I picked up one of their CDs-and liked it a lot. They are unique-has any other rock band used a bagpipe? Their song lyrics are quite interesting. how long did they last? And, were they very popular in the USA?
I think they had one big hit here. “In a Big Country”.
And, BTW, those weren’t bagpipes. That was a guitar run through the the MXR Pitch Transposer 129 Guitar Effect.
Their first two albums “The Crossing” and “Steeltown” were pretty big sellers over here, but subsequent ones didn’t do as well. They were a great live act though, and toured for many years. Unfortunately, Stuart Adamson - the lead singer and songwriter - was a troubled soul and killed himself a couple of years ago.
The Crossing is one of the best albums of the 80s, sez I.
Yeah, I agree, it’s definitely due a critical reappraisal. I remember watching them on the TV doing a concert in Edinburgh on New Years Eve. They, quite frankly, fucking rocked!
One of my friends is OBSESSED with Big Country. Like, seriously. The only song of theirs she’s made me listen to that I liked was “Loserville” from John Wayne’s Dream. They’re just not my style. I know she heads up a fanlisting and stuff for the band still too.
It always surprised me that Big Country failed to break out in the U.S. It seems like you couldn’t turn on MTV for a year and not see “In a Big Country” when it came out, and that was when MTV was at its peak with nothing but music videos.
Yet that song went only to #17 on the charts in both the U.S. and the U.K. And while the song is one of the great rock hits of all time, the video was simply stupid and irrelevant to the song itself. Maybe that why they had four top ten hits in the U.K. but I don’t remember any follow-up at all in America. Still strange.
I seem to remember a bagpipe lick in one or two of Slade’s gentle melodies. But maybe someone was just raping a bagpipe somewhere else in the studio.
Pretty sure AC-DC had a bagpipe riff on… “Damnation” or somesuch.
::shudder:: Wings - Mull of Kintyre.
“Fields of Fire” got some radio play and made it to #52 in the US, but that was it, I think.
Wasn’t “Chance” a hit at all? Their best song, IMO.
The video for “Where the Rose is Sown” was in rotation for a while. I dug it.
“Chance” definitely was a hit in the UK. It is the first song I think of when I see a mention of Big Country. Great record.