Interesting list again. A bunch of albums I have to check out. Cool to find Pet Shop Boys on your list! My favorite release that year. My top 10 of 1986: 1 Please - Pet Shop Boys 2 Victorialand - Cocteau Twins 3 Filigree and Shadow - This Mortal Coil 4 The Queen Is Dead - The Smiths 5 Horse Rotorvator - COIL 6 Tinderbox - Siouxsie & the Banshees 7 Your Funeral... My Trial - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 8 Scoundrel Days - a-ha 9 The Colour of Spring - Talk Talk 10 Slave to the Rhythm - Grace Jones
Sir, you have one of the best music channels out there. I always learn about music from the distant past that went under my nose when i watch your vids. Cool that you included both Costello albums from '86. Its funny when you compare Blood & Chocolate's production with an album like Gabriel's So. Love Skylarking and The Queen Is Dead as well as some other picks. Be well and looking forward to the next one!
Having soooo many albums above Skylarking means I've got a lot of (re)listening to do! Love your 'gushing' over The Virgin Prunes! Thanks for another thought-provoking and considered video... 🙏
@TheInstituteofPop Thank you!! Before actually laying out this top 25... I assumed that Skylarking was top 8-ish... but I was surprised just how good 86 was. Many of the top 20 would've been top 10 in other years... and I know I went on and on about the Prunes 😆 but like I said ... I thought that went by the side of the road and was pleasantly surprised how much I really enjoyed both of their albums... still!
Another great list. I probably share about half your list in my top 25. Some you didn't mention that would be on my list are... 54-40 - S/T (The Green Album) Let's Active - Big Plans for Everybody The Woodentops - Giant The Fall - Bend Sinister Crowded House - S/T PIL - Album The Call - Reconciled Camper Van Beethoven - S/T Game Theory - Big Shot Chronicles Guadalcanal Diary - Jamboree Hunters and Collectors - Human Frailty Rain Parade - Crashing Dream I commented in your 1985 video that it was my favorite year for releases, but after looking through 1986 I'm starting to rethink. I'll just take the easy way out and call it a first place tie for best year.
Great to see you again! My top 3 most played (by far) from ‘86 are 3. Queen is Dead, 2. Black Celebration and 1. Infected (masterpiece of an album). However, thanks for shout-outs on some other albums I am unfamiliar with. Will check them out for sure, as we both have impeccable taste 😊 Cheers, take care.
Outstanding taste in music - I had listened to 21 of those 25 albums on my journey. I am currently up to 4200 albums and still going. I am giving you a sub - take care man.
Terrific video as always! My Top 10 of 1986!: 1. Iron Maiden - Somewhere in Time 2. Metallica - Master of Puppets 3. Peter Gabriel - So 4. Genesis - Invisible Touch 5. Van Halen - 5150 6. Journey - Raised on Radio 7. Steve Winwood - Back in the High Life 8. ELO - Balance of Power 9. Beastie Boys - Licensed to Ill 10. The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
No PiL? I had Paint Your Wagon my#11. Here's my 10: 1. Black Celebration - Depeche Mode 2. Medusa - Clan of Xymox 3. Big Sexy Land - The Revolting Cocks 4. Strange Charm - Gary Numan 5. Unveiling the Secret - Psyche 6. Come Visit the Big Bigot - Severed Heads 7. Brotherhood - New Order 8. Album - Public Image Ltd 9. 1+2 - Recoil 10. Flaunt it - Sigue Sigue Sputnik.
Hey Glenn! Great list again! So, for the record.. 26.PiL - Album 27. Bolshoi - Friends 28. RLYL - Paint Your Wagon 29. Smithereens - Especially for You 30. TSOL - Revenge 86 was way better than I remembered. Now, I'm pretty sure i remember 87 being a slow year... hopefully I'm pleasantly surprised again.
