10 Great Rock Bands Who Never Released An Album

Punk-rockers Big In Japan formed in Liverpool, England, in the late '70s and are best remembered (perhaps unjustly, but certainly understandably) for the later careers of the band's original members. Incredibly, Big In Japan alumni would go on to feature in The KLF (Bill Drummond), Echo & The Bunnymen/The Lightning Seeds (Ian Broudie), Siouxsie and the Banshees (drummer Peter Edward Clarke), Teardrop Explodes (David Balfe) and Frankie Goes To Hollywood (Holly Johnson).

That's some line-up by any reckoning, however Big In Japan left a recorded legacy of just seven songs (now happily available commercially). A measure of the potency of the material which they did leave behind is that the band recorded a session for John Peel, some of which you can hear below.

As an interesting side-note, German synth-rockers Alphaville scored a minor hit with their song, Big In Japan, which was directly inspired by the group of the same name. By coincidence, Aphaville's track was displaced from the top of the German charts by none other than Frankie Goes To Hollywood, with their infamous single, Relax.