Ruts – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

B-52s, Cult Hero, Essential Logic, Only Ones, Ruts, Squeeze, Suicide

SHAKEDOWN, 1979 (November, part two)

You know the script by now. I delve into my big bumper book of Indie Songs (The Great Indie Discography by Martin Strong, originally published in 1999, with a second edition in 2003), to find who were top of the flops in November 1979.

mp3: The B52s – Planet Claire

The search by Island Records for the elusive second chart hit for the band from Athens, Georgia continued this month with the release of a song that had done well in the USA and Australia. Part of the marketing campaign saw it released on picture disc. I bought a copy. Not too many other people did. If you’re reading this and thinking that you were sure Planet Claire was a hit single in the UK, then you’re right, as it reached #12 when given a re-release as a double-A single with Rock Lobster.

mp3: Cult Hero – I’m A Cult Hero

From wiki:-

“I’m a Cult Hero is a single released by an extended line-up of The Cure under the name Cult Hero. The single was conceived by Robert Smith (singer/guitarist of the Cure) and Simon Gallup (then bassist of the Magspies) as a way to test their musical compatibility. Smith was considering Gallup as a prospective replacement for Michael Dempsey (the Cure’s bassist at the time).

The songs were written for, and feature on vocals, local Horley postman Frank Bell, who is also depicted on the single’s artwork. They also feature Malice/Easy Cure guitarist Porl Thompson and Magspies keyboardist Matthieu Hartley amongst an extended line-up of friends and family, including Robert’s sisters Janet and Margaret and local band the Obtainers.”

It came out on Fiction Records. Copies are available for silly money over on Discogs.

mp3: Essential Logic – Popcorn Boy

This is actually an ‘oops!’ moment as Popcorn Boy should have featured last month as it was released in October 1979. You’ll hopefully recall from a previous flop single featured back in May that Lara Logic had been the saxophonist with X-Ray Spex, but left the band after the debut single Oh Bondage Up Yours. She then formed Essential Logic, for whom she also provided lead vocals. Having seen that first single on Virgin Records fail to trouble the charts, the band was let go and signed to Rough Trade for whom this was the debut offering.

mp3: The Only Ones – Trouble In The World

I couldn’t recall this from back in the day, but when I gave it a listen, I thought it sounded like Gordon Gano of the Violent Femmes on lead vocals. It’s nowhere near the class and genius of Another Girl, Another Planet, but then again what is?

mp3: The Ruts – Jah War

The Ruts had enjoyed two Top 3o hit singles with Babylon’s Burning and Something That I Said. The debut album, The Crack, had gone Top 20 on its release in October 1979. The band decided, with the support of Virgin Records, that the next single should be an edited version of the 7-minute-long album track Jah War, written as a response to police violence and brutality when dealing with protestors demonstrating against a far-right campaign meeting in London. A protestor died from head injuries after being struck twice by a police truncheon.

Jah War was banned by the BBC on the grounds that the song was too political. A number of the larger record stores refuse to stock the single. It’s no surprise it didn’t chart.

mp3: Squeeze – Christmas Day

The band had enjoyed a productive and successful year, and decided to round it off with a stab at making a festive hit. It proved to be just a bit too strange to get any airplay, and let’s be honest. It’s rather awful.

I can’t possibly bow out with that, so how about a cult classic from back in the day

mp3: Suicide – Dream Baby Dream

The duo of Alan Vega and Martin Rev never achieved any commercial success whatsoever, but Suicide has long been a hip band name to drop into any conversation. I never knew about them back in 1979, and indeed only picked up on them when Paul Haig later covered their song Ghost Rider. This flop 45, released on Island Records, may be a bit on the repetitive side of things, but it’s bloody brilliant!

JC

Blondie, Buggles, Headboys, Jags, Michael Jackson, Police, Ramones, Ruts, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Skids, Squeeze, Stiff Little Fingers, Tourists, XTC

SHAKEDOWN, 1979 (September)

I reckon you all know the drill by now.

I thought August 1979 had proven to be a bumper month for hit singles – and going by the comments last time around, many of you were in agreement. Will September hold up?

