GlasVegas wrote:
.....why are both bands so fecking HUGE in Eastern Europe? I mentioned my year as a factory worker in Czechoslovakia in an earlier in post and it put me in mind of this fact.
Like you, I am someone from the West who lived several years in Czechoslovakia.
I do not know Western towns like Plzeň, Most nor Liberec that much. I tried to avoid Prague as much as possible – too many foreigners so that I never felt myself in Czechoslovakia enough. Eastward, that is another matter. I even lived in Košice and worked sometimes in remote places like Humenné and Michalovce.
Where to begin ? Reading your post, I remembered the “panelák” which I could see from my window in Košice – a panelák is a flat made of preformed pieces of concrete. So it looks like a Western cheap council flat. There was a huge Depeche Mode sign on the balcony. I used to think that it was the fan club of the city. In fact, that was just a fan of the band.
I am very surprised by the fact that the Cure is a well-known band there. I once saw someone dressed like Robert Smith, nothing more.
On the other hand, Depeche Mode is a phenomenon there. There was even a local counterpart of them called Shalom. Do you know them ? I often think that the title “music for the masses” was designed to suit the situation on the other side of the curtain. They played behind it far before the others.
Let’s have a look to the sleeves. It reminds communist propaganda. Titles like “get the balance right” sounds very left benchers like. “Everything counts” could be heard like an anti-capitalist manifesto. Add songs about friendship, love and so on, everything is in it.
And… maybe, the lyrics were also ok with the censorship.
Still astonished by the Cure success you experienced.
About PSB, not a single day without a couple of songs of them on any radio. That was my surprise number two over there.
Now, let’s go in records shops. Not a lot of choice ? At least, less than by us. Have you seen the prices ? A CD from abroad costs at least 200 crowns more. Tell me if you can collect a lot them when a CD costs from 400 to 700 Kč / Sk when you monthly earn 6,000 to 8,000 crowns ? It is a luxury more like…
Now, if you have a record shop, will you dare import all the New Order discography ? This is not played that much on the radio… How many people know ? Will I succeed to sell them ? What if I find myself with 2,400 crowns CD of a band which is not a good-seller ?
Do they make big tours ? In UK, ok, USA also, some towns on the Continent and then ? How many times have they played in Vienna or Helsinki for example ?
And… New Order as an association of two words sounds very neo-nazi in my opinion. So, no chance with the Party’s line.
Still about the Cure, I would not be surprised if they were successful in Hungary. I am amazed by the fact that Hungarians are far much obsessed by death and suicide than the other Europeans. It surprised me a lot. Never seen a so active cold-wave scene anywhere else (by the beginning of the 90’s). Most of my Slovak friends who like “dark music” are from Hungarian origins.
A few words, out of subject.
Here in Montpellier, it was a bit hard to be a New Order fan.
The Cure fans always told me that Joy Division were ok but that New Order were crap.
And the fans of the Cure were the only ones to be friend with… no other alternatives. New Order were too much acoustic and dark to the fans of Depeche Mode…
… which were the most numerous. So, a lot of people boycotted them – a way to be posh…
Well all that to say that the Cure is more popular in the South of Europe in my opinion and that Depeche Mode is in Central and Eastern Europe.
And when you are a New Order fan, there is only NOOL to give you some comfort !
