‘Cry & Dance’ by A THOUSAND MAD THINGS was undoubtedly the best body of work released in 2025.
The project of William Barradale, his style of dark synthpop explored themes of desire, shame and insecurities through his own personal experiences as a young gay man. With his haunted demeanour, his vocal delivery falls under the spectre of doomed romantics like Billy MacKenzie of ASSOCIATES.
Following a majestic debut headline show at London’s Paper Dress Vintage comes the new EP ‘Hate It’; William Barradale told ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK: “Although all these songs were made at a similar time, EP2 has more energy in its production and tone. I picked the songs I felt had more to say for themselves to go second. ‘Cry & Dance’ was about establishing the project and EP2 feels more expressive and darker in tone. I have a whole concept about what it is to be a flawed person and each song represents a different part of that person (the thoughts, the feelings, the body, the needs etc). I wanted to hold back these songs for EP2 because I wanted to wait until I had some attention to share them. The sound is similar though and it’s a lot of the same synths and production style.”
Photo by Romy Caton-Jones
Still maintaining the sharp modern songwriting of its predecessor which eschews the longer intros and fades of Synth Britannia, the ‘Hate It’ EP begins with haunting gothic swing of ‘Promises’. Mournfully reflecting that “I’d never break the promises I chose to make that night”, it catches the bouncy rhythmic snap of THE CURE during their fantasy phase to exude an artful pop demeanour.
A cousin to ‘Wide Awake’ from ‘Cry & Dance’ in its literal cry, the hypnotic technopop of ‘Remorse’ asks the question “what did I do to hurt you?”. In a sign of the times, ‘Truth You Seek’ exudes a frustrated intensity that “this is my final vow”; built on a colder cacophony of synths, the engine room acts as the backbone to the seedier uncertain aspects of romantic yearning expressed in Barradale’s theatrical vocals.
The sombre bass driven drama of ‘Empty Part of Me’ sees Barradale note “how can you not hate the way they stare at you and me?” while displaying his lower and higher vocal registers before the ‘Hate It’ title song closes the EP with some dark disco dancing; singing of “ugly sin”, there are elements of SUICIDE as there was on ‘Girl’ on ‘Cry & Dance’ while there is also a Cold War drama lurking over proceedings.
Less immediate than ‘Cry & Dance’, the glorious darker overtones of ‘Hate It’ dig deeper and show that the debut was not a fluke. With yet-to-be released songs such as ‘Loving Was Easier’ and ‘Cracked Mirror’ outlining that there is more to come, A THOUSAND MAD THINGS is now the great hope for dark British synthpop. With promising acts like MIRRORS and EAST INDIA YOUTH unable to sustain their initial creative momentum, William Barradale is here to fill that void with his honest soulful celebration of all aspects of the human condition and chooses to be the better man!
Clothing boutique by day and live music venue by night, Paper Dress Vintage in London’s Hackney was the location for the first headlining show of A THOUSAND MAD THINGS.
Sold out for several weeks, it has reinforced the impressive impact that A THOUSAND MAD THINGS has made since releasing the debut EP ‘Cry & Dance’. The vehicle of William Barradale, his self-confessed mission is to bring dark synthpop back, reflecting his experience as a tortured outsider navigating young manhood and homophobia.
While having opened for THE HUMAN LEAGUE on Brighton Beach in 2025, live appearances of A THOUSAND MAD THINGS have been comparatively scarce since, save slots at Swn Festival and Release Me in addition to opening for American darkwave acts PIXEL GRIP and TWIN TRIBES.
But opening the evening, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK was not expecting to see the British answer to LADY GAGA in Hackney; actually from Melbourne in Australia and of Italian heritage, SIR JUDE is the nom de theatre of Juliana Barillaro. While starting her set sedately, from the pumping ‘Homewrecker’ onwards, she gave the order to just dance. Although ‘Madonna’ was not about the superstar diva, Barillaro displayed a similarly feisty independent spirit performing it. The excellent ‘Buried’ pointed to a musical affinity with the diva born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta but with a grungier edge. By the concluding gallop of ‘Dilemma’, the crowd was already sweating.
