Today's SOTD is by an obscure group called New Musik. I wasn't familiar with them contemporaneously. But after noticing a guy named Tony Mansfield had produced several of my favorite albums of the 1980s -- including Mari Wilson's 'Showpeople" (1983) and "Bouncing Off the Satellites (1986) by the B-52's -- I learned that he had fronted this short-lived London synthpop band in his pre-producer years. New Musik apparently had its biggest success with a single called "Living by Numbers," which hit the U.K. Top 20 in 1980. But while it's cute, I kind of prefer their 1979 debut, with its Casio keyboards and upbeat refrain. Check it out below.
For those interested: All three of the band's albums -- "From A to B" (1980), "Anywhere" (1981) and "Warp" (1982) -- are available on most streaming services.
1 comment:
This song - and the band - got a huge PR push in the spring of 1980. Epic brought back the 10" EP for Nu Musik AND Cheap Trick (Found All The Parts). "Straight Lines" was also included on several compilation records CBS and Epic released that year. They gave it everything they had.
And it kinda worked: the song got played a lot on community college New Wave shows. Which is how I first heard it!
Post a Comment