furniture

Furniture was a U.K.-based pop band that had a hit in the UK in 1986 entitled "Brilliant Mind". It is a truly unusual and moody single that somehow began to get enough attention to crack the U.K. top 20. Unfortunately, their success was marred by business practices out of their control.

After six long years (the band formed in 1980) the group finally found some success. Unfortunately, their nightmares with the music industry began. The group had a completed album to support their hit single, and their record label Stiff Records was ready to release it, but just as the first pressing of the album The Wrong People sold out like hotcakes in the record shops, Stiff Records literally imploded, deleting the album from their catalog. Six days later (perhaps partially as a result of this huge gaffe, along with other poor business choices), Stiff Records folded like a cheap accordion.

What happened next is a mess. The remains of Stiff was purchased by ZTT Records, which chose to sit on the album and not release any more copies of it, inexplicably. The record was still quite in demand, as "Brilliant Mind" was still on the charts and the second single, "Love Your Shoes" was popular (but banned from charting due to Stiff's bizarre business and marketing practices). The group was basically barred from doing anything for three years by ZTT Records, finally winning their freedom in 1989, but by the time they recorded another album, 1990's Food, Sex, and Paranoia, their momentum had vanished. They called it a career after a farewell show at the 1991 Reading Festival.

This group is an example of how a great band can utterly be destroyed on the cusp of success by an overzealous and mismanaged record industry.

If you're interested in the music of Furniture, their sound is quite comparable to the popular U.K. band Pulp. If you can get ahold of their career compilation (She Gets Out The Scrapbook), do so; it's perhaps the only significant chance to hear what might have been.

Fur"ni*ture (?), n. [F. fourniture. See Furnish, v. t.]

1.

That with which anything is furnished or supplied; supplies; outfit; equipment.

The form and all the furniture of the earth. Tillotson.

The thoughts which make the furniture of their minds. M. Arnold.

2.

Articles used for convenience or decoration in a house or apartment, as tables, chairs, bedsteads, sofas, carpets, curtains, pictures, vases, etc.

3.

The necessary appendages to anything, as to a machine, a carriage, a ship, etc.

The masts and rigging of a ship

The mountings of a gun

Builders' hardware such as locks, door and window trimmings

Pieces of wood or metal of a lesser height than the type, placed around the pages or other matter in a form, and, with the quoins, serving to secure the form in its place in the chase

4. Mus.

A mixed or compound stop in an organ; -- sometimes called mixture.

© Webster 1913.