
chart, and became the band's second Top Ten hit. That June, Bow Wow Wow's cover of the Strangeloves' "I Want Candy," a 1965 hit that optimized the Bo Diddley beat, reached the U.K. Promotion for See Jungle! wound down in early 1982 with the number 45 placement of the album's title song. (The controversial photograph was later displayed at the National Portrait Gallery in London.) edition of the album sported a different image.

The LP sleeve's re-creation of Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, photographed by Andy Earl, raised an objection from Lwin's mother, who prompted a Scotland Yard investigation regarding exploitation of a minor for immoral purposes. Its biggest single was "Go Wild in the Country," a Top Ten U.K. That October, See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy! arrived as the band's first proper album. The band's EMI deal expired and was replaced with an RCA contract, the first fruit of which was the "Prince of Darkness" single. Nah, No No My Daddy Don't)," on which Barbarossa's Stanley Clarke-inspired slap bass bubbled to the fore. The next month, Bow Wow Wow were on the singles chart again with "W.O.R.K. By the end of the year, the band recorded a session for John Peel's BBC program, made their live debut, and issued Your Cassette Pet, an eight-song tape promoted by McLaren as "a celebration of under-age sex." Its most explicit songs, written prior to the band's formation by McLaren with Stephane Pietri and Pierre Grillet, were intended for a musical described by the latter two as "a kind of soft-core rock 'n' roll musical for kids."īow Wow Wow became a carnivalesque live draw, and during a February 1981 performance featured a secondary singer, billed by McLaren as Lieutenant Lush, who became known as Boy George. Signed to a one-year deal with EMI in July 1980, Bow Wow Wow debuted that month with an ode to music piracy, "C♳0 C♶0 C♹0 Go!," appropriately enough the first single released on cassette.

Shortly thereafter, she made her first recordings with the trio, who developed material from Ants rehearsal tapes, incorporating African rhythms derived from an eponymous single by Burundi Black. Thirteen years old at the time, Lwin was discovered at a laundromat by McLaren talent scout David Fishel. After a period of several months that entailed auditions for over 200 singers, Annabella Lwin was added to the lineup. McLaren instead met with the London-based Ants - guitarist Matthew Ashman, drummer David Barbarossa, and bassist Leigh Gorman - and talked the musicians into abandoning their frontman. The former Sex Pistols manager had been sought out by Adam Ant to guide Adam and the Ants following disappointing sales of that band's Dirk Wears White Sox. Nonetheless, their place in pop history was secure long before Lwin and bassist Gorman reactivated the name for touring the following decade.īow Wow Wow were instigated in January 1980 by Malcolm McLaren. Bow Wow Wow broke up the following year and in their wake left only two proper albums (1981's See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy! and 1983's When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going).
#Bow wow wow discography update#
in 1982, with "Go Wild in the Country" and an update of the Strangeloves' "I Want Candy," the latter of which hit number 62 in the U.S. Formed in 1980, the band twice crashed the Top Ten in their native U.K. The band exemplified their era with visual and sonic cultural appropriations ranging from Mohawk hairstyling to Burundi-style drumming, lyrics that swung from suggestive to explicit, and a gleefully bestial spirit embodied by teenage singer Annabella Lwin. Here are all of Bow Wow Wow albums ranked.Not merely a vehicle for manager Malcolm McLaren's button-pushing antics, and responsible for considerably more than a hit cover, Bow Wow Wow remain synonymous with new wave. The band embarked on a six-month audition process for a lead singer. In 1980, former Sex Pistols manager McLaren persuaded David Barbarossa (also known as Dave Barbe), guitarist Matthew Ashman and bassist Leigh Gorman to leave Adam Ant and form a new group under McLaren’s management. The band’s music was characterized by a danceable new wave sound that drew on a Burundi beat provided by Dave Barbarossa on drums, as well as the subversive, suggestive, and sometimes exuberant lyrics sung and chanted by their teenage lead vocalist.

They released their debut EP Your Cassette Pet in 1980 and had their first UK top 10 hits with “Go Wild in the Country” in 1982. McLaren recruited members of Adam and the Ants to form the band behind 13-year-old Annabella Lwin on vocals.

Bow Wow Wow is an English new wave band, created by manager Malcolm McLaren in 1980.
