Sparks – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

Damned, Public Image Limited, selecter, Slits, Sparks, Specials, Stranglers, Undertones

SHAKEDOWN, 1979 (October)

The first of the singles charts to be looked back at this time around covers 30 September–6 October. The Top 3 positions were taken by The Police, Blondie and Gary Numan. Quite a few of those mentioned over the past two editions of this series were still showing up well in the Top 50 – Buggles, Michael Jackson, Secret Affair, Madness, Squeeze, The Jags, The Skids, Roxy Music, XTC, The Stranglers, The Specials, Stiff Little Fingers and Siouxsie & The Banshees.

I’m mentioning all of this as it was a chart when the dull and boring started to fight back. There were 10 new entries in the Top 75, the highest of which came in at #51. None of them (IMHO) are worth posting – The Nolans, Fleetwood Mac, The Chords, Viola Wills, Gloria Gaynor, Earth Wind & Fire, Cats U.K., New Musik, The Addrisi Brothers and Diana Ross.

I’m aware that some of you might be thinking that New Musik were seen as part of the growing new wave scene back in 1979. I suppose it’s a matter of taste, but I thought they were awful. It was the single Straight Lines that brought them into the chart in October 1979. It entered at #70 and peaked at #53. But they were another whose presence on a major label led to an invitation to appear on Top of the Pops.

Let’s quickly move on to 7-13 October.

The highest new entry, at #36, this week belonged to Sex Pistols with what felt like the 758th single lifted from the soundtrack to the film The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle. I won’t waste your time by linking anything.

Scrolling my way down through the chart proved to be a depressing experience. There was a decent disco number courtesy of Chic in at #51, but My Forbidden Lover isn’t up there as one of their classics. Just as I was thinking it was going to be two duffs week in a row, the new entries at #60 and #64 saved the day.

mp3: The Slits – Typical Girls
mp3: The Selecter – On My Radio

Debut singles for both bands…although some may disagree with that!

The Slits, as I mentioned in a posting back in June 2021, were an act that the 16-year old me didn’t get, and so I totally ignored this and indeed their debut album, Cut. As I grew older, and my musical tastes developed/matured, I was able to see them as truly astonishing and ground-breaking as nobody was making music like them back in the day. They were true punk/new wave pioneers. Typical Girls was the only single of theirs to ever bother the chart compilers. It came in at #60 and then dropped out altogether within two weeks.

As this is the first time The Selecter have really been featured on the blog, please allow me to give a potted history.

It could be argued that On My Radio is not the debut single by The Selecter. The evidence would be that the b-side to Gangsters, the debut hit by The Specials, was credited to The Selecter.

But my take on things is that particular b-side is the work of a precursor to the band we would come to recognise as The Selecter. It was an instrumental, written by Neol Davies and John Bradbury that was originally called Kingston Affair. It was re-titled The Selecter and credited to an act of the same name. Its success led to Neol Davies wanting to put a new band together to capitalise on things (and who could blame him?), which he did by bringing together musicians who had long been part of the scene in Coventry and recruiting an unknown female singer. The singer’s name was Belinda Magnus, and she worked as a radiographer in a Coventry hospital. She wasn’t keen on her employer learning that she was getting involved in the music scene, and so she adopted the stage name of Pauline Black. She has enjoyed a long and successful career as a musician and actor, and is still going strong at the age of 70.

On My Radio, which in due course climbed all the way to #8, was the first of four hit singles in a 12-month period for The Selecter, while their 1980 debut album went Top 5. That initial burst of success, however, wasn’t maintained and by 1981 they had disbanded. There were various reunions from the early 90s onwards, but as often is the case with such things, there were disagreements and more splits, leading in due course to there being two versions of the band on the go, one led by Neol Davies and the other by Pauline Black.

I think it’s time to move on and look at the charts for the rest of October 1979.

New singles from Abba and Queen entered the Top 40 on 14 October 1979 and both would still be hanging around when the new decade came around. The third-highest new entry was one that came in at #40 proved to have no such longevity.

mp3: The Stranglers – Nuclear Device (The Wizard Of Aus)

Duchess had only dropped out of the Top 75 the previous week, and so this was something of a fast cash-in to maintain momentum. I don’t think, despite having a sing-a-long chorus (of sorts) that it was an obvious choice as a single, which is maybe illustrated by it getting no higher than #36 and dropping out altogether after four weeks.