In a sea of smoke, when William Barradale arrived on stage dressed all in black with a stylish shirt, tie and long skirt, it was like something out of ‘The Matrix’. Accompanied on keyboards by Jim Foulsham-Rogers, the duo launched into a trio of uptempo numbers to set the ball rolling; the opening track on the new ‘Hate It’ EP, ‘Promises’ gave proceedings a catchy gothic swing while the trance-laden ‘Remorse’ offered clubbier glowstick vibes. The superb ‘Girl’ entered SUICIDE territory before ‘Empty Part of Me’ took things down a notch and allowed Barradale to display his lower and higher vocal ranges.
A new song ‘Loving Was Easier’ explored icy Nordic pop and outlined how much more there is to come from A THOUSAND A MAD THINGS; what Barradale has over other the newer crop of British “synth” acts is classic songs albeit in a modern format which eschews the longer intros and fades of Synth Britannia, plus an emotive voice to match. This was very much in evidence on the frustrated intensity of the more political ‘Truth You Seek’.
The ‘Hate It’ EP title song continued the dark disco dancing but after explaining that ‘My Car’ was about cruising, THE HUMAN LEAGUE inspired ‘She’s On The Run’ had its ‘Sound Of The Crowd’ stomp enhanced further in homage to ‘Love & Dancing’ with an extended ‘She Bleeds’ dub section where Barradale took to a mini-synth and other effects. After all that energy explosion, ‘Cracked Mirror’ showcased a wonderful ballad where Barradale held one particularly long note to cheers from the crowd.
Closing the show were A THOUSAND MAD THINGS’ two most streamed songs ‘Wide Awake’ and ‘Local Guys’. In the hands of an average darkwave act, ‘Wide Awake’ would have had its verse repeated for 5 minutes. Barradale though gave it a killer chorus and a soaring vocal haunted by the spectre of the late great Billy MacKenzie. Meanwhile the glorious ‘Local Guys’ is A THOUSAND MAD THINGS own ‘Smalltown Boy’, a highly relatable song delivered full of angst and passion that clearly connected. Those present could not be helped but wowed by his on-stage charisma. Think Ian Curtis, Andy McCluskey and James New of MIRRORS in his physicality and you would not be far off.
A superb first headlining show, this enthusiastically received performance should give A THOUSAND MAD THINGS the confidence to do more. Certainly deserving of a bigger audience and without the best new act of 2025, ‘Cry & Dance’ was an impressive statement and while less immediate, the more expressive and darker tones of the new ‘Hate It’ EP show that the debut was not a fluke.
Special thanks to James Crosley at Nettwerk Music Group
While the music of A THOUSAND MAD THINGS may evoke feelings of nostalgia, William Barradale is no tribute act or one for novelty or pastiche.
Emerging as the best new act of 2025, the debut EP ‘Cry & Dance’ was an impressive statement. Growing up gay and vulnerable in suburban England, William Barradale found he could relate to the voices and music of classic acts like BRONSKI BEAT, SOFT CELL and ASSOCIATES as a tortured outsider navigating young manhood.
Augmented for gigs by James Foulsham-Rogers on synths, A THOUSAND MAD THINGS are a compelling live act with William Barradale tidily dressed and expressing himself physically in a manner recalling Ian Curtis, Andy McCluskey and James New of MIRRORS while delivering his emotionally rich vocals.
Co-produced by Mike Peden who first made his name as a member of THE CHIMES, the new single ‘Promises’ comes ahead of the second EP from A THOUSAND MAD THINGS due out later in 2026 to continue Barradale’s shadowy journey through adolescent memories, doomed romances and loneliness. He kindly spoke to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about his creative approaches…
You only have one chance to make a first impression and you did it well. What does ‘Cry & Dance’ mean to you personally, was making the EP cathartic at all?
