Released today in 1980: Dark Entries

Axis AXIS3

Dark Entries was one of four singles released by Axis today in 1980. Axis was a new subsidiary of Beggars Banquet and it was hoped that acts signed to it would have enough success to justify them being promoted to the parent label’s artist roster in due course. (Bauhaus made the switch at the end of the year.)

Unfortunately there was already a record company called Axis which, while dormant for most of the 1970s, was still an owned trademark. Consequently, while Dark Entries retained its catalogue number (for the time being), it was reissued on a new label called 4AD, the name apparently a contraction of the word ‘forward’. Boss Ivo Watts-Russell said of the name, “What I loved about 4AD was that it meant nothing. No ideology, no attitude. In other words, just music.” ¹

¹ Aston, Martin. “4AD the pure label behind Pixies and Cocteau Twins”, The Guardian, Guardian Media Group, 10 October 2013.

NEW SINGLES on sale from Jan. 18
1980
BAUHAUS (Peter Murphy) Dark Entries (Axis AXIS3)
BOOMTOWN RATS (Bob Geldof) Someone’s Looking At You (Ensign ENY34)
The BUGGLES The Plastic Age (Island WIP6540)
SPARKS When I’m With You (Virgin VS319)
1985
The COLOURFIELD (Terry Hall) Thinking Of You (Chrysalis COLF3)
1988
AZTEC CAMERA (Roddy Frame) How Men Are (WEA YZ68)
SHARPE and NUMAN (Gary Numan) No More Lies (Polydor POSP894)
T’PAU Valentine (Siren SRN69)