Killing Joke were part of the punk movement of the late 70’s and early 80’s coming out of the UK, but they changed their sound to a more Gothic New Wave Sound of sorts and had their biggest hit in 1985 with “Love Like Blood”.
On that same album “Night Time” they release another single “Eighties”. There’s chatter on the internet that the opening guitar sound was stolen by Kurt Cobain for Nirvana’s “Come As You Are”, but I’m not going to get into that argument. I don’t think there are any hard feelings as Nirvana Drummer Dave Grohl played on Killing Jokes 2003 album.
Over time Killing Joke’s music became darker and heavier and they remained a band with more of a cult status. I will say that they have had a massive influence on rock of all genres. In some ways they’re a “band’s band” as most of the critical praise comes from their peers. The press has been reasonably kind to them over the years but their shift in sound has probably confused some of them to the point they don’t know what to think of the band.
Their fans are rabid and rarely have anything bad to say about them. They’ve been experimental and have never really followed the trends and that seems to be one of their most popular traits.
“Eighties” was used for a party scene in the 1985 movie Weird Science. You can check out that below as well.
