Hipsway were a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

/rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 band

Musical ensemble

A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...

.

The band was formed in Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

 in 1984 by ex-Altered Images

Altered Images

Altered Images were an early 1980s Scottish New Wave / post-punk band. Led by lead singer Clare Grogan, the band branched into mainstream pop music, and had a string of chart hits between 1981 and 1983.-Early career:...

 guitarist

Guitarist

A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...

 Johnny McElhone

Johnny McElhone

John Francis "Johnny" McElhone is a Scottish guitarist and songwriter.Unusually, he has played with three, otherwise unconnected rock bands, who have all enjoyed a Top 20 presence in the UK Singles Chart. Indeed, two of those groups have repeated that feat in the UK Albums Chart...

 on bass

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

, and featuring Grahame Skinner

Grahame skinner

Grahame Skinner is a Scottish musician who currently fronts the band Skinner. He has been the lead singer for a number of bands.He has been a member of:* The Jazzateers * The White Savages / Kites * Hipsway...

 (vocals

Singing

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...

), Pim Jones (guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

) and Harry Travers (drum

Drum

The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...

s). Skinner

Grahame skinner

Grahame Skinner is a Scottish musician who currently fronts the band Skinner. He has been the lead singer for a number of bands.He has been a member of:* The Jazzateers * The White Savages / Kites * Hipsway...

 and Travers had been members of the band Kites with Paul McGrath and Ian McGreevy before Hipsway formed. Their music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

 was characterized by Skinner's

Grahame skinner

Grahame Skinner is a Scottish musician who currently fronts the band Skinner. He has been the lead singer for a number of bands.He has been a member of:* The Jazzateers * The White Savages / Kites * Hipsway...

 deep vocals

Human voice

The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal folds for talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, etc. Its frequency ranges from about 60 to 7000 Hz. The human voice is specifically that part of human sound production in which the vocal folds are the primary...

 and Jones' tight guitar playing. They were quickly signed up by Mercury Records

Mercury Records

Mercury Records is a record label operating as a standalone company in the UK and as part of the Island Def Jam Motown Music Group in the US; both are subsidiaries of Universal Music Group. There is also a Mercury Records in Australia, which is a local artist and repertoire division of Universal...

 and by 1985 had released their first, eponymously-titled

Eponym

An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...

 album

Album

An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

. The album was a moderate success in the UK Albums Chart

UK Albums Chart

The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...

; while the single

Single (music)

In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

, "The Honeythief", made number 17 in the UK Singles Chart

UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

, and also reached the Top 20 in the U.S.

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Billboard Hot 100

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 chart

Record chart

A record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....

. Another song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

 from the album, "Tinder", became well-known in Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 as the soundtrack

Soundtrack

A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...

 to a McEwan's Lager

McEwan's Brewery

McEwan's is a brand of ales, with the draught beers brewed at the Caledonian Brewery in Edinburgh, Scotland and the canned and bottled beers brewed at the Eagle Brewery, Bedford, England. It is now owned by Wells & Youngs following the sale of the brands by Heineken in 2011...

 commercial.

However the band failed to build on its success; McElhone left to found Texas

Texas (band)

Texas are a Scottish pop band from Bearsden, near Glasgow, Scotland. They were founded by Johnny McElhone in 1986 and feature Sharleen Spiteri on lead vocals. Texas made their performing debut in March 1988 at Scotland's University of Dundee...

, and by the time the second album Scratch the Surface was recorded, Travers had also left (to be replaced by Stephen Ferrera). Released in 1989, the album was not as critically or commercially successful as its predecessor, and the band split up shortly afterwards.

Skinner

Grahame skinner

Grahame Skinner is a Scottish musician who currently fronts the band Skinner. He has been the lead singer for a number of bands.He has been a member of:* The Jazzateers * The White Savages / Kites * Hipsway...

 and Jones subsequently went on to found the band Witness, before Skinner

Grahame skinner

Grahame Skinner is a Scottish musician who currently fronts the band Skinner. He has been the lead singer for a number of bands.He has been a member of:* The Jazzateers * The White Savages / Kites * Hipsway...

 joined former members of Glasgow peers Love and Money in the band, Cowboy Mouth.

Albums

• 1986 Hipsway - UK
  UK Albums Chart
  The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
  
   #42, U.S.
  Billboard 200
  The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
  
   #55

1. "The Honeythief" (3:11)
2. "Ask the Lord" (4:08)
3. "Bad Thing Longing" (4:08)
4. "Upon a Thread" (4:06)
5. "Long White Car" (4:34)
6. "The Broken Years" (3:14)
7. "Tinder" (5:13)
8. "Forbidden" (4:45)
9. "Set This Day Apart" (5:06)
   • 1989 Scratch the Surface (reissued in 1997 as The Rest of Hipsway)
10. "Show Me" (4:21)
11. "Keepin' it Together" (3:57)
12. "Your Love" (5:13)
13. "Emerald" (4:56)
14. "I'm Not Perfect" (4:16)
15. "Handfuls of Dust" (5:45)
16. "Something Special" (3:58)
17. "Wrong About That" (4:06)
18. "What Makes a Man Love a Woman So Bad?" (4:39)
19. "Scratch the Surface" (7:29)
20. "Solid Gone" (5:27)

Singles

• 1985 "Broken Years" - UK
  UK Singles Chart
  The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
  
   #72
• 1985 "Ask the Lord" - UK #72
• 1986 "The Honeythief" - UK #17, U.S.
  United States
  The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
  
  #19
• 1986 "Ask the Lord" (re-recording) - UK #50
• 1986 "Long White Car" - UK #55
• 1989 "Your Love" - UK #66