💿🕺 Pop Goes 12-Inch: Why Wax Extended Their Songs for the Dancefloor (Even Though They Never Joined the Party)

The Twelve Inch 191 : Right Between The Eyes (Wax) Part 2

In Part 1, Brad and I told the story of one of the most intriguing bands of the eighties: Wax.

Graham Gouldman and Andrew Gold were two of the most gifted songwriters of their generation, yet their partnership never reached the level of success you might expect.

Brad shared how he discovered Wax through their second album, and he was something of an exception. Apart from Right Between The Eyes reaching No. 43, the band never really charted in the U.S. Which is puzzling, given how sharp and radio-friendly their songs were.

And then there’s the Spanish connection, one massive hit that somehow didn’t chart in any of the neighbouring countries. Add to that the curious fact that Wax released 12-inch dance mixes for almost every single, even though they weren’t a dance band… and the mystery deepens.

We’ve got some questions to answer, so let’s dive in.

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👋 Welcome, I’m Pe Dupre, thanks for stopping by.

This is The Twelve Inch, my newsletter about the history of dance music from 1975 to 1995, told one twelve-inch record at a time.

If this landed in your inbox because a friend forwarded it, I’d love for you to subscribe so you don’t miss the weekly episodes. Each one dives into a track, its story, and the culture around it.

And if you’re already enjoying the free posts, would you consider becoming a paid subscriber? Your support helps me keep researching, writing, and unearthing the stories behind the music.

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🇪🇸 Right Between The Eyes: The Spanish Success

Right Between The Eyes was one of Wax’s strongest singles. Graham Gouldman recalled how they sensed they were onto something special:

“ I never want to say that’s a hit or not a hit but I knew it was good, very good indeed. It’s got a lot of energy. We were enjoying ourselves.”

Although Right Between The Eyes didn’t break into the American or UK Top 40, it performed noticeably better elsewhere in Europe. In the Benelux, the single earned solid airplay, reaching No. 24 in the Netherlands and No. 18 in Belgium.

But nothing compared to what happened in Spain. There, the song hit No. 1 and became one of the country’s biggest hits of 1986. Spanish listeners at the time had a clear appetite for melodic, catchy, English-language pop, and Wax’s bright, radio-friendly sound fit perfectly with both local radio and club trends. A few well-timed TV appearances on popular shows certainly helped too.

There was also something deeper at play. The song’s upbeat production and soaring chorus matched the optimistic spirit of post-Franco Spain, a country eager to embrace new cultural influences and international sounds.

It came as a surprise to the band themselves. As Graham Gouldman later admitted:

“I don’t know what it was about the song that hit a nerve with the Spanish audience”

🌉 Bridge to Your Heart: Europe Finally Listens

A year later, Wax managed to recapture some of that magic, though it took time.

Released in 1987 as the first single from their second album, Bridge to Your Heart became their biggest European success. The single broke into the Top 20 across Europe, including the UK, and went Top 10 in the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden. In Belgium, it climbed all the way to No. 3.

But that’s where the momentum stopped. The follow-up single, the album’s title track, American English, failed to chart, despite a round of TV appearances and promotion.

For Wax, Bridge to Your Heart was the peak: a perfect moment when their melodic songwriting finally met the European audience ready to embrace it.

💿 The 12-Inch Gold Rush: When the Industry Loved It to Death

In many ways, Wax offers a perfect snapshot of how the mid-to-late ’80s music industry treated the 12-inch format, with enthusiasm so intense it nearly suffocated the idea itself.

By 1984–1987, labels were deep in what could be called the 12-Inch Gold Rush. The logic was simple and entirely economic: release a 12-inch version of every single, even ballads or rock tracks, because the format sold. It wasn’t about genre anymore; it was about margins.

Why labels released 12” versions of everything

• 💰 Higher price = bigger profit per unit

• 🎶 Collectors bought multiple formats

• 🕺 Club culture started influencing radio playlists

• 🧃 Larger sleeves meant stronger visual impact in stores

This mindset was a far cry from the attitude of record companies just a decade earlier. In the mid-to-late ’70s, the twelve-inch single was born out of necessity, not marketing. New York DJs needed longer, louder, better-sounding tracks to keep the dancefloor moving. Seven-inch singles didn’t have the sonic depth or running time for club use, and most albums weren’t built around rhythm.

Back then, labels saw the 12-inch only as a promotional tool, not something to sell. They only pressed commercial editions when demand became impossible to ignore.

