Lene Lovich

Lene Lovich is an American-British new wave singer and saxophonist. She was born Lili-Marlene Premilovich on 30 March 1949 in Detroit, Michigan, to an English mother and an American father of Serbian descent; that Serbian family line, and the name Premilovich, are why she is on Muzika-Balkan. When she was 13, after her father fell ill, her mother moved her and her three siblings to Hull in the north of England, and she grew up in England. The sources do not say where she lives today.

In Hull she met the guitarist and songwriter Les Chappell, who became her partner in life and in music. In 1968 the two went to London to study art; she took saxophone lessons at the Central School of Art and Design and, while studying sculpture, first wore the plaits that became her trademark. She busked on the Underground, danced in cabaret, played saxophone in small bands, recorded screams for horror films and wrote lyrics for Cerrone, among them "Supernature". In 1975 she joined the funk group the Diversions.

Stiff Records signed her, and her debut album Stateless (1978) brought "Lucky Number", written with Chappell, which reached number 3 on the UK Singles Chart in 1979, and "Say When", another top 20 hit. Her version of "I Think We're Alone Now" was also released as a single. The albums Flex and No Man's Land followed, and the New Toy EP took its title song from Thomas Dolby, then in her touring band. She sang with Nina Hagen on "Don't Kill the Animals", appeared with Hagen and Herman Brood in the 1979 film Cha Cha, and co-wrote the stage show Mata Hari (1982).

After leaving Stiff she released March (1989), whose "Wonderland" became an American dance hit, and sang in Peter Hammill and Judge Smith's opera The Fall of the House of Usher. She then took about fifteen years off for her family, returning in 2005 with Shadows and Dust. In 2012 she formed the Lene Lovich Band, toured with the Psychedelic Furs in 2017, and in 2025 opened for the B-52s and Devo in North America.

The playlist plays her own recordings, from "New Toy" and "Savages" to "Blue Hotel".