Atari Baby

if one were to click here, should one be curious about the fate of Sigue Sigue Sputnik, then one will learn that they would appear to still be alive, well and a going concern, if not having released anything for a couple of years. that said, i must say i prefer to remember them as pictured here, with all the state of the art 80's technology that they had.

it's difficult not to remember the Sputniks fondly. they were a riot, arriving without a record or a record deal, yet somehow being all over the music press. when a record did turn up in the shape of Love Missile F1-11, a large number of people found the novelty to be gone and, if we are in the business of honesty, bewilderingly their success ended when they hit the charts. on one level at least. i don't know or remember enough of them to give a history as such. i do recall someone slamming them for making a record "that was the sound of someone playing space invaders". well, if that's the case, then they did it with some style and panache, at least!

they did themselves no favours in releasing a second single, 21st Century Boy, that sounded like a poor studio out-take of Love Missile, but then again knowing of the intelligence of Tony James, i dare say this was rather deliberate. a shame, as the album Flaunt It featured some better songs; revel if you will in the atmospheric joys of Atari Baby, or Massive Retaliation, a track which suggested that they were in fact rather talented under all the hype.

there will be no lengthy Frankie style tribute from me to the Sputniks, but i do miss the days of their wild, (mostly) harmless and fun ride in to the world. sadly, no band today would dare try the tricks they did - which is a shame, and explains the dull and drab state of the music world today. let's face it, the closest we have in the 21st Century to blatant self-promoters in the music world is the tiresome Arctic Monkeys - Gordon Brown being a fan of them pretty much sums up the excitement they generate. sigh, those were the days.

anyway, if you have an old Sputnik disc or record kicking around, why not give them a spin and see if you remember the days when pop stars actually wanted to be pop stars, not TV competition winners or sad burn outs before they hit 20 (boring Pete, dull Amy, et al)?

be excellent to each other, or, if you will,

there goes my love rocket red................................