Bronski Beat-Smalltown Boy

For maximum Glitz action play it next to the 9 minute 12" mix of The Flirt's "Passion", another great looong build before the drums kick.

no. if you play this, you are a fag. actually, listening to it makes you gay, too.

No, it's Madness this week!

In any case, it's an absolute crystaline gem of a song.

Apologies. What I mean to say is that it's a perfect pop song.

I've just heard this song thanks to the movie Edge of Seventeen, and while I love it, it (possibly due to associations with the movie) gives me creepy/unsettling/depressing vibes, like a bad drag queen performance.

Heh -- for me the song grew more poignant in the totally conventional manner in which it's used in Edge of Seventeen!

The video for the song always deeply unsettled me, strangely enough, and I could never really work out why beyond a great sense of bleakness.

lol @ Daft Punk using this in Alive 2007

This was one of the first songs I heard on college radio.

dunno why but i've not stopped listening to this for the past couple days. even picked up the 12. the long vocal intro is so great, and the moment the beat comes in .... drama

Yea, 'tis good.

It's also the first single from Atrocity's latest coverfest

Also, there's a nice cover by Herman Dune:

http://www.archive.org/details/SmalltownBoy-AndreHermanDne

And a risible one by Paradise Lost:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2iASJMuUkM

The original is a yearning pop masterpiece. I love the way it dips into half-time at the start of the first verse.

weird, this song is following me around. i was invited to go see jose gonzalez play and he closed with a cover of it.

I think I might just go out and buy the 12" in the next few days, this song is just, ahhhhhhhhhh.

12 inch mix is amazing. beat doesn't come in till after a 3 minute vocal intro.

Just got the 12" of this today after deciding a year ago that I had to. Pretty much perfect.

Yeah, God, what a song to stretch out over 9 minutes. Incidentally, this thread got me riled up, so I made a short, but quite unusually aggressive mix which opened with this. Put Len Faki - Die Rumpelkammer on top of it for like 5 minutes, worked out not half bad actually.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7-q1WRaKNg

1493 comments to that youtube video. youtube is the new ilx.

I agree 100%. My musical idols are Marc Almond and Jimmy Somerville. I love them for their music. Marc is my all-time hero, but I hate the 'Mincing' and camp side of him; but I am straight. My kids can't understand how I idolise him because I moan about gays who talk as Marc does. I am a red-blooded male and I can't watch men kissing each other. It turns my stomach. But I don't dislike gays-I just wish there wasn't that camp side. Wish I had a magic wand to rid the world of bias.

was that comment left by tobias funke?

God, those comments are horrible. I read some back in fall or so, I remember one guy complaining how he grew up loving this song, and couldn't bear to find out what it was about it, and he basically blamed his homosexuality for ruined his favourite song.

I blame whites for ruining Gloria Estefan.

*blamed Marc's homosexuality for ruining his favourite song.

I remember hearing a few weeks ago from my friend, whom I told about the meaning of this song, who subsequently discovered my other friend and his almost comically bigoted father who apparently love this song as well, and apparently refused to believe the homosexual undertones about it.

just listened to this a few times after half-jokingly mentioning it on the 2010 trax poll thread. such an incredible song, gorgeous & spare, both overwhelmingly exultant and absolutely crushing. on the short list of my all-time favorite songs (when i think to include it). i remember catching part of it for the first time on MTV sometime in 1984 and having no idea what it might be, missing for some reason the title/artist credits and spending weeks afterward obsessing, describing it to my friends, trying to figure out what it might be. it left a mark. perfect in every way.

12" extended version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFAbB-qs4iU

acoustic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0xQ3WgBU1c&feature=related

^ not recommending the rather schmaltzy acoustic version, but there it is.

I actually really love the acoustic version.

Wd probably pick the 12inch version of "Why" for maximum dancefloor mayhem

pvmic

I think I'd go for "Why?" - which is even more melodramatic - but yeah, why the hell not?

― noodle vague, Friday, 29 October 2004 03:08 (6 years ago)

weirdly i reffed this on ilx today also, in the daily mail thread

the b-side to this record is a lost balearic classic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCZPBL7X6S8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_DWWE3cjgg

g'damn i just came to post that. instead i'll bump.

RIP Larry Steinbachek.

A shame!

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38597071

apart from them recording some of the great all-time records i keep obsessing over how great this video is and how fucking ground-breaking at the time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88sARuFu-tc

bullshit straight boy indulgence but that vid makes me cry every time i watch it

also the 80s, you had to be there

Exceptional video. Just read the start of this thread, yikes.

2005 ILX wtf is wrong with you.

Song / vid all-time of course.

i remember hearing Peter Powell say "this is the most important record of the year" and i was lol Peter Powell lol important but he wasn't wrong and i don't remember seeing the video at the time but it's fucking brilliant

Video is classic, even the little breakfast sequence is so full of mood and nuance

yep

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_DWWE3cjgg

this song reminds me of going to the Catholic Youth Activity Group disco at the St Pats Irish centre on a Thursday night and the smell of strongbow cider and dry ice, The Communards cover of Don't Leave Me This Way was another classic of that era. He seems like good people does Jimmy Somerville.

The not-so-hidden look of scorn on the old bloke's face! xp

Jimmy seems like definitely good people and i enjoy listening to Richard on Radio 4 of a saturday morning, but i think i've said here or somewhere the Bronskis are my favourite, "Hard Rain" is top 10 records ever

Larry Steinbachek was very cute. He died a few years ago at 56, sadly.