Candy Flip

A Beatles cover for the baggy years

Candy Flip were the English duo of Danny Spencer on vocals and keyboards and Ric Peet on keyboards, associated with the Madchester and baggy scene of 1990 though closer to synth-dance; a blogger compared the sound to The Beloved and Pet Shop Boys. Wikipedia places them in Stoke-on-Trent and MusicBrainz in Manchester. They were originally called Yin Yang, and their debut single "Love Is Life" (1989) had little impact. "Strawberry Fields Forever" came out on Debut Edge on March 5, 1990, produced by Dizzie Dee and Ric Peet, and was a club hit in the rave scene before crossing to the pop chart; it reached 3 on the UK Singles Chart on the chart dated March 25, 1990. They performed it on Top of the Pops on March 29, 1990.

Follow-up singles were "This Can Be Real" (UK 60), "Space" (UK 98) and "Redhills Road" (UK 86, US Modern Rock 19, US Dance 10), plus the non-album "Keep the Faith" (1991). The album Madstock... The Continuing Adventures of Bubblecar Fish is dated March 27, 1990 on Wikipedia and March 25, 1991 on MusicBrainz, and AllMusic gave it 4 stars, NME 7 of 10. The Tudor Club in Harrow on May 20, 1990 is the only gig on setlist.fm. They split by 1992. In 2005 the single was reissued on vinyl on S12 Records.

Ric Peet became a producer and engineer, working with the Charlatans and Six by Seven. Danny Spencer and Kelvin Andrews formed the remix duo Sure Is Pure (Sister Sledge's "We Are Family", UK 5 in 1993), the label Pharm, Sound 5, Soul Mekanik (four songs on Robbie Williams's Rudebox, 2006) and Central Midfield (ten co-writes on Reality Killed the Video Star, 2009). NME placed their version in a 2014 list of Beatles covers that stand up to the originals; Radio X called it a genuinely terrible cover version.