In their heyday in the early 1980s, it was impossible to ignore pop-soul trio Imagination with their infectious dance hits and flamboyant front man Leee John.

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The New Romantics didn’t do much for me but like everyone else, some of the songs did. Especially Culture Club’s first hit in 1982.

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There are a handful of musical moments in my life where I’ve heard a song for the first time and felt: This changes everything. Never Understand is one.

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ABC fused the attitude of punk with the sophistication of disco – and great tunes – to create hits like Poison Arrow on The Lexicon Of Love.

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“You got to have a J-O-B if you wanna be with me… No romance without finance.” This is one of the finest funk and soul singles of all time – despite its far-from-feminist materialistic message; it was the ’80s after all. (more…)

Maria McKee wrote this song when she was a teenager and it became Feargal Sharkey’s only chart-topping single a few years later.

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Once upon a time, 15 years before Underworld became dance legends and Born Slippy became the biggest song of the rave era, they were a very different band.

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Listening today, 40 years later, it’s so obvious how much Lloyd Cole & The Commotions borrowed from Bob Dylan. Perfect Skin is almost a hybrid of Dylan’s twangy mid-60s period and the country-tinged moments of Lou Reed with the Velvets.

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It’s not hard to guess why this song has come back into my mind for the first time in decades, with history repeating itself in Lebanon.

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Who remembers Los Angeles rockabilly band The Red Devils? Certainly not me. I didn’t even know there was a thriving cowpunk scene, fusing rockabilly and country, in early-Eighties LA.

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