The first ever posting on the Vinyl Villain blog was on 30 September 2006. The original blog was hosted by Blogger/Google, but was taken down on 24 July 2013 for what was alleged to be continued violations of copyright policy.
The very next day, The (New) Vinyl Villain emerged blinking into the sunlight, hosted on WordPress, with a paid annual subscription taken out for the little bit extra protection.
The 20th Anniversary is fast approaching, and having given a lot of thought as to how to best mark it, I’m going to go all self-indulgent. On Mondays to Fridays, between now and 30 September there will be a daily posting of songs that have a connection with TVV. I’ve been ambitious as 800 songs have been picked out, with no repeat artists on offer, technically speaking.
For instance, it’ll be no surprise that Paul Quinn features more than once, but it will be in different guises. Picking out another at random, Tracey Thorn’s voice will be heard a few times.
I want to stress that, for the most part it’s not a rundown. The songs listed from #800 down to #121 have more or less been randomly allocated, although you’ll soon see the occasional patterns developing. Those songs will form Parts 1 to 17 of the series with 40 songs offered up each day.
Parts 18 to 23 will feature the final 120 songs and these have been ranked in my order of preference.
There will be loads of stuff you all know along with hopefully a few surprises as well as some that might best be described as skeletons in my closet. Apologies in advance that each of the daily posts will be lengthy. I’ve a rough estimate of how many words are involved, and it adds up to a medium-sized book. Oh, and there will be spelling mistakes and grammar will be strangled. I’m not a professional writer. 🙂 🙂 🙂
I hope there’s enough to get folk interested, and please, feel to comment as often or as little as you like.
Let’s get this party started……..
#800 : McFadden & Whitehead – Ain’t No Stopping Us Now
I’ve always said that 1979 was the best ever for music. It wasn’t all down to the brilliance of new wave/post punk, either. A little bit of disco with R&B roots, from Philadelphia seems an ideal way to kick things off. A #5 hit just as I was celebrating my 16th birthday.
#799: Hipsway – The Honeythief
There’ll be loads of Scottish-based (and indeed Glasgow-based acts) in the rundown. I reckon all the members of Hipsway, like my good self, were teenage mutant disco dancers back in the day, with it later spilling over to the music they would go on to make. Peaked at #17 in March 1986.
#798: Cake – Short Skirt/Long Jacket
It took me until 31 May 2025 to make my performing debut on stage with a band. The Dial-Ups, a fabulous cover band from Santa Monica, had me join them for their very last song of the evening. I played cowbell….and had the time of my life.
#797: Fizzbombs – Sign On The Line
Out of vanity, I once asked AI to describe The (New) Vinyl Villain. One of the sentences it offered up was, “The blog is heavily intertwined with the UK music scene, specifically around Glasgow and Edinburgh”. Fizzbombs were a short-lived four-piece from the capital city, and this came out in 1987 on the locally-based Nardonik Records.
#796: Detroit Cobras – My Baby Loves The Secret Agent
This blog wouldn’t be half the place it is without guest contributions, particularly to the Imaginary Compilation Albums series. There have been over 400 ICAs since the first appeared in June 2014, and around 75% have come from elsewhere. It’s an incredible stat….especially as one of my sentences in ICA #1 was “This series will likely be short-lived.”.
Dirk penned a fantastic ICA (#34) in September 2015 on the Detroit Cobras. This is a cover of a song written by the late Fred Sledge Smith, whose gravestone in Los Angeles says “Never boring, always loved – he made America dance.”
#795: Lou Reed – Walk On The Wild Side
There’s quite a few ‘big hitters’ who didn’t make it into the Top 120 and will be subject to a random position in the rundown. Please put your hands together for Mr Lewis Allan Reed (2 March 1942 – 27 October 27).
#794: Pele – Raid The Palace
Nope. It’s not the famous Brazilian footballer issuing a revolutionary call to arms. This lot were an indie-band from Ellesmere Port, in north-west England, active in the early 90s. This was their debut single from back in October 1991. I first heard this when my mate Jacques the Kipper included it on a homemade compilation tape.
#793: Foil – Reviver Gene
This lot’s lead singer, Hugh Duggie, is a lifelong friend of Jacques the Kipper, and there was an ICA (#89) in August 2016. This, their 1996 debut single, was described as ‘The Scottish Huskers, playing Sugar-y speed guitar in the middle of a stampede of Buffalo Toms. Splendid!” Which nicely leads into……..
#792: Sugar – Changes
Recently reformed after a period of 30 years, and by all accounts still as superbly entertaining as ever. This was their debut single, released on Creation Records in August 1992. It wasn’t a hit.
