80s

Sex Gang Children is an early gothic rock group that formed in the early 1980s in Britain. They were a very dramatic band, relying on heavy bass, tribal drumming, sudden mood shifts, a woozy cabaret ready sound that influenced the rise of the later dark cabaret scene, and yet another in a long line of goth singers with an odd, highly dramatic voice. Although the group only released one official album, their singles and various other tracks have been packaged into numerous collections, and they remain one of the better known bands out of the early goth scene.

Read more about Sex Gang Children on Last.fm.

a-ha is a norwegian new wave band that was most popular in the UK and the USA during the 1980s, but continued to be globally successful in the 1990s and 2000s. The trio, composed of lead vocalist Morten Harket, guitarist Paul Waaktaar-Savoy and keyboardist Magne Furuholmen, formed in 1982 and left Norway for London in order to make a career in the music business. The origin of the name a-ha comes from the lyric of an early song. After checking dictionaries in several languages, they found out that 'a-ha' was an international way of expressing recognition, with positive connotations.

[1] Belgian pioneers of ebm and minimalist electro-industrial. Also known as The Klinik. See also Dive, Sonar, Monolith. In 1985, Verhaeghen joined forces with two other bands, Absolute Body Control (with Dirk Ivens and Eric van Wonterghem), and "The Maniacs" (Sandy Nys) to form one "super group" Absolute Controlled Clinical Maniacs. This rather unwieldy name was soon dropped in favour of the shorter name "The Klinik". Nys soon left the band to form Hybryds, followed in 1987 by van Wonterghem, leaving The Klinik as the "classic" duo of Dirk Ivens and Marc Verhaeghen.