The Gone Too Soon Top Ten #2: Broken English

As has previously been documented here, I didn't start buying my own records until I was 15. That was 1987, so one of the first 7 inch singles to be added to my collection must have been the one above, a Stonesy guitar track packed with attitude, a great hook and a belting intro, made popular by a video depicting the band dressed as Ghostbusters.



Comin' On Strong by Broken English made #17 in the charts and it was one of my favourite songs of the year. I rushed out to buy their follow-up track, Love On The Side, which also benefitted from a great hook, fun lyrics and a top Magnificent 7-themed video. But I may have been the only one, because sadly, it didn't follow Comin' On Strong into the charts...



A cool third single (the poppier Do You Really Want Me Back?) followed, which I remember hearing a couple of times on the radio though I never managed to track a copy down. Still, I thought, no worries... I'll get the album.

Except no album came... and Broken English disappeared into the ether. 

The two singles I owned though have stuck with me over the past 30 years, cropping up on a variety of mixes and compilations tapes I've put together. But not until I sat down to write this feature did I discover (just as I had with Speedy) that the album Broken English's record company refused to release back in 1987 (The Rough With The Smooth) after their second two singles bombed... was finally released 20 years later in 2007.

And now I own it.

Sunday morning, while putting together a particularly vexing shelving unit from Ikea, I played the album on repeat: and it's pretty, pretttty good! The Stones comparisons are obvious (apparently lead singer Steve Elson was originally in a Stones tribute band) but this is lighter, catchier and more fun than anything Mick 'n' Keef in the late 80s, when they might as well have changed their name to The Coasters, had another band not beaten them to it years earlier. I can't believe I finally own this record. If you remember the band at all... and even if you don't... I'd recommend giving a few of these tracks a spin.

Broken English - Show A Little Mercy

Broken English - Ball & Chain

The Gone Too Soon Top Ten #1: Speedy

 This week's Saturday Snapshots inspired me to kick off a new feature I've been thinking about for a while now, focusing on bands I loved who disappeared before anyone really gave them a chance. We probably all have a few of these in our collections. I reckon I can scrape together ten if I think hard enough...

1. Speedy

Speedy then

Speedy now

It was late 1996 and I was working in the record library, mainlining promo CDs that the record companies were hurling at us to try and get airplay for their new bands. It was the height of Britpop and I was out gigging (also mostly freebies) two or three times a week. There were so many exciting new indie bands popping up, it was hard to keep up with them all, but being a comic book fan, I took special notice of the debut single by another new Sheffield band, Speedy. With chiming guitars, a brass section and even a cheer & clap chorus, Boy Wonder promised big things... even though it only made #56 in the charts.



This was followed a couple of months later by the equally glorious Anytime, Anyplace, Nowhere... by now, I was getting very excited about the album. (Though the singles chart remained uncracked.)



But Speedy's crowning glory came in May '97 with the following single, a track I still consider a lost Britpop classic... and so much better than a lot of the songs that still get played from that era. I dunno, there's something about it still sends shivers down my spine... well, you know how I love a good story song.



And then... well, not much. A further single, Going Home, was released in '98, but the record company didn't even bother to send that our way. And the album? The album never materialised.

Until...

Well, until I decided to write this post, at which point I discovered that Speedy's great lost album, New From Nowhere, had finally received an official release by the Lost Music Club record label in April 2014 - 16 years after the band went their separate ways. Better still, it's available on emusic... so I finally got myself a copy. What a wonderful world we live in. If you remember Speedy - or even if you don't, but you dig the songs above - I recommend you check it out.

I can't promise every story in this series will have such a happy ending... but I guess we'll have to wait and see.