The Alarm is set to release their new album, Music Television, in August.
The record features covers of songs made famous in MTV’s heyday, and was supposed to be available on vinyl and CD during the band’s Live Today Love Tomorrow tour. The tour was supposed to launch in May, but was postponed after Alarm frontman Mike Peters’ cancer returned.
Now the album will be released digitally on Aug. 23, along with an additional recording of “Transition,” a song that originally appeared on The Alarm’s 2023 album, Forwards.
Peters was initially diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia in 2005 and relapsed in 2022. Right before the tour, his cancer returned and he was diagnosed with a rare condition known as Richter’s syndrome. He’s currently hoping to find a donor for a stem cell transplant. He says he added “Transition” to the album “as a signal of my intent to survive the transplant and get back to real life sometime in 2025.”
“I have optimistic options ahead of me, and, like all the songs on Music Television that have survived the years since they were first written, so will I,” he adds.
In addition to “Transitions,” Music Television features The Alarm’s reinterpretations of such classic MTV staples as The Buggles’ “Video Killed The Radio Star,” which was the first song played on the network; Dire Straits’ “Money For Nothing,” the first song played on MTV Europe; David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold The World”; Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight”; Modern English’s “I Melt With You”; and Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.”
Here is the track list forMusic Television:
“Money For Nothing” (Dire Straits)
“Video Killed The Radio Star” (The Buggles)
“Live Today Love Tomorrow” (The Blow Monkeys)
“Imagination” (Belouis Some)
“Beat It” (Michael Jackson)
“Don’t Change” (INXS)
“In The Air Tonight” (Phil Collins)
“I Melt With You” (Modern English)
“Screaming For Emmalene” (Gene Loves Jezebel)
“The Man Who Sold The World” (David Bowie)
“MTV Theme”
“Transition” (The Alarm)
Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.