#69: Whose Side Are You On by Matt Bianco

City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKOI
Peak Month: May 1985
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #7
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Whose Side Are You On”
Lyrics: “Whose Side Are You On”

You may think Matt Bianco is the name of a guy. But in fact this is a British sophist-pop, jazz-funk, and Latin-flavored music group. The group’s name suggests that Matt Bianco is a person, often assumed to be an alias for the main member and front man Mark Reilly. According to Reilly, “when we were forming the band, we loved the spy movie theme tunes from the fifties and sixties with lots of bongos, quite jazzy and slightly kitsch. So Matt Bianco was a character invented  that would fit into that genre, a made up spy, a secret agent. We thought it was hilarious. We loved spy TV themes and film scores. We were really into that 60s spy movie image.” Reilly adds, “ever since then people who don’t know the band ask ‘So, who’s Matt?'” Mark Reilly was born in 1960 in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England. In 1981, Reilly  joined Blue Rondo à la Turk which was a floating collective of jazz and salsa oriented musicians. In this band Reilly met keyboard player Danny White, and bass guitarist Kito Poncioni. White was born in 1959 in Letchwork, England. Poncioni was born in 1958 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Barbara Stanisława “Basia” Trzetrzelewska was born in 1954 in southern Poland. She began singing professionally in various Polish bands beginning in the late 1960s and during the 1970s. In 1981, she moved to the UK.

Kito Poncioni left the band and returned to Brazil before they went to the recording studio. Though one of the songs on the album, “Half A Minute”, was cowritten by Kito Poncino. This left Reilly, White and Basia as a trio in Matt Bianco. They headed to the recording studio.

In 1984, Matt Bianco released their debut single “Get Out Of Your Lazy Bed”. It climbed to #2 in Norway, #8 in Ireland, #12 in Sweden, #14 in Belgium and Switzerland, and #15 in the UK. Their followup was “Sneaking Out the Back Door”. It reached #15 in Italy, #22 in Ireland, and the Top 50 in the UK. Their third single release was “Whose Side Are You On?”

“Whose Side Are You On?” was cowritten by Mark Reilly and Danny White. The official video depicts a posh restaurant – Cafe Rendezvous – is full of spies from competing intelligence agencies. Different agents are variously reading a book titled Our Agent In Rome, turning a smoking pipe into a phone with an antennae, opening a ring on a finger to drop a pill contained inside the ring into a cup of coffee, a waiter (agent in disguise) makes off with a micro dot, while another agent crouches beside a large plant and pulls off her shoe to talk on a phone. Another is talking into the side of her purse, while another reveals a thin strand that can be used to choke someone to death. Meanwhile, a guest at a table has just eaten something and falls back. Poison? Next, a child blows a straw and a dart lands into a sandwich of a patron at another restaurant table. Karate chops are thrown and a table is knocked over. Whose side are you on indeed?

The lyrics detail how
1) “contact is made, surveyed by another”
2) “A courier falls, the coffee was drugged”
3) “To pay that double cross, spying for the side that pays them the most”
4) “Whose that someone on the inside, an undercover mole?”
5) “Too late to use a lie detector, now some heads will roll”

The world of spies was a genre in both novels and film. Fans of spy films flocked to see the latest movie following the exploits of James Bond, Matt Helm, George Smiley, Harry Palmer, and others.

“Whose Side Are You On?” reached #7 in Montreal, and #8 in Sherbrooke (PQ). Internationally, “Whose Side Are You On?” reached #22 in the Netherlands. It also charted on the national pop charts in Australia, Canada and the UK.

The album Whose Side Are You On? topped the pop album chart in Austria, climbed to #3 in West Germany, #7 in the Netherlands, #10 in Norway, #12 in Switzerland, and #16 in Italy. It was the number-two album for the year in Austria, and the number-five album of the year in West Germany. On the album was an instrumental tune titled “Matt’s Mood”. Mark Reilly stated on A Breath of Fresh Air interview that the tune was an homage to spy movie themes.

The followup single from the album to “Whose Side Are You On” was “Half A Minute”. It reached #19 in West Germany, and #23 in the UK. Another track from Whose Side Are You On? was “More Than I Can Bear”. The single climbed to #8 in France, #18 in the Netherlands, #20 in West Germany, and #25 in Italy.

In the winter of 1985, Matt Bianco issued a cover of the 1965 Georgie Fame hit “Yeh Yeh”. The cover peaked at #7 in West Germany, #10 in Switzerland, #13 in the UK, #15 in Ireland, and #17 in Italy. It was also a Top 30 hit in Austria, Belgium, France and the Netherlands. The single also charted in the Top 40 in Montreal.

In 1986, White and Trzetrzelewska left Matt Bianco to focus on her solo career.

A self-titled album, Matt Bianco, featuring “Yeh Yeh” also topped the Austrian pop album chart in 1986. It reached #3 on the Swiss album chart, #5 in the Netherlands, #8 in West Germany, #9 in New Zealand, #11 in France, and #15 in Italy. The album featured new replacements for White and Basia, Mark Fisher on keyboards and Jenni Evans on vocals.

Meanwhile, in 1988 Matt Bianco released their third studio album Indigo. From the album came the single “Don’t Blame It on That Girl”. It peaked at #7 in Italy, #8 in Ireland, and #11 in the UK.

In 1991, Matt Bianco released their fourth studio album Samba in Your Casa. A cover of the Doobie Brothers hit “What a Fool Believes” reached #23 on the Irish pop singles chart in 1992.

Between 1987 and 1990, Basia had three Top Ten hits on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart in the USA. These were “Promises”, “New Day for You”, and “Cruising for Bruising”. She has also appeared as a session vocalist on album tracks for David Cassidy, Spyro Gyra, and the Polish rock band Perfect. Basia released five studio albums between 1987 and 2018. Her 1994 album, The Sweetest Illusion, reached #6 on the pop album chart in Japan. While in 2009, her album It’s That Girl Again climbed to #4 on the Polish pop album chart. In 2021, she was featured on the single “Fire & Ice” by The Clarisse Sisters.

Danny White has provided keyboards and written songs on Basia’s albums. As well he has produced them. In 2003, White briefly rejoined Mark Reilly and Basia Trzetrzelewska for a Matt Bianco reunion. He subsequently contributed to the 2004 album Matt’s Mood.

CKOI 96.9-FM Montreal Top Ten | May 10, 1985