No. 10 Altered Images - Change of Heart

Change of Heart is my final (and also the band's final) Altered Images single, An inglorious end for them - this reached only number 83 in the UK charts as the band called it a day. This may explain why there isn't a video for this single (which may be considered a blessing). However there is a decent film clip which was put together for b-side, Another Lost Look, when aired on The Tube (the keen eyed may spot a youthful Jools Holland). This single commits the cardinal sin of including a b-side which is also on the album (Bite) - unacceptable behaviour obviously (as is releasing four singles off the aforementioned album). That said, both that a- and b-side are solid enough cuts, so there are worse ways to end a career. So, on to our next artist, galloping past Anastasia Screamed and And You Will Know Us By Our Trail Of Dead... both of whom fail to register a single 7"er sadly.

No. 9 Altered Images - Bring Me Closer

There are bound to be moments when, as I trawl through thirty years of single buying, I come across singles that have not aged well, or are just plain bad. That said, I've always been fairly ruthless in getting rid of things that are properly rotten, so don't expect to be troubled by too much grebo, thrash metal or the very worst of goth (all crimes I've committed in the past). Anyhow, this is both dated and pretty bad, so it seems to have got through quality control. The decision to re-brand Altered Images with a Philly sound, complete with soulful backing vocals, obligatory sweeping string section and chicka-chicka guitars was probably a poor one; there's something of the foghorn about Grogan's vocal delivery too. As if that weren't enough there's the video; a typical 1980s "let's make a movie" treatment - on this occasion a no-expense-spared, hire-a-helicopter, sub Bond espionage clip, which reunites Grogan with John Gordon Sinclair. Sadly, this is no Gregory's Girl, though it's worth sticking with for the moment around 2.58, where Sinclair actually appears to be wearing more make-up that Grogan (still, it was the '80s). On the plus side, the B-side, Surprise Me, is a bit of a gem. 

No. 8 Altered Images - Don't Talk To Me About Love

So it's on to the final clutch of Altered Images singles. Their third and final album saw them made over as an increasingly polished AOR act. It was a gamble that largely failed commercially, and probably accounts for the band's demise. It did however produce this, their final top ten hit (No. 7, to be precise). I still like this a lot; the production is quintessentially eighties and it has as good a chorus as any Altered Images tune. The B-side, Last Goodbye, is presumably an album out take and nothing to get too excited about, to be honest.

No. 7 Altered Images - See Those Eyes

I don't remember See Those Eyes being a hit, though a quick Wiki suggests it reached no. 11 in the singles chart in 1982. It was the follow up to I Could Be Happy, which I clearly remember as a chart hit. This was and is one of my favourite Altered Images singles, though I didn't discover it until I picked up my first Altered Images release, the cassette version of 1984's Collected Images. The b-side is an entirely superfluous and rather ugly remix of A Day's Wait. The video treatment is a Prisoner pastiche, filmed on location at Portmeirion, which I suspect cost a considerable amount of money, but is still pretty awful.

No. 6 Altered Images - Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday always felt like somewhat of an albatross. It was never a favourite, and the years haven't been kind to it.  It was always dangerously close to the realms of the dreaded novelty single, and was always the one song that people would know and judge the band by. Still, I seem to own it on 7", 12" (with an even less edifying dance mix thrown in) and on at least two albums, so I should probably make my peace with it. I was going to include a link to the video, but that's dated even more badly than the song. The b-side, So We Go Whispering, with it's eerie piano motif and backward vocals is a real treat though, so all is not lost.

No. 5 Altered Images - A Day's Wait

Altered Images. A band who are held in possibly unhealthily high regard by men of a certain age, myself included. We who were adolescent when Gregory's Girl was released, and could reliably repeat most of the best lines; "At least you've stopped kissing me like I was your aunty." We who grew up with their music and continued to cherish it even though it was slightly awkward and teenaged.

The worst part of this is that this isn't the right single. It should be Dead Pop Stars, but I never found a reasonably priced single (it had to have the picture sleeve obviously) in the days when I used to endlessly sift through singles in Plymouth's second hand record shops - the others you could pick up for a few pennies, but their spiky debut was always prized and as a result still eludes me. So instead, here's the second single, A Day's Wait. It's still pretty spiky, thanks to the Severin production - the scratchy post-punk guitars and drums give it a goth-lite feel which I still really like.