In 1981, a yoghurt-factory worker, a window dresser, and two blokes employed by an insurance company and a bank, somehow conjured up one of the most irresistible songs of the decade. Forty years and a hundred million records later – including 35 Top 20 hits in the UK – Depeche Mode are solid-gold, electronic-rock royalty.   

In this episode, we join the band for the first part of their expedition – from the sparkling pop of ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ to the industrial clank of ‘People Are People’, losing members, attracting the scorn of the media, and wearing a skirt or two along the way. So, let’s speak, and spell it out for our listeners about Depeche Mode.

Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/1230971434/playlist/39QGuohqd0FEBl83Rv8WMY?si=nqDiH6SOTb6SUJqEArvfCA

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Known-Pleasures-131768500804116

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knownpleasurespodcast/

Twitter: @pleasuresknown

At the legendary CBGB’s in New York in the mid 70’s, I think it’s fair to say that Blondie were outliers. Still, they took enough from the attitudes and performances of their punk contemporaries to create a style of idiosyncratic pop that made them stand out from the crowd.

Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/1230971434/playlist/1KQsSZDvmnpCxBu6n5Nmzg?si=vteJC5bFTjam5Q8hBH12Ng

Twitter: @pleasuresknown

Instagram: knownpleasurespodcast

Hit singles: nuh. Hit albums: nuh. Unusually charismatic singer? Unforgettable visual image? Brilliant band name? Nuh. Nuh. Nuh.

So why, 46 years after they formed, are we talking about Wire?

Pink Flag, Chairs Missing, 154 might sound like the opening line of a really good poem; it is, though, the list of albums – released between 1977 and ’79 – which, despite making only the barest dent in the charts, remain among the most influential of the era.

Beloved by everyone from Johnny Marr to Elastica, from REM to Henry Rollins to Sonic Youth, Wire are still, as Rolling Stone noted in 2017, ‘Punk’s ultimate cult band’.    

Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/1230971434/playlist/1VLiKVlWbrLbxvtAkCnGOD?si=-Oa7As9oSNWmfyNdQEz_cw

In this episode Mark, Patrick & Graham hold a magnifying glass over Adam & The Ants. Not to set fire to them & watch them burn, but to illuminate them and watch them glow.

Vote for us:  https://australianpodcastawards.com/vote

Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/1230971434/playlist/6x2LPIq9LtunoVWugVg8mn?si=l0wFQ0NcQM6zWChbHjCL9w

Born like so many others out of 1977’s London punk scene, the Psychedelic Furs however seemed to deliberately stand out from the off. There was the name for a start - not very punk and more redolent of the despised 60s if anything,  and then there was the music. Never a huge critical or commercial favourite they nevertheless struck a chord with new wave hungry audiences around the world and continue to this day. Over the course of four albums released from 1980 to 1984 we’ll examine where the Furs went right or wrong, the hits and the misses and where they fit into post-punk rock’s rich tapestry.

Spotify Playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/user/1230971434/playlist/1URDN9AS8HshmsPjjkGgeq?si=PhUlVpf4R7mCNU5Pbe0CxA

“The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long - and you have burned so very, very brightly”. Known Pleasures is back with a podcast of Bladerunner proportions - one hit wonders of the new wave era. Here we explore our favourite supernova tracks of the time and ask “where are they now? does that even qualify as new wave?” and “whose idea was this again?”

Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/1230971434/playlist/6PUtCDlsvXsm7RzjFkQZ9A?si=8xqvq5ZYR8WPjeYnr_fvBw

You might… know of… INXS as sinuous rock-funk exponents from the late 80s and early 90s. You might… know how…. they came to rule the world with their infectious hook laden songs. But_ did_ you_ know_ that back home in their native Australia there were plenty who saw them as just another rock band who’d graduated from the macho, 60s-influenced pub rock scene that had produced the likes of AC/DC. Well, here at Known Pleasures that really gets our goat up. INXS were not an Aus Rock band. They were a new wave band and a really good one.

Spotify Play List:

https://open.spotify.com/user/1230971434/playlist/2TPpHXX1YYLGsoh6YDwV2s?si=crAOCVu2T-iObgxvHziYFQ

When Andy, Paul and Winston took to the stage at a club in Liverpool in 1978, the small crowd assembled didn’t quite know what to expect. Especially because Winston was a tape recorder. What they wouldn’t have anticipated was that, within three or four years, this peculiar band - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - would rattle off a string of hit singles and eccentric inventive albums, placing them firmly on the frontline of the electro-pop invasion of the early to mid-80s.

Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5N5hZGmo8v289gom799R2M?si=iKm_jpCQSyizFhdF3oD10Q

If 1978 can be regarded as Year Zero for post punk, then Magazine were already wide awake when day one dawned. From 78-81 they produced four challenging albums and set the tone for the next 30 years. Episode 28 of our Known Pleasures podcast examines what made Manchester’s Magazine one of the greats.

Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1SWGj9qxomqduRKvzssYLu?si=nqItmi_8QPWZIloTF9iMDQ

Spotify Playlist Link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7uXGJG3bDGq4xcAP6qRsQz?si=rljXylSjQ16QnhptiPh8_w