April 2024, The Alarm will release a brand new limited edition album entitled Music Television, that features 11 brand new tracks celebrating both influential and underrated artists from the MTV era that changed and influenced the lives of so many. Inspired by David Bowie’s Pinups album, Music Television by The Alarm will step back into the future by reimagining songs from some of rock’s most influential and defining moments in visual music. “The Alarm came of age in the MTV era” says Mike Peters. “So many of our longstanding fans also grew up on MTV and saw The Alarm for the first time on MTV’s The Cutting Edge or via the historic ‘Sprit Of ‘’86 Live Global Broadcast concert, and have stayed with us ever since.”
The first single from Music Television is a psychedelic David Bowie-inspired / Nirvana-influenced acoustic cover of The Man Who Sold The World, which Peters attributes to his fascination with the ground-breaking MTV Unplugged acoustic performance series. “Unplugged was a series that redefined music as we knew it,” he says. “I remember watching in awe at some of the incredible stripped-down arrangements of classic songs and, at the same time envious that I had been denied the opportunity to appear on the show back in the day. [The Alarm appeared in the series’ first season but without Peters]. This is my chance to take back part of music television history and pay my respects to an era that changed everything.”
Music Television kicks off with a reimagining of the first ever song to be played on MTV back in 1981 – The Buggles “Video Killed The Radio Star” with a subtle lyric change that reflects the threat of A.I. and new technology on rock and roll as we know it today. Dire Straits MTV anthem “Money For Nothing” (the first song to be played on MTV Europe in 1987), is re-modelled into a garage rock harmonica-driven anthem in the electro-acoustic style of Neil Young’s Crazy Horse. Among other songs getting re-imaginings include INXS’ “Don’t Change,” The Blow Monkeys’ “Live Today Love Tomorrow,” Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” and Modern English’s classic “I Melt With You” (full track listing below).
A redrawing of Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight” embraces the original’s spacious atmospherics and injects raw electronic blues into the mix, centering it on Peters’ iconic vocals. “I was walking with my guitar in NYC’s Central Park when I came across a busker playing a stripped-back minor key version on a beat-up old guitar and I joined in,” recalls Peters about his chance encounter in 2023. “It was truly amazing to hear a song so familiar in unfamiliar surroundings. I asked him where he first heard the song, and he said ‘MTV, Man!’ and that gave me the inspiration for this version of the track.”
Music Television by The Alarm has been produced by George Williams and also features a rev up of the original Man On the Moon MTV Theme. The Music Television artwork has been created by graphic artist Dan Shearn.
The Alarm will also tour coast to coast on a massive 40 plus date US tour this Summer, starting in New Orleans on May 1st and continuing through to July 13th when the tour reaches Florida. The Alarm also features on the bill of the massive Cruel World Festival in California on May 11th, alongside Duran Duran, Simple Minds, Placebo and Interpol. As an honour to their Live Today Love Tomorrow MMXXIV tour mates Belouis Some and Jay Aston’s Gene Loves Jezebel (both of whom had sizeable success across the MTV Network back in the mid-’80s), The Alarm pays tribute with covers of “Imagination” (that caused huge controversy at MTV with the first-ever full-naked video directed by Storm Thorgerson) and “Screaming For Emmalene” respectively.
Music Television by The Alarm will be released in a 250 x Limited Edition and numbered Yellow and Purple Vinyl press each signed personally by Mike Peters and also as a Digipak CD Edition. Music Television is available exclusively via www.thealarm.com MUSIC TELEVISION SPECIAL OFFER: Buy both the Vinyl and CD and receive a FREE bonus CD featuring 8 extra tracks.
PROGRAM ONE
Money For Nothing
Video Killed The Radio Star
Live Today Love Tomorrow
Imagination
Beat It
PROGRAM TWO
Don’t Change
In The Air Tonight
I Melt With You
Screaming For Emmalene
The Man Who Sold The World
MTV Theme
Music Television by The Alarm
BONUS PROGRAM
The Message
Safe European Home
Going Underground
Better Scream
The Cross
Should I Stay Or Should I Go
Chance
Get Down and Get With It
NB: There are no plans for a Record Store / Digital / Music Stream release at present.