What Ever Happened to Transvision Vamp?

Modern Rock radio in the 1990s was really different from mainstream radio. Like all radio they played the same songs till you hate them with an occasional surprise song. There are modern rock bands that got played or overplayed, but those bands weren’t as popular as you would think. 

Transvision Vamp was one of those bands. WBRU in Providence was a college radio station, in that they played what was called college rock, now called "Modern Rock." In the very early 1990s, the genre didn’t have a name. 

WBRU used to play the songs by a band called Transvision Vamp. 

The band had three big songs within about two years. The first "hit" song was called, “Tell that girl to Shut up.” It was more known for the title than actual airplay. The song was actually a remake of the song by Holly and the Italians. Again more known for title than airplay. 

Transvision Vamp put out another remake, “I Don’t Care.” The big one was “ I Just Wanna Be With You.” It was their best song, tempo changes, vocals that went from yell to cooing, and jangly guitar fills. It got a lot of airplay. 

I wonder what happened to the band.

Turns out, they were big in Australia. No one in America knew them. “I Just Wanna Be With You” didn’t even chart in the US. Only WBRU played them much. The band put out two more albums that no one in America knew about and the band broke up. 

Vamp got college news press. They even got some radio airplay, but were never really popular. Too bad. “I Just Want to be With You,” should be a song that went mainstream.