Associates were one of the most extraordinary and surprising UK chart sensations of all, though their run only lasted the course of 1982, and they only had three genine hit singles. Billy Mackenzie led them on to a few more minor chart placings after Alan Rankine left, but really they were just as much about Rankine as Mackenzie and they lost much of their glorious sparkle when he went.
But for a while they were utterly glorious and Smash Hits, Radio One and Top of the Pops went for them in a huge way. Especiallly Top of the Pops, and theirs were some of the most wonderful and memorable performances the programme ever saw.
This was largely about Mackenzie. He was an utterly astonishing performer. Not just that incomparable operatic range, but just as much for his quite incredible good looks, charm, the way he seemed just born for the TV screen. I remember he provoked one of those, 'did you see' conversations at my school one Friday morning from a teacher before the school day started. She didn't think much of him. She was great but what did she know. He and they were something else.
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