Altered images 02 academy birmingham 29 october

As fanfares go, few match the NME’s for It Bites’ Calling All The Heroes, released in the summer of 1986. “I knew it would be a hit,” Len Brown trumpeted, summarising the song’s appeal. “The perfect i

hen Soft Cell were art students at Leeds Polytechnic, Marc Almond wrote a song in the vein of Ziggy Stardust about a fictional band breaking up. Four years later, when Soft Cell had been informed by t

A few years ago, Charlie Burchill and Jim Kerr were interviewed for a BBC documentary about music’s messiest break-ups. Which may seem like an odd booking, given the pair’s famously adamantine bond. B

WHEN YOU’RE IN LOVE WITH A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN DR HOOK(CAPITOL) If, like Alan Partridge, you were confused as to whether Dr Hook was a fully qualified medical practitioner then note that you wouldn’t call

The onset of 1985 found Eurythmics in a commercial sweet spot as they rode a wave of successive hits on the global stage. It was barely two-and-a-bit years since Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) in Jan

It’s easy to forget just how big the Fine Young Cannibals were, peaking with two US No.1 singles and a No.1 album with The Raw & The Cooked in 1989. Good things appeared to lay in store for the Birmin