the alarm

AGEING post-punk band The Alarm have scored a top 30 UK chart hit - with a stunt disguising themselves as an unknown younger group.

Recording under the pseudonym The Poppyfields, they are at number 28 after selling more than 4,000 copies of their 1970s-style punk single 45RPM.

In its accompanying video The Alarm are replaced by teenage Chester rockers The Wayriders who mime along to the song.

Singer Mike Peters, 44, said it was done to prove how much image affected sales.

He added: "We wanted the song to be judged on its merits and stir up the water a little bit. We decided we would do something where it was judged purely on its own musical value."

He said The Alarm, most famous for their 1983 hit 68 Guns, are not always taken seriously by DJs because of their age and an image perceived to be outdated.

"The Alarm as an entity have been going for 20-odd years and history can go against you - we wanted to break the barrier down," reports BBC Online.

was new order thinking along the same lines with the "crystal" video?

aww good for them. :)

Saw the Kwikint. on TOTP tonight and it's absolutely right -the musical content depends on the attractive visuals. I don't like it..a bit too Ballard for me - if it looks right it must be right.

Saw the Alarm at the Tin Can club ages ago, all 69 guns blazing

Did you have to STAND?

(I saw 'em too, all 69 guns ;) )

69 kegs will never die 69 kegs will never run dry

or was that guns???

The Stand was a good lp for commercially viable punk. Road on U2s coattails. Well I remember 2 songs from that 1893ish piece of vinyl.

If New Order did indeed use a younger band to mime for them - the Killers in Crystal and John Sims as Barney in HTS - it didn't seem to have a large impact on sales, at least in the States. Although once a friend of mine who saw the original "Crystal" on American MTV thought that the band in it was actually NO! I explained to her that the band in the vid was only miming and there were only 4 members in NO, three of which are showing their appropriate ages. John Sims in HTS does make sense, since he played Barney in 24HrPP and clips from the movie were in the video. Plus, would viewers want to see some kid with a camera stalking a flabby man in his late forties?

The miming was nothing to do with a large impact on sales it was to prevent Barney having a large impact on scales,

The only alarm i heard was the alarm bell that started ringing in my head when i saw wankers like this in the Top 40. proof if any was needed that the charts are shite.