@@deadendstreetchannel I do have the benefit of preparing my annual lists each year going back to 78. No idea how I would compile them in retrospect! Yeah, 87 was a disappointing year (spoiler alert!).
My Top 3 of 1986 # 3 Chasing Shadows - Comsat Angels # 2 Black Celebration - Depeche Mode & # 1 Chameleons - Strange Times. Robert Palmer got The Comsat Angels signed to Island as a condition of his resigning to the label & was Executive Producer of the return to form album after the wayward Jive / Arista albums. Depeche Mode did their dark album & did it perfectly. Chameleons pulled off a near perfect album & success seemed imminent but Manager Tony Fletcher unexpectedly passed away & fragile relationships in the band deteriorated. Ivo from 4AD signed Throwing Muses & The Pixies on the same night in Boston. A man of good taste. Songs Of A Lost World is here on Friday.
I mentioned previously that 1986 was a big year for me, partly because at 16 it's an important time for music to permanently alter my growing brain. But also, it was a really interesting time when a bunch of psychedelic post-punk, goth, jangle pop and such crossed over a bit into the mainstream, which I wrote about in 1986: The Year Indie Crashed the UK Charts. 1. The Chameleons - Strange Times 2. The Feelies - The Good Earth 3. Slayer - Reign In Blood 4. Metallica - Master of Puppets 5. XTC - Skylarking 6. The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead 7. Easterhouse - Contenders 8. The Church - Heyday 9. The Woodentops - Giant 10. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Your Funeral . . . My Trial 11. R.E.M. - Lifes Rich Pageant 12. Agent Orange - This Is The Voice 13. Hunters & Collectors - Human Frailty Felt - Forever Breathes The Lonely Word Big Black - Atomizer Talk Talk - The Colour Of Spring Siouxsie & The Banshees - Tinderbox Bad Brains - I Against I Sonic Youth - EVOL Love And Rockets - Express The The - Infected Screaming Blue Messiahs - Gun-Shy Shriekback - Big Night Music Passion Fodder - Fat Tuesday Hüsker Dü - Candy Apple Grey The Comsat Angels - Chasing Shadows Iron Maiden - Somewhere In Time That Petrol Emotion - Manic Pop Thrill The Mission - Gods Own Medicine T.S.O.L. - Revenge Passion Fodder - Fat Tuesday is a new discovery for me. I was turned on to French post-punk band Orchestre Rouge, lead by American singer Theo Hakola. He then formed Passion Fodder with a more Bad Seeds/Crime & the City Solution noir vibe. Like many bands in 1986, of their five albums this was clearly their best. Johnson did videos for every track of Infected, and it really needs to be re-issued on Blu-Ray. I also like The Mission better than any later Sisters of Mercy. There's a triple album reissue of Strange Times, but pretty xpensive at $50. I used to have it in college, and sold all the vinyls in the 90s, oops! I just picked up a copy of the original at the Austin Record Convention last weekend. I'll be seeing The Chameleons at Levitation next weekend! I have to dock The Smiths points for "Some Girls," "I Know it's Over," really half of it was always disappointing for me. It would have been much improved had the contemporary A-Side "Ask" and B-Sides "Is It Really So Strange?" and "Rubber Ring" were included. With Comsat Angels it was especially frustrating that Robert Palmer at his commercial peak was a big fan, getting them signed to Island and helping out with production/mixing, yet they didn't chart, unlike over 60 of their peers that year. Our tastes overlap a ton as usual, and yet there's so much great stuff that year, that our placings vary wildly: Throwing Muses #73, New Order 74, Cocteau Twins 153, Murphy 245. Depeche Mode 131, Killing Joke 108, Pet Shop Boys 176, Costello Show 75. Smithereens 49, Sylvian 146, Iggy 110, Big Country 177, RLYL 97, GLJ 145. Virgin Prunes, Pretenders & Bolshoi I didn't rate. I will circle back to those for sure -- there's been many albums that have grown on me over the past 39 years. My bubbling under: The Three Johns, And Also the Trees, The Call, Game Theory, The Mighty Lemon Drops, Ups And Downs, Lowlife, The Primevals, Stan Ridgway, The Housemartins, The Saints, Translator, Elvis Costello, Saint Vitus, Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, Prince, Candlemass, Van Morrison, The Lucy Show.
