Time Travel Back To The 1980s

Fancy going back to 1986? What would it be like if you did that? Keith A Pearson tries to answer that question in his best-selling book, The '86 Fix. Keith has written a whole bunch of novels. If this sounds like the sort of thing you might enjoy, why not hop over to the Dark Neon site and read the interview I did with Keith just this week...

Sigue Sigue Sputnik - 26 years on...

At the time, it was very fashionable to hate Sigue Sigue Sputnik. Serious music journos everywhere dismissed them as manufactured, over-hyped and under-talented. They played the part of a futuristic rock group in a world where image is everything. Maybe they played it too well?

Looking back on them now, it seems to me that they were rather wonderful. They had the music, the image, the attitude. They presented themselves as a pre-packaged product for the modern world - a world in which TV, advertising and instant gratification is the norm. I think they had the misfortune to burst onto the music scene at exactly the wrong time. It was post-punk, post-New Romantic. In 1986 you were either into "serious" bands like The Smiths and U2 or the polished pop of Madonna and Diana Ross. Sigue Sigue Sputnik just didn't fit in. A great shame, really.

Watch this video of their biggest hit - released this month (February) in 1986 and making UK Number 3 in early March. Looking it it now, I keep asking myself: what is there not to like?