Alt.Eighties: Side by Side – Mighty Lemon Drops & Red Guitars

This week on Alt.Eighties it’s a side-by-side experience of two UK Indie rock groups who had mid 80’s #1 Indie hits to kick start their careers and set up enormous expectations for their work to follow. Their music clearly inspired by indie influencers from earlier in the decade. The Mighty Lemon Drops emerged out of the mid 80’s post-punk scene from the midlands city of Wolverhampton and went straight to the top of the UK Indie Chart with their debut single Like an Angel. From the north of the UK, Hull indie innovators The Red Guitars used their own record label (Self Drive Records) to launch their first single Good Technology that went top 5 on the Indie charts. Both bands brought a sound that was fundamentally derivative of earlier post punk successes but at the same time had their own distinctiveness.