Ironically, the reasoning flipped completely by the ’80s. In the ’70s, the fear was that the 12-inch would cannibalise album sales; singles were merely teasers for the LP. Dance music was still largely confined to urban centres, and remix culture hadn’t yet taken off. Without MTV or a visual pop economy, the 12-inch was a niche format.

By contrast, in the ’80s, fans, not just DJs, were buying 12-inches. The remix became part of the experience. For labels, the strategy finally made sense: format as fandom, not function.

🔍 Zooming In: The Wax 12-Inches

💫 Ball & Chain (1985)

Right Between The Eyes wasn’t actually Wax’s first single, that honour goes to Ball & Chain, released in 1985. A mid-tempo dance-pop track, it was the only Wax release remixed by a major name: Justin Strauss.

Curiously, Strauss wasn’t credited on the European double A-side twelve-inch, which featured the Chainsaw Mix and the Ballroom Mix. But the U.S. twelve-inch added a third version that did bear his name.

It’s a reminder that even early on, Wax sat halfway between pure pop craftsmanship and the remix-driven market of the time.

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🎯 Right Between The Eyes (1986)

No remix credits here, this one was handled by producer Phil Thornalley together with Graham and Andrew.

At 186 BPM, it’s one of the fastest “pop” singles of the era, too brisk for most dancefloors. Still, it’s not unheard of: Pat Benatar’s “Love Is A Battlefield” runs at 180 BPM and became a club hit, thanks in part to a Jellybean remix.

You can’t help wondering what Right Between The Eyes might have sounded like had someone like Jellybean or Arthur Baker worked their magic on it.

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⚙️ Systematic & American English (1987)

Could a top-tier remixer have made a difference here? Probably. Listening to Arthur Baker’s rework of Dancing With The Big Boys by David Bowie, you sense how a fresh mix could have elevated these tracks beyond their slightly flat album versions.

Both Systematic and American English were follow-up singles to genuine hits, and a remix might have kept the momentum going.

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🌉 Bridge To Your Heart (1987)

The biggest missed opportunity of all is also Wax’s biggest hit. Graham Gouldman later said that both he and Andrew admired the Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis sound, and you can hear that influence here. With a BPM of 103, the track sits right in their mid-tempo sweet spot.

So why didn’t RCA commission a proper club mix? What we got was, as the sleeve frankly admits, just an Unabridged Version, a bit longer, with a slightly extended break, but ultimately rather dull.

Given that the single reached No. 12 in the UK, imagine what could have happened with a genuine dance remix, boosted twelve-inch sales, club play, even a shot at the dance charts?

The reason lies in who Gouldman and Gold were. They wrote exquisite pop songs, but they weren’t truly part of dance culture. Even if they admired Jam & Lewis, they were probably reluctant to hand over their production to an outside remixer.

And that’s understandable. Letting someone else reshape your work always comes with risk. As I mentioned back in Episode 122 on Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing In The Dark”, Bruce insisted on being present while Arthur Baker mixed, to ensure it didn’t stray too far from the original vision. Only after earning his trust on Cover Me and Born In The U.S.A. did Baker get free rein.

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📀 The Other Twelve-Inches

On my YouTube page, you’ll also find Wax’s other twelve-inch releases, Hear No Evil, In Some Other World and Breakout. A few received so-called “dance mixes,” but the title was often just that, a title.

So why release them at all? Most likely label pressure. The fact that Gouldman rarely mentions them in interviews suggests his heart wasn’t in it.

It must have felt like: “If they want an extended version, we’ll give them one, but let’s not make a big deal of it.”

By the mid-eighties, the twelve-inch had become an industry expectation. For many acts, releasing one wasn’t about creative exploration anymore, it was about keeping up appearances.

🧩 Connecting the Dots: The Big Questions Answered

What does that remarkable Spanish success really tell us about Wax?

Simply put, it proved their potential. The problem wasn’t the band. It was the record company.

When a single hits No. 1 in Spain and No. 43 on the Billboard chart, you can be sure the issue isn’t the song itself. A few weeks ago, I mentioned another case: Cher’s “Take Me Home”. That track initially stalled outside the U.S. Top 40, too, until Casablanca Records threw everything behind it. With full promo support, it climbed straight into the Top 10.

If Right Between The Eyes could reach No. 43 without that kind of push, it clearly had momentum. For Graham and Andrew, it must have been frustrating to see the song stall just short of the Top 40. As Brian Hulett of AllMusic rightly observed, “RCA didn’t support the releases.”

