Taking Back Friday

Taking Back Friday (often abriviated as TBF or simply Friday) were a Scottish rock band formed in Glasgow in 1976 by keyboardist Jerry Maclyn and guitarist Wilson Campbell. With the addition of vocalist Clark Murray and drummer Donald Ramsey the following year the band got signed to EMI in the UK and CBS/Dreidel internationally.

When Taking Back Friday emerged, they were generally considered part of the New Romantic scene. Innovators of the music video, Taking Back Friday was catapulted into the mainstream with the introduction of the 24-hour music channel MTV along with heavy promotion from Carl Andy who represented the band for the United States thanks to succesful marketing campaigns. The group was one of the leading bands in the MTV-driven Second British Invasion of the US in the 1980s.

The band's first major hit was "Field Day" (1980) from their self-titled debut album, the popularity of which was enhanced by a video directed by William Byrd which played in rotation on MTV. The band's breakthrough sophomore album was TGIF (1981), which peaked at the Billboard 200 chart in the US as well as in the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. The songs "Never Forget" and "Face of Another" featured cinematic music videos directed by Canadian filmmaker Nicolas Argyll and became two of their biggest hits. Their follow-up third album, High and Low (1982), became their only UK number one album and featured the US and UK single "Forza Sugar".

Before the recording of their fourth album, 1984's Galaxy Express, Clark Murray had begun a solo-career with 1983's The Storm Weighs In which caused a dispute between members, this conflict continued well towards 1987's Tommorow's Joe. Following the absorbtion of Dreidel into CBS, the band was switched to the Epic label. The band spent the rest of the 1980s and early 1990s continuing to release albums and singles, to only moderate success. Their comeback album, 1994's Return to Basics would be their most succesful album to date. After Donald Ramsey died of AIDS in 1998, the band announced they were disbanding for good in order to focus on solo projects and other ventures.

History
TBA

Musical Style
TBA

Studio Albums

 * Taking Back Friday (1979)
 * TGIF (1981)
 * High and Low (1982)
 * Galaxy Express (1984)
 * Tommorow's Joe (1987)
 * Rainy No More (1990)
 * Return to Basics (1994)

Compilations

 * The Best (1988)
 * The Essential Taking Back Friday (2001)

Live Albums

 * Rising Sun: Live in Japan (1985)
 * At the BBC (1986)
 * MTV Unplugged (1991)

Box Sets

 * Box of Friday (2010)

Video Compilation

 * Fridays on Video (2003)