Again, tons of overlap... just flipped all over the place. 😆 I went with the original Australian release date for Heyday... so you already know I listed it in 85... it's always confusing when releases happen in December vs January. I'm gonna search out that Passion Fodder.... sounds enticing. Yeah, I'll just never get how Comsats didn't break with chasing shadows... it's not their best album... but definitely had the most mainstream appeal, I thought.
Also... I just checked... The Saints All Fools Day has a July 87 release date here... I knew I bought it in the summer... thought i was slipping for a minute there 😆. but that will almost certainly be featured in my '87
They'll never be the Chameleons again without Dave Fielding and John Lever.. I saw them around 40 times over the years(original band plus several more times in various VOX formations) and the lack of power and aggression on the drums is always the first thing I notice Now my dear friend is no longer with us , Whilst it has taken Mark Burgess's second string 15 years to finally get a guitarist that sounds and plays something like Dave does/did.. The rejoining of Reg has improved them massively also of course but for new songs?.. You can't replace the guy who along with Reg wrote and came up with those ethereal guitar parts.. Dave rang me only last night to ask why Mark has re-recording the session that CBS paid a small fortune to get Steve Lillywhite to record at a top studio for CBS , two of which recordings were up for being their first single on CBS and why is Mark now claiming they were only demos.????..how many bands of top record companies had the very best producers in to do a demo and then chose one as a single as it stood? Dave is correct..It makes no sense ..It makes no sense coz it is nonsense.. I would ask WHy did Mark claimed they had no intention on the new album(already delayed) to try and sound like Dave (because nobody can when writing or replaying live)and then say b4 they started on the new album they decided to return to these old songs to get the feel for the old sound and music. More nonsense??? They are not the Chameleons..They are two brilliant members of a once brilliant band who made the most awesome sound and songs.. nearly 22 years since I stood in Athens with only one of them on the stage coz they others had already had enough and still only an average of 1 newish song released for every 5.5 of those years? most of them are awful and non a patch on the original band's output.. They should have given up years ago imo...BUT if you've ever had Dave Fielding take your guitar off you when trying out an echo pedal and play both those glorious pieces of guitar (The End Of Time & I'll Remember)from the second part of Strange Times using just the one foot pedal you are truly a lucky and blessed fan and I AM VERY LUCKY... Dave btw doesn't like the second side of the album.. says the songs are not strong enough and he loves the first half..We often disagree on this..The first half has the big songs of course..the stadium fillers(well should have been ;) ) but the second half imo is just beautifully crafted and flows so nicely..Most certainly helped by those little links by Dave with those magical little pieces... Loving your lists btw..
Hello! Replacing Dave is just really no t on the table... it's probably more just surviving or moving forward. John's passing was so terribly untimely... and he was one of the best to ever do it. But Stephen and Todd are fans themselves and do a very good job of staying true to the songs... especially for someone like me who was 12 when they broke up after Strange Times and never saw them live, back then! I had the pleasure of meeting Mark and Reg last year and they were so incredibly gracious... I do not know the politics between Mark and Dave... I do wish they could settle their differences.... but at this stage of the game, who knows? All I know is they are one of my all time favorite groups and I love their music! Thank you so much for watching! I truly appreciate the support!
