Not them again...
Occasional Albums Thing 058 - Blancmange – Happy Families
There was a time in the early 80’s when it felt like every gig you went to, the support band was Blancmange. In just over 6 weeks (Nov 4th to Dec 17th) in 1981 we saw them support both Depeche Mode at The Powerhouse and Japan at the Odeon in Brum. Their records were being played at the Futurist clubs we were to be found at most Saturday nights, particularly the 12” mix of “Feel Me”, helluva groove.
Synth duo’s became very popular following Soft Cell’s all conquering “Tainted Love”. Vince Clark left Depeche Mode and gave us Yazoo with Alison Moyet, the acronym duo’s D.A.F (or to give them their full title Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft) and OMD (Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark) had been doing the duo thing since 1979, Swiss duo Yello were around too, hell even Buzzcocks Pete Shelley had put down his guitar and was releasing synth driven bangers like “Homosapien”. Blancmange ploughed that same furrow. Singist Neil Arthur and synth bod Stephen Luscombe made some mighty fine singles and this was their debut album released in 1982.
The aforementioned “Feel Me” and “God’s Kitchen” shook the walls of a few Futurist nights in the early 80’s and “Living On The Ceiling” is probably their best known song, reaching #7 in the UK charts. They had 7 UK Top 40 singles between 1982 and 1985, not a bad run, and to date have released 16 albums (if you include “Happy Families Too”, a 2013 re-recording of this album).
“I Can’t Explain” kicks things off in perfectly danceable style, very twitchy and jerky; “Kind” too is a frantic, jerky thing reminiscent of the Teardrop Explodes, “Waves” is a gentle not quite ballad that itself reached the Top 20 and “Sad Day” delivers a floaty instrumental with guitars included.
In 2014 we snagged tickets to see Heaven 17 at the Theatre in our little Shropshire town, just 10 minutes walk from our front door, and guess who was supporting ? I gotta say that that night Blancmange were incredible. Stephen Luscombe was no longer part of the duo (in fact he sadly passed away earlier this year/ in 2025) but Neil Arthur’s vocals and the duo’s sound overall were so good I told my friends, much to their astonishment, that I wasn’t going to stick around for Heaven 17 as I wasn’t going to see anything better than Blancmange that night. I had a quick chat with Neil Arthur on my way out as he was manning the merch stand and it struck me later on, over a pint in my local just around the corner, that he would have made a great substitute for Ian Curtis had Joy Division ever wanted to give it another go.
Blancmange made some great singles that had me grooving around more than a few dancefloors in ‘81 and ‘82. At their best on this record (the opening blast of “I Can’t Explain” and “Feel Me”) they are more of a Post-Punk band with synthesizers than a Synth-pop duo and this is a more than creditable debut album.
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