‘Cry & Dance’ will always be special for me. I feel when making music, it’s important to encourage yourself into a vulnerable place, and feel that the best music is honest. I went into the writing process with my producer wanting to create music that was raw and upfront about what it was. ‘Cry & Dance’ does what it says on the tin in that respect. It’s obvious where it comes from musically and I didn’t want to hide away from that. The songs will always hold deep meaning because they come from a place of such vulnerability. But balancing that pain with pleasure is what it’s all about. As a first body of work, I’m happy.
How did you become immersed in classic synthpop, was it something introduced to you by your parents or was it the teenager thing of discovering a passion of your own?
My dad brought me up on TEARS FOR FEARS, more than any of the other 80s bands. ‘Songs From The Big Chair’ was absolutely huge for me and no-one else was listening to that music when I was a kid. And I remember how uniform and predictable pop music could be when I was at school of course with a few exceptions (we’re talking 2010-15 when I was in secondary school). I was quite a depressive kid but found solace in that genre and time period. Something about the performances and the social commentary liberated me from boredom and hurt and they always do. I think of songs like ‘The Downtown Lights’ by THE BLUE NILE, ‘The Working Hour’ by TEARS FOR FEARS and ‘Smalltown Boy’ by BRONSKI BEAT, which growing up a gay boy I didn’t even figure out the context of until later on in my teenage years but the message penetrated nonetheless.
Photo by Romy Caton-Jones
You’ve talked about nostalgia on a few occasions, some say today’s pop music is not as good as in the past, do you see any argument for that? What is the attraction of the past?
I think in a world determined to accelerate forward at such a relentless pace, it is important to have things to look back to, even if it’s predicated on a fantasy vintage zeitgeist. To me, the future is absolutely terrifying and seemingly more out of our hands than we even know. I don’t like to use the word naive because I know how considered and detailed the producers and artists were back in the 80s synthpop-era but there is something about the direct approach to sounds and performances that always resonated with me, I feel no-one was hiding behind anything. The rawness, honesty and weirdness in some of the records and shown in the wider culture is remarkable. It’s human. And stuff being more ‘human’ is about to be a bigger virtue than anyone realises.
What was the genesis of ‘Wide Awake’? You really get to play with your vocal range there, do you have any favourite singers?
My favourite singers are Sarah Vaughan and Billy MacKenzie. On ‘Wide Awake’ in particular, Billy’s approach to range was a huge inspiration, it’s a f*cking nightmare to sing and I love it. I wanna hear someone cover it.
In a time when the darkwave sub-genre has become prevalent in alternative electronic music but lacking in quality on the song, vocal and production front, what stands out about ‘Cry & Dance’ is your songwriting, how did you nurture your craft, what sort of bands had you been in before?
I’ve always been a solo artist even though I always thought being in a band was cool. And I always felt very without a home genre / scene. Even now, I think it’s convenient to categorise my music as darkwave synthpop but I think it goes deeper than that. Sometimes I long to just play the piano, I love listening to jazz and classical music. Sometimes I don’t even like listening to music at all. My outlook on writing is that a good song is sort of universal and can translate across genre and setup so my aspiration is to always just to try and nail the song and make good pop music. Then as we produce it, that’s where you often find the colour and the scene and the genre. Not saying I don’t have sounds and references I like and rely on, but sometimes I’ll write a song and the demo will be completely different to the finished piece. Lyrically and contextually, my writing almost always comes from personal experience, I love stories but I’ve always been crap at writing them, it gets too weird.
You posted a selfie on your socials next to an ARP 2600, Roland SH2 and a Dave Smith Prophet, are they yours? Where do you stand on the hardware versus software debate?
