119 posts
‘Danceable jazz’ was the raison d’être of the group that singer and saxophonist Bobby Harris wanted to form when he left jazz-fusion band Bell Telefunk in 1976 to start afresh…
The Lowdown: Pet Shop Boys
A former Smash Hits journalist and an architecture student who never graduated, Pet Shop Boys went on to become the most successful UK duo ever, selling more than 50 million records worldwide…
Can You Believe Your Ears? Stars that weren’t what they seemed
For decades, pop has been littered with acts whose performances or recordings received a little help behind the scenes. From Boney M. to Milli Vanilli and Black Box to Technotronic, Classic…
Forever Free: Toyah interview
Bringing the punk aesthetic into 80s pop music with her radical sense of style and kinetic personality, Toyah chalked up a succession of memorable hit singles. Four decades on, she’s…
The French New Wave: Carpenter Brut interview
At the forefront of the synthwave movement, Carpenter Brut mines 80s influences and concept albums. “I’m not trying to reinvent anything,” he insists. “I just want to make the music…
One Hit Wonder: Pebbles – Girlfriend
Pebbles has had six real surnames in her eventful life, so probably one of the more astute things she ever did was giving herself an easily recognisable pseudonym when launching…
Next-Level Thinking: Level 42 interview
Inspired as a youngster by the jazz greats, Mark King soon reinvented bass playing and took Level 42 into the upper echelons of the pop charts with an irresistibly funky…
Classic Album: Massive Attack – Blue Lines
A dance album you couldn’t dance to, a club classic for when the clubs closed – Massive Attack’s Blue Lines truly redefined notions of artist, group and genre. Classic Pop explores the amorphous 1991…
The Lowdown: ABBA
Sweden’s fab four got their big break at Eurovision in 1974 and went on to dominate the global pop landscape for the following eight years, shifting hundreds of millions of…
Coming Around Again: 60s resurgence in the 80s
Proving that form is temporary yet class is permanent, a whole host of major 60s acts had an unexpected career resurgence as bona fide chart stars in the 80s. Written…