In the annals of the world getting it wrong, me getting it right, and the world never knowing what it missed, please meet the former lead singer of The Undertones, the one and only Feargal Sharkey.
Feargal was the lead singer of maybe the second or third best band ever to come out of Ireland (maybe Them and Thin Lizzy first) the Undertones.
The pop (just)post punk exponents of “Teenage Kicks” were coming up around the same time as U2 and Feargal was a soulful baritone who coulda sung on Motown no questions. The Undertones were unspeakably superior to U2 (U2 have never made an album as great as Positive Touch) the fizziest, funnest, sunniest pop band you ever heard at first than a slow melt into soul and r&b without ever surrounding their uniqueness.
Over four albums: The Undertones, Hypnotised, The Positive Touch and The Sin Of Pride, they went from height to height to height.
And fucking U2 are the stars. go figure.
Anyway, in search of subject matter i was on NME and discovered that the Great White Sharkey is now the Head of music industry umbrella group UK Music and is trying to form a special commitee to help UK music become the most popular in the world. “We think we can be number one,” Feargal is quited as saying. “We’re not far off it.”
Oh yeah, that’s what I thought about the Undertones twenty-eight years ago. And here I am stuck with Bono.