Icicle Works - 1984 - Icicle Works

As I mentioned, the day in October 1984 when I spent $20 at the mall for this album and The Replacements Let It Be was a monumental one. It was the transition from all things Prince in my life to the genres of music that weren't being played on commercial radio in Minneapolis at the time. I listened to them that Saturday afternoon and at night I went on a Wisconsin hayride and I had this feeling like things were different now. Weird, I know, but if anyone gets it, it is you guys.

I mentioned in the Replacements post that while I knew nothing of their music, I at least had heard Icicle Works' "Whisper to a Scream (Birds Fly)" on American Bandstand. Funny, I think I watched that show like twice in my life, and in August 1984 (I looked it up), I managed to catch this Liverpool band with a sound unlike anything on the radio at the time playing. They even got interviewed by Dick Clark.

They were called The Icicle Works in the UK, but the U.S. label made the switch. Dumb. Whatever. They also renamed the song "Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)" to the reverse. I bet beating up corporate label people, for the few that ever indulged, must have felt great.

Icicle Works managed to actually chart in the U.S., but that was a brief glimmer of success stateside. The follow up single, "Hollow Horse", failed and the U.S. distributor refused to release their follow-up The Small Price of a Bicycle in 1985. I only discovered it existed when I went to London on a school trip and saw an ad for it in one of their free weekly papers. I also remember a huge poster of Kate Bush's The Hounds of Love adorning the side of a double-decker bus (an album that will definitely be on this site).

Listen to this album whether you have heard it or not. It sounds great today. I have pulled like six of the songs for Shlep mixes over the years.

...