Men Without Hats are a pop group from Montreal, Quebec that achieved their greatest popularity in the early to mid 1980s. They were characterized by the deep, expressive vocals of their lead singer Ivan and their elaborate use of synthesizers and electronic processing. Their most-remembered single was titled "The Safety Dance."

Men Without Hats - a new wave band. At the core, Men Without Hats consisted of Ivan Doroschuk and his brother Stefan, with various other members, including a third brother, Colin Doroschuk, as well as Jeremy Arrobas, Tracy Howe, Roman Martyn, Mike Gabriel, Jean-Marc Pisapia, Lenny Pinkas, and Allan McCarthy. They emerged with an EP called Folk of the 80's (1980). Tracy Howe was only with the band briefly, but long enough to be credited on a reprint of Folk of the 80s, despite not appearing on it. Pisapia went on to form The Box, and later, Arrobas and Gabriel left to work with him for a while, eventually founding their own group, Isinglass.

A popular but unconfirmed tale is that the name originated from a misread announcement to one of their early gigs as "Men Without Pants" by a francophone MC in Montréal. Though that tale may be unconfirmed the fact is that Men Without Hats first started off in bars as Men With Hats, but they decided to change the name to Men Without Hats as they always threw their hats off at the end of a performance.

The band erupted onto the international scene a couple of years later with their worldwide hit single "The Safety Dance" from their debut album Rhythm of Youth. The song spent four weeks at number three on the Billboard Hot 100, and was also a major hit in the UK (#6), in Canada (#12), in what was West Germany (#2), in South Africa (#1), in Austria (#7), in Sweden (#3), in Norway (#3), and in Switzerland (#4). They charted once again with the title track from their 1987 album, Pop Goes the World, which reached #20 in the US, #3 in South Africa, and #1 in Austria and Sweden. The song was also featured in the movie Date with an Angel (1987), starring Phoebe Cates, Emmanuelle Béart and Michael E. Knight. The next album The Adventures of Women & Men Without Hate in the 21st Century, released in 1989 featured a cover of ABBA's song "SOS".

Their 1991 album Sideways, dominated by processed electric guitars instead of keyboards, revealed a dramatically different sound for the band. The album failed to attract an American label, and the band broke up.

Following the break-up, Ivan released a solo album, The Spell, in 1997. Stefan and Mack MacKenzie (of 3 O'Clock Train) released Ride of Glory, a post-modern Western-themed CD.

Stefan and Ivan regrouped to release No Hats Beyond This Point in 2003.

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Echo & the Bunnymen are an English post-punk group, formed in Liverpool in 1978. Their original lineup consisted of Ian McCulloch, guitarist Will Sergeant and bass player Les Pattinson, supplemented by a drum machine assumed by many to be “Echo”, though the band denies this. In the 1982 book Liverpool Explodes!, Will Sergeant explains in an interview:

“

We had this mate [Smelly Elly] who kept suggesting all these names like The Daz Men or Glisserol and the Fan Extractors. Echo and the Bunnymen was one of them. I thought it was just as stupid as the rest.

”

The band’s early cult status quickly turned into mainstream success in the mid-1980s, as they scored a UK Top 10 hit with “The Cutter”, and their Porcupine (1983) album reached #2 (see 1983 in music). The next album, Ocean Rain (1984), again spawned hit singles to match their critical acclaim, and the band’s success continued. The departure of frontman Ian McCulloch in 1988, followed by the death of their drummer Pete de Freitas the following year, culminated with a complete split in 1990.

In 1997, however, the Bunnymen returned with the UK Top 10 hit "Nothing Lasts Forever" (see 1997 in music), and both press and fans were delighted by their heroes' return. Since then, both their artistic and commercial successes have been in something of a decline, their original post-punk sound gradually being replaced by a more retro '60s sound. Echo and the Bunnymen continue to perform regularly.

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Fun Boy Three were a short-lived but successful English band which ran from 1981 to 1983 and was formed by singers Terry Hall, Neville Staples and Lynval Golding after they left The Specials. The Fun Boy Three often ran into similar criticism as The Style Council as they had a less credible image than their previous bands.

They dispensed with the darker, moody sound and demeanour which they and Jerry Dammers had crafted with great success in the ska revival of the late 1970s and went into a much brighter, poppier phase with this new band, though maintaining savagery and wit within the lyrics and Hall's wholly expressionless persona.

Terry grew out and bleached his hair and wore more flamboyant clothes befitting of the early 80s.