The Top 20 of the first chart of the new month was playing host to Gary Numan, Roxy Music, The Specials, The Stranglers, Joe Jackson, The Jam, and Ian Dury & The Blockheads, and here’s a handful of new entries quite a bit further down.

mp3: The Ruts – Something That I Said (#45)

The quickly-released follow-up to the hit single Babylon’s Burning was another belter of a number, and while it didn’t quite match the sucess of its predecessor in that it peaked at #29 and spent just five weeks in the chart, it helped build a strong foundation for the soon to be released debut album, The Crack, which went Top 20.

mp3: Squeeze – Slap and Tickle (#53)

Their third hit single in the space of six months, but it would come nowhere close to the Top 3 success of Cool For Cats and Up The Junction. It’s a bit of a strange one in that it’s reliant on synths, and Glen Tilbrook has cited Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder as influencing what he was trying to do, but it kind of sounds a bit primitive. It did eventually reach #24 which was a more than decent showing given it had been taken from an album released five months earlier.

mp3: The Jags – Back Of My Hand (#70)

A power-pop classic from a band formed in the costal town of Scarborough in north England. Tailor-made for radio, it sold in increasing numbers of a couple of months, eventually peaking at #17 in late October. It was The Jags one and only brush with fame in terms of chart success, and after some more flop singles and two albums that failed to dent the Top 100, they were dropped by Island Records after which they called it a day.

mp3: The Ramones – Rock ‘n Roll High School (#71)

A blink and you’ll miss it, minor hit. In at 71, up to 67 the next week, after which it disappeared.

mp3: The Tourists – The Loneliest Man In The World (#72)

As I mentioned back in June, The Tourists is where it all began for Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, who would conquer the planet in the mid-80s as the driving force behind Eurythmics. This was their second hit of the year, taken from their eponymous debut album that had been released in June 1979. It would go on to spend seven weeks in the chart, peaking at #29 in mid-October, by which point the band had already finished work on their second LP…..of which there will be further mention when November comes around.

The chart of 9-15 September 1979 had just two new entries in the Top 40, both of which were a bit on the unusual side as one was Since You’ve Been Gone, the first ever hit 45 by hard rockers Rainbow (who like many others in the genre normally ignored the singles market) with the other being a live EP from Kate Bush (live music was never aired on daytime radio back in the late 70s). In saying that about hard-rockers and chart singles, AC/DC were also in the Top 75 with Highway To Hell.

Coming in at #51 was a bona-fide disco classic from someone who was, at the time, just seen as perhaps the most-talented of his musical family, but not thought to be someone who would, in time, become arguably the most-famous pop star of his generation.

mp3: Michael Jackson – Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough

This would spend more than three months in the Top 75, peaking at #3. This is another example of how things were done differently back in 1979. ‘Dont Stop…’ had been released as a single in America back in July. It took until early September for it to be issued in that way in the UK, and even then it was merely a piece of marketing to highlight that Michael Jackson‘s solo album, Off The Wall, was due for release in mid-late September. Nobody, and I don’t care what anyone will say with the benefit of hindsight, anticipated it would sell 20 million copies worldwide, of which almost 2 million were in the UK, leading to an initial 61-week stay in the album charts, and an incredible 225 weeks all told over the subsequent years and decades.

There’s nothing else worth homing in on across the rest of the new entries, so I’ll quickly move on to 16-22 September.

Cars by Gary Numan went to #1, replacing Cliff Richard, whose We Don’t Talk Anymore had been holding down the top spot for the previous four weeks. Gary’s stay at the top only proved to be very brief. The song which landed at #8 this week would soon hit the top.

mp3: The Police – Message In A Bottle

It really was quite the remarkable turn-around. A year earlier, nobody in the UK had been interested in Sting, Stewart and Andy. Three flop singles and an album that was in the bargain bins by Xmas. But they did a bit better in America, and early-mid 1979 brought hits via re-releases. The question was whether the new material would sustain the interest. Message In A Bottle more than did that. As I said, in at #8 prior to a three-week stay at #1, while the album from which it was taken, Regatta de Blanc, came straight in at #1 in early October. It was the start of a genuinely remarkable run of success.

