-lived but successful multi-racial English band which ran from 1981 to 1983 and was formed by singers Terry Hall, Neville Staples and Lynval Golding after they left The Specials. The Fun Boy Three often ran into similar criticism as The Style Council as they had a less credible image than their previous bands.

They dispensed with the darker, moody sound and demeanour which they and Jerry Dammers had crafted with great success in the ska revival of the late 1970s and went into a much brighter, poppier phase with this new band, though maintaining savagery and wit within the lyrics and Hall's wholly expressionless persona.

Terry grew out and bleached his hair and wore more flamboyant clothes befitting of the early 80s.

Together they set about making music which covered a variety of genres. The band enjoyed six UK Top 20 hits, including the jungledrum-inspired "The Lunatics (Have Taken Over The Asylum)" and the brassy, marriage-cynic anthem "Tunnel of Love" and created two albums of which the eponymous Fun Boy Three was the most successful.

The trio's last UK hit was the song "Our Lips Are Sealed" from album Waiting, co-written by Terry Hall and Jane Wiedlin of the US band The Go-Gos, who had had a US hit with the song a year earlier. They then toured the USA and split afterwards.

They were also credited with helping launch the career in 1982 of Bananarama, whom Hall first saw in The Face magazine. The three women, in their berets and donkey jackets, provided credited chorus vocals on the hit "It Ain't What You Do (It's the Way That You Do It)" before the tables turned and the Fun Boy Three appeared as the 'guests' on the song "Really Saying Something". Bananarama would go on to become the most successful all-female group in UK chart history, a title they held until the arrival of the Spice Girls.

Hall went on to create the even more short-lived project The Colourfield, who had one hit in 1985, before forming less successful bands Vegas and Terry, Blair & Anouchka. He also embarked on a solo career and maintains an enormous respect from musicians and fans alike, with many acts citing him as a huge influence.

• Fun Boy Three (1982) #7
• Waiting (1983) #14, produced by David Byrne

• "The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Asylum)" (1981) #20
• "It Ain't What You Do It's The Way That You Do It" featuring Bananarama (1982) #4
• "Really Saying Something" featuring Bananarama (1982) #5
• "The Telephone Always Rings" (1982) #17
• "Summertime" (1982) #18
• "The More I See (The Less I Believe)" (1982) #68
• "Tunnel of Love" (1983) #10
• "Our Lips Are Sealed" (1983) #7