Book of Love (band)
Book of Love was an American synth-pop and electronic band, formed in 1983 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and later based in New York City. Led by vocalist Susan Ottaviano, the band also includes keyboardists Ted Ottaviano, Lauren Roselli and Jade Lee. The band gained its first exposure as the opening act for two Depeche Mode tours in 1985 and 1986. The group has been described by the Houston Press as "forward thinking" for lyrics dealing with sexual orientation and gender roles.
Overview
Their biggest success came on the US dance charts, placing seven singles in the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart between 1985 and 1993. The group's largest exposure on pop radio was with the song "Pretty Boys and Pretty Girls", one of the first songs to openly address the AIDS epidemic. The song, from the album Lullaby, was originally the second half of a medley with the group's version of Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells," the 1973 instrumental that served as the eerie theme music of the classic horror film The Exorcist. Edited down to single length, "Pretty Boys and Pretty Girls" became Book of Love's only Hot 100 entry, peaking at no. 90 in 1988.Book of Love's music has been featured in various films and television over the years. The band's song "Modigliani " was featured in the 1987 John Hughes film Planes, Trains & Automobiles as well as in the Miami Vice episode, "God's Work". In 1991, the song "Sunny Day" was featured in the movie The Silence of the Lambs, in a scene in which band member Lauren Roselli had a cameo with Jodie Foster. Also, the song "Enchanted" from the band's Lovebubble album, appeared on the soundtrack to the 1993 film Naked in New York, and the song "I Touch Roses," was featured in the 2000 movie "American Psycho". "Boy" is the last song to be heard in recent years with the movie Companion released in 2025.
Since their active years, Book of Love's songs "Boy" and "I Touch Roses" have been rediscovered by new audiences. Both their original versions and subsequent remixes are heard in both dance clubs and on alternative radio stations.
In February, 2001—sixteen years after its first dance chart entry—Book of Love had its first #1 hit on the US dance chart when "Boy," a track originally from its debut album, was remixed and re-released as the lead single from their greatest hits collection, I Touch Roses: The Best of Book of Love.
In 2013, the band reunited for a string of club tour dates and has been working on new material.
History
Formation and early years (1981–1985)
Ted Ottaviano became friends and started writing songs with Susan Ottaviano while attending high school together in Connecticut. Despite sharing the same last name, they are not related, though their family ancestries trace back to the same small southern Italian village. After high school, Susan Ottaviano moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to attend the Philadelphia College of Art. While at art college, Susan met Jade Lee and they formed a band named Head Cheese with friend Celeste Ries. In July 1981, Head Cheese recorded their first songs at the recording studio Third Story with producer David Javelosa. A 7" record was released on Burn Potential Records including three songs, A-sides: "Teenage Idol" and "Non-Melodic", and B-side "Jungle Jam", which has been described as "an offbeat love song to the city of Philly." Ted Ottaviano, a commuting member of Head Cheese, was one of the executive producers, co-wrote "Non-Melodic" with Susan, and also did photography for the record sleeve. While Susan Ottaviano was in Philadelphia at art college, Ted Ottaviano was attending the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where he met Lauren Roselli. For a time, the band was a long-distance creative project between Philadelphia and New York City. Book of Love was officially formed in May 1983.The band name Book of Love is taken from the song "The Book of Love" by The Monotones. Ted Ottaviano has stated, "It's not that we had a love for that song at all, it's just the imagery worked for us. Especially at that time, when we started Book of Love early to mid-'80s, there was kind of a throwback to a lot of romanticism and we were really into that. We nicked the band name from that song, that's for sure."
In 1983, Susan Ottaviano produced a local compilation album called I'd Rather Be in Philadelphia, which was issued on Burn Potential Records and featured several bands from the Philadelphia area, including Pretty Poison. Book of Love's contribution to the compilation was the song "Henna", becoming their first song released. Jade Lee designed the album's bright orange cover that included an overlay graphic of a Philadelphia street map.
In 1984, after having completed art college, Susan Ottaviano and Jade Lee moved to New York City to unite with Ted Ottaviano and Lauren Roselli. The band members spent their evenings at Danceteria, CBGB, Pyramid Club, Mudd Club, and Hurrah. Lauren Roselli explained, "New York City was a big playground, full of misfits like ourselves. There were lots of great clubs to go dancing and hear great music and meet other artists. That was our MySpace." Throughout art school until their time in New York City, the band had been heavily influenced by the late punk scene and new wave of the early 1980s. The band has cited various influences over the years, including girl groups of the 1950s and 1960s, bubblegum, glitter, David Bowie, The Ramones, Patti Smith, early Human League, Gary Numan, Altered Images, The Psychedelic Furs, Kate Bush, Cocteau Twins, P.i.L., The Cure, early OMD, and Depeche Mode.
During 1984 and 1985, the band recorded various demos at the recording studio Noise in midtown Manhattan. One of the demos was the song "Boy", a toe-tapping tale of teen-girl angst featuring tubular bells and a skip-along beat.
Noise recording studio had many bells and chimes available at the band's disposal. Reflecting on that time, Ted Ottaviano stated, "I was fascinated with Altered Images and other bands that were incorporating bells and chimes into their music. Long brass chimes, tubular bells, whatever. It sounded right, for the time."
Keyboardist Lauren Roselli gave a copy of the "Boy" demo to disc jockey Ivan Ivan, who had recently co-produced the dancefloor hit "The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight" by Dominatrix. Ivan forwarded the demo to Sire Records president Seymour Stein, who subsequently signed the group to his label in August 1984.
