page_title: Mark King (musician)
section_title: Solo work
hierarchical_section_title: Mark King (musician) / Solo work
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Der britische Musiker Mark King (Sänger und Bassist von Level 42) bei der AIDA Night of the Proms 2013 in der Festhalle Frankfurt.
context_page_description: Mark Raymond King is an English musician. He is the lead singer and bassist of the band Level 42. King is known for his slap style of playing the bass guitar, with MusicRadar describing him as "the guy who put the slap in pop during the 80s". King received a BASCA Gold Badge Award in October 2015 in recognition of his contribution to British music. He won the "Outer Limits" award at the 2017 Progressive Music Awards.
context_section_description: In 1984, he released his first solo album Influences, which was followed by One Man in 1998.
  In 1999, he issued a collection of unused songs in the form of the album Trash; the name hinted at the rough, unpolished nature of the recordings (which were rejected by Virgin Records in favour of the tracks which would ultimately appear on the One Man album).
  Trash was a historic release as it was issued without a record company and initially offered to fans via a low-key guestbook entry, made by King, on www.level42.com. Using an Apple Mac, CD burner and inkjet printer, King manufactured the CD himself and posted it directly to fans, charging £17 plus postage. He hand signed and numbered early copies. Clearly not anticipating the popularity of the album, the initial CDs were numbered as part of a series of 100. Word soon spread of the CD and King eventually sold over 1,000 copies.
  In the years following Trash, King repeated the successful 'home-made' formula releasing a string of live recordings including Live at the Jazz Cafe, Live on the Isle of Wight and Live at Reading Concert Hall (which despite being performed as a Mark King solo show, was released under the name of Level 42 as King retained the rights to the name shortly before releasing the CD). Despite being contracted to Universal Music imprint W14, King continues to release live shows on his own Summerhouse Record label, of which 2007's Retroglide Live DVD was the first.
  Since coming back into the limelight in 1998 with One Man and the supporting UK tour, King has toured consistently around Europe and as far east as Indonesia. With the exception of Trash, he has only issued one new professionally released studio album in the 8-year period, September 2006's Retroglide under the Level 42 banner.
  As of 2012, King is still the Level 42 frontman and plays a number of festival dates with co-founder, former band member and keyboard player, Mike Lindup.
  In 2016, Mark joined supergroup Gizmodrome, also featuring Stewart Copeland, Adrian Belew and Vittorio Cosma. The band released their debut album in September 2017.
  In 2019 King played and sang on Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders song "Queen of the Clowns" from the album Get the Money.
caption: King in 2013.
exif: {"Image Copyright": "Sven-Sebastian Sajak"}