I never heard The Associates until this year. This is their debut album, and it is magnificent. From Scotland, they were a duo consisting of vocalist Billy Mackenzie and guitarist Alan Rankine, that formed in 1979. Their Wikipedia page says their first release was an authorized cover of David Bowie's "Boys Keep Swinging", and you can definitely hear his influence in balance with the post-punk feel to their debut. Apparently they went on to some chart success with a more refined "New Romantic" style similar in sound to Orange Juice and ABC...you can hear it clearly in some of the songs. I haven't listened to their later music, but this debut hit me in a way like - damn, how did I miss this? It is great. Sadly, Mackenzie committed suicide in 1997. He was friends with Siouxsie Sioux and she wrote a song about him with her offshoot band The Creatures. Rankine passed away in January 2023 of heart disease at age 64.
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