In 1985, the band began recording what would become their debut album at Unique Recording with Ivan Ivan as producer. The band recorded two tracks for the single "Boy" and the band's theme song "Book of Love". "Boy" was released as a single, and became a huge dance club hit, peaking at no. 7 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart. A rare Australian promotional video was shot for the song, featuring the band performing the song with Ted Ottaviano playing tubular bells.
After having a hit with "Boy", the band quit their day jobs. While doing promotion for the single, the band met Depeche Mode at a party hosted by Rockpool. Subsequently, the band was offered the opening slot on the North American leg of Depeche Mode's Some Great Reward Tour. Starting in Washington, D.C., on March 14, 1985, the band, still without an album, joined the tour with Depeche Mode, playing coast to coast throughout their 15 North American tour dates.
Upon returning from the Depeche Mode tour, the band went straight into the recording studio to record "Happy Day" for inclusion on the UK single of "Boy". The remainder of the summer was spent on a small club tour of the southern states that the Depeche Mode tour had skipped over, and recording the songs "I Touch Roses" and "Lost Souls" for the next single. "I Touch Roses" was then released in September 1985. Daniel Miller, founder of Mute Records and producer of Depeche Mode, remixed the song as a single remix and an extended 'Full Bloom Version' for the European single that was released in early 1986. "I Touch Roses" became a big club hit, peaking at no. 8 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart. Because of the success of "I Touch Roses", the band got a green light to finish the album. "We were the little choo-choo train. We didn't know it at the time, but thankfully with "I Touch Roses", it was not preordained that Sire was developing us at the time. There was no grand scheme. It was more a la carte. But then people started picking up on 'Roses' and then the album happened," recalled Ted Ottaviano in 2009.
Debut album ''Book of Love">Book of Love (album)">Book of Love'', Depeche Mode Black Celebration Tour, '86 Club Tour (1986–1987)
Up until the end of the summer of 1985, the band had only recorded five songs. Following the success of "I Touch Roses", the band resumed work on the album in September 1985 at Unique Recording and Sigma Sound Studios in New York City, recording the seven new songs that would make up the rest of their debut album. Instruments the band used to record the album were various synthesizers, an E-mu Emulator sampler, piano, tubular bells, chimes, melodica, and both acoustic and electronic percussion. The main songwriting duties on Book of Love fell to Ted Ottaviano, with Susan Ottaviano co-writing six of the tracks, and Jade Lee contributing to two. One of the songs recorded was a cover song of "Die Matrosen", originally by the all-girl Swiss post-punk band LiLiPUT, which features a catchy chorus of whistling. Recording of the album was finally finished in January 1986.The eponymous debut album Book of Love was finally released on April 1, 1986, during the peak of synthpop in the 1980s. "You Make Me Feel So Good" was released as the first official single from the record on July 31, 1986, and became Book of Love's first CHR radio hit. The song was remixed for the single by Jellybean and Ivan Ivan. Album track "Lost Souls", was also remixed and extended by Mark Kamins and included on the 12-inch single. In April 1986, a music video was filmed on location in New York City for "You Make Me Feel So Good" and released in late July along with the single to promote the album.
In 1986, Depeche Mode once again asked the band to be their opening act. Finally with an album to promote, Book of Love toured as the opening act on the massive Depeche Mode Black Celebration Tour, joining the band's first European leg on April 29, 1986, in Hanover, West Germany, and playing 48 shows in twelve weeks throughout the full North American leg which ended on July 15, 1986, in Irvine, California. Once the Depeche Mode tour was through, the band set out on their own headlining tour of clubs, beginning in Boston on August 8, 1986, and ending in Albion, Michigan in March 1987.
A second official and final single taken from the album, "Modigliani ", was released in April 1987. The song was a dance club hit, peaking at no. 17 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart, becoming as popular as New Order and Depeche Mode singles in clubs at its peak. "Modigliani " is an ode to Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani. The track was penned by Jade Lee, Susan and Ted Ottaviano, who had been inspired by the Italian painter's works and history.
The cover of the single featured one of Modigliani's famous paintings of his mistress Jeanne Hebuterne, along with the short biography of the painter written by Ted Ottaviano. For the back sleeve of the 12-inch single, Susan Ottaviano made drawings of each member of the band in the style of Modigliani. Similar, yet alternate large portrait drawings of the band were later used as large stage props behind the band on their Lullaby Tour in 1989.
The four-minute 'Requiem Mass' remixed version of "Modigliani " was featured in an episode of Miami Vice on November 6, 1987, and both the original single and 'Requiem Mass' remix were used in the 1987 film Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
In 1987, Philadelphia-based satirical punk rock band The Dead Milkmen released a single ironically titled "Instant Club Hit ", which hurled insults about the fans of then current popular club artists, calling them "pathetic", "art fags", "boring bisexuals", and "Danceteria types". Book of Love was specifically named with other bands The Smiths, Depeche Mode, and Public Image Ltd. with the line, "you'll dance to anything by Book of Love". The end of the song effectively lumped the bands together as "a bunch of stupid Europeans who come over here with their big hairdos intent on taking our money instead of giving your cash, where it belongs, to a decent American artist like myself."
In November 1988, the album Book of Love was made available on CD for the first time. The new CD edition included five bonus remixes.