@@deadendstreetchannel ..It's not the moving on and forward that grinds with many fans..It,s the constant lies and shifting of position when it suits Mark..One minute they are Chameleons vox and mark says that's out of respect to Dave and Reg they'll never use the Chameleons name tag...then when Reg joins he says there's now two of them and they can use "CHAMELEONS" YET THERE WAS TWO EX CHAMELEONS IN VOX FOR MUCH OF THE TIME AND THEY USED "VOX" ..Then just about every show since 2009 is listed as The Chameleons..Because there's a product to sell..many went thinking it was the old band..Many didn't even know Dave and Reg were not in the band .. . one minute these were recordings for a single/ possible album for CBS(Mark's own words).. then when there's a product for sale they were suddenly just demos and needed re-recording??? Steve Lillywhites production needed re-doing???? ..It's a bare-faced Trumponian-style lie... But like Trump..many do not question the validity of what's said..or care enough to look into them.. It's tough when bands fall out and move on.A decade and a half of playing the same old 20 od songs from the first three album,,over and over again.....Only it's been 21 years and Mark hasn't moved on..No real new music(2 e.p's ..one seriously substandard sycophants and one with a little more class more recently...If that's moving the legacy of this great band on it's at .010 % of snails pace at best.. it all detracts from the legacy IMO.. Dave's guitar sound and ethereal playing of his simple but beautiful guitar parts along with Reg's quirky riffs made them different from the pack..Add John's pounding drums once he joined and Marks vitriolic voice and amazing lyrics helped it work perfectly together . It can not work without one of those key elements in the writing process.. the tune is everything without the hook it's just people trying to sound like the original but missing out on the main ingredient ..
Interesting list again. A bunch of albums I have to check out. Cool to find Pet Shop Boys on your list! My favorite release that year.
My top 10 of 1986:
1 Please - Pet Shop Boys
2 Victorialand - Cocteau Twins
3 Filigree and Shadow - This Mortal Coil
4 The Queen Is Dead - The Smiths
5 Horse Rotorvator - COIL
6 Tinderbox - Siouxsie & the Banshees
7 Your Funeral... My Trial - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
8 Scoundrel Days - a-ha
9 The Colour of Spring - Talk Talk
10 Slave to the Rhythm - Grace Jones
@dagnord2012 Thank you!!! great list! Good call on TMC!
Color of spring def a top ten! Love Slave to the Rhythm
Sir, you have one of the best music channels out there. I always learn about music from the distant past that went under my nose when i watch your vids. Cool that you included both Costello albums from '86. Its funny when you compare Blood & Chocolate's production with an album like Gabriel's So. Love Skylarking and The Queen Is Dead as well as some other picks. Be well and looking forward to the next one!
Thank so much for watching! Glad you enjoy the channel!
Having soooo many albums above Skylarking means I've got a lot of (re)listening to do! Love your 'gushing' over The Virgin Prunes! Thanks for another thought-provoking and considered video... 🙏
@TheInstituteofPop Thank you!! Before actually laying out this top 25... I assumed that Skylarking was top 8-ish... but I was surprised just how good 86 was. Many of the top 20 would've been top 10 in other years... and I know I went on and on about the Prunes 😆 but like I said ... I thought that went by the side of the road and was pleasantly surprised how much I really enjoyed both of their albums... still!
Another great list. I probably share about half your list in my top 25. Some you didn't mention that would be on my list are...
54-40 - S/T (The Green Album)
Let's Active - Big Plans for Everybody
The Woodentops - Giant
The Fall - Bend Sinister
Crowded House - S/T
PIL - Album
The Call - Reconciled
Camper Van Beethoven - S/T
Game Theory - Big Shot Chronicles
Guadalcanal Diary - Jamboree
Hunters and Collectors - Human Frailty
Rain Parade - Crashing Dream
I commented in your 1985 video that it was my favorite year for releases, but after looking through 1986 I'm starting to rethink. I'll just take the easy way out and call it a first place tie for best year.
thanks for the really enjoyable series ... and your wonderful eyes ...
I'm glad you're back. I really enjoy watching your stuff
Thank you coming back!!