Now on to one that should have been a bigger hit than it turned out.

mp3: The Damned – Smash It Up

Some might have thought of them as cartoon punks, but I thought they were great, and this is their finest 45. In at #43, but it only got as high as #35.

mp3: Public Image Ltd – Memories (#60)

PiL‘s first two singles had both gone Top 20. John Lydon obviously decided this was unacceptable, and so the band’s third 45 was one that daytime radio wouldn’t go near. Memories proved to be a great indicator of the direction the group was heading with their impending album, Metal Box that was released in mid-November.

mp3: The Undertones – You’ve Got My Number (Why Don’t You Use It) (#64)

This proved to be the second mid-position hit for The Undertones in 1979, reaching #32, which was two places higher than Here Comes The Summer. The following year would see better returns for them, with My Perfect Cousin providing them with their only Top 10 hit, and it’s follow-up, Wednesday Week, reaching #11.

The chart of 21-27 October didn’t have any new entries at all in The Top 40, which probably made for a rather dull or least repetitive edition of Top of The Pops. But this one came close.

mp3: The Specials – A Message To You Rudy

The fact that The Specials second 45, a double-A side effort, turned out to be a hit was further proof that the Two-Tone movement was of some significance, culturally and musically. A Message To You Rudy was a cover version of a 1967 tune written and recorded by Dandy Livingstone, but the other A-side was an original.

mp3: The Specials – Nite Klub

Fun facts. Both sides of the single were produced by Elvis Costello while Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders offered a backing vocal on Nite Klub. It would spend 14 weeks in the charts, peaking at #10.

mp3: Sparks – Tryouts For The Human Race (#74)

A third hit of the year for the brothers Mael, aided and abetted by Giorgio Moroder. I remember one of the writers in one of the music papers being apoplectic with rage that a third single had been lifted from an album, No.1 In Heaven, that had just six tracks on it. Tryouts…. would spend five weeks in the chart and reach #45. And while Sparks would continue to release albums on a very regular basis throughout the 80s, they wouldn’t enjoy another hit single until 1994.

A bit of a mixed bag then, hits wise, for October 1979. But if you care to come back in a couple of weeks time for Part 2 when I look at singles that weren’t hits, there will be a few of real interest.

JC

Boomtown Rats, Buzzcocks, David Bowie, Police, Pretenders, Public Image Limited, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Sparks, Specials, Undertones

SHAKEDOWN, 1979 (July)

My summer of ’79 saw me enter the big bad world of paid employment. I actually told a few lies to land the job, the vacancy for which had been advertised in the local job centre.

I was legally able to leave school, but I was always planning to return after the summer holidays to go into 5th year to sit the exams that would count towards university admission. But I wanted to earn a bit of money, and so I applied for, and landed, a job in the city centre branch of Halford’s, the UK’s biggest retailer of cycling and motor products. I told the store bosses that I had no intention of returning to school, no matter how good the results of my O-Grades, and, yes, I did see myself as being very interested if the chance arose to train as a store manager once I turned 18 in a couple of years time.

I started the job a couple of days after my 16th birthday, and so the month of July was when I really settled into it. It was a shop where the radio played in the background all day long, and with most of the staff being lads aged in their late teens/early 20s, the station of choice was BBC Radio 1, which means my ears were exposed to a lot of what was in the charts.

