80s | Musicosity

80s

Billy Idol

Billy Idol (born William Michael Albert Broad on November 30, 1955 in Middlesex, England) is an English musician. Idol lived in worthing before attending Sussex University for only a year before joining the bromley contingent of keen Sex Pistols fans. During this period, Idol decided to become a musician and formed a band called Generation X in 1976. Generation X signed to Chrysalis Records and released three successful albums before breaking up.

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Roxy Music

Roxy Music were a London, England based art rock group founded in 1971 by art school graduate Bryan Ferry (vocals and keyboards). Other members were Phil Manzanera (guitars), Andy Mackay (saxophone and oboe) and Paul Thompson (drums and percussion). Former members included Brian Eno (synthesizer and "treatments") and Eddie Jobson (synthesizer and violin), who replaced Eno after Roxy Music's second album.

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Skitzo

There are 3 bands with the name Skitzo: 1) Psychobilly band from the UK.
2) Oldschool underground thrash metal band from the USA.
3) Classic rock band from Ireland.
1) Skitzo was originally formed in 1985. In the late 80's they started to do a lot of gigs in the famous London club the Klub Foot. Signed with nervous, and became a well known psychobilly band. The sound of Skitzo is straight forward psychobilly. They play it fast, loud, shout and scream without bothering too much about experimenting.

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Squeeze

Squeeze is a British rock music band that came to prominence in the new wave period of the late 1970s. The group formed in London in 1974. The two main writing partners in the band, Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook, are widely considered to be among the finest melodic pop songwriters of their generation and have often been compared with the legendary Lennon-McCartney partnership, although unlike The Beatles, Difford and Tilbrook's direct collaboration on songs continued through most of the group's career.

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Pop

PoP! is the fictional 80's pop band for the movie Music and Lyrics featuring Hugh Grant as Alex Fletcher, the singer from the band. They were also apparently a real pop band from 2004-2005 with two albums (at least, two that last.fm users listen to) or Pop! was an Australian band of the 1990s. It was a side project of Melbourne band About Six Feet. Together with Frente's Angie Hart they recorded the song Tingly, which was released as a single in 1995, and reached the Triple J Hottest 100 of the same year.

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Blancmange

"Blancmange" were formed in Harrow in 1979, by vocalist, Neil Arthur (born on 15 August 1958, in Darwen, Lancashire); and instrumentalist Stephen Luscombe (born on 29 October 1954, in Hillingdon, Middlesex). They released their first EP "Irene and Mavis" the following year, but had their first real exposure via a track on the seminal "Some Bizarre" compilation album, alongside fellow acts "Soft Cell" and "Depeche Mode". This led to them signing a deal with London Records.

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The Sisters of Mercy

One of England's leading goth bands of the 1980s and originating from Leeds, the Sisters of Mercy play a slow, gloomy, ponderous hybrid of rock and psychedelia, often incorporating dance beats; the one constant in the band's career has been deep-voiced singer Andrew Eldritch. The band is named after the Leonard Cohen song "Sisters of Mercy" according to Eldritch. The band originally formed in 1980 with guitarist Gary Marx and drummer-turned-vocalist Eldritch. Dr. Avalanche, the drum machine, joined them on their second single Alice.

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Embrace

There is more than one artist with the name Embrace, the first two of whom are significant:
1) a five-piece indie band from Leeds, England, who have enjoyed significant success in UK, including three number one albums and six Top 10 singles
2) a Post-Hardcore/Post-Punk band from Washington D.C. that had a galvanizing influence on the Washington, D.C. punk scene of the 80's and featured Ian MacKaye (who subsequently formed Fugazi)
3) a Dutch Trance duo
4) a Canadian Gothic Metal band

Read more about Embrace on Last.fm.

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Kajagoogoo

Kajagoogoo is an English pop band best known for its first single, "Too Shy", which reached Number 1 in the UK and Number 5 in the U.S in 1983. The single was produced by keyboardist Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran and Colin Thurston who was, at this time, Duran Duran's in-house producer. The band was founded in Leighton Buzzard in 1979 as a four piece avant-garde instrumental group called Art Nouveau, with Nick Beggs on bass guitar, Steve Askew on lead guitar, Stuart Neale on keyboards and Jez Strode on drums.

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