Great to see you again! My top 3 most played (by far) from ‘86 are 3. Queen is Dead, 2. Black Celebration and 1. Infected (masterpiece of an album). However, thanks for shout-outs on some other albums I am unfamiliar with. Will check them out for sure, as we both have impeccable taste 😊
Cheers, take care.
@mike_burke Thank you!!! Your taste is, in fact, impeccable! 😆
Outstanding taste in music - I had listened to 21 of those 25 albums on my journey. I am currently up to 4200 albums and still going. I am giving you a sub - take care man.
@masseysmaineentertainment That is a lot of albums! Awesome! Thank you!
Ahhhh I love Friends by the Bolshoi! 🎉 great honorable mention. Happy to see the Chameleons in top 3! 🎉
Terrific video as always!
My Top 10 of 1986!:
1. Iron Maiden - Somewhere in Time
2. Metallica - Master of Puppets
3. Peter Gabriel - So
4. Genesis - Invisible Touch
5. Van Halen - 5150
6. Journey - Raised on Radio
7. Steve Winwood - Back in the High Life
8. ELO - Balance of Power
9. Beastie Boys - Licensed to Ill
10. The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
@WorseReviews Thank you so much! We're going to do a top 5 rock albums for each year coming soon! I think you'll really enjoy that series also!
@@deadendstreetchannel Looking forward to it! 🔥
No PiL? I had Paint Your Wagon my#11.
Here's my 10:
1. Black Celebration - Depeche Mode
2. Medusa - Clan of Xymox
3. Big Sexy Land - The Revolting Cocks
4. Strange Charm - Gary Numan
5. Unveiling the Secret - Psyche
6. Come Visit the Big Bigot - Severed Heads
7. Brotherhood - New Order
8. Album - Public Image Ltd
9. 1+2 - Recoil
10. Flaunt it - Sigue Sigue Sputnik.
Hey Glenn!
Great list again!
So, for the record..
26.PiL - Album
27. Bolshoi - Friends
28. RLYL - Paint Your Wagon
29. Smithereens - Especially for You
30. TSOL - Revenge
86 was way better than I remembered. Now, I'm pretty sure i remember 87 being a slow year... hopefully I'm pleasantly surprised again.
@@deadendstreetchannel I do have the benefit of preparing my annual lists each year going back to 78. No idea how I would compile them in retrospect!
Yeah, 87 was a disappointing year (spoiler alert!).
My Top 3 of 1986 # 3 Chasing Shadows - Comsat Angels # 2 Black Celebration - Depeche Mode & # 1 Chameleons - Strange Times. Robert Palmer got The Comsat Angels signed to Island as a condition of his resigning to the label & was Executive Producer of the return to form album after the wayward Jive / Arista albums. Depeche Mode did their dark album & did it perfectly. Chameleons pulled off a near perfect album & success seemed imminent but Manager Tony Fletcher unexpectedly passed away & fragile relationships in the band deteriorated. Ivo from 4AD signed Throwing Muses & The Pixies on the same night in Boston. A man of good taste. Songs Of A Lost World is here on Friday.
@davidellis5141 That's a fantastic top 3!!! Very much looking forward to Songs of a Lost World!
I mentioned previously that 1986 was a big year for me, partly because at 16 it's an important time for music to permanently alter my growing brain. But also, it was a really interesting time when a bunch of psychedelic post-punk, goth, jangle pop and such crossed over a bit into the mainstream, which I wrote about in 1986: The Year Indie Crashed the UK Charts.
