A web site about Til Tuesday?! ARE YOU SERIOUS?!

If you're expecting the usual trite and standard review and timeline of the rise and fall of the so-called "one hit wonders" Til Tuesday, then you've come the wrong place. You can read that fluff on wikipedia and a dozen or so other sites that recycle it. What you will find here instead are in-depth first person thoughts and experiences as well as documentation from periodicals etc.

The 80's were a unique time in the pop cultural history of music. I don't have experience seeing Frankie Goes To Hollywood or many of those bands when they were up and coming and played live, so like most of you I only have experience with the studio recordings they released. The thing that I feel differentiates Til Tuesday from most of the bands of that time and makes their music more enduring was the live experience. The live sound and presentation was very different from what you heard on record. It was alive and flowing, edgy yet transcendent and uplifting. They created a bright, hooky, beat-full soundscape of harmony and rhythmic textures that blended well together. Their appeal and success was evidenced from the growing crowds of people that sold out their shows in clubs at the time.

Anyway having been grounded in the live experience, does that mean that I don't like the records? No, after getting over the shock, I got used to the studio sound of the first record and like it very much and still listen to it as after TT left Boston and toured outside and eventually disbanded, that's all I/we are left with. That and the live recordings I made during a couple shows which are fair but take me back to that time and state of mind! Til Tuesday changed their sound and musical direction after the first record. There were many songs they played live during that time of 1984/85 which never made it onto the second record. In fact aside from a couple songs it was all new and different. Personally I was quite disappointed with the new direction they took but there were many people not having experienced the live TT that enjoyed them and even liked the subsequent records much better than the first. However would things have gone differently for them if they had continued the original sound and music they had created? Hindsight is 20/20 and history shows that their popularity peaked and declined after the first album. But it is understandable that as artists dedicated to following their instincts, they did what they (or someone) felt was the right thing to do at the time. This goes to show anyway that a band like TT can be experienced in any number of different ways and musical directions.