Sigue Sigue Sputnik, anyone?

While jacked-in to the InfraWeb, I came across graphics of this famous media phenom, Malcolm McLaren-style hype exercise from around 1990 or so. Great look these guys had; sort of Eighties excess welded to a campy sort of Japanese cyperpunk image. Tony James (Generation X bassist) was the ringleader. The album covers for Flaunt It, 21st Century Boys and others look right out of today's global Anime/Manga fascination or, like a rock band from a William Gibson novel.

It was the future, from two decades ago!

Trouble is - I somehow never actually heard this band (it was probably just as important to have the t-shirt.) What did they sound like and, if cool, what were their essential discs? (I'm considering the singles comp 21st Century Boys or maybe Flaunt It just for the cool graphics!)

Discuss, please.

 

I liked this patronising interview by Muriel Gray on The Tube. "You look a wee bit like gonks..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSy4MIpwYIA

As for the music... you decide: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk30a0qsVIk&feature=related

That was featured in Ferris Bueller's Day Off I think I recall...

 

Oh. My. God.

 

They saw the future...... for like a minute.
Saw them a the Palladium, on Holloween 1986. An extremely young Chris Rock opened for them. Poor bastard.
Awful show, but, like Liebach, they were too 'ahead of their time'.
The refrence in "High Fidelity" always makes me laugh.
To me, the Japanese band POLYSICS are the love child of DEVO & Sigue, Sigue Sputnik!

 

Sigue Sigue Sputnik's Flaunt Me is a bloody masterpiece. Giorgio Moroder's production throughout the album is fantastic. They really were ahead of their time. The whole production placement throughout the album is so well done, it's quite strange that no one would probably notice that in this day and age, but when i first heard the album back in the late 80's, i remember all those ad spots sticking in my mind. "I Am The Ultimate Product" indeed. BTW the male voice you hear saying the ads (like "Product") is none other than the late great Phil Hartman.

It is still one of the great albums of the 80's. Track 4 with the Dirty Harry opener is my favorite song, a pulsating, nerve-pounding, slam-fisting masterpiece of a tune. "C'mon And Get ME USA!!!!"

 

Really?

 

Yep.

 

Did you know as well that Phil Hartman was the artist who did the cover of America's Greatest Hits?

 

i have the flaunt it lp and the love missle f1-11 remixes. i'd recommend both of those.

 

I do too. I always thought Tony James was great, in Generation X, in Sigue Sigue and in Carbon/Silicon with Mick Jones (Clash). The latter's record was one of last year's overlooked gems ...
I think the "Dancing With Myself" royalties saved James ...

 

Well, "Love Missle" was a No. 1 record in the U.K.
Loved the Pop Will Eat Itself cover version.

 

I thought they were great. Flaunt it is the one to get. I think there is also a cd with the extended mixes on it, they are just wacky and brilliant.

 

The graphic "look"

 

Saw them in NYC around 1987 or so, they were great live!
Billy Idol was in the audience & was jamming to his former bandmate's new group.

Tony James has said that he wanted SSS to sound like a cross between T-Rex and Suicide.
The band rehearsed for at least a year before releasing any recordings, & were a tight unit live - especially the two drummers & the rockabilly-riff-ripping guitarist. A lot of fun.

 

My sister had the Flaunt It album bick in the day, and I had the t-shirt! It was kind of fun stuff, but the preening attitude (Martin Degville's studied arrogance and Tony J's assurances of world domination), and their inability to progress their sound beyond the first single confined them to the "Hype!" bin.

 

I preferred the Leningrad Cowboys.

 

Giorgio Moroder produced? Perfect!! Gotta have it.

That would make a great thread, actually..."Semi-Fictitious Rock Bands with Extreme Images"

 

"Dress For Excess" is definitely a fun album, full of sex, debauchery, the usual rock themes, lol

 

Personally I loved Sigue Sigue Sputnik - "Flaunt It" is great, and highly original. I recommend the "Best Of" too for the 12 inch mixes. They lost me with with the follow up albums, but "Flaunt It" is packed with ideas. It's a mad, fun, album, not to be taken at all seriously. I still play it regularly.

 

Time to resurrect this thread in these Clash Box set days! SSS best track is

 

My sister saw them live, they were boo'd of the stage when the backing tape got stuck and it transpired they were miming!

Gary

 

Ahead of their time.Very,very good.

 

Not miming. Playing along to tracks. B.A.D. and Primal Scream among others of the era also did this, with full rock bands playing to samples locked to track. No one in these groups were miming and not making noise.

 

more like three decades - I remember them at that shop in Kensington Market called Yeah Yeah back in 1984. It's 2013 now!