Babylon Zoo

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Babylon Zoo
Babylon Zoo front man Jas Mann on the cover of The Boy With the X-Ray Eyes
Background information
Origin	Wolverhampton, England
Genre(s)	Rock, industrial, space rock, art rock
Years active	1992–2000
Label(s)	Phonogram Records, WEA, EMI
Former members
Jas Mann Carrie Melbourne Dave Goodes Darrin Monney

Babylon Zoo was a British industrial/pop rock band of the mid 1990s from Wolverhampton, England, fronted by Jas Mann. They were perhaps best known for the song Spaceman which on its release on January 21, 1996, went straight to Number 1 on the UK singles chart selling 418,000 copies in the first week of release, a record at the time.

Jas Mann had formerly been in an indie music band, called The Sandkings, which he left in 1992, because of musical differences.

Babylon Zoo was signed to Phonogram Records after Clive Black heard their first three-track demo tape in May 1993. When Black moved to Warner Bros. Records in 1993, he took Mann's contract with him. An album had been prepared and sleeves for a single, "Fire Guided Light", were printed, but Babylon Zoo's debut was put on hold again when Black moved once more to EMI in 1995, where the band were signed on to a seven album contract.

However, promotional copies of the song "Spaceman" had already been distributed, and was chosen to tie in with the release of a new Levi's jeans TV advert. The single went straight to Number 1 on the UK singles chart and also went to Number 1 in the single charts in twenty-three countries.

An album, entitled, The Boy With the X-Ray Eyes was produced at Mann's New Atlantis Productions music/artwork/video centre. It was released in 1996 and included new-age tracks such as "Is Your Soul For Sale?" and "I'm Cracking Up I Need A Pill". The album sold multi-million copies^{[citation needed]}.

Three years later, 1999, a follow up album was released entitled King Kong Groover, but Mann decided not to promote the album as he was not getting support from his label EMI since the departure of the man who had signed him, Clive Black. Mann subsequently decided to move to India and work for an aid agency.

In 2005, it was announced that a new Babylon Zoo album, Cold Clockwork Doll, would be released sometime in the near future. This album has yet to be released.

In 2006 "Spaceman" featured on trailers for Ant and Dec's film Alien Autopsy, the BBC's children's channel, CBeebies for the animated pre-school series Lunar Jim, and Network Ten's advertisement for Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series). Spaceman is also used in Eesti otsib superstaari (Pop Idol Estonia).

1 Albums
2 Singles
3 Audio sample
4 External links

[edit] Albums

Title	Released	Chart Position
"The Boy With The X-Ray Eyes"	February, 1996	#6 UK (Platinum)
"King Kong Groover"	February, 1999	N/A

[edit] Singles

Year	Song	UK Singles Chart	Album
1996	"Spaceman"	#1	"The Boy With the X-Ray Eyes"
1996	"Animal Army"	#17	"The Boy With the X-Ray Eyes"
1996	"The Boy With The X-Ray Eyes"	#32	"The Boy With the X-Ray Eyes"
1999	"All The Money's Gone"	#46	"King Kong Groover"
1999	"Honaloochie Boogie"	Promo released (France only)	"King Kong Groover"
2000	"Love Lies Bleeding"	Internet-only release	N/A