Nobody would have realised it at the time, but the single which would eventually replace Message In A Bottle at #1 also entered the charts this week

mp3: Buggles – Video Killed The Radio Star (#57)

There’s really not much to write about this song that hasn’t already been written. It was slightly a slow-burner, in at 57 and taking four more weeks to reach #1 (where it stayed for just one week – I would have sworn it was at the top for a good deal longer). Maybe it was just down to it never seeming to be off the radio for about the next five years.

mp3: XTC – Making Plans For Nigel (#63)

Life Begins At The Hop had given XTC a minor hit a few months earlier. Making Plans for Nigel wasn’t a follow-up, but instead was issued to further support Drums and Wires, the band’s third studio album that had come in to the charts a few weeks earlier at #43. It proved to be an inspired move, raising the band’s profile immensely and taking them firmly out of cult status into bona fide pop stars. Not that it sat comfortably with them……

Nigel would, in due course reach #17, a position that band would better just twice in the coming years.

mp3: The Headboys – The Shape Of Things To Come (#68)

As featured in the long-running Scottish Songs on Saturdays series, away back in August 2018. I mentioned that the Edinburgh-based power-pop outfit had been signed by RSO Records, one of the biggest labels in the world at the time, primarily on the back of the success of Saturday Night Fever by The Bee Gees. Such connections got The Headboys a slot on Top of The Pops despite the single not being in the Top 40; indeed, it never got higher than #45 in a eight-week stay in the lower reaches of the chart and proved to be the only hit of any sort the band would enjoy.

And so, to the final week of September 1979.

mp3: Blondie – Dreaming (#7)

The album Plastic Letters had taken Blondie to the summit of the pop world, and all concerned were determined to remain there. Dreaming was the first new song in some 18 months, and it was given a rapturous welcome. This was an era when new singles entering anywhere in the Top 10 was seen as a triumph, and in many cases, it led to it hitting #1 the week after. Blondie’s previous two singles – Heart of Glass and Sunday Girl – had been #1s. Dreaming failed to match it, stalling at #2, unable to dislodge Message In A Bottle. It was perhaps a sign that the baton in the race to be the world’s most popular group was being handed over from America to England.

As if to illustrate how hard it was in those days to have a high new entry in the singles chart, the second highest of the week came in at #45

mp3: The Skids – Charade

The third hit of the year for The Skids. This one didn’t go Top 20 in the same fashion as Into The Valley and Masquerade, peaking at #31; remarkably, the band would enjoy a fourth hist single before the new decade dawned on us. Come back in November for more.

Here’s some more proof as to why 1979 is, in my opinion, the greatest year of all for chart singles

mp3: Siouxsie & The Banshees – Mittageisen (#58)

Metal Postcard (Mittageisen) was one of the standout tracks on the 1978 debut album The Scream. A year later, the album Join Hands had been issued, with its lead single Playground Twist charting at #28. Meanwhile, over in West Germany, Metal Postcard had been re-recorded with the lyrics sung in German, and had become a hit single. Polydor Records, noticing that fans were purchasing it on expensive import, decided to release it in the UK. It proved to be a short stay in the chart of just three weeks, and it peaked at #47, but it was previously unthinkable that a German-language new-wave song by an English group would remotely be a commercial success.

Those of you who read Part 2 of this monthly feature, in which I highlight singles that didn’t make the Top 75, may recall me that back in May I made reference to Gotta Getaway, a quite brilliant 45 by Stiff Little Fingers that had been issued on Rough Trade. A few months later, and after signing to Chrysalis, the boys from Belfast finally made the charts, coming in at #59.

mp3: Stiff Little Fingers – Straw Dogs

This move to a major would lead to more chart success in 1980 and help pave the way for the band to build up such a decent-sized fanbase that they are still very much a going concern in 2024

Talking of Part 2 of this series, I hope you’ll all drop in a few weeks time as there are some genuine classics, from really well-known groups, that have stood the test of time.

