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I was watching a performance of The Pogues singing "Turkish Song of the Damned" last night and it got me to wondering what would have happened had bands not released that album which is considered to have finished, or derailed their career. For The Pogues I see this as Lorelei, which while beautiful in its way lacked the energy and raw power that the band had been synonymous with up to then.

This got me thinking - what if Nik Kershaw had not junked the majority of his follow-up to The Riddle and had released it? It is notable that When A Heart Beats was left over from that abortive album, and is by far the best song of the replacement album. If the original, junked, album had both had the energy of that song, and had not left his fans in the lurch for another several months, might he have had a third massive hit album on his hands, and had far more relevance in the late 1980s/early 1990s?

Rush is another case in point - from Hold Your Fire, to Presto and Roll The Bones their late 1980s/early 1990s were well-received among their growing new generation of fans, then they released Counterparts. It had a few good songs on it, but whilst the previous three albums can be listened all the way through with enjoyment, Counterparts is as weak as Nik Kershaw's third album, and is best listened to by selecting specific tracks. Rush are still going, but it is on the back of their earlier work; nothing since then has been that kind of great success.

Grey Wolf
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