Posted April 15, 200619 yr in the punk/new wave/indie boom 79-81 there were several great acts formed, whos debut hits were very low or failed to chart. i can think of several brilliant, if not the artists best tracks, that falls into this catagory. i didnt include tracks that were later re-issued, like human league/adam and the ants eurythmics........................ never gonna cry again teardrop explodes.............. when i dream wah heat........................... better scream dexys mindnight runners.... dance stance those 4 are some of my all time favs.... can you think of any others?
April 15, 200619 yr I'll have a go of thinking of a few...... goes rummaging through record collection......... XTC - Science Friction The Cure - Killing An Arab Soft Cell - Memorabilia The Smiths - Hand In Glove The The - Uncertain Smile OMD - Electricity Depeche Mode - Photographic Thompson Twins - In The Name Of Love (1st single as a 3-piece)
April 16, 200619 yr From the top of my head, and probably missing out loads. Again, mainly the 1978/9 to about 1981/2 era, but not all punk / alternative / indie as the best have probably been mentioned. Shame - Evelyn "Champagne" King. The first record to be widely available on 12" and the lowest placed record in the chart (peaked at #39) to be certified by the BPI. The record shipped 250,000 copies and is rightly a disco / soul classic. It spent 23 weeks in the top 75. A fantastic debut by any standards! White Boy - Culture Club Released in the less than glorious summer of 1982, this pop masterpiece deserved to be a massive success but despite receiving lots of club and radio play it missed the chart completely. Their second single, Do You Really Want To Hurt Me stormed to #1, reviving demand for the single but Virgin records did the unusual (for then) step of deleting the song. Life In A Day - Simple Minds Simple Minds seemed to undergo quite a few musical changes in the late 1970s and 1980s and were once considered "cool" to actually like. This debut was brilliant, with tinges of electro as well rock. Their next few singles were also quite a good eclectic mix until in 1981 they were £250,000 in debt and decided to change direction in order to have a hit single... I Ran - A Flock Of Seagulls Another group who started out with some great singles and ended up as a joke. This debut single was electro-rock at its best. Good songs, shame about the haircut! Dead Pop Stars - Altered Images They did some great pop punk songs, and this one brightened up the airwaves, but sadly not the charts, in early 1981. Claire and the gang then went back to the drawing board and sang "Happy Birthday" to us all. X-Offender / Rip Her To Shreds Depending upon which discography site you read either of these was Blondie's first release. No matter, both were quite brilliant songs! White Riot - Clash Perhaps too well known to be in this list, but it was a minor hit! Wasted - Def Leppard Perhaps a stange choice to grace the list, but there was a time when even rock had it's moments, back in 1979 there was Motorhead and... Def Leppard! This was their first widely available single, though an EP had appeared a few months earlier but was nigh on impossible to purchase Dreaming Of Me - Depeche Mode A minor hit, but one of a number of songs that made early 1981 seem a million miles removed from just a year earlier. Synth pop / rock wasn't quite in its prime but it was new acts like DM who were leading the way, earning radio play while not yet hitting the dizzy heights of the top 10. instead, it was the more commercial Visage, Spandau and Ultravox who battled it out with Joe Dolce to confuse the nation! Touch - Lori and the Chameleons Who? Indeed. This excellent song appeared in November 1979 and reminds me so much of the time. The act never really stayed together long, but instead split to go into their various directions. The main group consisied of Bill Drummond and David Balfe, who basically called on the assistance of their at-the-time unemployed musician freinds to help out on a one-off song... Most notably Julain Cope , KLF and Holly Johnson. All played instruments on or coproduced this song. It was rereleased in a "remixed" form in 1981 after much of the group and friends fell out - some members had their contributions removed, but the original version is the best... Sex and Drugs and Rock n Roll - Ian Dury Not his first single, he'd been around for some time but the first released under the Ian Dury solo name. Outside of "Rythym Stick" it's probably also his best known... (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang - BEF / Heaven 17 Another song that brightened up the lower reaches of the chart in early 1981. Heaven 17 released loads of singles that just failed to hit the top 40 (the best was yet to come, 1981 and 1982 were their best years for releasing great singles that just wouldn't trouble the top 40). They then hit the top 40 in 1983 and went c**p... The intelligent part (though less successful) of the Human League Mark 1 were last seen (by me) drinking in Ladbroke Grove, W10 in the late 90s and as they were in the same pub I'd seen them drinking in some 10 years previous, they probably still are there now. Though is it still called the Slug and Lettuce these days? There were loads more, but many are by acts who never rose above cult status eg Gang Of Four, Killing Joke, so I left those out... Edited April 16, 200619 yr by Robbie
April 16, 200619 yr Life In A Day - Simple Minds I Ran - A Flock Of Seagulls Dead Pop Stars - Altered Images OMD - Electricity remember all these, liked them all
April 16, 200619 yr in the punk/new wave/indie boom 79-81 there were several great acts formed, whos debut hits were very low or failed to chart. i can think of several brilliant, if not the artists best tracks, that falls into this catagory. i didnt include tracks that were later re-issued, like human league/adam and the ants do they all have to be from that long ago?
April 16, 200619 yr Author do they all have to be from that long ago? no... but that was a decent era and i picked upon then cos i have 4 favs from that time.. i could easily refer to say, neil diamond 'solitary man' from '66...
April 16, 200619 yr The Damned - New Rose (the first ever UK Punk rock single...) The Smiths - Hand In Glove Siouxsie and the Banshees - Hong Kong Garden Adam and the Ants - Young Parisians The Cure - Killing An Arab/10.15 Saturday Night (which I personally prefer...) Joy Division - An Ideal For Living EP - which featured "Warsaw", "No Love Lost", "Failures" and "Leaders of Men" Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead
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