Thompson Twins
Queer

With this last contribution, with an undeniably “bold” title, the discographic journey of the Thompson Twins comes to an end in 1991—a group that stood as one of the pillars of synthesized pop and, more generally, of the tuneful and danceable eighties.

Tom Bailey—the one planting kisses on the cover—is the one who sings, plays, programs, composes, discovers the rhythmic grooves, and arranges. His partner Alannah Currie—the one screaming on the cover—writes all the lyrics, often far from banal, and lends a hand with backing vocals. Currie is a feminist activist… she and Tom met in a London squat… The Thompson Twins’ story is rather colorful, just like their album covers and outfits. For instance, their former partner Joe Leeway joined them while acting in theater and—after leaving the band and trying his luck again on the stage without managing a breakthrough—he became a hypnotherapist.

There are no particularly notable moments in this record, for better or worse. Everything is decent, but everything is rather forgettable. The dance music, driven by synthesizers and propelled by the (real and fake) percussion of the TT, works perfectly well on the dance floor, but it falls short when it comes to listening pleasure. The drift towards new dub and techno trends continues… a direction already started in previous albums. Still, there’s a fair bit of melody that manages to sneak in between one percussive bang and the next, keeping the good name of the Twins afloat… but nothing truly memorable remains.

Intending to more easily embrace the new dancefloor sounds and rhythms that were taking over in those final years, the duo, after this record, decided to abandon the Thompson Twins moniker and continue releasing music under the name Babble: a name that says it all, considering that the reception of this new venture was quite shaky and the pair—who, meanwhile, had entered the parental phase by bringing two children into the world—would spend the rest of the nineties, alas, slipping towards anonymity. Until finally separating completely, even romantically, shortly after the millennium.

The Thompson Twins are certainly on my mind whenever I feel like reliving the eighties. Much more than other musically related, more or less fortunate, acts. Bailey was a talented one, and a couple of TT albums still look good on the dancefloor—they’re not just gathering dust.