Sigue Sigue Sputnik
Love Missile F1-11

It's the early months of 1986 when the fierce single "Love Missile F1-11" is released by EMI. The piece in question is a concept, a bizarre idea, an attempt to create something new that leaves its mark. If, forgive the comparison, the Sex Pistols, through exaggeration, transgression, and the paradox of creating music even without being musicians, managed to unknowingly write pages of music history, the same cannot be said for the Sigue Sigue Sputnik (name "borrowed" from a Russian gang), even though it was in the plans of Tony James. Created at a table (today it's almost a classic, except in this case there was no record label pushing them), they made their "music" an excuse to sell a form of art and turn it into a marketing process, complete with commercials between one piece and another.
Their usual sound (it's difficult to talk about music, rather about image and provocation) is crammed full of electronics, wild sampling, and cybernetics. Although there are wide margins for discussion, the single in question seems genius to me. The shape of the track can be distinctly reduced to a fervent and agitated rock-dance slogan that hails the invasion of strong and unrecognizable sounds, launches into an absurd musical quest, and honors the technological means achieved at the time.

The track, like the band, seems to appear as something hard to interpret, yet over time will be recognized almost as a cult genre. Tony James, with his 2 henchmen, attempted to chart a new direction, to narrate the music of the next generation, in a sort of "futurist movement" (talking about music as a form of art). However, something didn’t work as it should have. Beyond modest sales results, SSS are still remembered by some nostalgic fans (see the many blogs online). It must be said that the band disbanded already in 1987, after the second and unsuccessful album that had some higher pretensions but content-wise said absolutely nothing. Their style remains alive, their exaggerated and overflowing aesthetics (almost a manifesto of the '80s), their noisy and smoky sounds, made-up eyes and studs, and a sober memory of music and a look that today leave a veil of melancholic sympathy and a smile. A reunion of the bizarre trio (and a consequent European tour) in the early years of the new millennium received good public feedback.