The Bangles are back! And the Thriller-like corpse of my trashy, teenage self has risen from the dead and is doing a little dance inside me. I mean – it’s the Bangles! I had my first major crush while listening to the Bangles! I wrote off a car while listening to the Bangles! I was the person who bought the Susanna Hoffs solo record! They’re core to my adolescent and pre-adolescent self. And it’s not only me! The first song my little brother recognised on television was Eternal Flame (the only Bangles song I hated). He used to call it “One Eye” because there was a big eye at the beginning of the video. I think he still kind of likes it. He certainly wasn’t keen on Atomic Kitten’s version (I think he felt it was sacrilege).
I mean, look at them! They’re iconic! There’s the cool depressive one on the left that you actually believed could write songs. She was responsible for “Following”, the weird stalker anthem that I loved when I was fourteen. Then there’s Susanna Hoffs, who was kind of tiny and pixie-like and all my straight male friends really wanted to shag. And then the lead guitarist who looked a bit too much like the prom queen to be taken seriously. And finally the weird blonde drummer who looked a bit like a man in drag. How much do they rule?!
I once owned the Bangles Greatest Hits video that I bought when I was about sixteen. But we had this party in my second year at university – a party in which we had to call an Ambulance because someone got alcohol poisoning – and then someone stole the stereo and then someone set fire to the television and that spread to the videos that were placed nearby. No more Bangles video. Sigh.
And now the news is that they’ve got a new album coming out and it’s bound to be terrible (even though I swear that their other albums are all really really good) but obviously I’m going to buy it and stick it on my iPod and try to look cool when people ask me what I’m listening to. And I think they’re coming to London to play live. And I really want to see them, but I bet no one will go with me.