There sure are a lot of groups coming out at the moment playing Post-Punk/New Wave/Minimal Synth/Synth Pop/Goth/Whatever/Etc influenced music that feature ex members of popular hardcore bands. Cold Cave are getting huge ripping off a few synth pop artists, Louderbach are getting laid by basically making Joy Division songs even more minimal (yeah it's possible, and yeah it's good), some other band is doing some other thing, blah blah, I actually can't think of any more than the last two but that's because I don't really listen to hardcore anymore. But that's beside the point. Whether they feature guys who used to scream who now mumble, this particular type of 80's revival is hip as shit right now. Look at how popular Blank Dogs got and there's nothing original about that other than a bunch of skinny white college kids calling it "shitgaze". And look at Blessure Grave blowing up while straight up ripping all kinds of pages from Peter Murphy's several books. The Killers and She Wants Revenge are making girls get wet while Gang of Four are probably wondering how to keep the pasty nerds from bothering them after their reunion show sets instead of which groupies are the best looking and most deserving of some backstage attention. I could keep going but this is turning into a rant and I know you don't want to hear it. You want the link. The pretty pictures and the free music. That's all blogs are good for. I'm just a cheap whore. So, in short, here are two albums by a Post-Punk/Minimal Whatever group that kickstarted this entire thing and were actually very good, as opposed to just being something hip for messageboard hype.
Oh, you're still here? Well then...
Beautiful Skin were a short lived group started by some guy who used to be in the seminal hardcore group Rorschach and some other guy from Brazil. They released their only album, Revolve in 2001, a bit before the whole Post-Punk Revival explosion and quite a bit before the recent minimal 80's revival thing going on. They were much better than Cold Cave but never got any offers from Radioshack for commercial money. One single (Sex Is A Triangle For The Perfect Square). One album (Revolve). One compilation of unreleased material (Everything...). One tour (West Coast, supported the Locust, Le Shok, etc). That's it. Beautiful Skin are worth remembering though and these albums are worth giving at least one listen if you are at all interested in Post-Punk music, past and present.
Great band. Very under-appreciated.
ReplyDeleteDid Cold Cave really get offered money to have their music in a commercial? Personally, I can't believe Radioshack is still in business in 2009, but that's just me.
I'm with you on being surprised that Radioshack is still going strong. And here is the commercial in question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILFgwIx29ws
ReplyDeleteIt's their song "Life Magazine"