Amos on left, Richard on right. Never mind the backup players.
Dark City was a very short-lived British Synth-Pop band active from 1985 to 1986. The band was frontlined by Amos Pizzey (vocalist) & Richard "Cass" Lewis (on bass), with a bunch of no-name backup musicans. Steve Levinenote was the Record Producer. They released several LP singles & one album before dropping off the face of the Earth.
A bit of trivia for Culture Club fans: Amos rapped under the name Captain Crucial on the Kissing to Be Clever tracks "Murder Rap Trap" and "Love Twist".
Discography:
- LP Singles:
- Help You Out (1985)
- False Alarm (1985)
- Rules Of The Game (1985)
- Come On Over (1986)
- Rescue Me (1986)
- Indecision (1986)
- Album:
- Dark City (1986)
Dark City provides examples of:
- A Wild Rapper Appears!: On quite a few tracks, like "Come On Over". Oddly enoughnote , it's not a guest rapper, but the lead vocalist himself.
- Call-Back: On the cut "Solid Gone", Amos calls himself Captain Crucial during the rap bridge, his Stage Name from his rapping-on-Culture-Club-songs days.
- Darker and Edgier: Their lyrics in comparison to other Synth-Pop acts at the time.
- Dark and Troubled Past: "Almost There" is this in spades. Word's out on whether it's true or not (though, given that Amos performed on Culture Club tracks at the age of 14, it likely isn't).
- Dead Sparks: "Come On Over".
- Dysfunctional Family: The topic of "Almost There", or at least it appears to be, lack of readable lyrics notwithstanding...
- Genre-Busting: Their songs contained elements of Reggae and Synth-Pop, with a just a touch of New Wave tossed innote .
- I Was Quite a Looker: Amos, who looked like this
in 1986 and looks like this now. - Lyrical Dissonance: They seemed to almost specialise in these.
- "Insecure", perhaps the happiest (and catchiest!) song about a tortuous relationship ever.
- "Indecision", another stupidly-catchy song about a bitchy girlfriend. "Maybe you will, maybe you won't", indeed.
- "Forever"; dealing with the difficulties of having a successful relationship after hurting your lover ("I see the tears that fill her eyes", "Sometimes I'm even frightened by this feeling that's between us")
- "Come On Over"; trying to reconcile your love with the person you've "drifted away" from.
- New Wave Music: But only its residues, as New Wave was Old Wave by 1985.
- Obsession Song: "Rescue Me", in which the speaker can't forget a women he used to date, to almost creepy stalker-ish levels. "Bring her home to me!"
Brrr... - Pep-Talk Song: "Almost There", in which the singer describes his difficult upbringing and his struggle to overcome it.
- Record Producer: Steve Levine, stretching his chops by producing a Synth-Pop band instead of a New Wave one.
- Reggae: A few of their songs, like "Rescue Me" and "Solid Gone", contain traces of it.
- Shout-Out: During the rapping bridge segment in "Solid Gone", Amos uses his old Stage Name Captain Crucial.
- Short-Runners: Only lasted two years.
- Silly Love Songs: Averted; most of their songs have surprisingly melancholic lyrics for a seemingly typically overproduced Synth-Pop band. "Insecure" & "Indecision" describe a troubled relationship, "Rescue Me" is about an unhealthy obsession with a former lover...
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Very much on the cynical end of the scale, though some of their songs (e.g., "Come On Over") have hopeful undertones, i.e., "We're not smitten for each other anymore, but we can rebuild our romance if we work hard enough".
- Stalker with a Crush: Seemingly the whole point of "Rescue Me".
- Stage Name: Averted; Amos uses his real name instead of the stage name be used on his Culture Club days, Captain Crucial...except on "Solid Gone", as a sort of Call-Back.
- Synth-Pop: The main genre they worked in.
- The Masochism Tango: The subject of the songs "Insecure", "Indecision", & "Forever".
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: The chorus of "Almost There" contains the lyric "Father, be proud of me, and what I am today".
