Being one myself, I am only too aware that a physicians title is wholly hono(u)rific, always enjoying the wrath of PhDs over said point, especially when they labour the issue and correct the temerity of anyone calling them mister. I don't give a diddly what folk call me, well, by and large, but they usually apply me the title. At work, I mean. It is a bit creepy elsewhere. Which is where I swiftly make the aside that I thought the well-known Jackson Browne song to have a comma in the title and to be an opening consulting room gambit............
Moving swiftly on, weren't the Thompson Twins great? Well, perhaps, and briefly, for no more than a couple of years, ending, possibly, at Live Aid. I dare say their publicist would disagree, but it was a brief and bright flame they burned. Actually anything but an electro band at the time of their formation, in 1997, a standard new wave guitar band of scallywag squatters seeking the streets of gold in London. With anything up to 7 of them to begin with, live shows augmented by whomsoever in the audience they could coax up on stage for added "percussion", never were there either twins or a Thompson in their ranks.
First single, 'Squares and Triangles', an altogether spikier sound than they would later adopt, was not a success, nor the album it became part of. Nor, much, the 2nd, although a freak pick-up of one of the songs from that release, 'In the Name of Love', became a dance hit in the clubs of Chicago. This virtual solo excursion into synthesiser territory gave the impetus to ditch the bulk of the band and reinvent. Tom Bailey, the de facto leader of the larger conglomerate, brought more fully on board the services of part time singer and percussionist, Alannah Currie, and erstwhile roadie, Joe Leeway. Polishing up the sound and employing expensive video shoots became their entry to chart success, with a run of huge singles, starting with 'Love on Your Side'. 'Hold Me Now' was the most successful, but the song featured here came a close 2nd.
I was a big fan. This time, the early 80s, was a boom time for music TV and you couldn't get away from the anthemic tunes and glossy image portrayed by the band, even if it was hard to fully see the point of the already more peripheral Currie and Leeway, seemingly more to do with the videos than the music. I remember an interview with Bailey, describing how he came to write their songs, suggesting he let computer programmes initiate melody lines. Only later came the reveal he had actually trained in classical piano and been a music teacher, prior to dropping out and into full time music making. I was also intrigued to discover that, given the title of this song and piece, his father was himself a medical doctor.
Live Aid, responsible for raising the profile of many another artist, strangely seemed to start the rot. Part of the American leg of the show, they were famously joined on stage by Madonna. Much more a show-biz bash than the UK show that preceded it, earlier that same day, the sound balance was largely appalling and I sort of lost interest. Yes, they continued for a few more years and records, losing Leeway along the way, and, in an effort to ally even more strongly to the increasingly important dance scene, the now duo, also now husband and wife, changed their name to Babble, becoming almost universally unknown in a stroke. (The two of them, however, did write this for Debbie, then Deborah, Harry.)
Bailey and Currie relocated to her home of New Zealand, Bailey becoming involved in the local music scene as a producer, Currie raising their children. The marriage later broke up and Bailey has returned to the northern hemisphere. Without finding much success as a solo artist, he is mainly to be found on the nostalgia circuit of 80s package tours, as Tom Bailey's Thompson Twins. Or, in parallel, as dub trance act International Observer, something far more in tune with my current tastes. Given the renaissance many of his contemporaries have since experienced, who knows, I don't see it impossible for he/they to regain a place in the limelight, such is the collective rose-tinted taste for that decade. If A Flock of Seagulls can come back, surely so too the Thompson Twins?
A final thought. So, if no twins and no Thompsons, why the name? This derives from characters in the comic adventures of the famous Belgian, Tintin, irrepressible detectives Thomson and Thompson. Who weren't even twins.
Your prescription.