#791: Grrrl Gang – Honey
If it wasn’t for blogging, I’d never have come across this indie pop band from Indonesia. This single dates from 2021, and, yes, it is very derivative of the indie-pop of the 80s, particularly of the sort which emerged from Glasgow and the surrounding towns, but so what?
#790: Divine – You Think You’re A Man
Included in the rundown no other reason other than the live performance I witnessed at Strathclyde University Students Union in 1985 being one of the most fun and enjoyable shows of them all.
#789: Spear of Destiny – Liberator
As with Divine, this brings back memories of a live show in the Students Union….but this one was all about my young brother, SC, at the age of 18, ripping off his shirt and leaping fearlessly into the mosh pit.
#788: Janet Kay – Silly Games
I’ve more than 50,000 tunes on the hard drive of my laptop, but not all that much in the way of reggae/lovers rock. ‘Silly Games’ is from 1979, the more than any other that’ll feature in the rundown. Janet Kay proved to be a ‘one-hit wonder’ in terms of the charts, but she has enjoyed a long and illustrious career in musical theatre.
#787: The Lucksmiths – T-Shirt Weather
I posted this one back on 13 March 2015, ending with the words “Does any reader who knows more about the band fancy contributing a posting? Perhaps as part of the Imaginary Albums series?” Within days, Eric from Oakland obliged and his guest ICA, #10 in the series, appeared on 7 April 2015
#786: HighSchool – Sony Ericsson
One of the ‘newest’ bands among the 800. I picked up on them thanks to SWC posting links to tunes over at No Badger Required. Went to see them play a small venue in Glasgow earlier this year, and they were outstanding. I was by far and away the oldest person watching on (and dancing!!).
#785: The 101’ers – Keys To Your Heart
One of the ‘oldest’ bands among the 800. The 101’ers, formed in 1974, were regulars on the London pub scene. ‘Keys To Your Heart’ was their debut single, but by the time it was released, they had spilt as their lead singer and main songwriter had left to join another band. His name was Joe Strummer….and he’ll be back a couple more times in this rundown.
#784: Sleeper – Sale Of The Century
There will be a smattering of Britpop among the 800. Sleeper had eight Top 40 hits between 1995 and 1997, with this peaking at the #10 spot. They were the inspiration for the phrase “Sleeperbloke”, referring to the disparity between having a glamorous female singer and the other frequently ignored male members of the band.
Bonus Track : The Just Joans – Sleeperbloke
#783: Portishead – Glory Box
As I said, if a song didn’t crack the Top 120 of this rundown, it gets a random number. This one came close, and I mean very close, to making the cut. A #13 hit in January 1995.
#782: The Woodentops – Plenty
The debut single from July 1984. Another band who were the subject of a guest ICA. It was #70 in the series, penned by Strictly Rockers in April 2016.
#781: Soho – Hippychick
In which a Johnny Marr riff was used to great effect to create a dance track that went Top 10 in January 1991.
#780: Raconteurs – Steady As She Goes
This 2006 debut single, peaked at #4. It was a time when everything touched by lead singer Jack White seemed to turn to gold, coming amidst more than a dozen Top 30 hits for The White Stripes.
#779: The Orb – Toxygene
Another song that peaked at #4, in February 1997. My dear friend ctel, who knows a lot about these things wrote these words on TVV back in November 2008. “The Orb virtually invented the electronic genre known as ambient house, resurrecting slower, more soulful rhythms and providing a soundtrack for early-morning ravers once the clubs had closed their doors.”
#778: Lene Lovich – Lucky Number
Yet another from 1979. Some days this one irritates me, some days I find it quite charming. You can probably guess what I was feeling the day I picked out the 800 songs. Chosen specifically at 778 as these were the first three digits (after the area code) of the phone number in the house I grew up in.
#777: The Who – I Can’t Explain
There’s less than a handful of songs among the 800 which predate the 70s when I first developed an interest in music. This was one I dedicated to my great friend Kenno when it was posted in February 2019. Kenno, tragically, succumbed to cancer in March 2024, aged 59. I miss him.
#776: Twa Toots – Please Don’t Play A Rainy Night In Georgia (Peel Session)
John Peel gets loads of mentions on TVV. And rightly so. Plenty of Peel Session songs have featured over the years, and this one dates from October 1983. While this song was never given a studio recording, it was released a few years later as part of the Strange Fruit series of Peel Sessions on vinyl.
