I've always considered this synthpop trio (and later duo) and earlier skapop collective to be one of the most underrated and also interesting pop acts. You had a really good, offbeat composer, Tom Bailey, an unconventional female live percussionist and the other guy doing something else. 
Often surreal and witty lyrics and a really wacky tone, who'd have thought that circa 1984 Thompson Twins would define the most mainstream of pop music?
In many ways Thompson Twins should have been the kind of ideal project for ZTT/Trevor Horn; analogue synths married with eccentric real percussion and an almost surreal nuttyness. The other BUGGLE, Geoff Downe did oversee their title song for the 1986 movie NOTHING IN COMMON.
By the end of the 80s, when the trio downsized to a duo, they were gearing towards a more alternative adult audience. The 1989 album BIG TRASH was more in the vein of classic The B52s, and Tom Bailey also did the Debbie Harry song I WANT THAT MAN. The Harry track aside, it was all a big commercial flop, but one of the rare instances in pop where post-financial success a post-fame pop act matures with their own voice. 1991 saw Thompson Twins release acid house dance tracks under the name FEEDBACK MAX, winning them a dance chart number one in the UK. Then came the ambient pop of BABBLE, which sounds more like MASSIVE ATTACK than DOCTOR DOCTOR...
Often surreal and witty lyrics and a really wacky tone, who'd have thought that circa 1984 Thompson Twins would define the most mainstream of pop music?
In many ways Thompson Twins should have been the kind of ideal project for ZTT/Trevor Horn; analogue synths married with eccentric real percussion and an almost surreal nuttyness. The other BUGGLE, Geoff Downe did oversee their title song for the 1986 movie NOTHING IN COMMON.
By the end of the 80s, when the trio downsized to a duo, they were gearing towards a more alternative adult audience. The 1989 album BIG TRASH was more in the vein of classic The B52s, and Tom Bailey also did the Debbie Harry song I WANT THAT MAN. The Harry track aside, it was all a big commercial flop, but one of the rare instances in pop where post-financial success a post-fame pop act matures with their own voice. 1991 saw Thompson Twins release acid house dance tracks under the name FEEDBACK MAX, winning them a dance chart number one in the UK. Then came the ambient pop of BABBLE, which sounds more like MASSIVE ATTACK than DOCTOR DOCTOR...
