Nick Came

Nick Kamen (actually Ivor Neville Kamen , born April 15, 1962 in Harlow , Essex , England , † May 4, 2021 in Notting Hill , London , England) was a British model , singer and songwriter . Kamen became known in the mid-1980s with a commercial for the jeans brand Levi Strauss & Co. , in which he turned down his boxer shorts in a laundromatmoved out. He was then able to start a music career and had top 10 hits across Europe with the singles Each Time You Break My Heart (1986) and I Promised Myself (1990).

Life

Kamen was of British, Irish, Dutch, and Burmese descent. He appeared on the cover of The Face magazine in 1984 . The photo showed him with a ski hat, orange turtleneck and Ray-Ban "aviator" sunglasses . His lips were whitewashed with zinc and he wore a yellow adhesive plaster over one eyebrow. Above him was the word "HOT" in capital letters.

Kamen finally became known to a wider public through the commercial for the Levi's 501 , which met with great international resonance and at times made him a sex symbol. Madonna and Stephen Bray noticed him and hired him. They also produced and wrote his first single, Each Time You Break My Heart , with which he landed an international chart success in late 1986. In Europe, the single made it into the top ten in many countries, in the US it was ranked 5th on the Billboard Dance Music / Club Play Singles.

In the summer of 1988, Kamen released his second album Us . It was produced by Patrick Leonard and, like on his debut single, Madonna could be heard as a background singer in the song Tell Me (in the video she can only be seen as a short photo overlay). In Italy, Tell Me was number one in the singles charts for seven weeks .

Kamen celebrated his greatest career success in German-speaking countries in the spring of 1990: I Promised Myself , the first single from his fourth album Move Until We Fly , reached top 10 positions in Germany and Switzerland. In Austria, the single was number one in the charts for six weeks from June 1990 . Kamen had also written the song himself. He also released further albums and singles after 1990, which, however, could no longer build on earlier successes commercially.

Kamen worked as a model until the 2000s, after which he retired from public life. In early May 2021, at the age of 59, he died in his London home of complications from bone marrow cancer .

Discography

Albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)				Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK
1987	Nick Came	DE59 (3 weeks) DE	-	CH12 (6 weeks) CH	UK34 (7 weeks) UK	First published: March 12, 1987
1990	Move Until We Fly	DE44 (10 weeks) DE	AT4th gold (15 weeks)AT	CH12th gold (23 weeks)CH	-	First published: March 2, 1990

More albums

• 07/1988: Us
• 05/1992: Whatever, Whenever

Compilations

• 1988: Loving You
• 1991: Each Time You Break My Heart

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)				Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK
1986	Each Time You Break My Heart Nick Came	DE8 (13 weeks) DE	AT25 (4 weeks) AT	CH2 (10 weeks) CH	UK5 silver (12 weeks)UK	First published: October 1986 Authors: Madonna , Stephen Bray
1987	Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever Nick Kamen	DE51 (6 weeks) DE	-	CH15 (7 weeks) CH	UK16 (9 weeks) UK	First published: February 1987 Authors: Ivy Jo Hunter, Stevie Wonder
	Nobody Else Nick Kamen	-	-	-	UK47 (3 weeks) UK	First published: May 1987 Authors: Brenda Russell, Jeff Hull
1988	Tell Me Us	-	-	-	UK40 (5 weeks) UK	First publication: May 1988 Authors: D. Williams , N. Kamen, P. Leonard
1990	I Promised Myself Move Until We Fly	DE5 gold (43 weeks)DE	AT1 gold (20 weeks)AT	CH3 (25 weeks) CH	UK50 (4 weeks) UK	First published: March 1990 Author: Nick Kamen

More singles

• 1987: Come Softly to Me
• 1987: Win Your Love (Italy only)
• 1987: Don't Hold Out (Italy only)
• 1988: Bring Me Your Love
• 1990: Oh How Happy
• 1990: Looking Good Diving
• 1990: Agony and Ecstasy
• 1992: You're Not the Only One
• 1992: We'll Never Lose What We Have Found
• 2003: I Promised Myself (Recall)
• 2004: I Promised Myself 2004

Awards for music sales

Silver record  France 1986: for the single Each Time You Break My Heart Golden record  Italy 1987: for the album Nick Kamen  Sweden 1990: for the single I Promised Myself  Spain 1991: for the album Move Until We Fly

Note: Awards in countries from the chart tables or chart boxes can be found in these.

Country / RegionAwards for Mu-sik-ver-käu-fe (country / region, awards, sales, sources)	silver	gold	platinum	Sales	swell
Germany (BVMI)	-	gold1	-	250,000	musikindustrie.de
France (SNEP)	silver1	-	-	250,000	infodisc.fr
Italy (FIMI)	-	gold1	-	100,000	worldradiohistory.com
Austria (IFPI)	-	2 × gold2	-	50,000	ifpi.at
Sweden (IFPI)	-	gold1	-	25,000	sverigetopplistan.se
Switzerland (IFPI)	-	gold1	-	25,000	hitparade.ch
Spain (Promusicae)	-	gold1	-	50,000	Sólo éxitos: año año, 1959-2002
United Kingdom (BPI)	silver1	-	-	250,000	bpi.co.uk
A total of	2 × silver2	7 × gold7th	-

Web links

• Nick Kamen in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Nick Kamen at AllMusic (English)
• Nick Kamen at Discogs
• Pop star and model Nick Kamen is dead , obituary, Spiegel Online , May 5, 2021
• Levi's 501 commercial with Nick Kamen , 1985

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Singer and jeans model Nick Kamen is dead. In: n-tv , May 5, 2021. Accessed May 5, 2021.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Vivek Chaudhary, Paul Thompson, Ciara Farmer, Rory Tingle: Handsome to the end: Nick Kamen is pictured two years ago after being diagnosed with bone marrow cancer as stars and family pay tribute following the Levi's launderette model's death aged 59. In : Daily Mail , May 5, 2021. Retrieved May 6, 2021.
3. ^ Ognyan Yordanov: Ray Petri - Urban Guerrilla . In: Wound Magazine . tape 1 , no. 2 . Francis Malone, January 2008, ISSN  1755-800X , p. 116-117 ( woundmagazine.com ). woundmagazine.com ( Memento of the original from April 18, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ Levi's 501 - The story behind Launderette. In: This is not ADVERTISING. November 22, 2012, accessed May 5, 2021 . 
5. ↑ Toyin Owoseje CNN: Nick Kamen, Levi's model and Madonna protégé, dead at 59.Retrieved May 5, 2021 . 
6. ^ Billboard Awards
7. ↑ Pop star and model Nick Kamen is dead. In: spiegel.de. May 5, 2021, accessed May 5, 2021 . 
8. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: Singles albums