Love City Groove

Love City Groove represented the UK in the 1995 Eurovision Song Contest, with a self-titled song after being the runaway winner in a public vote. The pop/rap song finished 10th with 76 points and peaked at #7 on the UK Singles Chart. Love City Groove were Stephen Rudden, Jay Williams, Yinka Charles (aka 'Reason') and Paul Hardy.

Despite the success of their Eurovision entry which went onto sell over 200,000 copies in the UK they had trouble repeating the trick. The follow up "Soft Spot" missed out on the UK chart, peaking at number 84. This was followed by "J.U.M.P" which stalled at number 106. Their debut album "Hard Times" received a limited release and sold in small quantities. The group then split from their record label, Planet 3.

The band returned a year later with a cover of the track "I Found Lovin'". Despite the rave reviews for the record, they were unable to shake off the Curse of Eurovision and again the track charted at a low number, in this case, 98. With several line up changes, but not much more in success the group finally split for good.

Stephen Rudden then submitted a song originally written for Love City Groove but sung by a new group called The Collective for an appearance in the 1998 A Song For Europe contest, to try for a second stab at Eurovision glory but ended up coming 4th of 4 performers with the song "When We're Alone (We Dream)". The track was released but missed out on a Top 200 chart position.

Rudden still writes music for other artists, television and film. He also wrote the song "Jump Start" for a high school musical. In addition another song of his spent 11 weeks at number one in 2007 in South East Asia with Shirly Kwans' "About Me".

Paul Hardy continues to sing, performing tribute shows throughout the country and abroad.

Jay Williams retired from the music industry and now works for the Swiss global banking group UBS AG.

Yinka Charles still writes and performs, and in 2008 is to release a new body of work.

###@@@KEY@@@###succession box
before=Frances Ruffelle
title=UK in the Eurovision Song Contest
years=1995
after=Gina G