As you’d expect, there was a fair bit of rubbish regularly aired, but then again Tubeway Army, Squeeze, Blondie, The Ruts and The Skids were all still in the Top 40, while some cracking disco/soul classics from Earth Wind & Fire/The Emotions, McFadden & Whitehead, and Chic were also capable of putting a smile on my face. The highest new entry in the chart in the first week of July is not one I can recall hearing on Radio 1:-

mp3: Public Image Limited – Death Disco (#34)

Jaysus, this was really weird sounding. The 16-year-old me had a difficulty with it. I bought it, but I can’t say I particularly liked listening to it. So much so, that I gave it away to someone who handed me two of the early Jam singles in exchange (Eddie didn’t like that they were a pop band nowadays). It took me a few years to really appreciate Death Disco… till 1990 in fact, when I bought a CD copy of a Public Image Limited singles compilation. As I wrote on this blog previously, by this point in my life I knew that great songs didn’t need hooks or memorable, hummable tunes, and that a cauldron of noise in which a screaming vocal fights for your attention alongside screeching guitars over a bass/drum delivery that on its own would have you dancing like a madman under the flashing lights could be a work of genius. This spent seven weeks in the Top 75, peaking at #20.

While researching this piece, I discovered, to my shock/delight, that Death Disco had appeared on a Top of The Pops budget compilation – these albums featured uncredited session musicians/singers replicating the sound of current chart hits. I think there were about 100 or so of them released between 1968 and 1982, and they were stupidly cheap in comparison to a proper studio album, and from memory weren’t all that more expensive than a couple of singles. This is really strange:-

mp3: Top Of The Pops – Death Disco

I’m thinking that John Lydon pissed himself laughing at the very idea of this, and as such was more than happy to give his blessing to it.

The next one of interest in the chart of 1-7 July is another I can’t recall hearing in Halford’s

mp3: Siouxsie & The Banshees – Playground Twist (#47)

The third of the S&TB singles wasn’t a commercial offering by any stretch of the imagination, but it did sell enough copies to reach #28 in a six-week stay.

Coming in a bit further down the chart was one that I recall hearing loads of times in the shop:-

mp3: The Police – Can’t Stand Losing You (#60)

This had been a near smash-hit in late 1978, spending five weeks in the charts and reaching #42. The Police had gone massive in the first half of ’79, and it was easy enough for A&M Records to press up more copies of the old singles to meet the new demand. Where Roxanne had taken the band into the Top 20, this was the one that sealed the deal, getting all the way to #2 in mid-August.

The second singles chart of July ’79 was a strange one. No ‘big’ entries, with the highest coming in at at #48, courtesy of Abba. Many of other newbies are names I am struggling to recall – Chantal Curtis, Stonebridge McGuiness, Judie Tzuke, Vladimir Cosma, and Light of The World. There was, however, one truly outstanding song which came in at #62:-

mp3: The Pretenders – Kid

It remains my favourite 45 of all that Chrissie & co ever put down on vinyl. Indeed, it is one of THE great records in what was, as this series is demonstrating, a great year for music; it spent seven weeks on the chart in July and August 1979, peaking at #33. Should have got to #1….but that feat for The Pretenders was just around the corner.

The third week of July saw an unusual song as its highest new entry at #15:-

mp3: The Boomtown Rats – I Don’t Like Mondays

Here’s the thing. I more than liked the Boomtown Rats and owned copies of their first two albums. I wasn’t at prepared for the new single…..it was all over the radio before it was actually released, and looking back at things now, it must be one of the first examples of a viral marketing campaign based on artificially creating a reaction to something that some folk declared to be ‘shocking’. I can’t say that I cared much for the song, and it was conspicuous by its absence when I pulled together a Rats ICA back in October 2022. The week after entering at #15, I Don’t Like Mondays went to #1, where it stayed for four weeks, and then another two weeks at #2. All told, it sold over 500,000 copies and was the 4th biggest selling single of 1979.

mp3: David Bowie – D.J.

Bowie followed up the success of Boys Keep Swinging with a second single from the album Lodger. This would have been heard in Halford’s but not all that often given that it came in at #29 in the third week of July but immediately dropped down the following week, and Radio 1 daytime DJs usually only gave spins to records that were on the up.

mp3: Sparks – Beat The Clock

This was very much all over the workplace radio….the sort of song that sounded great over the airwaves and made the individual DJs feel as if they were being a bit edgy. A fantastic piece of disco-pop, thanks to the efforts of the brothers Mael and Giorgio Moroder. A nine-week stay in the charts was the reward, with a best placing of #10.

