History：1979–1982: Associates mk. 1<br/>Mackenzie and guitaristAlan Rankinemet inDundeein 1976 and formed thecabaretduo The Ascorbic Ones.In 1979 they recorded songs under the name of Mental Torture before finally changing their name to The Associates. They then recorded their debutsingle, acoverofDavid Bowie&apos;s &quot;Boys Keep Swinging&quot;. Their version attracted a good deal of attention, not least from David Bowie, as it was released in June 1979 just six weeks after Bowie&apos;s version had hit the UKTop 10in April. A string of highly regarded singles were released and two albumsThe Affectionate PunchandFourth Drawer Down.<br/>In 1981 Rankine and MacKenzie also released a version of &quot;Kites&quot; under the name &quot;39 Lyon Street&quot; with Christine Beverage on lead vocals, the b-side track &quot;A Girl Named Property&quot; was credited to The Associates. The band&apos;s breakthrough came in 1982 with the release of the single &quot;Party Fears Two&quot;. Buoyed along by the popularity ofsynthpopat the time, the song reached number 9 on theUK Singles Chart.Two other hits soon followed, &quot;Club Country&quot; and &quot;18 Carat Love Affair&quot;. That year the band released their most commercially successful album,Sulk.Martha Ladly, ofMartha and the Muffins, contributed backing vocals and keyboards to this album.<br/>1983–1990: Associates mk. 2 and commercial decline<br/>Rankine left the band in 1982 just before theSulktour. This proved disastrous in terms of the band&apos;s career, in particular as the band were being actively courted bySeymour Steinwho thought they could become massive stars in the USA. Mackenzie continued to write and record music under the Associates name until 1990. The albumsPerhaps,The Glamour Chase(which the record company refused to release, considering it not commercially viable) andWild and Lonelywere made during this period. However, without the guiding hand of Rankine, recordings were sporadic and subsequent Associates records failed to reach the charts in the UK and sold far fewer than their early albums.<br/>1991–present: split and aftermath<br/>The Associates name was put to rest and Mackenzie released the electronica-influenced solo albumOuternationalin 1992 with limited success. In 1993 Mackenzie and Rankine began working on new material together: news of an Associates revival generated hype and speculation of a tour and the demos recorded by the two were promising. However Mackenzie was not fully committed to the reunion and especially touring with it so Associates split for a final time. Mackenzie went back to his solo work, signing a deal withNude Recordsand finding a new collaborative partner in Steve Aungle. Between 1987 and 1992 Billy worked withSwissavant-garde outfitYello. MacKenzie wrote the lyrics of the song &quot;The Rhythm Divine&quot; performed byShirley Basseyon the albumOne Second, with MacKenzie singing backing vocals. MacKenzie contributed to three Yello albums;One Second(1987),Flag(1988) andBaby(1991). Some tracks forThe Glamour ChaseandOuternationalwere recorded withBoris Blankat Yello&apos;srecording studio.<br/>MacKenzie committedsuicidein 1997 aged 39, shortly after the death of his mother. He had been suffering fromclinical depression. He was contemplating a comeback at the time with material co-written with Aungle. The albumsBeyond the Sun(1997) andEurocentric(2000) were released posthumously and re-constructed (and expanded with new unreleased songs) in 2004 into two albums:AuchtermaticandTransmission Impossible.<br/>Rankine is now a lecturer in music atStow CollegeinGlasgow, and worked withBelle &amp; Sebastianon their debut album,Tigermilkin 1996.<br/>The bookThe Glamour Chaseby Tom Doyle documented the band&apos;s career and MacKenzie&apos;s subsequent life.<br/>Legacy<br/>Before Mackenzie&apos;s death almost all Associates records had been deleted. Former band memberMichael Dempseyand the Mackenzie estate began a reissue programme to make sure the band&apos;s legacy continued. Almost every Associates album has been re-issued so far, including a 25-Anniversary edition ofThe Affectionate Punchin 2005. In addition to the original albums, twocompilation albumshave been released:Double Hipness(2000), a collection of early tracks with the 1993 reunion demos; andSingles(2004), an extended version ofPopera - The Singles Collectionwhich caught up with post-1990 material and included the cover of Bowie&apos;s &quot;Boys Keep Swinging&quot;. In 2002,The Glamour Chase(recorded in the years 1985-87) was eventually released. Finally,Wild &amp; Lonelyand Mackenzie&apos;s solo albumOuternationalwere repackaged with bonus tracks in 2006.<br/>Artists who have covered &quot;Party Fears Two&quot; includeThe Divine Comedy,Dan Brykand Heaven 17. An instrumental section of &quot;Party Fears Two&quot; was used as thetheme musicfor theBBC Radio 4satirical current affairs seriesWeek Ending.<br/>The instrumental piano passage from the &quot;Nocturne VII&quot; track (which appeared on the posthumousBeyond The Sunalbum) was used in the BBC seriesMasterchefin November 2009.<br/>An edited version of &quot;Club Country&quot; appeared in the second series finale of theBBCdramaAshes to Ashes, set in 1982.<br/>American electronic pop duo, Microfilm, did a tribute song to Billy Mackenzie in 2009 titled &quot;I&apos;ll Sing Like Billy Mackenzie in Heaven&quot; which featured guitar and additional vocals byScissor Sisters&apos; memberDel Marquis. It appeared on the 2009 EP &quot;Blips Don&apos;t Lie&quot; and the subsequent singles compilationI Am Curious: Microfilm 2006-2010.<br/> 专辑：The Affectionate Punch歌手：The Associates 语言：英语 流派：无流派 发行时间：未知 唱片公司：环球唱片专辑简介 All ten songs on The Affectionate Punch are nearly swollen with ambition and swagger, yet those attributes are confronted with high levels of anxiety and confusion, the sound of prowess and hormones converging head-on. It´s not always pretty, but it´s unflaggingly sensational, even when it slows down. Having debuted with a brazen reduction of David Bowie´s &quot;Boys Keep Swinging&quot; to a spindly rumble, multi-instrumentalist Alan Rankine and vocalist Billy Mackenzie ensured instant attention and set forward with this, their first album. Mackenzie´s exotic swoops cover four octaves, from the kind of isolated swagger heard in Bowie´s &quot;Secret Life of Arabia&quot; to a falsetto more commonly heard in an opera house than a bar. (Dude sounds like a diva, so proceed with caution if you´d much rather hear a voice in line with PiL´s John Lydon or Magazine´s Howard Devoto.) Though the subject matter of the duo´s songs would later veer into the completely inscrutable, there´s some abstract wordplay here that scans like vocal exercises or Scott Walker at his most surreal: &quot;Stenciled doubts spin the spine, Logan time, Logan time&quot;; &quot;If I threw myself from the ninth story, would I levitate back to three&quot;; &quot;His jawline´s not perfect but that can be altered.&quot; Meaningful or not, there´s always a sense of great weight. When Mackenzie runs through the alphabet in &quot;A,&quot; he could be singing in code about the butterflies of love. Rankine, with help from drummer Nigel Glockler and a background appearance from then labelmate Robert Smith, covers most of the other stuff, specializing in spare arrangements that can simultaneously slither and jump, crosscut with guitars that release weary chimes and caustic stabs, as well as the occasional racing xylophone.