Altered Images – ‘Pinky Blue’

I feel as if I have no right to be such a huge fan of this album. I am often guilty when I discover a love for a band by hearing their music for the first time in a film or TV show. We all want to be able to say we saw them first on a small stage at Glastonbury or above a North London pub. But I heard a song from Altered Images in an episode of the single-season Channel 4 show Pure 4 years ago, and Pinky Blue quickly became one of my favourite albums. This is one to turn up loud!

The band’s second album sees them move away from the punk roots of their debut album and transition into pop music. The infectiously positive melodies of the songs have the wonderful ability to clear grey clouds and create a feeling of pure joy when listening. The album was their biggest chart hit, reaching 12th in the UK charts. The band released a new album in 2022 after a 40-year gap since the last one. Online casino games in Canada would be the best way to pass the time while listening to the album, as they provide interesting game titles to exercise your strategic mind. Besides, they allow you to dive into hours of entertainment from the comfort of your home as you listen to the album as the soundtrack to your gambling experience.

While their debut album had the single “Happy Birthday” as the standout song, reaching number 2 in the charts, Pinky Blue has several songs fighting for the limelight. The titular song “Pink Blue” kicks off the album with energetic joy feeding into “See Those Eyes,” the album’s 2nd second that proved to be one of its most popular songs. “Forgotten” and “Little Brown Head” continues the first side of the album’s tone of outrageously upbeat songs, as does the criminally underrated “See You Later.”

Altered Images ‘Pinky Blue’ album artwork

The Music

“Song Sung Blue,” a cover of Neil Diamond’s hit song, features next on the album. The inclusion of this cover became one of the biggest examples of the band’s change in tone and genre toward Pop music. The inclusion of this cover proved to be mixed with fans, finding it suggests a lack of clarity and direction for the band.

“Funny Funny Me” kicks off the second side of the album. While the second half keeps the obvious catchy beats, it shifts the tone to a feeling of melancholy. This is reflected in “Think That It Might Be” and most notably “I Could Be Happy,” the song I heard on Television that lead me to this album. “I Could Be Happy” went on to be one of the band’s biggest hits, their 2nd UK top ten that remained in the charts for 12 weeks and became their first song in the US charts. Its success in America was largely helped due to its brief popularity on MTV.

“Jump Jump” gives listeners one last chance to do exactly what it says, jump to this exciting tune before “Goodnight And I Wish” gives us a haunting goodbye. The punk feel of the band is something that is now very accessible, with many punk bands currently on tour and releasing albums. It must also be noted the contents of the album is great, but the actual design and artwork of the physical releases are equally wonderful. In the same way that this kind of music has had a resurgence, so has the longing for buying physical media. Vinyl is back in a big way. Getting an album like an Altered Images one is exactly why, with bright colours and beautiful images (along with altered ones). The band really does have a number of ways in which they reflect the current music industry and the nostalgia people are longing for.

The band followed this album with “Bite” in 1983, before beginning a nearly 40-year hiatus. They returned in 2021 by supporting The Human League on tour and releasing the album Mascara Streakz in 2022. The new album was met with praise from fans of the band, who were just happy to get new material from Altered Images after such a long wait. The Guardian spoke kindly of the album and said that Clare Grogan has been reinvented as a retro disco diva.

Nostalgia is in.

While I felt guilt at my TV discovery of the band, one can’t help but look at the overwhelming success and resurgence of Kate Bush thanks to the show Stranger Things and the current popularity of ’80s music and wonder if Altered Images are just one well-placed song in a Film or TV show away from a real resurgence.

The album feels like the music you would expect your parents to listen to. The kind of music that one could imagine not being very cool for most of the last couple of decades, but now we are in an era of pop nostalgia where this kind of music is the new rock and roll. These feel-good tracks are the ones to turn up loud in the car and let the whole street hear.