The Bodines in session – October 30, 1985 – session for Janice Long Program – BBC Radio 1 –
The Bodines tonight, from a session they did for Janice Long at BBC Radio 1 on October 30, 1985.
Together for only 5 years, they became one of the best known bands of the UK jangly period in the mid/late-1980s.
This session, recorded for the Janice Long program on BBC Radio 1 from October 30, 1985, puts them right around they time they had formed and a little under a year before their debut album was released. They were initially signed to Creation Records and their second single, Therese, was issued as part of the famous C86 compilation. They released a string of singles during their tenure, but according to reports, none of them charted. And even their debut album, despite critical acclaim, barely scraped to #94 on the UK album charts.
The Bodines were known and acknowledged as one of the better examples of the Jangle genre, but it didn’t translate into mainstream success. And because of that, the band temporarily broke up in the summer of 1987. They reformed with a personnel change in 1989 and continued on for another year before calling it a day.
Their music is still available, via compilations and their debut album was reissued in 2010 with several bonus tracks.
It sounds like a broken record, but The Bodines were yet another one of those bands, long on potential but short on success. And it wasn’t for lack of trying, but the ever-present vagaries of the audience and the record buyers, and ultimately success gauged on mainstream acceptance determined whether a band would be legendary or overlooked.
Sadly, overlooked and underrated appears to describe a vast majority of bands in the history of Rock, since it got started in the mid 1950s.
Fortunately, for recorded legacies, it is now possible to re-evaluate many of these seemingly forgotten groups and bring them to the attention of a new audience – resurrecting some long-forgotten bands and reassessing the viability of others.
The Bodines are just one of those bands.
Play loud and enjoy.