JC

Chic, Gang Of Four, Janet Kay, Rickie Lee Jones, Ruts, Tourists

SHAKEDOWN, 1979 (June)

I’m really glad about the positive reception being afforded to this series….I’ve long been of the view that there was no finer year for singles than 1979, but then again, I would imagine most music fans will look back on the music they were listening to in their formative teen years and look to make a case that it was ‘the best.’ What did the month of June bring us, aside from my 16th birthday?

One other good thing about 1979 is that it didn’t clash with any major football tournament that summer, which spared us the possibility of Saturday Heroes finding themselves in a recording studio to inflict torture on us. Except for the fact that the highest new entry on the chart in the first week in June, entering at #55, was Head Over Heels In Love with the singer being Kevin Keegan, ex-Liverpool but now plying his trade with Hamburg in Germany, and who in 1979 had been voted as the best player in European football. I’ll spare you the song, but you can, if you want to be masochistic, find it on YouTube. It spent six weeks on the chart and peaked at #31.

There wasn’t too much to get excited further down the charts in terms of new entries, bar these two:-

mp3: Janet Kay – Silly Games (#65)
mp3: The Tourists – Blind Among The Flowers (#66)

Janet Kay has proven to be the classic definition of a one-hit wonder. The London-born singer was just 21 years old when Silly Games was released. It was one of the big hits of the summer months, spending 14 weeks in the chart, peaking at #2. It’s a song written by Dennis Bovell, who was recently the subject of this wonderful guest ICA from Khayem. It has all led to Janet Kay being unofficially crowned as the Queen of Lovers Rock, and while she never again had a single breach the charts, she has enjoyed a long and illustrious career in music and theatre, leading to her being awarded, in 2023, an MBE for her services to music.

The Tourists is where it all began for Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, who would conquer the planet in the mid-80s as the driving force behind Eurythmics. Their first band was more of a traditional rock sort of combo, and Blind Among The Flowers was their first single, eventually peaking at #52. There’ll be more from this lot later in the year.

The chart of 10-16 June saw the first chart entry from another of the new bands emerging as part of what was a real explosion in post-punk in the UK.

mp3: The Ruts – Babylon’s Burning

The Ruts were from London, so this was an instance when the A&R men didn’t have to look too far. The band formed in 1977, and they began to make a name for themselves from the fact that they brought reggae influences to their brand of punk. John Peel was a big fan, as indeed was fellow Radio 1 DJ David ‘Kid’ Jensen, both of whom offered sessions at the beginning of 1979. Their debut single In A Rut was issued on a small indie label, but led to an offer from Virgin Records, a label which was really hoovering up many of the emerging bands. Babylon’s Burning was their first release for the new label. It’s a genuine classic of the era, eventually reaching #7 and spending 11 weeks on the chart. As with The Tourists, there’ll be more later in the year.

This was also the week when a Leeds-based post-punk combo enjoyed their first chart hit

mp3: Gang Of Four – At Home He’s A Tourist

There’s a similar pattern here. Gang Of Four were championed by Peel. The debut single had come out on an indie label which led to an offer from a major label, in this instance, EMI. This was the first single for the new label. To my surprise, this has proved to be the biggest hit that Gang of Four ever had in terms of a single, entering at #65 and peaking the following week at #58.

June appears to be a month when very few new songs of any genre came into the charts. The week of 17-23 June saw no new entries into the Top 40. The highest new entry was at #53, and like Janet Kay, was a song which was omnipresent in the summer months but ended up being the only hit for a singer who is still going strong today.

mp3: Rickie Lee Jones – Chuck E’s In Love

Rickie Lee Jones was 24-years old at the time. Chicago-born but California- based, she made her name performing in coffee bars and jazz clubs. She was also, for a period of some two years, in a relationship with Tom Waits. She was signed by Warner Bros whose A&R men felt that Chuck E’s In Love had the potential to go what we would now describe as ‘viral’. It certainly did, thanks to a massive marketing push via radio and TV stations in the US, leading to it becoming a Top 5 hit on the Billboard chart and making its way across the Atlantic shortly afterwards. It would spend 9 weeks in the chart and peak at #18. None of her later singles, and there have been dozens in the decades that followed, ever bothered the chart compilers.

