“Forbidden City” by Electronic

"Forbidden City" was the first new music in almost exactly four years from Electronic, Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr, and in 1996 it led the way for Raise the Pressure, their second album. Kraftwerk's Karl Bartos sat in as a co-writer, but the split was the same as on "Get the Message": Marr did most of the music, Sumner wrote the words, and they knocked it out faster than almost anything else on the record.

It's guitar pop with teeth, Marr cutting loose on a heavily distorted solo, while Sumner's lyric follows a young man who wants to go back home even though his father abused him. The B-sides were "Imitation of Life" and "A New Religion", the latter with Denise Johnson on backing vocals, and "For You" followed it as a single.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.