They are unfortunately not mine. I use a lot of software just cos I can’t afford the proper synths right now, but I have a list and will one day build a studio full of my favourites. I think it depends on the application, especially for bass parts something like the Pro-One is just impossible to recreate digitally and have it as good. I find it incredible how close developers have gotten when making recreations though, some of them are great. I also use Serum by Xfer Records a lot and I think that thing sounds fantastic.
Was ‘Local Guys’ autobiographical? Do you hope your music may help those navigating adulthood in the way acts like SOFT CELL and BRONSKI BEAT did?
Yes it is. If my music could make another person feel the way BRONSKI BEAT made me feel as a teenage boy I’d die happy.
You have mentioned that one of your favourite bands is RADIOHEAD, is there anything in their approach that influences the way you make music with synths?
I think in general the musicality and emotional nature of RADIOHEAD just really resonates with me. ‘In Rainbows’ is my favourite album.
‘My Car’ has this emotive expression of longing and appears to be about unrequited love, what’s the furthest you have ever driven for someone?
The worst journey I can think of is driving across Central London in rush hour. I have only done that for people I really love.
The new single ‘Promises’ heralds a new EP coming in 2026 and has more of rhythmic bounce compared with what was on ‘Cry & Dance’, where are you taking your sound next?
Although all these songs were made at a similar time, EP2 has more energy in its production and tone. I picked the songs I felt had more to say for themselves to go second. ‘Cry & Dance’ was about establishing the project and EP2 feels more expressive and darker in tone. I have a whole concept about what it is to be a flawed person and each song represents a different part of that person (the thoughts, the feelings, the body, the needs etc). I wanted to hold back these songs for EP2 because I wanted to wait until I had some attention to share them. The sound is similar though and it’s a lot of the same synths and production style.
Do you have a title for the second EP and are there any of the songs you would like to talk about?
The title will be ‘Hate It’, I’ve taken that name from the 5th track of the EP.
What are your plans for playing live in 2026?
Hopefully we will play as much as possible, UK and EU. We’re playing with PIXEL GRIP in February for a few nights in London, Bristol and Manchester and I think that’s going to be fantastic. Myself and Jim have developed the show over the new year so I’m excited to show people new material and a bigger and bolder set than we’ve done before. I love to travel and play so I hope to see as many cities as possible and a few festivals in summer would put the cherry on top.
What are your hopes and fears as A THOUSAND MAD THINGS gains momentum?
I don’t really have fears except creative stagnation. My hopes are to be an artist people find refreshing and unique but also make songs they find infectious. Selling out a headline show is my personal target for this year.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to A THOUSAND MAD THINGS
Special thanks to James Crosley at Nettwerk Music Group
A THOUSAND MAD THINGS 2026 live dates opening for PIXEL GRIP include:
London The Lexington (12th February), Bristol The Croft (13th February), Manchester YES Basement (14th February)
‘Cry & Dance’, the debut EP by A THOUSAND MAD THINGS was the best long form release of 2025.
The solo synth vehicle of William Barradale, ‘Cry & Dance’ captured the lot of the tortured outsider navigating young manhood while threatened by homophobic ‘Local Guys’ as documented in the emotive tension of the same named song. The EP’s opening salvo ‘Wide Awake’ was an uplifting triumph that showed purveyors of generic darkwave a thing or two about songwriting and production, while ‘She’s On The Run’ brought ‘The Sound Of The Crowd’ into the 21st Century in a fitting artistic gesture having opened for THE HUMAN LEAGUE on Brighton Beach.
A THOUSAND MAD THINGS begins 2026 with a brand new single ‘Promises’ as a trailer to his new EP out later this year. Its 5 tracks were premiered live at the London new music evening Release Me last November. Although a natural progression from ‘Cry & Dance’, it dials down on its more obvious nostalgic reminiscences.
