Artist · chart history
The Associates
Band Dundee United Kingdom Formed 1976
The Associates formed in 1976 in Dundee, United Kingdom. The Associates has 2 chart appearances on 2 radio countdowns from 2 stations on RockLists, spanning 1982–1991. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Take Me To The Girl”, which appears on 1 list with a best position of #62. The station that charted The Associates most often is John Peel (BBC Radio 1), with 1 appearance. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1982.
The Associates were Dundee's gift to the new pop: singer Billy MacKenzie, a voice that could swoop from a croon to a shriek inside one bar, and guitarist Alan Rankine, who built glittering, off-kilter settings for it. They announced themselves in 1979 with a cheeky, unauthorized cover of David Bowie's "Boys Keep Swinging", and it was enough to get them signed to Fiction Records. The Affectionate Punch and the odds-and-ends set Fourth Drawer Down won the critics over.
Then came 1982 and Sulk, a UK Top 10 album that sounds like a ballroom caught in a hall of mirrors, with "Party Fears Two" and "Club Country" carrying MacKenzie's operatic swoon into the singles chart. Rankine walked out that same year, and from then on the Associates name belonged to MacKenzie, who kept recording under it until 1990; "Take Me To The Girl", from 1985, comes from those solo-in-all-but-name years. A brief reunion followed in 1993, and MacKenzie's death in 1997 closed the book. Rankine died in 2023.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by The Associates on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Take Me To The Girl | 1 | #62 | – | – | |
| 2 | Party Fears Two | 1 | #14 | – | 1982 |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Every countdown appearance
| Year | # | Song | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | 62 | Take Me To The Girl | CFNY Top 1002 Songs of All-Time (1991 Edition) |
| 1982 | 14 (tie) | Party Fears Two | John Peel's Festive Fifty of 1982 |
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