SMASH HITS singles in the issue 14th of April 1983

Prince Charles was lauded by the rock and style press

They seemed to be ubiquitous in '83/8. Tons of my (gullible trendy) friends had the album, which hasn't aged very well.

Defunkt have aged well.

"War Baby" is eternal. x post.

except for the saxaphone. ;-)

I was quite mystified by the (very short-lived) Prince Charles hype as well (maybe the UK music press was tittilated by his name idk)

Defunkt were and are great - “The Razor’s Edge” is a stone cold classic

"Only the very young and the very beautiful can be so aloof" - they don't write opening lines like that anymore. :(

must have fitted in with the prevalent "hard times" aesthetic

When you're in the grip of an unrequited, unfulfillable and overwhelming crush one someone who lives in the shared house next door to your own, "War Baby" is strong meat indeed!

Wow, where has that demo version of "Temptation" been all my life? I love the Numan-esque arrangement, and the deadpan female voice somehow brings into focus something I'd always missed, that the lyric is about a man's terror of getting his girlfriend pregnant.

Sounds like Deborah Evans-Stickland from the Flying Lizards doing the deadpan vocals...

According to this (below) it's a German student they knew but Claudia Brücken used to join them to do it in concert:

https://postpunkmonk.com/2013/02/14/a-young-persons-guide-to-heaven-17-temptation/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-wp0Mywpf4

Wow, where has that demo version of "Temptation" been all my life?

My first time hearing it too. Great.

Re the Questions, yeah I like it, bought it at the time. But in this company, it seems odd to have escaped any snark. Maybe Paul Weller was a mate, or hopefully might be...

Shame they were about five years late for electroclash with releasing that demo. Would have seemed like a scam in 2001.

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Surely, an upset...