While William Barradale can count TEARS FOR FEARS, THE HUMAN LEAGUE, DEPECHE MODE, THE BLUE NILE, ASSOCIATES and the less well-known VITAMIN Z (who opened for Midge Ure on ‘The Gift’ tour in 1985) among his influences, ‘Promises’ goes a bit deeper and catches the bouncy rhythmic snap of THE CURE during their fantasy phase to exude an artful pop demeanour. Despite being hurt once and hurt twice, the visual accompaniment shows Barradale fingers crossed in a disused warehouse, mournfully reflecting that “I’d never break the promises I chose to make that night”.
With the likes of Ricky Wilde and Andy Bell’s Torsten collaborator Barney Ashton-Bullock offering their compliments to A THOUSAND MAD THINGS on social media, things are looking promising for William Barradale in his shadowy journey through adolescent memories, doomed romances and loneliness.
50 years from KRAFTWERK appearing on the BBC’s ‘Tomorrow’s World’ to perform ‘Autobahn’ and demonstrate the future of music, as Ralf Hütter remarked at the start of the 21st Century, “electro is everywhere” and can now be made on your mobile phone!
And while the KRAFTWERK brand continues to be fronted by the 79 year old Hütter with an extensive UK tour pencilled in next year, 2025 saw the sad passing of Synth Britannia heroes Dave Ball and Stephen Luscombe, while there was also the loss of COVENANT associate Andreas Catjar-Danielsson, NITZER EBB frontman Douglas J McCarthy and Gary Numan’s brother / former live band member John Webb. Outside of the genre, cult film director David Lynch, BLONDIE drummer Clem Burke, veteran diva Marianne Faithfull, The Prince Of Darkness Ozzy Osbourne and Head Beach Boy Brian Wilson were among those who left this mortal coil.
Among the new talent making a good impression were Spike, Shears and Hannah Hu who is currently working on her first album with Dean Honer of I MONSTER. Having already released a couple of albums, on the ascendancy was self-styled Californian “retro electro artist”Sophie Grey who was joined by Trevor Horn during her live cover of ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ while supporting Sting at the London Forum.
On the gentler side of electronics, Patricia Wolf and Loula Yorke came up with their fabulous respective instrumental offerings ‘Hrafnamynd’ and ‘Time Is A Succession Of Such Shapes’. There was also the return of LADYTRON as well as Alison Goldfrapp, Claudia Brücken and Kim Wilde. Going back to glitzy electropop on her new record ‘Mayhem’, Lady Gaga did an impression of Taylor Swift doing YAZOO on one of its highlights ‘How Bad Do U Want Me?’; meanwhile Taylor herself appeared to have turned into Los Angeles trio CANNONS on ‘The Fate Of Ophelia’, the synthy opening song of her 12th album ‘The Life Of A Showgirl’.
Photo by Oliver Blair
Swedish producer Johan Agebjörn proved to have one of the most prolific years in his music career with not only collaborations with R.MISSING on ‘Fakesnow’ and NINA on ‘Hush Hush Baby’ but also a new SALLY SHAPIRO album ‘Ready To Live A Lie’ and a solo long player ‘Southern Forest’; all this while holding down his day job as a psychotherapist! Another releasing two albums in 2025 was Paul Statham although one was a collection of archive recordings for what could have been the intended 1982 debut album by B-MOVIE entitled ‘Lost Treasures’; the other was a second record from his dark country project THE DARK FLOWERS featuring Jim Kerr of SIMPLE MINDS whose most recent single ‘Your Name In Lights’ had been co-written by Statham.
Impressively, SPARKS got ‘MAD!’ and then ‘MADDER!’ while undertaking a huge world tour with Ron Mael still tap dancing at 80 years of age during the drum solo of ‘No1 Song In Heaven’ and Russell Mael able to hit many of those high notes at 77. As ERASURE made a tentative return with a series of special UK fan club shows to celebrate their 40th anniversary, Andy Bell toured his solo album ‘Ten Crowns’ with KNIGHT$ not doing himself any harm being the opening act on the German leg ahead of a new album ‘Supernatural Lover’ out in early 2026.
