Bronski Beat

One of the first openly gay groups in pop, the UK synth-pop trio Bronski Beat made a powerful statement with their 1984 debut single, “Smalltown Boy”. • Bronski Beat founders Steve Bronski, Jimmy Somerville and Larry Steinbachek met in 1983 at the taping of the documentary Framed Youth: Revenge of the Teenage Perverts. Bronski and Somerville hail from Glasgow, while Steinbachek is from London. • Their 1984 debut single, “Smalltown Boy”, proved their biggest hit, reaching No. 1 on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart in America and reaching No. 3 on the UK pop charts. • “Smalltown Boy” is Somerville's semi-autobiographical account of the cruelty, abuse and bullying suffered by a closeted adolescent. • The group’s 1984 debut album, The Age of Consent, peaked at No. 4 in the UK. It features a synthy cover of Donna Summer's “I Feel Love”. • A year after the trio's debut album, Somerville left the group. He and Richard Coles formed The Communards and achieved international success later in the decade. Bronski and Steinbachek carried on until 1995, releasing two more Bronski Beat albums along the way. • In early 2017, Steinbachek died of cancer at age 56. That same year, a new version of the group led by Bronski released the album The Age of Reason.