Known Pleasures

The eighties, unlike any other decade, started with music being created on instruments that had never before existed. Sure, the Moog had appeared in the late sixties and showed up in various recordings throughout the seventies, but by the turn of the decade there were many drum machines, sequencers, analogue & digital keyboards that began to change the musical landscape in many ways. And this elec...

To the derision of many in the punk movement, The Police would go on to become the most successful new wave band of all. Their sparse, insistently rhythmic, impossibly catchy songs simply took the world by storm, and within three years they were arguably the biggest band on the planet. So, with the benefit of almost four decades’ hindsight, how does the legacy of The Police stack up? Pleasant, but...

In 1977 John Joseph Lydon (nee Rotten) made his name defining punk. 12 months later he arguably went one better to invent post-punk. A mere 9 months after breaking up the incendiary Sex Pistols the first output from his new band Public Image Limited arrived in October 1978 in the perfect form of the single Public Image. Suddenly a lot more seemed possible. Spotify Playlist Link:  https://open.spot...

There has been some debate between the three of us as to whether Japan deserve to be categorized as a Post Punk band. They did start their life in 1974 as an almost glam rock outfit looking like the New York Dolls playing a kind of punk/funk hybrid. They then went through various changes in look, style and performance and unwittingly (much to their chagrin) spearheaded the ‘New Romantic’ movement...

Conjoined in many ways aside from Robert Smith’s stint as touring Banshee guitarist, the links between these two may not be immediately obvious but as post-punk pioneers they stand out for their early albums in particular. Sounds and the way to treat them – once the shackles were gone nothing was off limits. Spotify Playlist Link:  https://open.spotify.com/user/1230971434/playlist/6h3xMAqIwHiHu3Ai...

In 1977, from the primordial swamp of Glasgow, in the grimy inner-urban heart of Scotland, a rock band emerged. Their name: Simple Minds. But 40 years, and 30 million records later, are they destined to be remembered as one of the most innovative, ground-breaking groups of the early 1980's or are they merely to be recalled as the band whose cheesy pop song played in the background at the end of Th...