Silk & Steel


Silk & Steel is the second studio album by British pop group Five Star, released on 18 August 1986. The album was the group's biggest seller, reaching number one in the UK. It was also successful in France, Germany, Austria, Netherlands and Switzerland. In the United States, it was less successful than their first album, Luxury of Life, peaking at number 80 on the Billboard 200.
As with Luxury of Life, the album used a number of producers and was recorded in both the US and UK, the only common producer being Billy Livsey who again produced a track he had co-written, "Rain or Shine", which became the highest-charting UK single from the album. Four tracks including first single, "Can't Wait Another Minute", were recorded in Los Angeles with the British producer Richard James Burgess. The band's manager and father, Buster Pearson, co-produced two tracks with Michael Jay, also in Los Angeles, and one with lead singer Deniece on the track she composed, "Stay Out of My Life". There were also two tracks produced by Pete Wingfield, "Please Don't Say Goodnight" with lead vocals from Delroy and "Don't You Know I Love It" written by Doris, who also sings lead on that track. The latter track was originally a B-side but proved popular so was included on the album.
The album produced six UK top 15 hit singles and three US R&B hits. As "Are You Man Enough" was a US-only single, that means seven of the ten tracks were hit singles. The album itself was the ninth best-selling album of 1986 in the UK, and had achieved four-times Platinum status by 1987, denoting shipments in excess of 1.2 million copies. It spent a total of 58 weeks on the UK Albums Chart.
Silk & Steel was ranked the fourth best album of 1986 in the seventh annual Smash Hits poll, behind albums by Madonna and a-ha.
A photograph on the reverse sleeve of Silk & Steel shows the group outside the Lloyd's building in London, which was newly opened at that time.
An expanded version of Silk & Steel was released by Cherry Pop Records in November 2010.

Track listing

  1. "Can't Wait Another Minute" – 4:42
  2. "Find the Time" – 4:30
  3. "Rain or Shine" – 3:59
  4. "If I Say Yes" – 4:04
  5. "Please Don't Say Goodnight" – 4:43
  6. "Stay Out of My Life" – 4:00
  7. "Show Me What You've Got for Me" – 3:57
  8. "Are You Man Enough" – 4:38
  9. "The Slightest Touch" – 4:30
  10. "Don't You Know I Love It" – 3:58

2010 CD reissue bonus tracks

  1. "Find the Time"
  2. "If I Say Yes"
  3. "Rain or Shine"
  4. "The Slightest Touch"
  5. "Are You Man Enough"

Charts

Year-end charts

Chart Position
UK Albums 33