Reach the Beach
Quirky keyboards, quirky new-navey hooks, quirky showman of a lead singer (the yelp-throated Cy Curnin)--in its mid-'80s heyday, few bands captured the fleeting tenor of the chart times better than the Fixx. A poor man's Duran Duran, the group was perfect for the nascent rock-video age, perfect for the just-got-its-wings MTV, and it worked its datestamped shtick well into the '90s. But the Fixx's defining album/moment had already occurred in '83, with the breakthrough "One Thing Leads to Another" smash, from a fairly solid sophomore album,Reach the Beach. Although critics today might pan the record as fey and mawkish, it won headline concert billing for an otherwise unknown London outfit.--Tom Lanham