Bowie, Boy George and the rise of the riotous Blitz club with Robert Elms

Bowie, Boy George and the rise of the riotous Blitz club with Robert Elms

Author: Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold October 3, 2025 Duration: 32:18

London’s Blitz club in 1980 had a huge impact on the way the decade looked and sounded, the launchpad for Boy George, Spandau Ballet, a new age of electro-pop and many writers, designers and photographers. The author and broadcaster Robert Elms was one of its cornerstones, “a place for people who’d outgrown the 20th Century”. We talk here about his book ‘Blitz: the Club That Created the ‘80s’ with all of this on the dancefloor …  

 

… the Blitz Club rules, “unspoken until Steve Strange spoke them”. And the door policy: “Look at yourself, darling. Would YOU let yourself in?”

 

… first nights “with a Space Cossack shirt and asymmetric wedge” and the origin of the term New Romantic

 

… the rise of the “home-made Macaronis” (dictionary definition: “over-dressed popinjays of dubious sexuality”)

 

… Bowie’s Starman, Roxy, soul, disco, Weimar, Max Ernst, Otto Dix, Edith Piaf, Swinging London, Andy Warhol and other keys strands of Blitz DNA

 

… its anti-rock stance and impact on the mid-‘80s American charts

 

… the news-friendly night Mick Jagger was barred entry

 

… “I was spat at by an old lady at a bus stop for wearing eyeliner and a kilt”

 

… when Island offered Spandau a deal after just three numbers  

 

… the role of the Face, Smash Hits and the new full-colour media

 

… the author’s “dilettante” passage through skinhead, suedehead, soul boy and punk

 

… and the night Bowie appeared, “like Jesus walking into your local church and sitting in a pew”.

 

Order ‘Blitz: The Club That Created the 80s’ here:

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/blitz-the-club-that-created-the-eighties-robert-elms/e672041a84e0cde9?ean=9780571394180&next=t&next=t


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There’s a particular kind of conversation about music that happens between friends who’ve spent a lifetime immersed in it-not as distant critics, but as participants in the culture. That’s the atmosphere you’ll find in Word In Your Ear, a podcast from Mark Ellen, David Hepworth, and Alex Gold. With a collective eighty years of writing and broadcasting for titles like Smash Hits and Mojo, and shows from "The Old Grey Whistle Test" to VH-1, they don’t just recount history; they unpack the stories behind it with the ease of a shared laugh. This podcast grew naturally from their work on the late, great magazine The Word, where they began recording over thirteen years ago, building a dedicated following who found something genuinely special in the mix. Each episode weaves together music, commentary, history, and interviews, moving seamlessly from deep-dive analysis of a seminal album to a frank chat with a surprising guest, all delivered with the warmth and wit of a late-night chat. It feels less like a formal show and more like you’ve been invited to pull up a chair in a room where the anecdotes are plentiful and the expertise is worn lightly. The result is a consistently engaging listen that treats music not as a museum piece but as a living, breathing part of our lives.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Word In Your Ear
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