1. The Chameleons - Strange Times
2. The Feelies - The Good Earth
3. Slayer - Reign In Blood
4. Metallica - Master of Puppets
5. XTC - Skylarking
6. The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead
7. Easterhouse - Contenders
8. The Church - Heyday
9. The Woodentops - Giant
10. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Your Funeral . . . My Trial
11. R.E.M. - Lifes Rich Pageant
12. Agent Orange - This Is The Voice
13. Hunters & Collectors - Human Frailty
Felt - Forever Breathes The Lonely Word
Big Black - Atomizer
Talk Talk - The Colour Of Spring
Siouxsie & The Banshees - Tinderbox
Bad Brains - I Against I
Sonic Youth - EVOL
Love And Rockets - Express
The The - Infected
Screaming Blue Messiahs - Gun-Shy
Shriekback - Big Night Music
Passion Fodder - Fat Tuesday
Hüsker Dü - Candy Apple Grey
The Comsat Angels - Chasing Shadows
Iron Maiden - Somewhere In Time
That Petrol Emotion - Manic Pop Thrill
The Mission - Gods Own Medicine
T.S.O.L. - Revenge
Passion Fodder - Fat Tuesday is a new discovery for me. I was turned on to French post-punk band Orchestre Rouge, lead by American singer Theo Hakola. He then formed Passion Fodder with a more Bad Seeds/Crime & the City Solution noir vibe. Like many bands in 1986, of their five albums this was clearly their best.
Johnson did videos for every track of Infected, and it really needs to be re-issued on Blu-Ray. I also like The Mission better than any later Sisters of Mercy. There's a triple album reissue of Strange Times, but pretty xpensive at $50. I used to have it in college, and sold all the vinyls in the 90s, oops! I just picked up a copy of the original at the Austin Record Convention last weekend. I'll be seeing The Chameleons at Levitation next weekend! I have to dock The Smiths points for "Some Girls," "I Know it's Over," really half of it was always disappointing for me. It would have been much improved had the contemporary A-Side "Ask" and B-Sides "Is It Really So Strange?" and "Rubber Ring" were included.
With Comsat Angels it was especially frustrating that Robert Palmer at his commercial peak was a big fan, getting them signed to Island and helping out with production/mixing, yet they didn't chart, unlike over 60 of their peers that year.
Our tastes overlap a ton as usual, and yet there's so much great stuff that year, that our placings vary wildly: Throwing Muses #73, New Order 74, Cocteau Twins 153, Murphy 245. Depeche Mode 131, Killing Joke 108, Pet Shop Boys 176, Costello Show 75. Smithereens 49, Sylvian 146, Iggy 110, Big Country 177, RLYL 97, GLJ 145. Virgin Prunes, Pretenders & Bolshoi I didn't rate. I will circle back to those for sure -- there's been many albums that have grown on me over the past 39 years.
My bubbling under: The Three Johns, And Also the Trees, The Call, Game Theory, The Mighty Lemon Drops, Ups And Downs, Lowlife, The Primevals, Stan Ridgway, The Housemartins, The Saints, Translator, Elvis Costello, Saint Vitus, Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, Prince, Candlemass, Van Morrison, The Lucy Show.
Again, tons of overlap... just flipped all over the place. 😆 I went with the original Australian release date for Heyday... so you already know I listed it in 85... it's always confusing when releases happen in December vs January. I'm gonna search out that Passion Fodder.... sounds enticing. Yeah, I'll just never get how Comsats didn't break with chasing shadows... it's not their best album... but definitely had the most mainstream appeal, I thought.
