new wave

Famously described by john peel as being "always different, always the same", The Fall were formed in Manchester, England in 1976 during the punk era although their style quickly evolved into something more idiosyncratic.

The one permanent fixture amidst the Fall's ever-changing line-up is Mark E. Smith. Smith's lyrics are free, unboxed and unpredictable, touching on an extremely wide range of subjects and places and caring little for being tied down to easily digestible messages.

Culture Club was a popular 1980s pop group, perhaps most noticeable for their gender-bending frontman Boy George. The other members of the band were Roy Hay on guitars and keyboards, Mikey Craig playing bass and Jon Moss (ex Damned, London, Adam and the Ants) on drums. Their first album, 1982's Kissing to Be Clever, became a major international hit, spawning the hit singles "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" (which went 'all the way' in the BBC-Charts in late 1982), "Time (Clock of the Heart)", and "I'll Tumble 4 Ya".

Two groups are called The machines: (1) A Russian Electronic group created by Anton Neumark, on the ataraxy records label. (2) Brilliant Belgian melodic pop-group around Paul Despieghelaere from the beginning of the 1980's. Late in the seventies, the Gent-based Nestormartin renames itself to The Machines and wins the second edition of HUMO's Rock-Rally in 1980. They write music in the best tradition of the Beatles and Talking Heads.

Gang of Four are a British post-punk group from Leeds, England. Original personnel were singer Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, bass guitarist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham. They were fully active from 1977 to 1984, and then re-emerged twice in the 1990s with King and Gill. In 2005, the original lineup reunited. The group had a single in the British Top 60 with "At Home He's A Tourist" in 1979, which was blacklisted by Top Of The Pops for its use of the relatively innocuous term "rubbers".