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The System

Formed New York in 1982. The duo — vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Michael "Mic" Murphy and keyboardist/songwriter David Frank — referred to their robotic, synthesizer-driven R&B sound as electro-soul. They recorded their first single, "It's Passion", in 1981 while augmenting the funk-band Kleeer. As the story goes, hearing the song on the radio while the Kleeer tour bus was enough to inspire them to do The System full-time. Soon Murphy and Frank were recording the album "Sweat", and in 1982 they released their first successful hit, "You Are In My System". 1984 was not much of a successful year for the duo, due to Purple Rain and Thriller being in the limelight. They released "X-Periment", their second album. Around 1985, they released "The Pleasure Seekers", their third album, which had hits such as "This is For You" and "The Pleasure Seekers", which was featured in an episode of the famous '80s cop TV show "Miami Vice". In 1987, they recorded their most durable hit, "Don't Disturb The Groove", but in 1990, after releasing "Rhythm and Romance" and having it flopped on them, they did the opposite of just that and split up. The group joined again in 1999 and released "ESP" (Electro Soul Pioneers) in 2000, then went on hiatus. 2009 saw the release of "Unreleased Unleashed", a collection of unreleased material for "ESP" and some B-sides from their past work. In 2012, Mic and David rejoined and released their seventh album in 2013, "System Overload". Mic lives in NYC, while David lives in LA.