(no subject)

[miko2]

Today's Song: Tower of Strength by Mission UK

You've heard this story before. A band breaks onto the scene. They're fresh and new. Perhaps they're even hailed as the founders of a distinct new genre or musical movement. They achieve popularity. Then, they go for a more commercial sound -- aiming for that elusive universal appeal. Fans are dissatisfied. Their popularity wanes, they lose their major label contract, they produce one or two final releases that everyone universally despises, and then they break up.

Years later they reform to try to recapture their past glory. This time, they're done experimenting, done trying to appeal to the gods of top 40 pop. They just want to go back to what they once were, before it all came apart.

This is the story of the Mission UK (known simply as the Mission outside of the U.S. ~ oddly enough, their name on their website is listed as "the mission" but the web address is www.themissionuk.com) -- one of the founders and darlings of the goth music scene, founded after the Sisters of Mercy collapsed. They were always fans of Led Zeppelin, and with their third cd their sound drifted even more towards an arena-rock sound. This is where I first discovered the band, seeing the video of their hit Deliverance on MTV's 120 Minutes.

Tower of Strength was an earlier hit of theirs, and one of their best songs. It represents the whole goth genre a bit better than Deliverance, and is the first track on the Goth Anthology 3-disc set I picked up last week. It's a lovely song, so I thought I'd throw it out as my song of the day. Mind you, none of their early material is available on iTunes, but they have in recent years produced several new cds, including a live album with most of their big hits from the past. Even with band member changes and all of the years that have gone by, they sound pretty much like they did in their heyday. In fact I think I'll need to pick up some of their most recent cds, they sound pretty good from what I can hear from the iTunes samples and reviews.

Tower of Strength - Mission UK (remix)
Tower of Strength -- Mission UK (live 1995)
Tower of Strength -- Mission UK (live 2007)