Chartography - Berlin

With the recent mammoth success of a sequel to "Top gun" it's interesting to take a look at the band that became almost inseparable from the original movie. One of the most successful US purveyors of synthpop, they had a long and illustrious carrier, releasing the best-selling EP in the US music history, working with Giorgio Moroder on several occasions (including releasing his song "Take my breath away" that went on to score heavily chart-wise all around the world), disbanding and reforming on several occasions, reuniting the "golden era" line-up (to very mixed results), establishing the brand as a touring force, creating songs that turned out to be enduring cult and mainstream successes etc. Judging by the charts they are close to "one hit wonder" status, with that song trumping everything else, but locally they were going strong for several years, not only in their homeland but in other markets too. Overall an interesting, if not wholly original band, and their story deserves attention - its twists and turns are truly remarkable.

Berlin

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Chartography - The Thompson Twins

Sadly the blog goes stale more often than not which is a shame as I have quite a lot of stuff to share. If I only had as much time and will... Well, let's try to change the situation. Here's a new chartography - for The Thompson Twins. This interesting bunch started off as underground noisemakers but within a couple of years proceeded to reinvent themselves, both in numbers and image, to become one of the brightest "New Pop" stars of their era. They impacted North America especially and managed to have bona fide hits there right into the late 1980s, while their success in other regions had waned already. It's there where TT's main man Tom Bailey still headlines the stadium-sized shows and he even managed to resurrect his recording carrier in the process, releasing his first solo album in 2018. The band occupies a curious position in the history of the 1980s pop music, being among performers who milked the opportunities presented by MTV to the fullest and yet not being much talked about from the creative angle. Yet their place is firmly established and from the chart file, I think, you can see why.

The Thompson Twins

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Nb. Discography