Dexys Midnight Runners

about

Dexys Midnight Runners were a British post-punk and Northern Soul band who achieved their major success in the early to mid 1980s. The word Dexys in this case, comes from a colloquialism of dextroamphetamine, a type of amphetamine diet pill that was a popular 'upper' drug with England's Northern Soul scene in the 1960s. Founded in 1978 by former singer of the Killjoys, Kevin Rowland, and guitarist Kevin "Al" Archer, in Birmingham (United Kingdom), the band were unique in that musically, they seemed best suited to the budding Mod/Skinhead Revival scene in the United Kingdom, but in many ways, especially fashion, they came off as rather hard to 'sell' to any particular scene. Musically, they've always been a sort of "soul-fusion." An early single, "Geno" (written as an ode to American Northern Soul singer, Geno Washington), was immensely popular, despite being repeatedly bad-mouthed by the NME. In fact, "Geno" remains their biggest-selling single in the UK, thanks in part to at least one re-issue. The following album, Searching for the Young Soul Rebels (1980), was an interesting punk and soul fusion, and despite (or perhaps because of) decidedly mixed reviews by the press, it was extremely well-received by the public. Their second album, Too Rye Aye (1982), had a decidedly different sound, thanks largely to an immense line-up change, most notable for the fact that the horn section of ...Young Soul Rebels had been replaced by "the Emerald Express," the band's Celtic folk s

top songs

albums

Too Rye Ay

Come On Eileen / Dubious

Too Rye Ay (Deluxe Edition)

Searching for the Young Soul Rebels

Too-Rye-Ay (As It Should Have Sounded 2022)

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Lost & Found: 1980's Pop Volume 2

Too-Rye-Ay

Let's Make This Precious: The Best of Dexys Midnight Runners

Don't Stand Me Down

It Was Like This

The Very Best Of

St. Paddys Day

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