Modern English

One evergreen hit embedded Modern English in rock history forever and made them emblematic of '80s new wave, but the pop-friendly sound that made them famous was a far cry from where they started. The band first came together in Colchester, England in the post-punk heyday of 1979, original going by the considerably punkier moniker The Lepers. Comprised of singer Robbie Grey, guitarist Gary McDowell, keyboardist Stephen Walker, bassist Michael Conroy, and drummer Richard Brown, they initially trafficked in a dark, angular, edgy post-punk sound, as heard on a string of early singles beginning with 1979's "Drowning Man." They scored a few minor hits on the British indie charts with those early singles, but their similarly styled 1981 debut album, Mesh and Lace, hitting No. 5 U.K. Indie. The 1982 follow-up, After the Snow, marked a major shift towards the kind of accessible, Technicolor "new pop" sounds that were merging the new wave with the mainstream. The melodic, romantic "I Melt With You" not only charted in the U.K., it marked their breakthrough in America. Ironically, the song only reached No. 78 in the U.S. Hot 100, and Modern English's earlier, Joy Division-esque "Smiles and Laughter" had been a bigger hit in England, but "I Melt With You" became such a ubiquitous radio staple that it felt like a multi-Platinum smash, and forever after it would remain one of the handful of songs still most commonly associated with the sound of the era, featured in countless compilations and on film soundtracks. Unfortunately it also sealed the band's rep as one-hit wonders; they cut two more albums before splitting in 1987. They returned for the 1990 album Pillow Lips and disappeared again. But they resurfaced once more with the 1996 LP Everything's Mad and continued to perform in the years that followed, releasing Soundtrack on the renowned U.S. indie-pop label Darla in 2010 and Take Me to the Trees six years later.