This is the part of the series where I consult one of my reference books and find some 45s which didn’t sell in great numbers in February 1979. Only a small number this time around.
mp3: Magazine – Rhythm of Cruelty (single version)
Magazine‘s first new piece of music in 1979 was their fourth single on Virgin Records. It was released just a few weeks ahead of their sophomore album, Secondhand Daylight. The single didn’t dent the charts, and the album would only come in at a rather modest #38.
mp3: The Only Ones – You’ve Got To Pay
I wasn’t aware of this back in 1979. Indeed, if wasn’t for the sheer magnificence of Another Girl, Another Planet, then I probably wouldn’t have given a passing thought to The Only Ones all these years later. The band was on CBS Records, and while AGAP hadn’t charted in 1978, there was so much written about it and the band that hopes were probably high among the execs that the follow-up material would do the business. As with Magazine, this was the lead-off single from a second studio album. As with Magazine, the single flopped. As with Magazine, the subsequent album, Even Serpents Shine, experienced disappointing sales, reaching just #42, but at least this was a higher placing than the previous year’s debut.
mp3: Swell Maps – Dresden Style
Again, I have to own up that, at the age of 15, I wasn’t all that aware of Swell Maps. I possibly had at some point heard this, their second single (but their first on Rough Trade) when it was released in February 1979, but at the time I would very much have dismissed it as tuneless rubbish. Nowadays, without ever getting to ever fully fall for the ‘charms’ of the band, I’ll admit to quite enjoying this one, which I picked up via someone else’s blog quite a few years ago.
I’ll mention in passing that there were a couple of other flop singles released in February 1979 that would later in the year be re-released and enter the charts. I’ll come to them as and when later in the series.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
Rhythm of Cruelty might be THE song of 1979, which is really saying something. Timeless classic.
JTFL is right (again). I like Rhythm of Cruelty better than, for example, all of my favourite Sex Pistols songs. I also like Dresden Style. Like Mark E. Smith covering Ça Plane pour moi. [sk]
I don’t actually own that many 7″ 45s, but You’ve Got To Pay is one of them. Even though I knew I’d be buying the album anyway, which I did and it’s great. As is this single. Conversely I didn’t buy Rhythm of Cruelty because I knew it would be on the album. Duh. Wish I’d bought Swell Maps too, but I never really caught on to them until much later. I reckon there’s an interesting compilation to be made that would tease out a shared style across Swell Maps, Glaxo Babies, early Mekons and the TV Personalities, or is it just me?