Los Angeles, CA · new-wave · synth-rock

Missing Persons

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Dale Bozzio's helium delivery over musicians who'd played with Zappa — new wave with chops, 'Words' still doing the talking.

Missing Persons formed in Los Angeles in 1980 around singer Dale Bozzio, drummer Terry Bozzio and guitarist Warren Cuccurullo, with bassist Patrick O'Hearn and keyboardist Chuck Wild completing the early line-up. Dale and Terry met while both worked with Frank Zappa and married in 1979; Cuccurullo joined their circle after playing on Zappa's album Joe's Garage, and O'Hearn had also toured in Zappa's band.

That shared background showed in music that paired new wave's synthesizers and clipped rhythms with unusually intricate playing. The band recorded its first release, a four-song EP, in Zappa's newly built studio, financed by Cuccurullo's father. The song "Mental Hopscotch" reached number one on Los Angeles station KROQ, and the self-released EP sold around 7,000 copies before Capitol Records signed the group in 1982; reissued with "Words" replacing a Doors cover, it went on to sell a further 250,000 copies.

The band's best-known songs, "Words," "Destination Unknown" and "Walking in L.A.," came from the album Spring Session M, which went gold. All four of its singles reached the Billboard Hot 100 without climbing higher than number 42, though the band drew strong followings in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, and appeared at the 1983 US Festival alongside David Bowie, the Pretenders, U2 and Stevie Nicks.

Dale Bozzio's high, clipped vocal delivery and elaborate stage costumes made her one of the more recognisable figures of early MTV, helped by the unusually inventive visual effects in the "Words" video. Later records, the experimental Rhyme & Reason and the more conventional Color in Your Life, produced by Chic's Bernard Edwards, fared less well, and touring tension between Dale and Terry ended both their marriage and the band. She has continued to perform under the Missing Persons name.

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