We can’t know the exact reasons why, but from experience I can say this: major record companies operate on global priority lists. If your project isn’t on that list, it’s almost impossible to break through. The Spanish success, by contrast, came from local initiative, regional promotion teams who believed in the record and worked it hard.

Some other factors also played a part. As Graham Gouldman later admitted:

“We never fulfilled our full potential for various reasons. Andrew had a fear of flying so that limited things a bit. But we were also older than lots of the chart acts at that moment. Had we been younger we might have gotten bigger. We had the right sound”

Age may have influenced perception, but image mattered too. In the mid-’80s video era, looks were currency, and Wax weren’t the kind of band to front a visual marketing campaign.

What did make a concrete difference was Andrew Gold’s fear of flying, which limited touring and promo travel. Their 1987 live tour was confined entirely to the UK, avoiding flights altogether.

Then came a final twist. When the 10cc compilation “Changing Faces” became a surprise success in 1987, it reignited interest in Gouldman’s former band, and, unintentionally, marked the end for Wax. Their third album in 1989 failed to make an impact, and that was that.

In the end, it was a mix of bad timing, missed chances, and lack of label support that cut short a partnership with real potential. Wax had the songs, the sound, and the talent, but the machine around them never quite caught up.

🌅 The Last Verse

The story of Wax came to an end after their third album in 1989.

Graham Gouldman and Andrew Gold remained in touch, but no new projects followed. The fact that their success hadn’t lived up to expectations probably didn’t help rekindle the partnership.

In later years, tragedy struck. Andrew Gold was diagnosed with kidney cancer and initially responded well to treatment. But on June 3, 2011, he passed away in his sleep from heart failure, aged just 59.

Graham Gouldman continues to make music to this day, marking more than six decades of songwriting and performing. Looking back, he once said:

“One of my happiest musical relationships was working with Andrew.”

A quiet, heartfelt epilogue to one of pop’s most overlooked partnerships.

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💬 Your Turn

Were you one of the few who bought a Wax 12-inch back in the day?

Maybe you danced to Right Between The Eyes in Spain, or caught Bridge to Your Heart on the radio somewhere in Europe?

What’s your take on Wax?

Did they deserve more success?

Do you think a proper remix campaign could have changed their story?

And for the collectors among you, which Wax formats are hiding in your shelves today?

Drop your thoughts, memories, or 12-inch finds in the comments 👇

Let’s see how far the Bridge to Your Heart still reaches.

Further reading (or should I say watching)

There are a number of interesting video’s/links :

1. The promo video

So You Wanna Hear More ?

I thought you would !

It’s fun to write about music but let’s be honest. Music is made to listen to.

Every week, together with this newsletter, I release a 1 hour beatmix on Mixcloud and Soundcloud. I start with the discussed twelve inch and follow up with 10/15 songs from the same timeframe/genre. The ideal soundtrack for…. Well whatever you like to do when you listen to dance music.

Listen to the Soundtrack of this week’s post on MIXCLOUD

Or on Youtube :

So what’s in this week’s mix ?

This week’s mixtape is a little… different. Let’s put it this way: “Right Between The Eyes” clocks in at 186 BPM, which is not exactly what you’d file under classic dancefloor material.

But fast didn’t scare me. The mid-80s had a thing for extreme tempos, and I decided to lean into that high-velocity energy for a full-throttle mix.

We kick off with Wax, then crash straight into Simon F and Billy Idol. One of my favourite programming moments in this set? “C’est Comme Ça” by Les Rita Mitsouko — French 80s royalty, and one of those songs that lifts my mood every single time.

Mid-set, we take a sharp turn into pure pop territory with Dan Hartman and Gloria Estefan’s Bad Boy, before closing the high-speed chapter with the gloriously silly “Help!” by Bananarama & Lananeeneenoonoo (aka French & Saunders) — a Comic Relief single, and truly one of the funniest pop videos ever made. Do yourself a favour and look it up.

For the final stretch, we ease the tempo down to 154 BPM to welcome two more Wax 12-inches into the mix — “American English” first, followed later by “Systematic.”

Fast, funny, slightly unhinged, and proudly off-script. Just how we like it.

Enjoy! 🎶

Barbra Streisand and disco, you all know the Donna Summer duet, but trust me, there’s more to the story. Next week we dive into one of the other moments where Babs met the dancefloor.