KidzSearch Encyclopedia:Very good articles/Bloc Party
Bloc Party are a British indie rock band. There are four people in the band. Kele Okereke does the vocals and plays rhythm guitar, Russell Lissack plays the lead guitar, Gordon Moakes plays bass guitar and Matt Tong plays the drums. Its music has been compared to bands like The Cure, Gang of Four and The Strokes.
The band formed at the 1999 Reading Festival. It went through many names before Bloc Party was chosen in 2003. Moakes joined after reading an advertisement in NME magazine. Tong was picked through an audition. Bloc Party was first noticed by giving BBC Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamacq and Franz Ferdinand's lead singer Alex Kapranos a copy of its music demo, "She's Hearing Voices". This was later released as a single.
In February 2005, the band released its debut album Silent Alarm. Lots of good things were said about it. It made NME's Album of the Year list. The album was given platinum status in the UK a year later. The band released another album, A Weekend in the City, in 2007. This reached number two on the UK album chart and number twelve in the Billboard 200. In August 2008, the band released its third album, Intimacy.