A strange thing happened to me last year. During the first Coronavirus lockdown, I decided to watch movies I hadn’t seen and listen to music I’ve never heard. Randomly going through YouTube and Spotify one day, I came across ‘Til Tuesday, a new wave pop band from Boston, Massachusetts. I hadn’t listened to them before but oddly, as each song played, I felt like I’d somehow heard them. Almost every chorus was so familiar that it starting feeling weird, like Twilight Zone level bizarre. Okay, I’ve been to Boston but not in the 1980’s, I’ve never bought the band’s singles or albums and neither have my friends or family, so where have I heard these tracks? You could argue that one or two of their songs were played on the radio and I’ve heard them in the background without realising it but over a dozen songs from three albums?

Going online to find out more about ‘Til Tuesday, I cannot find a reason as to why these songs are so recognisable to me. Popular tracks like “Love In A Vacuum” and “Voices Carry” may have been played in film or television shows but what about songs like “You Know The Rest”, “What About Love”, and “Coming Up Close”? I haven’t even seen these music videos until now. Looking at images of the group, I can’t say I physically recognise any of them either. Lead singer Aimee Mann’s ’80s hair-do would put Goku to shame, in fact she looks like a negative of Siouxsie Sioux, although her solo music isn’t familiar to me at all.

In some kind of deja-vu meets a reverse Mandela Effect, listening to ‘Til Tuesday feels like I’ve lived an alternate life or an experience by some version of me from an alternate dimension is bleeding into this existence. Hey, it could just be that this group were good at writing catchy, melancholy music that’s kinda timeless. In either case, I thought I’d quickly write about them in case any of this means anything. I guess…

Voices Carry.

Playlist is also available on Deezer. Click below…