Fate is a funny thing.

When it comes to the music biz, it’s difficult to get in the door on talent alone. Many extremely talented singers and musicians have found it necessary to pack up their gear and find work as accountants or realtors. It takes a little luck to unlock that door and get inside.

Tracey and Melissa grew up in California surrounded by the entertainment industry. Their father, Bruce Belland, founded hit-making vocal group The Four Preps (who we met here) before moving into television. The sisters wrote songs and talked about forming a band that would take an irreverent view of serious rock, but nothing ever came of it, and the mid-80s found them living in different countries.

A vacation through Europe with her boyfriend led Tracey to decide that London suited her personality, so she flew home to grab her things and made the move to England. Her boyfriend was also a musician and the two recorded demos of their songs onto cassettes which he then hawked to London record companies. And here’s where the lucky hand of fate enters the picture.

Food Records (soon to be the home for Jesus Jones and Blur) received one of these tapes but accidentally played the wrong side and heard Tracey singing one of her songs instead. They liked her, but after flipping over the tape to play the “right” side, rejected the boyfriend. He subsequently left the picture, but she got a record deal out of it.

Tracey called Melissa and told her to come to London where Food set them up with a guitarist, bassist, and drummer and the quintet became known as Voice Of The Beehive.

“The Beat Of Love” served as the opening track of the band’s 1988 debut album, but for some reason was never released as a single, despite its obvious pop hooks. Perhaps the label had a certain image it wanted to project and this track didn’t fit. Considering six singles were pulled from the album and only one of them hit, maybe they should have given “The Beat Of Love” a chance — if it’s good enough to open the album, it’s usually good enough to release as a single.

Let’s go ahead and add Voice Of The Beehive’s biggest UK hit, also from the debut album (the group found very little success in the US but scored a number of moderate hits in the UK). A little luck may have gotten The Belland sisters started, but talent kept them around.