Somerville, who grew up on a steady diet of 60s women singers and disco divas, never had any ambitions of being a singer himself. It was only through working on a low budget video project for a gay arts festival, that Steinbachek heard Somerville singing and suggested they should work on music together with Glaswegian keyboardist Steve Bronski (real name Steve Forrest).
The desperation and defiance in Somerville’s voice on songs like ‘Why?’, ‘Screaming’ and their cover of ‘I Feel Love’ echoes the hard won resilience of the many female vocalists he grew up idolising, blended with his growing political ideals which found fertile ground in London’s LGBT advocacy networks.
If you didn’t pick up on the group’s political agenda in their music, then it was plain to see on Bronski Beat’s debut album title and sleeve. The Age of Consent, listed the differing ages of consent for ‘lawful homosexual relationships’, which at the time ranged from the mid teens to being completely illegal and punishable by law.
The cover featured a prominent pink triangle, reclaimed in the 70s from its horrific Nazi Germany origins, as a symbol of LGBT pride and liberation, and the number of Gay Legal Advice Line in Britain was also printed on the album’s sleeve.
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