Walking on Sunshine

Walking on Sunshine is the debut studio album by English new wave band Katrina and the Waves, released on December 1, 1983, by Attic Records. The album was only officially released in Canada, but now appears worldwide on the 2003 compilation The Original Recordings 1983–1984. The band initially released the album themselves, before it was even titled, intending to sell it at gigs. Several of these original 1983 vinyl releases are evidently still in circulation, primarily in the band's native UK, with the record being simply titled Katrina and the Waves (recognizable by the black and white cover, and not to be confused with the band's self-titled 1985 album, which contains revamped tracks from this and the following album, Katrina and the Waves 2). The same cover for this UK release was used when the album was remastered and re-released with four bonus tracks on CD in 2010, under the title Katrina and the Waves. To complicate things further, a later greatest hits album by the band is also called Walking on Sunshine. "Que Te Quiero" was released as a single in the UK where it reached #84 on the UK Singles Chart in January 1984. This album contains the original version of the title track, which would be re-recorded two years later and thereupon become the band's biggest US hit. Background Walking on Sunshine was recorded in London at Alaska Studios with engineer and producer Pat Collier, former bassist with the Vibrators. "I had a small studio in a rehearsal room ... I was recording indie records, and that's how I met Kimberley when he was in the Soft Boys," Collier said. Located in a railway arch under Waterloo Station, the studio was noisy and damp, and "very horrible," according to Collier. "They would always record as an entire band," he said. "They might patch and repair stuff after. They would always do the vocal again. But the basic thing was live." The album, which was originally intended to be sold at gigs and to shop around for a record deal, cost $1,200 to make, which the band put up themselves. Labels in the UK and the US were approached, but only Canadian indie label Attic Records, which had previously released recordings by guitarist Kimberley Rew's former band the Soft Boys, responded with an offer. Consequently, Walking On Sunshine was released only in Canada, despite the band being based in the UK. Critical praise and radio airplay, for the title track in particular, resulted in a Canadian tour.