4 British Alternative Rock Songs From the 1980s That I Can’t Stop Listening To

There are songs I love so much that I try to limit how much I listen to them. Trying to preserve some sacredness in how they connect with me. But regardless of how often I’ve heard them, they never get old. Like these British alternative rock songs from the 1980s.

Videos by American Songwriter

“The Killing Moon” by Echo & The Bunnymen

Part “Space Oddity” by David Bowie and part Russian folk music, “The Killing Moon” sounds uniquely British and global at the same time. Meanwhile, singer Ian McCulloch updates Jim Morrison’s psychedelia for the post-punk age. Though Morrison essentially fronted a blues-rock band, the post-punk guitarists weren’t interested in carrying on the tradition of Jimmy Page or The Doors. Will Sergeant’s playing became an essential part of this new style, alongside Robert Smith, John McGeoch, and Johnny Marr.

“The Headmaster Ritual” by The Smiths

Some bands survive for a long time, while others change music history and then implode. The Smiths—with an ordinary name both purposeful and defiant—released four perfect albums between 1984 and 1987, and then they broke up. Morrissey remains one of rock music’s greatest lyricists. But his words wouldn’t have mattered without Johnny Marr’s endless riffs. “The Headmaster Ritual” is a critique of corporal punishment in British schools. And Morrissy goes after the “spineless b*stards” running Manchester’s schools before wanting to “give up education as a bad mistake.”

“Dear Prudence” by Siouxsie And The Banshees

When John McGeoch left Siouxsie And The Banshees, he was replaced by The Cure’s Robert Smith. The first song Smith recorded with the band was a cover of “Dear Prudence”. This is one of my favorite songs, but the Banshees’ version makes no attempts to mimic The Beatles. Instead, John Lennon’s tune gets a neo-psychedelic treatment with Smith’s flanging guitar chords and Siouxsie Sioux’s goth-opera vocals. If you were ever curious what a post-punk Lennon would have sounded like, here you go.

“A Forest” by The Cure

I remember hearing this song as a kid, and I was immediately captivated by the guitar part. That feeling—a kind of time stop or suspension—has never gone away. Seventeen Seconds was released in 1980, and as the new decade began, you heard bands slowing punk’s tempo and creating gloomy new wave using the hypnotic repetition of dance music. Few can write a soundtrack to the dark abyss of depression like Robert Smith. This foreshadows The Cure’s 1989 masterpiece Disintegration.

Photo by ITV/Shutterstock