![]() ![]() Modern English’s debut Mesh and Lace is very much that kind of record it finds the band relying on off-kilter, repetitive rhythm playing and sharp, jittery guitars to create this overall mood of alienation and cold distance. While it often wasn’t as danceable as John Lydon claimed it was when he started Public Image Ltd., most post-punk relies on bending and twisting rhythms in ways that strive to imitate nature yet create something more artificial and alien. Though most of the world remembers them for their throwback earworm of a hit, their first two albums, Mesh and Lace and After the Snow, portray a starkly different band that fit in with an alternate picture of the 1980s.Īt its most archetypal, post-punk focuses on rhythms. Modern English, the Colchester-based quintet who scored a Hot 100 hit with “I Melt with You,” fall solidly into the latter category. Among British groups, especially, one came across two distinct kinds of surprise hitmakers: those who leveraged their early success as a way to go off on as many weird artistic tangents as they wanted, and those who were always a little off-beat to begin with who hit the charts through some form of bizarre alchemy. As such, there were tons of bands that could be classified as one-hit wonders, artists who rose quickly thanks to radio and MTV, only to be forgotten just as rapidly as they had been introduced. The 1980s was an era in which disposable pop became de rigueur in America in a way that it arguably hadn’t been since before the rise of the Beatles. ![]()
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