Pete Burns of Dead Or Alive is dead. He suffered a “massive cardiac arrest” on Sunday October 23, according to a posting on his verified Twitter page. He was 57.

I first heard of Dead Or Alive around 1984, when the video for “I’d Do Anything” was in brief rotation on MTV. I had become somewhat accustomed to New Wave and other alternative music thanks to MTV, and even the radio was playing some oddball stuff here and there. But it was still a bit different and catchy in its own way., and never really caught fire.

The singer, whose name I didn’t know then, seemed to be really good, but he struck me as pretty damned weird.

Around spring or summer of 1985, the song “You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) hit the airwaves and just exploded. It was in constant rotation on radio and MTV for a good while.

It kind of dropped off after a few months, but was usually featured in any kind of 80s-themed event. Eventually it started getting airplay again, and I still sometimes hear it on the radio even now.