0015 - A Flock Of Seagulls

Mention A Flock Of Seagulls to anyone old enough to remember the 80s (and a lot of people who aren't) and they'll think of hair.  Frontman Mike Score's ridiculous barnet is perhaps the most mocked, parodied and generally laughed at hairstyle of all time, although, in fairness, at least it means we remember him and his band.

It's the other members of the band I feel sorry for.  I mean, they all looked ridiculous, but who remembers the rest of them?  Not me, that's for sure.  Look at them, though:

A Flock Of Seagulls. L-R: Neil Tennant, Trevor Horn, Mike Score and Jason Donovan, I think.

An amalgamation of all that was and would be bad about 80s style, if ever there was one.  Without The Hair, of course, they'd be nothing and that's a pity, as they probably deserve to be remembered as pioneers of mainstream electronic pop - not up there with, say, The Human League, but certainly deserving of more than being mocked for their singer's follicular follies.

I may be giving the impression here that I'm a big fan of the band, but I'm not.  I have exactly three songs by them, all of them singles from 1982.

I Ran (So Far Away), is the breakthrough tune from their first album A Flock Of Seagulls, a minor hit in the UK, but huge in the US, where it made the top 10, apparently on the back of video airplay on MTV  This video:

 

I know it's the early days of the pop video, but it's terrible, isn't it?  Mind you, I'd run too - they're terrifying!  Follow up single Space Age Love Song gives us the first viewing of The Hair.

It's a great tune and where I Ran comes across as a kind of low-rent Ultravox, Space Age Love Song is genuinely ahead of its time and foreshadows where pop was heading in the 80s before it was kidnapped and murdered by SAW and their ilk.  I mean, if I was Then Jerico, I'd  be desperately trying to change the subject whenever this song was mentioned...

Even better is the lead single from their second album, Listen, the excellent Wishing (If I Had A Photograph Of You).

That Top Of The Pops performance would have been the first public sighting by most of The Hair.  Certainly it was mine, and despite my tender years I remember watching it.  I liked the song, but I think I was a bit afraid of them.  Wishing is strutting and cool, very much the sound of a second album with the band clearly much more confident in the studio.

From there, though, it was a quick lapse into obscurity and haircut parody.  A pity, because they obviously had something and writing this has made me think that maybe I should investigate A Flock Of Seagulls a little more - the kind of rediscovery this blog is all about.  Hooray!

One last thing - the balding drummer isn't actually Neil Tennant (although you knew that, didn't you?).  He's the magnificently barnetted singer's brother, Ali.  Poor fella.


Update: Some housekeeping over the weekend turned up a fourth AFoS song - The More You Live, The More You Love, a 1984 single from their 3rd album, The Story Of A Young Heart. Sadly, this isn't the sound of the vibrant band of 2 years earlier, but once again it's the sound of a poor man's Ultravox.

There's a big difference though to being a low-rent Ultravox in 1982 and a poor man's Ultravox in 1984.

The Ultravox of 1982 was the Ultravox of Vienna (Danger! Spiders!), Sleepwalk, The Thin Wall, Visions In Blue (Danger! Nakedness!) - an inventive, pioneering band taking the new electronic sounds to the masses.  By 1984 it was Dancing With Tears In My Eyes and One Small Day - not bad songs, by any means, but very middle-of-the-road compared to 3 or 4 years earlier.

The More You Live, The More You Love was a minor hit, but it was the last time the band would see any chart success.  At least they have The Hair though and will always be remembered.