Feb. 25 – Two Achievements For The Three Thompson Twins

It was a big day for the Thompson Twins this day in 1984. All three of them!

The Brits simultaneously topped the UK album chart for the first time with Into The Gap and made it into the US top 40 with what would be their signature tune, “Hold Me Now.” It was the fourth album for the group but only the second since they’d trimmed down their roster to singer Tom Bailey,keyboardist Joe Leeway and percussionist/singer Allanah Currie. Bailey explained trimming guitars and even horns from their sound was a result of his belief in electronics being the future or music and “we weren’t going to be a rock’n’roll band. We weren’t going to have a guitar.”

The result worked and was one of the defining sounds of the ’80s. The album went on to be double-platinum at home and in Canada and even crack the US top 10 where it also went platinum. Worldwide it was by far the biggest of their 15-or-so year career, selling upwards of 5 million copies. Although the singles “Doctor Doctor” and “You Take Me Up” aided in that and were top 5’s in Britain, the album really took off because of the lovely “Hold Me Now.” It also made the top 5 in the UK but was a major hit in North America, getting to #3 in both the US and Canada. Previously, although they did score a #1 hit on dance floors with “Lies” the year before, they’d barely made an impression on overall singles charts or radio play. Into the Gap changed all that. While it was predictably massive on college radio and stations known for playing new wave (it was in the year-end top 10 at both LA’s KROQ and Toronto’s CFNY for example) it also made a break into mainstream airplay and onto MTV.

How you felt about it was probably determined by how you felt about the whole ’80s new wave scene. If you weren’t a fan of it, you were not going to like Into The Gap. Music publications in their homeland were especially critical; Smash Hits gave it just 2.5 out of 10, calling it “the usual triumph of naked ambition over talent”. Over here the Village Voice’s crusty critic Robert Christgau had to admit to liking “Hold Me Now” but thought the rest of it only “lightly creditable.” In retrospect though, all music consider the band one of the decade’s “talented and flamboyant synthesizer act(s)” and rate the record as 4-star. They note “nearly every song on this is different from the others” and call it a “classic as far as ’80s new wave pop was concerned.” We agree.

As for the smash single, it was written quickly after Currie and Bailey had made up after an argument. Currie says it was a mixed blessing. “It was really big all over the world, which is great,” she says, “but it was just an accidental thing…After that…everybody- managers, the record company- (were) on our back to write ‘Hold Me Now, Part 2’ and harassing (us) to find a formula.” They didn’t quite do that and although their follow-up Here’s To Future Days did moderately-well, they never scaled the heights again like they did in 1984. After dropping Leeway from the group and changing the name to Babble, by then an electronica outfit, they called it a day in the mid-90s.

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