Also... I just checked... The Saints All Fools Day has a July 87 release date here... I knew I bought it in the summer... thought i was slipping for a minute there 😆. but that will almost certainly be featured in my '87
They'll never be the Chameleons again without Dave Fielding and John Lever.. I saw them around 40 times over the years(original band plus several more times in various VOX formations) and the lack of power and aggression on the drums is always the first thing I notice Now my dear friend is no longer with us , Whilst it has taken Mark Burgess's second string 15 years to finally get a guitarist that sounds and plays something like Dave does/did.. The rejoining of Reg has improved them massively also of course but for new songs?.. You can't replace the guy who along with Reg wrote and came up with those ethereal guitar parts.. Dave rang me only last night to ask why Mark has re-recording the session that CBS paid a small fortune to get Steve Lillywhite to record at a top studio for CBS , two of which recordings were up for being their first single on CBS and why is Mark now claiming they were only demos.????..how many bands of top record companies had the very best producers in to do a demo and then chose one as a single as it stood? Dave is correct..It makes no sense ..It makes no sense coz it
is nonsense.. I would ask WHy did Mark claimed they had no intention on the new album(already delayed) to try and sound like Dave (because nobody can when writing or replaying live)and then say b4 they started on the new album they decided to return to these old songs to get the feel for the old sound and music. More nonsense??? They are not the Chameleons..They are two brilliant members of a once brilliant band who made the most awesome sound and songs.. nearly 22 years since I stood in Athens with only one of them on the stage coz they others had already had enough and still only an average of 1 newish song released for every 5.5 of those years? most of them are awful and non a patch on the original band's output.. They should have given up years ago imo...BUT if you've ever had Dave Fielding take your guitar off you when trying out an echo pedal and play both those glorious pieces of guitar (The End Of Time & I'll Remember)from the second part of Strange Times using just the one foot pedal you are truly a lucky and blessed fan and I AM VERY LUCKY... Dave btw doesn't like the second side of the album.. says the songs are not strong enough and he loves the first half..We often disagree on this..The first half has the big songs of course..the stadium fillers(well should have been ;) ) but the second half imo is just beautifully crafted and flows so nicely..Most certainly helped by those little links by Dave with those magical little pieces... Loving your lists btw..
@@gaztop222 Does seeing a band 40 times count as stalking?
🤔😂
Hello! Replacing Dave is just really no t on the table... it's probably more just surviving or moving forward. John's passing was so terribly untimely... and he was one of the best to ever do it. But Stephen and Todd are fans themselves and do a very good job of staying true to the songs... especially for someone like me who was 12 when they broke up after Strange Times and never saw them live, back then! I had the pleasure of meeting Mark and Reg last year and they were so incredibly gracious... I do not know the politics between Mark and Dave... I do wish they could settle their differences.... but at this stage of the game, who knows? All I know is they are one of my all time favorite groups and I love their music! Thank you so much for watching! I truly appreciate the support!
@@deadendstreetchannel ..It's not the moving on and forward that grinds with many fans..It,s the constant lies and shifting of position when it suits Mark..One minute they are Chameleons vox and mark says that's out of respect to Dave and Reg they'll never use the Chameleons name tag...then when Reg joins he says there's now two of them and they can use "CHAMELEONS" YET THERE WAS TWO EX CHAMELEONS IN VOX FOR MUCH OF THE TIME AND THEY USED "VOX" ..Then just about every show since 2009 is listed as The Chameleons..Because there's a product to sell..many went thinking it was the old band..Many didn't even know Dave and Reg were not in the band .. . one minute these were recordings for a single/ possible album for CBS(Mark's own words).. then when there's a product for sale they were suddenly just demos and needed re-recording??? Steve Lillywhites production needed re-doing???? ..It's a bare-faced Trumponian-style lie... But like Trump..many do not question the validity of what's said..or care enough to look into them.. It's tough when bands fall out and move on.A decade and a half of playing the same old 20 od songs from the first three album,,over and over again.....Only it's been 21 years and Mark hasn't moved on..No real new music(2 e.p's ..one seriously substandard sycophants and one with a little more class more recently...If that's moving the legacy of this great band on it's at .010 % of snails pace at best.. it all detracts from the legacy IMO.. Dave's guitar sound and ethereal playing of his simple but beautiful guitar parts along with Reg's quirky riffs made them different from the pack..Add John's pounding drums once he joined and Marks vitriolic voice and amazing lyrics helped it work perfectly together . It can not work without one of those key elements in the writing process.. the tune is everything without the hook it's just people trying to sound like the original but missing out on the main ingredient
..
Morrissey was 27 when the Queen is dead came out