Battlestations – Wham (1986)

Description

Additional information about this Wham vinyl art.

Wham – The Artist/s

Wham were an English musical duo formed by school friends George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley in 1981. After three successful albums Wham became one of the most successful pop acts of the 1980s. They made a highly publicised 10-day visit to China, the first by a Western pop group and sold more than 30 million certified records worldwide from 1982 to 1986. George Michael was  keen to create music targeted at a more sophisticated adult market rather than the duo’s primarily teenage audience, and therefore split to continue working as a solo artist.

Battlestations – The Song

Battlestations is a song by English pop duo Wham!, released on Epic Records in 1986. It was written and produced by George Michael, one half of the duo, and was promoted in advance as Wham!’s farewell single.  Epic released a double record set in the UK, with an updated version of Wham!’s early signature song “Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do)” and The Edge of Heaven on disc one, and two new songs—”Battlestations” and a cover of the Was (Not Was) song “Where Did Your Heart Go?”—on the flip-side of the second disc. “Where Did Your Heart Go?” was later given an equal billing and reached the UK Top 40 as a result.

The Grenade – The Shape

This record has been modelled into a silhouette of a hand grenade. A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell shot from the muzzle of a rifle or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade generally consists of an explosive charge, a detonator mechanism, an internal striker to trigger the detonator, an arming safety secured by a transport safety. The user removes the transport safety before throwing, and once the grenade leaves the hand the arming safety gets released, allowing the striker to trigger a primer that ignites a fuze (sometimes called the delay element), which burns down to the detonator and explodes the main charge. Grenades work by dispersing fragments (fragmentation grenades), shockwaves (high-explosive, anti-tank and stun grenades), chemical aerosols (smoke and gas grenades) or fire (incendiary grenades). Their outer casings, generally made of a hard synthetic material or steel, are designed to rupture and fragment on detonation, sending out numerous fragments (shards and splinters) as fast-flying projectiles. In modern grenades, a pre-formed fragmentation matrix inside the grenade is commonly used, which may be spherical, cuboid, wire or notched wire. Most anti-personnel (AP) grenades are designed to detonate either after a time delay or on impact. Grenades are often spherical, cylindrical, ovoid or truncated ovoid in shape, and of a size that fits the hand of an average-sized adult. Some grenades are mounted at the end of a handle and known as “stick grenades”.

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