The
Times were helmed by
Edward Ball, a vocalist, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who specializes in sharply written pop tunes with lyrics that cast a wry and often bitter gaze on English popular culture. Doling out albums in the first half of the '80s that ranged from punchy Mod revival (
Pop Goes Art!) to brassy new wave (Hello Europe), the band shifted to chasing more modern styles like noise pop and Madchester as the '90s dawned, then ripened. They stuck around long enough to take the mickey out of Brit-pop on 1999's Pirate Playlist 66.
Ball first came to the attention of music fans in the late '70s as he partnered with
Dan Treacy in a handful of recording projects (
the Teenage Filmstars, the Missing Scientists, the O-Levels) that evolved into
the Television Personalities, who gained a well-deserved cult following with tunes like "I Helped Patrick McGoohan Escape," "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives," and "A Picture of Dorian Gray."
While releasing three albums as a member of
the Television Personalities,
Ball formed
the Times; initially the group was a collaboration with
Treacy, but with
Ball as the dominate songwriter and vocalist, and they made their debut with the single "Red with Purple Flashes" in 1981, released on
Ball and
Treacy's Whaam Records label. In 1982, the first
Times album, the very Mod-influenced
Pop Goes Art!, was released in tandem with Whaam Records and
Ball's newly formed Artpop! Records label. In 1983,
Ball re-recorded "I Helped Patrick McGoohan Escape" with
the Times for an Artpop! single; it was also the title track of a
Times EP, and the same year the group released its second album,
This Is London, which found
Ball casting his eye on more serious issues.
By this time,
the Times were fully
Ball's project, with a fluid lineup and
Ball as the sole constant, and he continued to release material at a prolific pace, including the 1984 album Hello Europe and the 1985 EP Blue Period. The year 1985 also saw the release of
Go! With the Times, a collection of unreleased material dating back to 1980. In 1986,
Ball co-wrote (with Tony Conway of
Mood Six) Up Against It, a theatrical adaptation of Joe Orton's unproduced screenplay for a
Beatles film, and
the Times released an album of music created for the show the same year. Another
Times album, a loose concept piece about the ongoing collapse of civilization titled Enjoy the Times, also arrived in 1986.
Ball bowed out of performing and recording for a while, becoming an executive with Creation Records, but by 1988, label head
Alan McGee persuaded him to make a new
Times album, with members of
Biff Bang Pow! serving as his backing band.
Beat Torture, the
Times' first album for Creation, was released in 1988, and
Ball maintained his typically busy schedule, releasing nine albums and EPs for Creation between 1988 and 1999, including 1989's E for Edward (a jaundiced look at Ecstasy and rave culture), 1990's Et Dieu Créa la Femme (a set of French-language pop tunes), 1991's Pure (which featured another French-language number, a guitar-based reworking of
New Order's "Blue Monday"), and 1993's
Alternative Commercial Crossover and 1999's
Pirate's Playlist 66 (two sets of venomous satire of the state of rock and the music business). Concurrently with
the Times' run of recordings for Creation,
Ball began releasing solo efforts, as well as material with his side projects
Love Corporation and
Conspiracy of Noise, but after Creation Records folded in 1999, little was heard from
Ball, though he would rejoin
Television Personalities in 2004, and occasionally perform live as
the Times. In late 2021, the
Cherry Red label issued a comprehensive collection of
the Times' recordings made between 1980 and 1986 titled
My Picture Gallery: The Artpop! Recordings. ~ Mark Deming & Tim Sendra