mp3: The Undertones – Here Comes The Summer

Yup….July ’79 was the release date for this one. Really doesn’t seem like 45 years ago, but there you have the facts presented before you, so there’s no denying it. The other thing I’d have said about this was that it must have been a Top 20 hit, given how often I recall hearing it and that it lodged so easily into my brain. But nope, in at #63 and peaking a couple of weeks later at #34, which was kind of a similar trajectory to this one:-

mp3: Buzzcocks – Harmony In My Head

The first 45 not to feature a lead vocal from Pete Shelley, the delivery from Steve Diggle made this just a little bit rougher round the edges than previous Buzzcocks singles. But it was, and still is, a great listen. In at #67 and peaking at #32…..and I’d have lost any bet offered on whether this or Here Comes The Summer had peaked highest.

And so, to the final singles chart of July 1979.

As with a couple of weeks previous, nothing came in fresh at any high position. #50 was the best on offer, and it was from Showaddyfuckingwaddy. So no chance of it featuring here.

I was scrolling all the way through the Top 75 of 22-27 July, and just as I was concluding there wouldn’t be anything worth featuring, i noticed this was a new entry at #74:-

mp3: The Specials – Gangsters

One that I don’t so much associate with July 1979 and more about a period after I had finished at Halford’s and returned to school where I would take my first ever foray into DJ’ing. It’s a tale I told when I wrote about Gangsters in the Great Debut Singles series:-

“1979/80 marked my first forays into DJing, if playing records on a single deck at a youth night in the school could be regarded as DJing. The senior pupils were encouraged to help the teachers at these nights, which were basically an effort to provide bored 12-15 year olds with something to do instead of hanging around street corners and picking up bad habits. There were three of us who brought along our own 45s to play while everyone ran around making lots of noise burning up all that excess energy. Very gradually over a matter of weeks, our little corner of the hall began to get a dedicated audience, and it was all driven by the fact they loved to do the Madness dance(s). In two hours of music, you could bet that more than half came through records on the 2-Tone label or its offshoots. And these kids were of an age when playing the same song two or three times in a night didn’t matter.”

Happy days indeed. Gangsters went on to spend 12 weeks in the charts, peaking at #6.

JC

Damned, M, Members, Police, Sex Pistols, Sparks, Undertones, X-Ray Spex

SHAKEDOWN, 1979 (April)

I trust that the first three months of this series has helped to convince any of you who happened to be non-believers that 1979 was very much the greatest year for hit singles in the UK. So, what did April shower upon us??

While I wasn’t overly keen on the Sex Pistols singles on which Sid Vicious took on the duty of lead vocals, (which is why Something Else was left out previously and C’Mon Everybody will not appear in future), the cash-in this month did hold some appeal.

mp3: Sex Pistols – Silly Thing

Virgin Records really didn’t care too much about facts when it came to Sex Pistols. The info attached to the 45 states that it’s from the album The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, when in fact it’s a totally different version. The album track has Paul Cook on lead vocals and had been recorded in mid-1978. The single version has Steve Jones on lead vocals, and had been recorded in March 1979, with Bill Price on production duties.

It entered the charts in the first week of April 1979 at #24, and in due course climbed up to #6 as part of what proved to be an eight-week stay in the Top 75.

mp3: The Members – Offshore Banking Business

The wonderful follow-up to Sound of The Suburbs was a reggae-tinged attack on white-collar crime. Sadly, things have only got worse with the passing of time.

Offshore Banking Business was, in comparison to ‘Suburbs’, a minor hit, only reaching #31, and it would prove to be the last time that The Members troubled the chart compilers.

mp3: M- Pop Muzik

Some folk will argue that this was a novelty number and a bit of an annoyance. I’ll accept that it did become over-exposed somewhat back in the day and became a bit of an irritant, but the passage of time has more than convinced me that it’s a bona-fide pop classic.

M was the recording name taken by Robin Scott, a man with a fascinating backstory in that he’d been in and around the creative industries for much of the 70s as a singer, recording artist and record producer, as well as being a friend of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood. He also worked with the then emerging film director Julian Temple.

