The Associates were a Scottish post-punk and new wave band of the early 1980s. They were well known for the operatic voice and theatrical antics of peacockian singer Billy Mackenzie who committed suicide in 1997.
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The Associates were a Scottish post-punk and new wave band of the early 1980s. They were well known for the operatic voice and theatrical antics of peacockian singer Billy Mackenzie who committed suicide in 1997.
1979–1982: Associates Mk 1
MacKenzie and guitarist Alan Rankine met in Dundee in 1976 and formed the cabaret duo The Ascorbic Ones. In 1979 they recorded songs under the name of Mental Torture before finally changing their name to The Associates. They then recorded their debut single, a cover of David Bowie's "Boys Keep Swinging". Their version attracted a good deal of attention, not least from David Bowie, as it was released before Bowie's version. A string of highly regarded singles were released and two albums The Affectionate Punch (which inspired bands such as U2) and Fourth Drawer Down.
The band's breakthrough came in 1982 with the release of the single "Party Fears Two." Buoyed along by the popularity of synthpop at the time, the song made #9 on the UK singles chart. Two other hits soon followed, "18 Carat Love Affair", and "Club Country". That year the band released what is widely regarded as their masterpiece Sulk, an album which exacted comparisons with Brian Wilson's production style. To this day Sulk is impossible to describe genre wise. It was largely conceived in an amphetamine induced frenzy, reflected in its watery and dense production style which is held to be remarkably different from almost any other record from the era.
1983–1990: Associates Mk 2 and Commercial Decline
Alan Rankine left the band in 1982 just before the Sulk Tour. This proved disastrous in terms of the band's career, in particular as the band were being actively courted by Seymour Stein who thought they could become massive stars in the USA. Mackenzie recorded some material under the name '39 Lyon Street' with friends and then continued to write and record music under the Associates name until 1990. The albums Perhaps, The Glamour Chase (which was never released by his record company due to it being, in their opinion, commercially unviable. It was finally released in 2002) and Wild and Lonely were made in this timescale. However without the guiding hand of Rankine, recordings were sporadic and arguably failed to reach the majesty or inventiveness of his earlier work. Associates records failed to reach the charts in the UK and sold far fewer than their early albums. Many fans also reckon that the Associates' record company were pushing Billy into homogenising The Associates' sound to fit in with what was popular at the time which is especially evident on the album Wild and Lonely. True to the original band's name, he never stopped working and writing music with other "associates", either for himself or guest-starring in other artists' albums with always stunning lead or backing vocals.
