New Wave Band:
The Fixx
by New Wave Dave
The Fixx made a huge impression on popular culture in the fall of 2008, thanks to Toyota. The carmaker ran a
massive TV ad campaign for zero-percent financing, backing it with snippets of the song "Saved by Zero". Repeatedly
beating those few sung words into people's heads created a backlash against the ad and (by extension) against New
Wave music.
Taken out of context, this clip was pretty annoying. But if all those Gen-X/Y'ers could have heard the
whole song — and some of The Fixx's other classics — they would have formed a different opinion.
After recording a couple of songs in an earlier incarnation as the Portraits, The Fixx debuted in 1982 with
their album Shuttered Room. Two of its singles reached the UK and US charts: "Red Skies at Night" and "Stand or
Fall". These catchy mid-tempo numbers mixed synthesized sounds with intriguing semi-apocalyptic lyrics — far from
the vapid good-time sentiments of too many new wave poseurs. These curious numbers set your head bobbing and your
mind pondering.
Released the next year, Reach the Beach catapulted The Fixx into the official big time. The album reached #4 on
the U.S. charts, and two singles also soared: the aforementioned "Saved by Zero" (peaking at #20) and their biggest
smash, the energetic gem "One Thing Leads to Another" (#4). Masterfully
marrying paranoid words to a driving New Wave beat-heavy melody, this is my favorite Fixx single, a sentiment
apparently shared by millions of other New Wave fans.
This was the crest of The Fixx's wave. While their following albums scored minor hit singles — "Are We
Ourselves?" from 1984's Phantoms, "Secret Separation" from 1986's Walkabout — their sales slid steadily as New
Wave's popularity dwindled. However, they are still recording albums to this day, and they have released several
compilations along the way.
Well before The Fixx helped bring New Wave back into public consciousness in '08, they had earned the status of
a premier New Wave band. Make sure your friends know there's a lot more to them than a few snippets of "Saved by
Zero"!
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