Pop Muzik came into the charts at #53, and would go on to spend 14 weeks in the Top 75, peaking at #2. It was also a huge hit in many other countries, and probably sold enough copies that ensured its composer would never again have to have any financial concerns, and enabled him to indulge in various creative projects over the next forty-plus years.

mp3: Sparks – The Number One Song In Heaven

I’ve previously written at length about this song, back in December 2016. I summed it up by saying that it was where prog met glam met disco met film soundtrack on one piece of 7″ black vinyl. I also declared it as the celestial song which cleared the decks for the likes of Soft Cell, Pet Shop Boys, Human League and Heaven 17 (as well as many other inferior versions of electro-pop) to come along in the 80s and make a fortune. The one difference from 2016 and now is that I have since picked up a second-hand copy of the 45, having been without one for more than 30 years. This one entered the charts at #60 on 21 April 1979. It peaked at #14 in June 1979 while spending a total of 12 weeks in the Top 75.

mp3: X-Ray Spex – Highly Inflammable

Highly Inflammable was the first new song from X-Ray Spex since the release of the debut album Germ Free Adolescents at the end of the previous year. It turned out to be their last piece of music for almost 16 years, as the group came to an end when lead singer Poly Styrene announced her departure shortly afterwards. They would reform for live shows in 1991 and a second and final album would appear in 1995. Highly Inflammable was their fourth chart 45, but where each of The Day The World Turned Dayglo, Identity and Germ Free Adolescents had all hit at least the Top 30, the final single stalled at #45.

mp3: The Police – Roxanne

Yup, it’s now 45 years since Sting & co. first tasted fame. If they had had their way, it would have been a full year earlier, as Roxanne was initially released in April 1978 to great indifference. But America went nuts for the song in early 79 and this led to A&M Records giving it a re-release over here. The rest, as you might say, is history.

Roxanne came into the charts at #42 on 22 April. It hung around for 9 weeks and peaked at #12. I bought the re-released version of the single and that same time, having convinced my parents that going to new wave/post-punk gigs at the Glasgow Apollo wasn’t as dangerous as some tabloid papers would have you believe, I bought a ticket for my first ever live show.

The Police. Thursday 31 May 1979. There were two support acts. Bobby Henry, followed by The Cramps. I haven’t kept count, but I reckon I’ve been to over 1,000 gigs all-told now. I still very much remember the first time.

mp3: The Undertones – Jimmy Jimmy

Get Over You had been a flop, so there was quite a lot riding on the next single from Derry’s finest. Thankfully, the radio stations and record-buying public really took to Jimmy Jimmy over the spring and summer of 79. It came in at #57, spent 10 weeks in the chart, and peaked at #16. For all that it’s such an upbeat and anthemic number, it really is a very sad lyric. One of the band’s finest three minutes, if you don’t mind me saying.

mp3: David Bowie – Boys Keep Swinging

I wasn’t quite at the stage where I was acquainting myself with David Bowie albums. For now, I was more than happy to make do with the singles. I had liked most of what I heard on daytime radio, but had never actually bought anything of his until Boys Keep Swinging. It’s one of those that I can’t quite really put my finger on exactly why this really appealed to the then 15-year-old me, but there’s no denying that seeing it performed on the Kenny Everett TV show proved to be what would now be described as a water-cooler moment, albeit in may case it was in a school playground the next day when a fair bit of homophobic language was involved. Little did we know the official video would create even more of a buzz.

Boys Keep Swinging came in at #31 on 29 April. It climbed all the way to #7, and in doing so, gave Bowie his first Top 10 hit since Sound and Vision some two years previously.

mp3: The Damned – Love Song

Another of the new entries on 29 April. This was the sixth single by The Damned, but proved to be the first time they hit the charts, and is all the evidence you need that the post-punk/new wave sounds had really become part of the mainstream. It came in at #44, and before too long it had cracked the Top 20.

As I said earlier, and the whole point of this series, 1979 was a great year for singles (albeit the really big sellers were dreadful).

JC

Sparks

OOOH MATRON, A NIPPLE.

I remember there was quite the outcry over the sleeve for Beat The Clock, the single released by Sparks in July 1979 as the follow-up to Number One Song In Heaven which, earlier the same year, had taken the brotherly duo back into the charts after a four-year absence.

