Musical Monday (#6)

"Ooh wop, bop ba doo wop, bop ba doo wop, bop ba doo."

Terrorvision described themselves as a band "always too busy having a good time to ever take themselves too seriously", and it could be this philosophy that was behind them never really getting the commercial success they deserved. In 1999, as a student and aspiring journalist, I was lucky enough to interview the guitarist, Mark Yates. I asked him then about the forthcoming album and if he thought the unknown rock band from Bradford they started out as would have been impressed at what they had become.

He told me he thought they would have been surprised more than anything -- but at the same time, he felt that it sort of had a tendency to come and go for the band, and that every album felt like a comeback album.

For many people, and most rock fans, the high point of Terrorvision's career was their second album How to Make Friends and Influence People, it is considered the hardest rocking of their output, but it also was host to the song today's post is about -- Oblivion. Terrorvision prided themselves on mixing "pop hooks with metal guitars" ('metal' in the loosest sense of the word, to be fair) and live they often commented how they had been advised against Oblivion. "You can't put doo-wop in a song, you're a rock band" they'd been told, to which the band had replied "Fuck off, we're Terrorvision".

Without a doubt Oblivion is one of their biggest hits -- each album had a similar catchy song, be it "My House" from their debut album, "Perseverance" from their James Bond-parody album "Regular Urban Survivors", their dance-crossover "Tequila" or the last offerings "D'ya Wanna Go Faster" and "Fists of Fury". Incidentally, Terrorvision officially called it a day after BBC Radio 1 wouldn't play their single "Fists of Fury", claiming the band were no longer "relevant".

Each of those songs could be recognisable, they were certainly popular to varying degrees at the time, but Oblivion -- a catchy song that covers the subject of intolerance and genocide -- is timeless. Unfortunately, several years later Hanson released the song Mmm Bop, with a catch that was annoyingly-similar.

At one time, they were my favourite band -- I always upheld they were not the "best" band in the world, merely my favourites -- and so to honour the fallen heroes of rock, I include the iconic "Oblivion".