After a few years of recorded absence, former TANGERINE DREAM members released long awaited albums with Peter Baumann from the classic line-up issuing the esoteric ‘Nightfall’ while Jerome Froese, son of co-founder Edgar, came up with the guitartronica of ‘Sunsets In Stereo’. Playing with the atonal atmospheres of early TANGERINE DREAM in places, the dark cerebral concept of ‘The Ray Bradbury Chronicles’ by Levente was worthy of investigation.
With their keyboard player Christian Berg now something of a modern day Rick Wakeman, KITE established themselves as a major world force with a spectacular show on ice at Stockholm’s Avicii Arena which saw special guest Nina Persson of THE CARDIGANS skating with the Helsinki Rockettes while singing their mighty collaboration ‘Heartless Places’.
Tom Shear released one of his most impressive and on-point albums as ASSEMBLAGE 23 in ‘Null’ while UNIFY SEPARATE didn’t mince their words on their ‘Heavy Meta’ EP. While Tobias Bernstrup kept the dark Italo flame alive with ‘Shadow Dancer’, Berlin continued to remain a force in underground club culture with two of its leading exponents Franz Scala and Kalipo presenting well-received long players that worked on the home hi-fi as well as on dancefloors. On the more poptronica front, Eddie Bengtsson finally stopped trying to “Numanise” his sound and came up with ‘Inget Motstånd’, a record in the more classic PAGE vein.
While synthwave appeared to be dead (as the controversial blog Iron Skullet declared in 2019), the influx of generic darkwave was a major blight on electronic music in 2025. The major label supported Mareux and his second album ‘Nonstop Romance’ had any potential painfully ruined by overused deliberate distortion to make it sound like it was recorded down a drainpipe.
Meanwhile PORCELAIN DANCER seemed to be the Rob Newman parody of Robert Smith as seen on ‘The Mary Whitehouse Experience’ resurrected only several octaves lower; his live performance provoked unintentional laughter from those who arrived early to see KORINE in London!
DEPECHE MODE released 4 songs that were originally deemed not good enough to put on their 2023 album ‘Memento Bori’ to append the live album accompanying their Mexico City concert film ‘M’. But 2025 was notable for a number of figures in the British DM fan community who were coming out with particularly repugnant far right views, seemingly oblivious to the decades of lyrical messages from the two remaining mixed race band members!
But there was hope in the darker side of synth with A THOUSAND MAD THINGS; with his haunted demeanour while navigating young manhood as a tortured outsider, William Barradale’s doomed romantic delivery reminiscent of Billy MacKenzie and Trevor Herion made him undoubtedly the most promising UK act since MIRRORS; his debut 5 song EP ‘Cry & Dance’ was one of 2025’s best bodies of work. This more than made up for ‘Dance Called Memory’, the extremely dull fourth album from NATION OF LANGUAGE which was anything but memorable…
After looking back at 1981, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK were pleased to be return to the variously compiled podcast ‘Back To NOW’ to discuss the ‘NOW 1982 Yearbook’ with genial host Iain McDermott and Ian Wade, author of ‘1984: The Year Pop Went Queer’. While general music and culture podcasts such as ‘Back To NOW’, ‘Word In Your Ear’, ‘The Rest Is Entertainment’, ‘The Rockonteurs’, ‘SoundPower’ and Miranda Sawyer’s new offering ‘Talk 90s To Me’ were highly engaging listens, specific broadcasts focussed on synth and electronic music were usually weak, suffering from poor hosting and ham-fisted background research. But when a professional presenter was involved, synth-oriented chats could be enlightening as the appearance of John Foxx on ‘The Adam Buxton Podcast’ proved, despite the annoying jingles that accompanied it.
Featuring commentary from PET SHOP BOYS’ Neil Tennant, the BBC’s retrospective look at the collapse of EMI called ‘Music Money & Mayhem’ showed once again that when those who know nothing about music get involved in the music business, it will end in tears. Looking at the story of the history of Beggars Banquet label in its first series and featuring Gary Numan in its opening episode, ‘States Of Independence’ documented how creative enthusiasm from the heart can actually thrive.
