Hey Rams! Welcome to Corydon’s music blog, Behind the Music, where I will talk about the music, the meanings, and the artists from today and the past.  This article is a “forget-me-not,” meaning it’s going to be a throwback. In this article, we’re going back to the 1980’s. The time of crimped hair, neon lights, and obviously the emergence of New Wave music.

You might have heard of these popular bands from the ‘80’s- Simple Minds, Morrissey, XTC, Depeche Mode. But I’m not going to write about the most known bands so I’m going to choose a totally different band from the same era: The Psychedelic Furs. This band captured me with a single song used in one of the greatest movies of all time, Pretty in Pink, which is also the name of the mentioned song. Pretty in Pink,released in 1981 hit number 18 on the UK singles chart and number 41 on the US charts.

Dolfo Picanco, the band director at Millikan says, “New Wave came from punk music in the 70’s. That mixing in with the kinds of electronic sounds they were getting. It was a lot of pop mixed with punk and the dance music from Europe.” 

 “New Wave has a lot of influence in today’s techno and EDM. You can look at the pop-punk era like Blink 182; they have relatively related sounds to some of the earlier groups.” How cool would it be to  learn about the influences on the music that you love to listen to in today’s day and age?

Another song of theirs is Love My Way which is by far their most popular song. This track was released in July of 1982 and topped the charts in the UK. Then the band peaked at number nine in New Zealand, where it spent 21 weeks on the chart. There aren’t a ton of good references for the US charts due to the fact that the band was formed in England.

“Psych[edelic] Furs is an awesome band. I love the beats behind all the lyrics and how they all have meaning.” says COMPASS junior, Sadie Rick.

Psych Furs is like candy to me. I grew up on it. The first time I actually stopped to listen to the music, it was pure bliss. It was like biting into a chocolate lava cake of emotion. To close off, here is another song by the band: The Ghost in You. 

I hope for this to be a continuing blog so you can read the next issue about a whole other band to add to your list. If you have any requests, just email me!