June 1979 closed with Tubeway Army hitting the top spot in the singles chart. A small selection of the songs featured last month as well as earlier in the post were keeping Mr Numan company, but for the most part, it wasn’t a great month. A tune with a great bass line came in at #53

mp3: Chic -Good Times

This would eventually get to #5 and thus prove to be the latest in what seemed to be a conveyer-belt of hit singles for Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards which showed no sign of slowing down. This, however, proved to be that last of the mega-smashes, and the last time they would enjoy a Top 10 hit.

So, returning to the question posed at the start. What did the month of June bring us, aside from my 16th birthday? The answer, it appears, is not all that much……

I’ll be back soon with the companion piece to the series looking at singles from June 1979 which didn’t make the charts. I’ve had a sneak look ahead to the chart of the first week of July 1979, and there’s a couple well worth highlighting, so please tune in again around the same time next month.

JC

Ruts, XTC

THE XTC SINGLES (Part 10)

Just as Towers of London was beginning to fall out of the charts a very peculiar decision was made regards the next single in November 1980.

A film called Times Square had just been released. It was not a critical or commercial success and you can read about it here. It’s not one I imagine many people can recall.

The film was accompanied by a 2xLP of 20 songs with what was mostly a mix of new wave and chart acts, mainly from the UK but also featuring NYC acts such as Talking Heads and The Ramones, and as part of the efforts to promote the movie and the soundtrack it was decided to issue a 7″ single. The tracks chosen were by XTC and The Ruts. The strange thing being that the XTC song was one that wasn’t available anywhere else while The Ruts effort had been a Top 10 hit only a year or so previously.

mp3 : XTC – Take This Town
mp3 : The Ruts – Babylon’s Burning

That it was released while the band were in the middle of their efforts to promote Black Sea seems baffling but then again it was a track that had been given to the film project some time previously and neither XTC nor Virgin Records were in charge of the timing of the release of Times Square.

The single was a flop. It’s not the band’s finest moment and was also out of step with much of the material on their new LP, albeit there was a hint of the ‘whistling’ that had helped make Generals and Majors such an enjoyable tune.

Worth saying that the song by The Ruts is still one of the best songs of the immediate post-punk era.

JC

Ruts

CLOSE COUSINS TO THE SKIDS AND E.C.

The Ruts had scored a well-deserved top 10 hit in the summer of 1979 with Babylon’s Burning and in doing so demonstrated that they were no minor-league tribute to the big boys of the London punk scene. They were a band much championed by both John Peel and David ‘Kid’ Jensen on BBC Radio 1 for whom they recorded a total of three sessions in advance of becoming chart stars.

The follow-up single arrived in August 1979 and listening to it all these years later you can hear a huge similarity to The Skids while the b-side, featuring a Peel Session track, is eerily reminiscent of the sound that had propelled Watching The Detectives by Elvis Costello & The Attractions into the charts.

It’s no real surprise in either case. The single was produced and arranged by Mick Glossop who just a year later would work with The Skids on their masterpiece The Absolute Game while the b-side highlighted the influence that reggae and dub had on the punk movement.

The Ruts were a band who really deserve a lot more praise than was given them at the time. They certainly lived in the shadow of The Sex Pistols and The Clash and looking back they may have been championed a bit more if they had been a provincial band. The contribution of Mick Glossop as a producer also gave them a cleaner and more polished sound than many of their contemporaries while the fact this band could play actually play their instruments with a degree of style and professionalism probably counted against them in the eyes of the music paper critics and writers.

Whether they would have enjoyed a decent and lengthy career is of course a moot point given the death of lead singer Malcolm Owen, from a heroin overdose, in July 1980 at the tragically young age of 26.

mp3 : The Ruts – Something That I Said
mp3 : The Ruts – Give Youth A Chance (Peel Session)

Enjoy