Together they set about making music which covered a variety of genres. The band enjoyed six UK Top 20 hits, including the jungledrum-inspired "The Lunatics (Have Taken Over The Asylum)" and the brassy, marriage-cynic anthem "Tunnel of Love" and created two albums of which the eponymous Fun Boy Three was the most successful.

The trio's last UK hit was the song "Our Lips Are Sealed" from album Waiting, co-written by Terry Hall and Jane Wiedlin of the US band The Go-Gos, who had had a US hit with the song a year earlier. They then toured the USA and split afterwards.

They were also credited with helping launch the career in 1982 of Bananarama, whom Hall first saw in The Face magazine. The three women, in their berets and donkey jackets, provided credited chorus vocals on the hit "It Ain't What You Do (It's the Way That You Do It)" before the tables turned and the Fun Boy Three appeared as the 'guests' on the song "Really Saying Something". Bananarama would go on to become the most successful all-female group in UK chart history, a title they held until the arrival of the Spice Girls.

Hall went on to create the even more short-lived project The Colourfield, who had one hit in 1985, before forming less successful bands Vegas and Terry, Blair & Anouchka. He also embarked on a solo career and maintains respect from musicians and fans alike, with many acts citing him as an influence.

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Siouxsie & the Banshees were a British rock band that formed in 1976. Led by the singer Siouxsie Sioux and the bassist Steven Severin, the band's only constant members, the Banshees formed at the advent of the British punk scene and soon became one of the major bands in the post-punk era. Their music influenced a wide range of very diverse bands over the years amongst them The Cure^[1], Massive Attack,^[2] Garbage^[3] and more recently LCD Soundsystem.^[4] The group released a total of eleven studio albums from 1978 to 1995.

The band was originally formed to appear at the first UK based "international punk rock festival". This show was organised by Malcolm McLaren at the 100 Club on London's Oxford Street on September 20, 1976. Other bands on the bill for the night's performances included Subway Sect, The Clash and the Sex Pistols.

"Bromley Contingent" members Siouxsie Sioux and Steven Severin wanted to be exemplars of a fleeting Punk purism. With two borrowed musians, Marco Pirroni on guitars and John Simon Ritchie, later famous as Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, on drums, they got up on stage by taking the Punk ethos to its literal conclusion : creating a conflict with the audience. Their set consisted of a lengthy and chaotic improvisation based around "The Lord's Prayer", which also included lines from songs such as "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles", "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", "Smoke on the Water" and "Twist and Shout". The number lasted twenty minutes and the band split up at the end of the night.

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The Fabulous Poodles were a British pre-New Wave band formed in 1975. Known for quirky stage antics, such as exploding ukuleles, as well as songs with funny lyrics.

The Fabulous Poodles started out just as the Poodles before adding the "Fabulous" prefix, a term reportedly coined by Frank Zappa. The band consisted of Tony De Meur on lead vocals and guitar, Richie Robertson on bass and vocals, Bobby Valentino on violin, mandolin and vocals, and Bryn Burrows on drums. Many of the lyrics for the bands songs were written by John Parsons.

The Fabulous Poodles were very heavily influenced by such British 60's acts as the Who and the Kinks. The band released three official records between 1977 and 1979 on Pye Records, their first being self named. It was produced by the Who's legendary bass player John Entwistle, who also played eight string bass on a few songs.^[1] Their second LP, Unsuitable, featured their two best known songs, Mirror Star and Chicago Boxcar (Boston Back). In 1979 the Fabulous Poodles' final album, Think Pink was recorded and released, the title being the only lyrics to one of the songs, Pink City Twist. The Fabulous Poodles sold more records in the United States in 1979 than the Clash. In 1980 the Fabulous Poodles released their final single, Stompin' on the Cat b/w Anna Rexia and Don't You Lie To Me. The band broke up in 1980.

In the late 1970's the Fabulous Poodles embarked on an American tour supporting such notable acts as The Ramones and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Lead singer Tony De Meur now performs solo under the name Ronnie Golden.

Bryn Burrows later joined Freur and was in the original lineup of Underworld (band)

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Grace Jones (born May 19, 1948)^[1] is a Jamaican–American model, singer and actress. Jones was born Grace Mendoza in Spanish Town, Jamaica, the daughter of Marjorie and Robert W. Jones, who was a politician and Apostolic clergyman.^[2][3][4] Her parents took Grace and her brother Christian (now Bishop Noel Jones), to relocate to Syracuse, New York in 1965. Before becoming a successful model in New York City and Paris, Jones studied theatre at Syracuse University.

