A short interview with Billy MacKenzie

[@amc3]

Billy was a musical genius... loved the guy...still do..!

[@gavinstarling8737]

Miss this guy so much too.

[@onlyme151]

How so very sad. I didn't even know he'd died. He was beautiful and was his music in the 80s

[@seamusheaney123]

he was a great lad. much missed.

[@peterdrury8195]

It's such a shame he is not around today because he made some really good records and it would have been nice to see him perform live today.R.I.P. Bill,much missed.By the way Party Fears Too is one of my favourite tracks of all time.

[@PaoloVeneziano1958]

"Those First Impressions" is from Perhaps - the first Associates' release that was in effect Billy's first solo outing. It's excellent.

[@dfcvda]

ah Billy why did you leave us so soon..?

[@MLaker221]

he's a great person here.

[@ladystardust2008]

Wee Billy, so pretty and so sad

[@atomikdestruktor1]

You can see how he and Morrissey got on so well before they fell out

[@johnnyblunder]

God bless ye Bill n Johhny to.

[@claire_stapley]

apperantly he and Morrissey were lovers. anyone know if that's even true?

[@sgtrayelwood]

Well, yes, we all know that Those First Impressions was released in 1984, but this interview is clearly not from then. What my worse half was suggesting was that going by the styles, this looks to be from around 1990, when Popera was released, with TFI playing as a sample track from said compilation. So, no wires crossed at all.

[@PawelLopatka]

thank you xx

[@timwilderspin]

Thanks for this.

[@nationstolemyrobots]

@deathrowbozo It's "Those First Impressions", which suggests that the interview was around the time the "Popera" compilation was released.

[@deathrowbozo]

anyone know the song that comes in at the end?

[@deathrowbozo]

@spacehopper70 thanks buddy

[@nwlman]

Just needed some good hit Records that's all. He should have gone to Stock Aitken and Waterman they were great writers and producers they could have put him at the top of the charts.

[@nationstolemyrobots]

nwlman Which may have produced a hit, but they would have made him sound exactly like all their other acts. He's too distinctive a figure and had ideas of his own.

[@amc3]

Andy Durrant Your so right Andy, Billy had his own musical mind, he would never have sold his soul to trash like that.

[@annthorpe8411]

As you yourself said, Billy had such a distinctive style of his own that I believe he could have worked with SAW and still imposed his own unique personality. The idea is definitely not as ridiculous as it might at first sound. After all, some of the tracks on Perhaps and even Wild and lonely are not a million miles away from the Stock Aitken and Waterman sound that became inescapable and so easy to hate, for far too long in the 80's. For example, the single Never can say goodbye, from Wild and lonely, could easily have been a SAW production. Despite it obviously not being comparable to the incomparable Associates proper, I would suggest that it should have been a big hit single. Had he been working with SAW I dare say it would have been. With the passing of years I can now appreciate that not quite everything they produced was complete poop. I actually really like Kylie Minogue's Better the devil you know.

[@annthorpe8411]

Andy, have you heard his recording of Heart of glass? Do you really think this was any better than most of Stockhausen and Waterman's mass produced, anonymous rubbish?

[@nationstolemyrobots]

You have me there, but Heart of Glass really is worst case scenario stuff. Whoever it was at WEA who thought that the comeback single should be a cover version (and a rather thin one at that) was either off their head or deliberately sabotaging The Associates' career. Stock Aitken and Waterman did do things beyond their usual folio (Brilliant? Danse Society?) but I always found their HiNRG stuff identikit.

[@thomscn]

I am sorry Billy, as much as I love this track, but to compare the Associates with Led Zeppelin and Genesis is absurd, as an atheist I cannot say RIP, but thank you for the wonderful music

[@blackmore4]

But he didn't compare the Associates to Led Zeppelin or Genesis. He said that in Dundee (presumably when he was growing up) if you didn't like Led Zeppelin or Genesis you may end up "with a bottle over your head". Meaning that the majority tastes were 'rock' of some sort or other and that tastes outside of it were, in the tribal 70s, frowned upon to the point of violence. The fact that he thought of both groups as "horrible bands" is something I wholeheartedly agree with ;)

[@blackmore4]

thomscn Be as "sorry" as you like but whether it's true or not (about being bottled for not liking Led Zeppelin & Genesis in early 70s Dundee) it's what's he said. Nothing "absurd" about an opinion. It's just that - an opinion. I'm sure that there's plenty of music you deem to be "horrible" which I'd agree with and plenty that I don't. I just happen to agree with Mackenzie about the 2 groups mentioned. The only "total bollocks" I can see is your bizarre idea that disliking certain music artists requires a deficit in one's "level of intelligence". Again, it's just opinion. Or possibly more to the point in this case... taste ;)

[@thomscn]

blackmore4, you state your position on this matter very well , or should that be 'opinion', unfortunately blackmore4, I totally disagree with you, but hey! democracy rules...take care my friend and have a long life.

[@dorianleakey]

Perhaps he is overstating things, but it is not out of the question that people would bully and harrass people that dont fit in by listening to what everone else listens to, especially back then. This is a very common human trait, and perhaps with music taking it to the point of violence would be unlikely, but it is not absurd. I am surprised you would think it absurd.

[@blackmore4]

Dorian Leakey More than "not out of the question" - fact. I was a kid in the 70s and the tribal nature of youth music movements was incredibly bloody. I was a bit younger than McKenzie so never had any trouble from 'rock' kids but as a punk I scrapped with (and ran from!) skinheads, suedeheads, soul boys, mods... etc etc. And actually, what would a Genesis fan do? Bore you to death?! By the time I was legally able to drink (early 80s) it seemed to have simmered down a little but as a proto-goth with bleached white hair there were still always thugs around every corner!