The problem for the big retail stores which sold records, such as Woolworth and WH Smiths, was that the picture sleeve featured a model, dressed in a lab coat, which was open to the waist and thus you could see her underwear which consisted of a see-through bra and thus a nipple was on display. The image on the back sleeve was even more problematic for public display as it consisted of a full-length shot of the model in which she was ripping off her lab coat….the solution for such stores was to stock the single but only have it available from under the counter!

Things like this in 1979 caused outrage in the tabloid press, notwithstanding the fact that many of them also featured topless women on Page 3 of their publications as a matter of routine. There is no doubt that Russell and Ron Mael knew what they were doing when they agreed to the sleeve, no doubt egged on by those in charge at Virgin Records who quite liked the idea of the music industry still being able to shock society – it was no real surprise that the label was home to more post-punk/new wave acts than any other.

The annoying thing was that with Giorgio Moroder on board for the new material, there was no need to resort to such cheap and nasty gimmicks as the music was more than capable of delivering on its own merits. Still, there’s no doubt the sleeve helped shift a few more units as the single went all the way to #10, their biggest success since the initial one-two of This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us and Amateur Hour back in 1974.

The parent album only had six tracks and so there was a real lack of material for the b-side. An alternative mix was therefore offered up:-

mp3: Sparks – Beat The Clock (single version)
mp3: Sparks – Beat The Clock (alternative mix)

The 12″ came in a quasi-picture disc format in that it was pressed in a way that it had a standard 12″ black or coloured vinyl on the outside edge with the music merging into a picture disc towards the central area. It offered up an extended version along with a gimmick:-

mp3: Sparks – Beat The Clock (long version)
mp3: Sparks – Untitled

The latter was a two-and-a-half minutes-long piece in which the comedian Peter Cook, acting as a lawyer who represents God, calls up Virgin Records to make a formal complaint that Sparks had no right to call their new album Number One in Heaven. The piece is put together in a way that snippets of tracks on the album are aired.

JC

Sparks, Tuff Love

THIS AND THAT

The surprise disappearance/takedown of When You Can’t Remember Anything has disturbed and troubled me. I’ve previously had some advance e-mails from SWC or Tim letting me know when things are going a bit tits-up with one or other of them and warning that there might be a bit of turbulence at the blog. Just a few weeks ago, SWC advised he was going overseas to work but that Tim and KC would be looking after things. I noticed on their blog about 10 days or so ago that KC was unwell which meant things were being juggled around a bit and then last week, when I was across in Ireland, I noticed the blog had been removed by the authors.

I’ve dropped the boys a couple of e-mails but had no replies which I find very worrying. I’d be lying if I thought I could carry on here as normal making all sorts of pithy observations when at the back of my mind, and not too far back it must be said, I’m thinking about my friends from south-west England and hoping that everything is okay.

So for the next few days at least, things are going to settle into a bit of a dull routine here at Villain Towers. You’ll get your usual Saturday and Sunday postings and the occasional Charged Particles contribution from Jonny but the daily fare from myself will just be featuring two songs, one which begins with the word ‘This’ and one which has the word ‘That’ in its title. Sometimes by the same singer or band. There will be the usual boring background info supplied but nothing that is going to tax my brain too much as I’m really not in the mood for creative thinking just now.

mp3 : Sparks – This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us (orchestral version)

It was a while back when I wrote about how I fell for Sparks when they appeared on Top of the Pops in 1974. All these years on and they’re still going, probably still known best for that big hit single. Back in 1997 the band released their 17th LP, Plagiarism, in which they offered new takes on old songs with Erasure, Faith No More and Jimmy Somerville drafted in to add their vocal and playing talents to some of the songs. There were actually two versions of This Town….put on the album – one that was quite rocky thanks to the contributions of the afore-mentioned Faith No More and the one I’ve posted today which is an orchestral mix on which legendary producer Tony Visconti worked with them.

mp3 : Tuff Love – That’s Right

Tuff Love are (or maybe were)* a great little indie pop-punk band from Glasgow. Consisting of Julie Eisenstein (guitar, vocals) and Suse Bear (bass, vocals) they first came to my attention back in 2014 when they not only released a debut 10″ EP entitled Junk but seemed to be on the bill of just about every gig I got along to that year. They were occasionally a bit hit n miss in the live setting but as time went on they got more confident, polished and accomplished. Two more EPs, Dross and Dregs, were released in 2015 before Lost Map Records pulled all the tracks together a single LP, Resort, that was issued in early 2016. I saw the band in Glasgow around that time and was well impressed, thinking they would push on from there but they’ve been quiet on the new music front although they were on a lot of summer festival bills later in the year.

