There’s a Facebook group that I keep an eye on having a discussion about this tape – the author of the original post said that he played it to death at the time but can’t risk putting it in now after so many years in a box in the loft.
So I thought…..
mp3: Various – C81 NME/Rough Trade (Side One)
mp3: Various – C81 NME/Rough Trade (Side Two)
Tracklisting
Side One
1. Scritti Politti – The “Sweetest Girl” (6:09)
2. The Beat – Twist And Crawl Dub (4:58)
3. Pere Ubu – Misery Goats (2:26)
4. Wah! Heat – 7,000 Names Of Wah (3:57)
5. Orange Juice – Blue Boy (2:52)
6. Cabaret Voltaire – Raising The Count (3:32)
7. D.A.F. – Kebab Traume (Live) (3:50)
8. Furious Pig – Bare Pork (1:28)
9. Specials – Raquel (1:56)
10. Buzzcocks – I Look Alone (3:00)
11. Essential Logic – Fanfare In The Garden (3:00)
12. Robert Wyatt – Born Again Cretin (3:07)
Side Two
1. The Raincoats – Shouting Out Loud (3:19)
2. Josef K – Endless Soul (2:27)
3. Blue Orchids – Low Profile (3:47)
4. Virgin Prunes – Red Nettle (2:13)
5. Aztec Camera – We Could Send Letters (4:57)
6. Red Crayola – Milkmaid (2:01)
7. Linx – Don’t Get In My Way (5:15)
8. The Massed Carnaby St. John Cooper Clarkes – The Day My Pad Went Mad (1:46)
9. James Blood Ulmer – Jazz Is The Teacher, Funk Is The Preacher (4:03)
10. Ian Dury – Close To Home (4:13)
11. Gist – Greener Grass (2:32)
12. Subway Sect – Parallel Lines (2:38)
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
Happy days! Thank you – I am ancient and decrepit enough to have one of these from all those years ago and it’s pretty crumbly. So I shall enjoy this very much tonight! 😀
A great compilation of songs I almost forgot and some that are new to me. Well done Jim.
Essential Logic stands out as they so often did. Superb. Art work is excellent too!
Wow, I’ve only ever heard about this tape. Never seen it or heard the songs.
I’ll pay you a shiny pound coin to split those into individual tracks. 😉
No need to pay me……but the tracks are now available individually. Always happy to oblige when and where possible…….
I have 4 NME tapes from the early 80s. I got to know the paper’s editor Neil Spencer fairly well at the time and asked him in passing if it was possible to get a copy of the NME Dance Masters Cassette Tape in late 1981. Well, I received a care package with that one and C-81. A few months later I received Jive Wire, Hit The Road Stax and Mighty Reel. The final two I have in the collection are Racket Packet and Mad Mix II. They were all played a few times and then I used a dual cassette recorder to copy them on to high end cassette tapes and retired the originals to the music library. These they are in a box marked CASSETTES….
You are spoiling us, JC, with two excellent posts in one day. I started buying NME when they had moved on to cover mounted 7″ vinyl, so I missed all of the cassettes from the early 80s. Apart from the sheer volume (24 tracks!), just looking at the songs and artists is filling me with delight. This will be the soundtrack to my work from home this morning. I’m tempted to put “Do Not Disturb” in my diary so no-one calls whilst I’m mid-listen…
Brings back so many memories, I spend a whole summer listening to it, and if I hadn’t heard this I wouldn’t have subsequently bought albums by the Raincoats, Blue Orchids and D.A.F. Scritti Politti and D.A.F never bettered their 2 songs
After listening to this great compilation I’m a better and wiser man (57 years and 4 months)