Queer (album)
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| Queer | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by Thompson Twins | |||||
| Released | 1991 | ||||
| Genre | Alternative, Post Punk | ||||
| Length | 48:01 | ||||
| Label | Warner Brothers | ||||
| Producer | Tom Bailey, Alannah Currie and Keith Fernley | ||||
| Thompson Twins chronology | |||||
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Queer is the eighth (and final) studio album by the British pop group Thompson Twins.
Before the album's release, it appeared as if the band was on the verge of commercial rebirth. Tom Bailey and engineer Keith Fernley had been experimenting with making dance music under the moniker "Feedback Max". As such, they slipped several white-label 12" singles to London deejays, the most successful of which was a track called "Come Inside". The rave-style record became massively popular, and charted high on the playlists of influential DJs. Most of the Feedback Max records, including "Come Inside", were actually remixes of tracks that had been intended for the next Thompson Twins album. When "Come Inside" was issued as an official Thompson Twins release, the record was immediately ignored and flopped in its native UK. Consequently, the British release of the album Queer was cancelled.
The album was released in the United States and Germany in September 1991. Perhaps inspired by the success of the UK white labels, Warner Brothers tried a similar approach in the States. Pre-release radio singles were shipped to station programmers in a paper zip-apart sleeve that said simply "Come Inside". In place of the artist's name, a question mark simply appeared, apparently in an attempt to get radio programmers to listen to the track without any expectations that might be associated with the name Thompson Twins. The official single was released and flopped everywhere except on the Billboard Dance charts.
This modest success prompted Warner Brothers to issue a second single, "Groove On", despite the fact that remixes already existed for another album track, "Flower Girl". "Groove On" failed to make an impact. In 1993, the Thompson Twins appeared on the soundtrack for the Ralph Bakshi film "Cool World". The track was a mostly-instrumental piece titled "Play With Me", but was actually a remix of the song "Strange Jane" from Queer. Warner Brothers then released the track as an official Thompson Twins single, now called "Play With Me (Jane)", in an obvious bid to connect the two songs. The mixes on the single had nothing to do with the version on the soundtrack, and in fact the Cool World version of the song did not even feature on it.
Following the release of "Queer", the band ultimately dropped the name Thompson Twins altogether and moved even further into electronica, renaming themselves "Babble" and creating two subsequent albums that dabbled in trip-hop, dub, and ambient techno.
[edit] Track listing
- "Come Inside" - 3:58
- "Flower Girl" - 4:16
- "My Funky Valentine" - 3:22
- "Queer" - 3:19
- "Groove On" - 3:54
- "Strange Jane" - 4:00
- "Shake It Down" - 3:31
- "Wind It Up" - 4:17
- "Flesh And Blood" - 3:47
- "The Invisible Man" - 2:33
- "The Saint" - 4:33
- "Come Inside (Feedback Max Remix)" - 6:27
