Siouxsie & The Banshees - Juju

Juju is the fourth studio album by Siouxsie and the Banshees, and it's the record where the band's influence on an entire emerging scene became impossible to ignore. Recorded at Surrey Sound Studio with Nigel Gray co-producing and released on 6 June 1981 by Polydor, Juju marked a return to guitar-based sound after the more electronic textures of 1980's Kaleidoscope, driven largely by the arrival of guitarist John McGeoch as a full-time member.

McGeoch's unconventional, texturally rich playing became the album's defining instrumental voice, praised by critics on release and by generations of musicians since, with figures like Billy Corgan crediting Juju for unlocking rhythms and feelings still audible in alternative rock decades later. Drummer Budgie's intricate, tribal percussion work runs alongside McGeoch's guitar throughout, and together with Siouxsie's commanding vocal performances, the record built the atmospheric, brooding template that would come to define goth rock, even as the band themselves have long resisted that label. Singles "Spellbound" and "Arabian Knights" gave the album its most immediate hooks without softening its overall intensity.

Juju peaked at number seven on the UK Albums Chart, becoming one of the band's biggest commercial successes, and it remains a critical favorite and a genuine landmark of post-punk, cited as a direct influence on artists ranging from Johnny Marr to John Frusciante and Brett Anderson.

This limited 180-gram vinyl pressing is essential for anyone tracing the roots of goth rock and post-punk back to their source.