Jones secured a record deal with Island Records in 1977, which resulted in a string of dance club hits and a large gay following. The three disco albums she recorded — Portfolio (1977), Fame (1978), and Muse (1979) — generated considerable success in that market. These albums consisted of pop melodies such as "All on a Summer's Night" and "Do or Die" set to a disco beat as well as standands such as "What I Did for Love", "Autumn Leaves", and "Send in the Clowns". The latter song had been a hit twice with versions recorded by folk singer Judy Collins and jazz singer Sarah Vaughn.

During this period, she also became a muse to Andy Warhol, who photographed her extensively. Jones also accompanied him to famed New York City nightclub Studio 54 on many occasions.

Towards the end of the 1970s, Jones adapted the emerging New Wave music to create a different style for herself. Still with Island, and now working with producers Alex Sadkin and Chris Blackwell, she released the acclaimed albums Warm Leatherette (1980) and Nightclubbing (1981). These included re-imaginings of songs by Sting, Iggy Pop, The Pretenders, Roxy Music, Flash and the Pan, The Normal, Ástor Piazzolla and Tom Petty.

Parallel to her musical shift was an equally dramatic visual makeover, created in partnership with stylist Jean-Paul Goude, whom she eventually married and by whom she had a son. Jones adopted a severe, androgynous look with square-cut hair and angular, padded clothes. The iconic cover photographs of Nightclubbing and, subsequently, Slave to the Rhythm (1985) exemplified this new identity. To this day, Jones is known for her unique look at least as much as she is for her music. Her collaboration with Sadkin and Blackwell continued with the dub reggae-influenced album Living My Life.

In the mid 1980s, she worked with Trevor Horn for the conceptual musical collage Slave to the Rhythm and with producer Nile Rodgers for Inside Story (1986) - her first album after leaving the Island Records label. The well-received Slave to the Rhythm consisted of several re-workings of the title track (the single of which hit #12 in the UK) while Inside Story produced her last Billboard Hot 100 hit to date, "I'm Not Perfect (But I'm Perfect For You)," one of several songs she co-wrote with Bruce Woolley.^[5] Bulletproof Heart (1989) spawned the #1 U.S. Hot Dance Music/Club Play hit "Love on Top of Love - Killer Kiss," produced by C+C Music Factory's David Cole and Robert Clivilles. Although she has yet to become a truly mainstream recording artist in the United States, (with the exception of her featured work on the Arcadia hit single Election Day), much of her musical output is still popular on the Billboard's Hot Dance Music/Club Play and Hot Dance Airplay charts and many of her songs are regarded as classics to this day. Jones was able to find mainstream success in the United Kingdom, scoring a number of Top 40 entries on the UK Singles Chart. To date, she has released 43 singles (commercial and/or promotional), including several non-album tracks.

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Laurie Anderson (born Laura Phillips Anderson, on June 5, 1947, in Glen Ellyn, Illinois) is an American experimental performance artist and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor, Anderson did her first performance art piece in the late 1960s. Throughout the 1970s, Anderson did a variety of different performance art activities. She became widely known outside the art world in 1981 when her single "O Superman," reached number two on the UK pop charts. She also starred in and directed the 1986 concert film, Home of the Brave. ^[1]

She has also invented several devices that she has used in her recordings and performance art shows. In 1977, she created a "tape-bow violin" that uses recorded magnetic tape on the bow and a magnetic tape head in the bridge. In the late 1990s, she developed a "talking stick", a six-foot long, batonlike MIDI controller that can access and replicate different sounds. ^[2]

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Lene Lovich (born March 30, 1949) is an American singer who first gained attention as part of the New Wave music scene of the 1970s and 1980s.

Lovich was born Lili-Marlene Premilovich in Detroit, Michigan to a British mother and a Serbian father. After her father had health problems, her mother took her and her three siblings to live in Hull, England.

Lovich met the guitarist/songwriter Les Chappell, who became her longtime collaborator and life partner, when they were teenagers. In autumn 1968, they went to London, England to attend art school. It was there that Lovich first tied her hair into the plaits that later became a visual trademark, though at first she did it to keep her hair out of the clay when studying sculpture.

