“I didn’t set out to be a pop star,” singer Jimmy Somerville wrote in a rare public statement in 2018. “I set out to be a troublemaker. My purpose was truth. My emotions, my desires, my hopes, my sexuality, my life. I was given the ultimate platform for dissent.”
That platform was Bronski Beat, the synth-pop trio Somerville formed in 1983 with his flatmate musicians Steve Bronski and Larry Steinbachek. Somerville fulfilled his brief. The band’s 1984 debut album, The Age of Consent, released amid a hostile environment and devastating period for the country’s queer community, was both a protest and a rallying cry to a group under siege from Margaret Thatcher’s regressive government, the era’s prevalent homophobic attitudes and the developing Aids crisis.
With emotional, resonant songs about young queer life in 80s Britain, Bronski Beat carried a strong political message: the album artwork listed the age of consent for homosexuality in countries across Europe – often 16 compared to 21 in the UK – to highlight the inequality. The Age of Consent sold over a million copies worldwide. “It had a social impact for lots and lots of young gay people around the world,” says Colin Bell, who signed the band to London Records. “It has opened doors. I think it’s hard to underestimate the fact that it was the first record that did that.”
