Information Society vs. Escape Club vs. Breakfast Club

InSoc had three hits: "What's On Your Mind" (#3), "Walking Away" (#9) and "Think" (#28)

Information Society, for extra-musical reasons; i.e., this epic takedown of VH1's Bands Reunited: http://insoc.org/texts/BandReunion.HTML

The Escape Club also had a minor hit called "Shake for the Sheik" (#28) that have never even heard of

InSoc also had "Running" from '85, a masterful freestyle jam (a massive dance hit but not a top 40 hit).

The Escape Club's "I'll Be There" hit the top ten in summer '91, and it may have gotten more damn airplay here than "Wild Wild West."

omg @ "Shake for the Sheik"

This is Breakfast Club without any hesitation at all.

if Dan and I were on a desert island the only words we'd exchange were lines from "Right on Track."

That may be true Alfred but I am Team InSoc until the day I die

also can I just

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWj1_nZ-D-A

Oh good god, must you remind me of that song.

(Answer: yes.)

Escape Club always seemed like knock-off INXS to me, even at the time.

"Right On Track" is a great, great song but there are many more painful missteps on the Breakfast Club album than there are on the first InSoc album, and IIRC most of the second half of the first InSoc album is a series of escalating missteps that is only redeemed by "Something in the Air"

then there's their cover of "Lay All Your Love on Me."

I freely admit that I am cutting InSoc some slack due to hometown bias

I bought the 45 of "Walking Away." Overplay hasn't killed it.

I always liked "Walking Away" more than "What's On Your Mind"

ick – this Breakfast Club album is weak

I told you!

IS THAT GONNA GET YOU BACK

20-some odd years later, I don't think "Running" is a weak demo for "What's On Your Mind" anymore

InSoc also had "Running" from '85, a masterful freestyle jam.

Yes!

But out of the three choices I have to go with "Right On Track".

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

i've always kind of mentally grouped Escape Club and Information Society together too O_O

Wasn't Madge in an early incarnation of Breakfast Club?

she dated Stephen Bray too.

ha i knew soto and djp would be all over this thread. i'd go escape club for, um, catalog over breakfast club but 'right on track' is easily by many many leagues the best thing here. information society would've been my pick at the time and in the years since i've always raised an eyebrow at kroq types i've known fucking despising information society but then the other day i heard 'what's on yr mind' on the radio and it was fucking dire, real crap midwest synth-pop. i can remember at the time in jr high there were 'cool tests' you could administer where you'd ask some kid if they liked that song 'wild wild west' and then when they said yes you'd ask them who did it and if they said kool moe dee they were cool and if they said escape club they were lame and you made fun of them. at the same time i did like the escape club 'wild wild west', i kinda loved inxs also so maybe that was it? never made that connection til this thread though. every few months that stupid fake dancehall 'rap' from 'wild wild west' will pop into my head and it's all i can do to stop myself from bursting w/ laughter. THIS ONE'S CALLED THE OUTLAW!

ha INXS doesn't belong in this conversation at all: they competed with U2, whom they bested.

it's true though that Info Soc's British accents were sooo silly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EnO8yRcIeI

at the time i thought of inxs as a poor man's u2 (and it was a pretty common comparison for sure), but thinking about them now they seem more like an evolved (or devolved) duran duran, replacing roxy in the 'roxy music + chic' formula w/ the stones circa 78. i don't know why inxs never really came back into fashion or had any kind of reevaluation or critical rehabilitation. i don't know if it's due to the way hutchence died or when he died or if they've never gone away enough (i still hear alot of different inxs songs on the radio, more than i do from the cure or depeche mode or 80s r.e.m. and comparable to 80s u2) or if it's just they don't have a big obvious classic album to get routinely listed on rock lists (kick's the only one to make a dent on acclaimed music's list and there the only brit or american publication to throw it on a best of all time type list is something called 'classic rock & metal hammer' (and then only the top 200 albums of the 80s).

I went through a phase this spring during which I learned that INXS from 1983-1990 was immense: brittle art-funk with a front man who could conquer American like Bryan Ferry couldn't but without making the audience cringe. I don't mind holding LLT up as their best.

Information society ffs

No strong opinion about these particular songs, but I thought back then that Information Society (who I initially couldn't stand) didn't really come into their own until their second album, which most everybody else ignored at the time but I revisited at the end of this:

http://www.spin.com/articles/marrs-attacks-8-essentials-of-plunderphonic-house/

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Hahaha yes

righteous

Without listening to the Youtubes, "Wild Wild West" is the only one of these I have ever heard of before and I remember it being ubiquitous at that time (when I was 9-10). It sounds pretty ridiculous now. I always thought "she's so mean but I don't care" was an odd line. Forgot about the out-of-nowhere safe sex plug and that dancehall break.

Oh, I do know this Information Society song. I always wondered if it was by Depeche Mode tbh.

Breakfast Club track can suck it.

somehow missed this but would have voted for the winner. i intended to listen to all three but somehow decided to listen to kon kan "i beg your pardon" instead.

I had totally forgotten about "I beg your pardon" - there was some subversive dj who would always play that every morning one winter at like 6am on the butt-rock classic rock station when I was 14, I've never actually seen the video until right now.

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=JBnqynTAAoU&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DJBnqynTAAoU

Yep: "I Beg Your Pardon" is better than these three.

OK, I listened to Information Society and I stand by my decision to go with Kon Kan

a girl i went to high school with is now married to insoc guy and performed with them last week. that is weird.

Is that gonna get her back?

'Running' was the best thing InSoc ever did.

I'm friends with a girl akm went to high school with