"By the end of 1980, after 10 years waiting for the world to catch up with them, things were looking bleak for Suicide. The pioneering New York electronic project of keyboardist Martin Rev and vocalist Alan Vega had released a sinister self-titled debut in 1977; the album was met by hostility from crowds and mocked as "puerile" by Rolling Stone. Playing on tour with Elvis Costello, the Clash, and the Cars, they'd been pelted with shoes, coins, and even knives."
"ZE Records had backed May 1980's glitzier follow-up, Suicide: Alan Vega and Martin Rev, putting the duo in the expensive Power Station studios with the Cars' Ric Ocasek on production. But the label had hoped for a dance-pop record, telling Ocasek to think of Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" for reference, and Vega felt it underperformed. "I was on the way out," he later told NME."
By the end of 1980 Suicide faced hostility and poor reception despite early groundbreaking work. ZE Records financed a glossier May 1980 record produced by Ric Ocasek that aimed for a dance-pop sound, which Vega felt underperformed. Vega then pursued rockabilly, releasing his November 1980 solo debut Alan Vega with guitarist Phil Hawk and later forming a full band for 1981's Collision Drive. Those albums preserve minimalist instrumentation and linear structures while replacing avant-garde electronics with Eddie Cochran-esque guitar, yielding accessible tracks like "Jukebox Babe" that reveal commercial ambitions and stylistic devotion to rockabilly.
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