The Age Of Consent

Product Information

London Records have announced a remastered and expanded reissue of Bronski Beat‘s 1984 album The Age Of Consent and will issue the album on three physical formats.

The follow-up single " Why?" (recorded at RPM Studios, NYC and mixed at Townhouse Studio, London) pursued a more energetic musical formula, while the lyrics focused more centrally and darkly on anti-gay prejudice. The song opened with a questioning vocal by Somerville and the shattering of breaking glass. Released in September 1984, the single made the top 10 in the UK. It was like Talking Heads, it was Simple Minds, it was anything but disco. But that brought with it a whole bunch of people with new political ideas that I was getting really inspired by and was really exciting me. So, it was a whole kind of explosion of little kind of subcultures within a subculture." But if you were a kid from the suburbs and looking for something more relatable, you couldn't go past Bronski Beat.

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Contempt in your eyes when I turn to kiss his lips, broken I lie, all my feelings denied, blood on your fist, can you tell me why?' Bronski Beat recruited John Foster as Somerville's replacement (Foster is credited as "Jon Jon"). A single, " Hit That Perfect Beat", was released in November 1985, reaching 3 in the UK. [15] It repeated this success on the Australian chart [13] and was also featured in the film Letter to Brezhnev. A second single, "C'mon C'mon", also charted in the UK Top 20 and an album, Truthdare Doubledare, released in May 1986, peaked at 18. The film Parting Glances (1986) included Bronski Beat songs "Love and Money", "Smalltown Boy" and "Why?". During this period, the band teamed up with producer Mark Cunningham on the first-ever BBC Children In Need single, a cover of David Bowie's " Heroes", released in 1986 under the name of The County Line. The Age of Consent". Official Charts Company. OCC. Archived from the original on 4 February 2022. #45

Nederlandse Top 40 – Bronski Beat – Smalltown Boy search results" (in Dutch) Dutch Top 40. Retrieved 20 December 2013. Offiziellecharts.de – Bronski Beat – The Age of Consent" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 25 May 2022. Mitchell, Matt (21 July 2023). "The 50 Greatest Synth-Pop Albums of All Time". Paste . Retrieved 26 July 2023. It showed. The Age Of Consent was a fine, vibracious synth-pop album in its own right, but it was so much more besides. It was an agitated, militant, campaigning document, spurred on by the sheer unfairness and hypocrisy Somerville perceived in the world around him.According to the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill, Britain’s outdated consent laws, and the impending Section 28 legislation (which forbid the so-called “promotion” of homosexuality in schools), the simple act of loving in public made gay men into potential aggressors. So Somerville turned his voice into a weapon, a weedy Scottish boy’s superpower that made him seem 100-feet tall. He’s said that his only vocal training was singing along to Donna Summer and Sylvester records. Apparently, this was strong enough to turn a short redhead from Glasgow into a bona fide diva, who recognized the transgressive potential of reclaiming this style from the female singers who made gay culture unthreatening to the mainstream. Not that it stopped Bronski Beat from crashing it, too: “Why?” peaked at Number 6 in the UK, and “Smalltown Boy” at Number 3. Horns - Uptown Horns (Crispin Cioe (alto saxophone & solo, "Love And Money"), Arno Hecht (tenor saxophone), Richard Coles (clarinet solo), "It Ain't Necessarily So"), "Hollywood" Paul Litteral (trumpet) and Bob Funk (trombone)) The album was produced by Mike Thorne; the recording sessions took place in London and New York City. The first single, " Smalltown Boy", was recorded at The Garden studio (owned by former Ultravox singer John Foxx) and mixed at Maison Rouge studio, both of them based in London. [ citation needed]