So, what about those marvellous singles released in May 1979 that didn’t bother the charts. There’s a couple of personal favourites in here….
mp3: The Cure – Boys Don’t Cry
Seven years after its initial release, this wonderful 45 got to #22 when it was reissued in support of a Greatest Hits package. It’s not that The Cure had few fans in the UK, but they had shown they were more likely to buy the debut album, Three Imaginary Boys (#44) than they were for any singles, with this failing to chart in much the same way as the debut Killing An Arab.
mp3: Japan – Life In Tokyo
Another 45 whose time would eventually come. The 1979 release on Hansa Records sunk without trace, a rare misfire for anything associated with Giorgio Moroder. By 1982, Japan had become popular thanks to the album Tin Drum and its associated singles, all of which came out on Virgin Records. Those involved over a Hansa weren’t slow to miss a trick, and three singles from the 79 era – I Second That Emotion, Life In Tokyo and European Son – together with a compilation album, Assemblage, were put into the shops, with all of them subsequently charting.
mp3: Essential Logic- Wake Up
Lara Logic had been the saxophonist with X-Ray Spex, but chose to leave the band after the debut single Oh Bondage Up Yours. She then formed Essential Logic, for whom she also provided lead vocals. Virgin Records signed the band and an eponymous EP was released in May 1979 to no fanfare at all. Wake Up was the lead track. The band would move to Rough Trade before the year was out.
Talking of Rough Trade….
mp3: Stiff Little Fingers – Gotta Getaway
A great largely forgotten post-punk 45 that was later polished up and re-recorded for inclusion on the 1980 album Nobody’s Heroes by which time Stiff Little Fingers had moved to the bosom of a major label in the shape of Chrysalis.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
Never knew the Japan stuff dated back to ‘79 -didn’t hear it til early eighties. It still sounds great. And that SLF tune, pure class. Up there with Johnny Was and AU.
This, for me, is an absolute thrill of a shakedown. I’m going to attempt to claim to be too young to have fully got some of these at first release but I wasn’t so young that some didn’t blow my tiny head right off.
Anchored to a friend whose sister and brother (yes, them, again!) were in the thick of it, I know I loved Stiff Little Fingers from first listen. I’m guessing it would’ve been when Alternative Ulster was released. Nirvana’s Territorial Pissings “Gotta find a way, find a way” reminds me of the vocal refrain “Gotta gotta gettaway, gotta gotta gettaway”.
Essential Logic is a band that I feel is largely sidelined when nostalgia harks back. Although with the incomparable X-Ray Spex for a short time Lora gave Essential Logic a bold identity (pun intended) with one of my favourite singles from that era Aerosol Burns – a song I was not aware of at the time of release in 1978. Lora returned to X-Ray Spex for the recording of Conscious Consumer, released in 1995. She and Poly Styrene retained close links throughout their lives, musically and through their belief in Krsna.
I think my first recollection of Japan is via the popularity and charting of Quiet Life. I think it would have been 1980 – I doubt I’d have bought it in 1979.
The LP was bought quick-style, when funds allowed. It remains an absolute favourite. A real go-to LP to perk me up.
Life in Tokyo didn’t appear on a studio LP (as far as I’m aware) but is associated with the Quiet Life LP. It did appear on extended versions of the LP that would later emerge.
The Cure – well, I know I didn’t know this song at all on original release. To be fair Robert Smith didn’t appear on my radar as an ‘individual’ (Siouxsie and the Banshees / The Cure / The Glove) till the Albert Hall gigs and the release of Love Cats (I know!) in 1983. Boys Don’t Cry – although late to the party – is just a cracking pop song in every way.
JC – what a treat that was. What joyful memories.
Flimflamfan
Superb stuff,
SC
A decent haul for May 79, it’s fair to say.
Ah, excellent. I always get a warm tingle about 1979, what a year for music, and in which to turn 16! I would have been unaware of Japan at the time, though, it was only after the release of Ghosts that I delved into the back catalogue and heard this one amongst others, quite a voyage of discovery.
Four singles that show the breath of ideas and dreams artists had at the decade’s end.