Looking up a social media site, there’s a message posted back in February 2017 that says:-

Hello there, just to let you know we’re doing other things just now other than Tuff Love. Thank you for all the support so far/over the past few years. See you soon. Love from Suse and Julie xx

Whether that means the band is no more or there’s a temporary break remains to be seen.

That’s Right is taken from the Dross EP. And it’s 140 seconds of magic.

JC

Sparks

PAVING THE WAY FOR WEIRDOS TO MAKE ELECTRO-POP HIT SINGLES

This was in the charts around the time of my 16th birthday in June 1979. It’s a record that reminds me of my first ever proper job which lasted for about six weeks over that summer.

It was in a Glasgow store of Halfords. I actually told a few white lies to land the post, in that I said to the store manager when I went for the interview that I had decided to leave school at the earliest opportunity, which was on my 16th birthday, when in fact I was always intending to go back in August 1979 to sit exams that I hoped I could pass and go onto university.

Anyway, the six weeks that I spent in the shop were great fun. It was mostly lads maybe three or four years older than me, but they seemed awfully grown up in so many ways, especially the fact that they went out to the pub after work every Saturday night – I was always young-looking for my age and stood no chance of getting served. Everyone liked their music, but we all had different tastes, so the solution was to just have Radio 1 on in the background all day long – and the Sparks record was on very heavy rotation.

By the time I had started work, just about everyone had more or less forgotten about Sparks after a bundle of hit singles in 1974 and 1975 – they were probably regarded as a bit of a novelty act thanks in part to the fact that Russell Mael had a singing voice that hit higher notes than just about any other bloke on the planet, but mainly to the fact that Ron Mael when appearing on telly stared intensely at the camera and freaked everyone out. Oh and he also had a moustache and haircut that made him look awfully like Adolf Hitler….

The Number One Song In Heaven was totally unexpected. The only way you could tell it was Sparks was the distinctive vocal – but what Russell was warbling over was something mind-blowing and astonishing.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that very few bands used electronic keyboards to any great effect 30 years ago. Sparks went for it in a big way, deciding to recruit Giorgio Moroder into the band – an act of absolute genius. Moroder, Italian-born but German-based, was well-known for his work on disco music on the Casablanca label, particularly with Donna Summer, as well as the fact that in 1978 he’d won an Oscar for his soundtrack to the movie Midnight Express (the single The Chase – Theme From Midnight Express used to amaze my dad – we had wall-mounted stereo speakers and it sounded as if the music was actually crawling its way across the wall as it moved from one stereo speaker to the other)

Anyways, the first thing the public got to hear from the Maels/Moroder canon was this:-

mp3 : Sparks – The Number One Song In Heaven

I was sure this was a truly massive hit, so I was surprised to learn that in fact it only reached #14 in the UK charts, although it did hang around the Top 40 for almost two months (which was why it was on heavy rotation on the shop radio).

Strangely enough, I didn’t play the A-side all that often, for the version of the song that was put on the reverse was far superior, but at 7 plus minutes long wouldn’t ever have gotten played on daytime radio:-

mp3 : Sparks – The Number One Song In Heaven (long version)

It was where prog met glam met disco met film soundtrack on one piece of 7″ black vinyl – one that, sadly, is no longer in the collection.

So there you have it. The celestial song which cleared the decks for the likes of Soft Cell, Pet Shop Boys, Human League and Heaven 17 (as well as many other inferior versions of electro-pop) to come along in the 80s and make a fortune.

Franz Ferdinand, Sparks

BORN TO DO COVER VERSIONS

franz-ferdinand
From Rolling Stone magazine:-

LCD Soundsystem’s tragically nostalgic dance-rock epic ‘All My Friends’ is arguably the best indie-rock song of the ’00s. The B-sides to the single were all cover versions, hinting that the song was a classic the minute it was released.

