The Liverpudlian post-punk quartet, led by enigmatic front man Ian McCulloch, were told they needed to write some 'killer tunes' after the lukewarm reception to their 1983 album Porcupine. They returned a year later having done exactly that...
The promotional posters for Echo & The Bunnymen's fourth album Ocean Rain proclaimed it 'The Greatest Album Ever Made', a typically provocative quote from the group's singer Ian McCulloch. There were so many bands emerging in post-punk UK that if you wanted to get noticed you had to talk a good game, and with its historical cultural associations, Liverpool was particularly competitive.
With a new producer and an all-star lineup of musicians behind her, the one-time disco queen's breakthrough album melded reggae, dance, funk and pop, and reimagined her as 'only possibly from this planet' thanks to its eye-catching cover photography
Befitting an album released by a fashion model, Grace Jones' Nightclubbing features one of the most memorable album covers of all time. Photographer Jean-Paul Goude, Jones' partner and a former art director of Esquire magazine, portrayed her as androgynous, with a look of insouciance that bordered on the intimidating with her flat top haircut, a man's Armani jacket with geometrically padded shoulders and a vertically poised cigarette. Jones would apply purple make-up before going onstage and for this sleeve her skin tone was given an exaggerated dark purplish gloss, which added to the strangeness.
For their groundbreaking sophomore album, the West London-based 'space rock' masters doubled down on the electronic audio effects, moved beyond the live jam feel of their free concerts, and invited fans to join them as they set out on a voyage to the stars...
Musicians' fascination with space, and their attempts to evoke its unfathomable vastness in sound, dates back at least as far as Ancient Greece. It was Pythagoras who developed the concept of Music Of The Spheres, a theoretical cosmic harmony produced by the movement of the planets and stars that could translate into music.
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