#775: Barn Owl – When No One Is Around
One that I downloaded in the early 2010s. It was by a band called On The Day We Met Gambas Pil Pil. A few years later, I saw a band called Barn Owl as the support for a gig at King Tut’s in Glasgow, and they played ‘When No One Is Around’ note-for-note. Turned out that there had been a band name-change. Still not sure if this Arcade Fire-style tune was ever given a physical release.
#774: BOB – What A Performance
A London-band championed by Peel back in the late 80s. I first learned about them years later thanks to this song being included within a Cherry Red Records compilation box called C87. It was their debut single, on Sombrero Records, and I’ve since picked it up on 12″ vinyl.
#773: D.A.F. – Der Mussolini
D.A.F. is short for Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, a Dusseldorf-based band who were originally with us at the tail end of the 70s and into the early 80s. I danced to this one a fair bit back in the student days. Don’t worry folks, it’s not a track praising the merits of the old fascist – indeed it is merely encouraging Benny boy to shake his ass with his dancing partners Adolf and Jesus. If it wasn’t for the pounding electro-beat, it’d be as camp as can be.
#772: Captain America – Flame On
A rather wonderful piece of indie pop from 1990. Captain America was formed by vocalist and guitarist Eugene Kelly following the dissolution of his former band, The Vaselines. The name of the band had to change soon after following an injunction threat from Marvel Comics who claimed copyright. They changed it to Eugenius which just happened to be the frontman’s affectionate nickname.
#771: Death In Vegas – Dirge
Electronic dance group whose second album, ‘The Contino Sessions’, released in 1999, used a range of guest singers including Dot Allison from One Dove (and yes, Dot will be back later on in the series!). It never charted but is one of their best known tunes thanks to it being used in commercials and within film soundtracks over the decades.
#770: Act – Absolutely Immune
Late-80s synthpop duo consisting of Scots-born musician Thomas Leer and West German-born singer Claudia Brücken. Released four singles and one album in 87/88 on ZTT Records, none of which sold in any great numbers. This one is quite similar sounding to Propaganda, which was Brücken’s former band.
#769: Hindu Love Gods – Raspberry Beret
In essence, a side-project of R.E.M. with vocal duties handled by Warren Zevon, whose career stretched back to the late 60s and who, for over 30 years until his death from cancer in 2003 at the age of 56, was a huge influence on many big hitters and popular artists within the American music industry without himself ever enjoying much mainstream success. He was also an almost complete-unknown here in the UK. And yes, it is a fabulous cover of the Prince song.
#768: Juliana Hatfield – Nirvana
Released on her debut solo album in 1992, by which time Juliana Hatfield, at the age of 25, was already a veteran of the music scene having been part of the Blake Babies and The Lemonheads. A tribute to the grunge rockers who were, at the time, taking the world by storm.
#767: Kraftwerk – The Model
Another of those that, on another day, might have made the Top 120…….
#766: The Members – Sounds Of The Suburbs
Back to 1979 again. If ever a song signified what that year was going to hold in store, this was it. A previously unknown band outside the London pub scene get picked up by the record industry and given the chance for a brief dalliance with fame. It was Virgin Records who took a chance on The Members, and it paid off with this fast, frantic tune and lyric about boredom which was an understandable hit with teenagers and adolescents.
#765: Pop Wallpaper – Strawberry Letter 23
Edinburgh-based pop band from the 80s who never gained much traction outside the central belt of Scotland. This was their second and final single, a cover of a Shuggie Otis song, released in 1984 on the very short-lived Rosebud Records. I like it but it is very much of its time.
#764: Sex Pistols – God Save The Queen
Next year will mark the Golden Jubilee of this incendiary 45. A scary thought in itself as to how time really does fly, especially the older we get.
#763: Timezone – World Destruction
Back-to-back Lydon. From 1984/85 when he collaborated with New York hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambatta. The production values have dated the tune somewhat, but worth remembering that it was one of the first to fuse hip-hop with electro and rock elements, and helped paved the way for acts like the Beastie Boys to find fame and fortune.
#762: Wojtek The Bear – Second Place on Purpose
One of the more recent bands to make it onto the list of 800 songs, this is from their 2023 album ‘Shaking Hands With The NME’, released by Last Night From Glasgow. This lot make the sort of intelligently enjoyable indie-pop that has never quite gone out of fashion, certainly in the environs of Villain Towers,
#761: Van Morrison – Brown Eyed Girl
OK. We are all most likely heartily sick of this one thanks to its over exposure on the radio and the fact everyone who goes to a karaoke night thinks they can nail it. But there’s no denying it is a lovely and catchy tune is there?
Tomorrow will see the #721-#760 part of the rundown.