So where are the audiences for live electronic music these days? Certainly, if the full houses for Marie Davidson, Geneva Jacuzzi, Loscil and KITE in London’s club-sized venues were anything to go by, the crowds are out there. This was not the case for some other acts on the circuit at new, cult and one-hit wonder level who were struggling to get above half capacity or had downsized considerably since their perceived highest profile. However, new music night Release Me managed to get very good attendances for their evenings in 2025 with the premise that all acts must perform previously unreleased material; this focus on their events being about the music with announced requests to not talk during sets was a fresh and very welcome approach.
Photo by Tom Casey
Elsewhere, the retro business did prosper with reunions, exhibitions, summer hits shows, classic album tours, deluxe reissues of albums that were never that good in the first place and notable records re-released in yet another expanded set for the 5th or 6th time! There were those trying to exploit the fading nostalgia of those heady romantic times, writing memoirs that left out so many important facts omitted that there were grounds for inclusion in the “fiction” section.
Then there were others releasing overlong collections with an average track length of between 6-8 minutes that no-one asked for nor desired… filtering and editing is such an important aspect to producing music so there was no excuse for these veterans! Some even sent out unmastered music files to review outlets, blissfully unaware that the sound quality might actually be mentioned, only to get stupidly angry about it when highlighted due to their own numbskull promotional abilities; it’s a funny old entitled world…
The positive and negative of modern day music consumption is growth CAN happen organically in its own internet powered niche. But with the fragmentation of promotion with social media actually being a choice despite wider protestations, even the AXS newsletter listing the acts soon to be playing the 20,000 capacity O2 arena in London provoked cries of “WHO?”; but that is how it is now and it needs to be accepted. Why should a Boomer or Gen X-er know about the bright young thing headlining Glastonbury?
However, you CAN create your own musical universe today, not listen to radio, create your own playlists and exclude as appropriate. After all, as Nick Rhodes from DURAN DURAN once remarked: “Good taste is exclusive” – nobody should have to like what you like and neither should what somebody else likes appeal to you… niche interests are fine.
There is no doubt fandom has become more tribal and is now akin to away game support for football teams. But as a result, it has therefore got more toxic, with some fans getting ridiculously angry on socials about old less-than-positive reviews that David Hepworth, Mark Ellen, Ian Cranna, Dave Rimmer, Tom Hibbert or Neil Tennant might have written for Smash Hits 43 YEARS AGO!! “Bet he regrets that…” someone will quip smugly but the reality is, if there is a review that a writer will regret, from the experience of ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK, it will usually be the one that is too gushing with praise!
The gist of Smash Hits during its imperial phase that coincided with Neil Tennant’s tenure as Assistant Editor was it was a magazine which treated “pop” as the most “important” thing in the world while simultaneously highlighting how “ridiculous” it was too, with references to “the dumper”, “summer colds” and the “tongue sarnie”… often dismissed as a “teen mag”, a good number of teenagers could see through the up-itself pretentions of the NME so relished the more amusing and knowing “scribblings” of the Smash Hits team!
The wider public forgets that it might likely have the benefit of 4 decades of hindsight as well as weekly if not daily plays of a record in the first few years of its possession. While it has always been associated with “free speech”, “opinion” or “freedom of expression”, one of the problems with social media is the narcissistic self-seeking of validation as part of the main character syndrome that afflicts many in this modern world…
U2 once asked “how long must we sing this song?”; so to end a divisive year where evil men with racist views have been casually normalised, the message outlined in 1981 by a trio of philosophers from South Yorkshire must continue to be repeated loud and clear: WE DON’T NEED THIS FASCIST GROOVE THANG! #FuckFarage #FuckReformUK #FuckTommyRobinson #FuckFlagshaggers #FuckTrump
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