Over the following decade, Lovich attended several art schools, busked around the London Underground and appeared in cabaret clubs as an "Oriental" dancer. She also travelled to Spain, where she visited Salvador Dalí in his home. She played acoustic rock music around London, sang in the mass choir of a show called Quintessence at the Royal Albert Hall, played a soldier in Arthur Brown's show, worked as a "go-go" dancer with the Radio One Roadshow, toured Italy with a West Indian soul band, and played saxophone for Bob Flag's Balloon and Banana Band and for an all-girl cabaret trio, The Sensations. She recorded screams for horror films, wrote lyrics for French disco star Cerrone (including the sci-fi dance smash "Supernature," later recorded by Lovich in her own version and by Erasure, as a B-side) and worked with various fringe theatre groups. She was also one of thousands of audience members invited to sing along at the 1972 Lanchester Arts Festival when Chuck Berry recorded the risqué "My Ding-a-Ling" for Chess Records.

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Nina Hagen (born Catharina Hagen on March 11, 1955) is a singer from Berlin, Germany.

Nina's parents are Hans Hagen (also known as Hans Oliva), a scriptwriter, and Eva-Maria Hagen, an actress and singer. Her paternal Jewish grandparents lost their lives in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Her parents divorced when Nina was two years old, and growing up she saw her father infrequently. At age four, she began to study ballet, and was considered an opera prodigy by the time she was nine.

When Nina was eleven, her mother married Wolf Biermann, a revolutionary anti-establishment singer-songwriter. Biermann's political views incalculably influenced young Nina: she was "dishonorably discharged" from the Free German Youth group at age twelve, and active in political protests against the socialist East German government.

Nina left school after completing the 10th grade (at age 16), and joined the cover band "Fritzens Dampferband" (Fritz's Steamboat Band, together with Achim Mentzel and others). In part, she dropped out because she felt constrained by what the oppressive regime considered to be "acceptable" music, and added songs by Janis Joplin and Tina Turner to the "allowable" setlists during shows.

From 1972-3, Nina enrolled in the crash-course performance program at The Central Studio for Light Music in East Berlin, and upon graduation, formed the band Automobil

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The Ramones were an American rock band. They were one of the first punk rock groups.^[3]

After forming in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, in 1974, all members of the band used stage names with their surnames as "Ramone", though none of them are actually related. They performed 2,263 concerts, touring virtually non-stop for 22 years.^[4] In 1996, after a tour with the Lollapalooza music festival, the band played their final show and then disbanded. The band's three founding members—Joey Ramone, Johnny Ramone and Dee Dee Ramone—died within eight years of the break-up.^[5]

The Ramones failed to achieve much commercial success during their years of recording and performing. Their only album to reach certified gold status in the U.S. was their compilation album Ramones Mania.^[6] Appreciation of the band has grown since the 1980s, and they now regularly appear on "all-time greatest" lists, such as Rolling Stone’s list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, Rolling Stone’s list of 25 Greatest Live Albums of All Time,^[7] VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock and Mojo's 100 Greatest Albums.^[8][9][10] In 2002, the Ramones were voted the second greatest rock and roll band ever in Spin Magazine, trailing only The Beatles.^[11] On March 18, 2002, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.^[4][12]

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Public Image Ltd. (PiL) are an English band formed in 1978 by vocalist John Lydon (ex-Sex Pistols), ex-Clash guitarist Keith Levene, and bassist Jah Wobble. PiL are often regarded as one of the most challenging and innovative bands of the post-punk period. Though PiL has been inactive since 1992, Lydon (the band's only constant member) considers the group to be "on hiatus" rather than broken up.

Following the Sex Pistols' breakup in 1978, Lydon spent three weeks in Jamaica with Virgin Records head Richard Branson, in which Lydon assisted Branson in scouting for emerging reggae musicians. Branson also flew American band Devo to Jamaica, with an aim to installing Lydon as lead singer in the band. Devo declined the offer.^[1]

Upon returning to England, Lydon approached Jah Wobble (né John Wardle) about forming a band together. The pair had been friends since attending the same school in the early 1970s, and had sometimes played music together during the final days of the Sex Pistols. Both had similarly broad musical tastes, and were avid fans of reggae and world music. Lydon assumed, much as he had with Sid Vicious, that Wobble would learn to play bass guitar as he went. While that had proven a fatal assumption with Vicious (Lydon cites his musical inability as a prime reason for the Pistols' breakup), Wobble would prove to be a natural talent. Lydon also approached guitarist Keith Levene (né Julian Keith Levene), with whom he had toured in mid-1976, while Levene was a member of The Clash. Lydon and Levene had both considered themselves outsiders even within their own bands. Jim Walker (né James Donat Walker), a Canadian student newly arrived in the UK, was recruited on drums, after answering an ad placed in Melody Maker.