Scot rockers Franz Ferdinand, who’d already taken bracing, contorted grooves to the pop charts, were born to do ‘All My Friends’ and they turned in an incisive, raging guitar-grinding version with singer Alex Karpanos boozily crooning James Murphy’s forlorn lyrics about losing touch with your friends as you grow older and more ambitious. Musically, they pull of a wonderful trick of interlaying their version with references to legendary post-punk bands like New Order and the Gang of Four that LCD and Franz share as influences. It’s an A-plus history project you can get way down to.

mp3 : Franz Ferdinand – All My Friends

It really is a cracking, crackling energetic cover that is among the best things that FF have ever laid down. But then again, they’re a band who have never shied away from tackling cover versions throughout their career, some without question more successfully than others as evidenced here:-

mp3 : Franz Ferdinand – Sexy Boy
mp3 : Franz Ferdinand – Get Up and Use Me
mp3 : Franz Ferdinand – What You Waiting For?
mp3 : Franz Ferdinand – Sound and Vision

I’m quite fond of the first two of the four featured above, not convinced by the third as I’ve no time for the original (albeit Mrs Villain is a fan of Gwen Stefani) while the latter is fun enough for the fact that Girls Aloud are on backing vocals!

I never ever got round to mentioning that the FFS project turned out to be one of the best surprises about 2015. The idea of Franz Ferdinand and Sparks combining into a supergroup for an album and live performances didn’t seem like a good idea when first mooted but then I gave the album a listen and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was but that was nothing compared to seeing them perform at the Glasgow Barrowlands which turned out to be a fun-filled and hugely entertaining gig. This was the night when I did truly understand the FF boys were born to do cover versions.

Watch this entire 70 minute performance while you have spare time over the festive period

You can perhaps do it tomorrow when I’m taking a day off blogging. I’ll be back on Saturday with the latest in the re-run of the 45s series

Happy New Year when it comes.

Sparks

40 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK…

….I probably first set my eyes on the then scariest looking man in pop music.

The singles chart of 11 May 1974 had a new entry by a new band at #27.

mp3 : Sparks – This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us

I’d be not far short of my 11th birthday. Pop music on the telly was more or less restricted to Top of The Pops and given that Sparks were just one of two new entries that week (the other being Alvin Stardust singing Red Dress) then I’m assuming they got on the show a few days later. If so, then that was the first time I saw the really creep, scary man with the staring eyes and the Adolf Hitler moustache sitting behind the piano. He gave me more nightmares than any monster brought to life by the writers of Dr Who.

There’s no doubt that Sparks first appearance on telly got the nation talking. Most of the talk would have been about the keyboard weirdo, but then again I’m sure that much of the female population were equally as wowed by the good-looking man in the tight trousers with the high-pitched voice.

The effect of this incredible appearance can be seen from the following week’s chart. Sparks were the biggest climbers up 18 places to #9 – compare and contrast with poor old Alvin whose efforts saw a rise of just one spot to #10. In those days, you didn’t get on the show two weeks running unless you were #1, but that didn’t stop the momentum of This Town…which hit #3.

Another TV performance saw even more people buy the single and in its fourth week on the charts it hit #2, which is also where it stayed on week 5, sadly kept off the top spot by Sugar Baby Love by The Rubettes.

By the sixth week it had fallen down to #5….and the Top of The Pop rules were that no song falling down the chart would feature.

There’s many who at the time predicted Sparks would be one-hit wonders and remembered as a novelty act. That they were back in the charts a few months later came as a shock to those who hated them:-

mp3 : Sparks – Amateur Hour

But even their biggest fans would have laughed out loud if you’d said they’s still be making critically acclaimed music 40 years on……..

As I was too young to really appreciate and understand Bowie, then it’s fair to say that Sparks were the first weird and different sounding band that I ever fell for (once I realised that Ron Mael wasn’t really the bogeyman). And I’m happy to argue all day and all night that the two singles which first brought them fame and fortune are timeless classics.

Enjoy