Be-Bop Deluxe were an English rock band who achieved critical acclaim and moderate commercial success during the mid to late 1970s.

Be-Bop Deluxe were founded in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, by singer, guitarist and principal songwriter Bill Nelson in 1972.

[1] The founding line-up consisted of Nelson, guitarist Ian Parkin, bassist and vocalist Robert Bryan, drummer Nicholas Chatterton-Dew, and keyboardist Richard Brown (who left in December of that year).

[citation needed] After signing to EMI's Harvest Records subsidiary, the initial line-up of the band only lasted for one album, 1974's Axe Victim, and a short tour.

The title track of the fourth album, Modern Music, was a ten-minute suite of songs inspired by the experience of the band's touring the US.

In The Air Age, recorded on the subsequent UK tour promoting Modern Music although no songs from that studio album appeared on the live one, apart from a tantalizing snippet of the audience singing along to "Down On Terminal Street".

[7] That recording – now featuring the song in its entirety – and a number of other live Modern Music tracks finally surfaced on 2011's five-CD set Futurist Manifesto.

1978's Drastic Plastic, recorded at Juan-Les-Pins in the South of France[8] with influences of punk, new wave and David Bowie's Berlin Trilogy, was a substantial stylistic change from the progressive/guitar rock of the early Be-Bop Deluxe.

The band appeared three times on BBC's The Old Grey Whistle Test, performing a total of six songs and once on Top of the Pops, with their 1976 single, "Ships In The Night."

Initially released on DVD, the resultant video and audio recording has subsequently been reissued on other formats including CD and LP.