PiL began rehearsing together in May 1978, though the band was still unnamed. In July 1978, Lydon officially named the band "Public Image" (the "Ltd." was not added until several months later), after the 1968 Muriel Spark novel, The Public Image.^[2]

PiL debuted in October 1978 with "Public Image", a song written while Lydon was still a member of Sex Pistols.^[3] The single was well received and reached number 9 in the UK charts, and performed well on import in the US.

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James Newell Osterberg, Jr. (born April 21, 1947), better known by his stage name Iggy Pop, is an American rock singer, songwriter, and occasional actor. Although he has had only limited commercial success, Iggy Pop is considered one of the most important innovators of punk and related styles. He is sometimes referred to by the nicknames "the Godfather of Punk" and "the Rock Iguana",^[1] and is widely acknowledged as one of the most dynamic stage performers of rock. Pop began calling himself Iggy after his first band in high school, The Iguanas.^[2] His direct influence extends to the present day: a Cadillac ad in rotation since February 2007 features his vocal performance on the song "Punkrocker", recorded in 2006 with the Swedish band Teddybears.^[3]

Iggy Pop was the lead singer of The Stooges, a late 1960s/early 1970s garage rock band who were influential in the development of the nascent heavy metal and punk rock genres. The Stooges became infamous for their live performances, during which Iggy Pop would take drugs, self-harm, and leap off the stage (being among the first to "stage dive"). Many subsequent performers have imitated Pop's antics.

Pop has had varying degrees of success in the course of his subsequent solo career. His best-known solo songs include "Lust for Life", "I'm Bored", "Real Wild Child", the Top 40 hit "Candy" (with vocalist Kate Pierson of The B-52's)^[2] and "The Passenger". A film about Iggy Pop's life and career titled The Passenger is currently in development.

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The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle is the soundtrack album of the movie of the same name. Although released under Sex Pistols name, it includes performances by several other artists.

The band was defunct by the time the soundtrack was being prepared, and Johnny Rotten didn't want anything to do with the project. So the "proper" Sex Pistols tracks were done by taking Johnny Rotten's vocals off the October 1976 demo session, and rerecording their soundtracks by Paul Cook and Steve Jones^[1].

These Cook/Jones sessions also produced original songs "Silly Thing" and "Lonely Boy".

The album also features a fair share of Johnny Rotten-less tracks. These include Sid Vicious cover songs, recorded mostly with session musicians, tracks Cook&Jones recorded with Ronnie Biggs and numerous novelty tracks including French street musicians playing Anarchy in the UK and medley of several Sex Pistols songs covered by a disco band.

People who sang on The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle include:

• Paul Cook – lead vocals on "Silly Thing" (1978)
• Steve Jones – lead vocals on "Lonely Boy", "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle", "Friggin' In The Riggin" and the single release of "Silly Thing" (1978)
• Ronnie Biggs – lead vocals on "No One Is Innocent", "Belsen Was a Gas" (1978)
• Malcolm McLaren – lead vocals on "You Need Hands" (1979)
• Edward Tudor-Pole – lead vocals on "Rock Around the Clock" , "Who Killed Bambi" (1979)
• Sid Vicious – lead vocals on "My Way", "C'mon Everybody", "Something Else" (1978)

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The Dead Kennedys are a hardcore punk band from San Francisco, California. During the 1980s, the band gained a large underground following in the international punk music scene. Their music mixed the more experimental elements of English 1970s punk with the raw energy of the 1980s American hardcore punk scene. The Kennedys' songs mix the deliberately shocking lyrics of punk with a humorous, acerbic, satirical, and sarcastic left-wing commentary on current social and political issues. At the same time, some of their songs also mocked the hypocritical stances of some liberal elites. Many of the band's songs criticize the right-wing ideologies of the religious right and the Ronald Reagan administration, along with many far-left personalities and ideas.

In the late 1980s, the band was embroiled in an obscenity trial in the US over the 1985 Frankenchrist album, which included a poster with art that depicted penises (Penis Landscape by H. R. Giger). The band was charged criminally with distribution of harmful matter to minors, but the trial ended with a hung jury. The band officially disbanded in 1986. From 1998-2004, the band was embroiled in an acrimonious lawsuit over royalties and rights to the band's music. In 2001, the band re-formed and began touring with a new vocalist over the objections of former lead singer Jello Biafra, who, after losing the lawsuit and being found liable for fraud, filed two appeals that he later lost.

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