Pop Will Eat Itself, madcap and genre-fluid, first got together in 1986 in Stourbridge, England. With ten-ish proper albums (plus a bunch of other live and compilation records) now under their belt, their three-plus decades in the game has seen them inspire many, yet rarely be precisely emulated.
While never achieving significant commercial success, their smashing together of punk, hip-hop, sampling, and EDM was – and remains – wildly innovative. At the peak of their powers in the 90s their live shows were truly unhinged, and the visual design ethos that dominated their artwork and merch still stands out as one of the very best that ever was.
With song topics ranging from tributes to Italian porn-stars like ‘Touched By The Hand Of Cicciolina‘ to roaring anti-fascism on ‘Ich Bin Ein Auslander‘, PWEI were a band that seemed a bit out of time even at the time. A ferociously DIY spirit, a commitment to futurism, and a social-consciousness mixed with wild-eyed hedonism is the story of the Poppies. And that doesn’t even include some absolutely thumping records that still sound like they’ve been beamed in from a dystopian fever-dream of the future, even decades later.
Pop Will Eat Itself play at Manning Bar, Sydney, 1st Mar 2024, with Jesus Jones in support.