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Speaker 2first episode of 2022. Can you believe, Tim, we've been doing this for almost two years? We've talked. We've talked about a lot of records, haven't we? A lot of records. And I think we've been broadly pretty positive about what we've talked about, and I hope people feel our enthusiasm for the music we talk about. But perhaps we should open things up, because we haven't done this for a while. Let's have readers' letters, Tim. Come on, you must have been monitoring the social media. I've actually got no readers' letters for you today. None. I thought you spent all your day on social media, checking what people are saying about you. No, I. I don't even deign to look at it. So you've got no idea what people thought about our Christmas special, for example?
Speaker 3Okay, I do, yeah. Obviously. Ah, okay. That seemed to go down pretty well. They actually liked the guest as well, Paul Sinclair. They thought he was a good addition. Paul
Speaker 2was great, yeah, yeah. Good. Okay, well, great. So we continue to talk about the idea of the album. The podcast is called The Album Years. You know, as I think we sort of laid out from the very beginning of the podcast, we are focusing on the era that we believe. is the golden era for the album intended to be listened to from beginning to end. And, I mean, could this be the greatest year of all in terms of the amount of albums we're looking at on this list and saying, oh, my God, I love that record, oh, my God, that's a masterpiece? Because it seems to me, I say this every episode with a few exceptions, but this one is really amazing. And we're talking about 1978 here. So we're talking about the immediate kind of aftermath. We're kind of in the sort of slipstream. Of punk and the way that it's kind of shaken up the world of music, but not only punk, also disco music. Disco music and punk music really being the two big sort of innovations in popular music, mainstream music, and how they've shaken up almost everything. And you can see, I think, almost all of the records on this list, you can see the impact of either or both of those
Speaker 3two things, can't you? Yeah, I was going to say, you know, the industry to a certain extent as well was becoming more aware. Of its commercial impact and artists that, if you like, had ridden the 60s and 70s on a wave of idealism were suddenly having to think about what they were producing. Because I was interested that, and we'll talk about it later, but a couple of the artists we deal with, they're actually discussing the industry and the industry pressures that they're facing that they wouldn't have had to maybe a few years earlier. And one of the things I was going to say about this year, difficult to say whether it's the greatest year or not, because we say 1986 almost seemed to be the greatest year. And I'm sure that we're going to find. Many other years that are equally brilliant and some years will produce albums of greater value while overall not being particularly interesting. But this was an overall interesting year. And for me, it's kind of important because it was one of the first years where I was really buying records. Me too. For the first time. And I remember the emotional impact. And I remember going into the stores, buying them. And although this is the album years, the one thing I've got to say is that this was a spectacular year. For singles, that there was a compilation recently, I think it was now that's what I call Punk and New Wave, which doesn't sound promising, but it was a brilliantly compiled effort that mainly took singles from 77 to 81. And I realized that I had bought two thirds of the tracks on that. So as much as actually really succumbing to the power of the album, I bought a tremendous number of singles. And there were a lot of bands who just produced brilliant one offs. You know, it was almost like. The 60s in that sense of artists who were riding creative waves, producing their best work. And that best work might have been an EP or a single rather than album. So, you know, quite a lot was out there.
Speaker 2Yeah. And I think interesting because I was just at the point. I mean, I was 10 years old when 1978 turned around and I was just beginning to buy records, but I couldn't afford to buy albums. So I was primarily getting into music and getting into this idea of owning music by buying, as you say, singles. So I remember buying not Black and White by the Stranglers, but I bought Nice and Sleazy, the single from Black and White. I remember buying Follow You, Follow Me from the Genesis album this year, but never owned the album, you know. So you're right. I think this was probably for us at this point in our lives. This is more about singles than it was about the albums. But anyway, let's move on. So you've made this list as normal. You've kind of you've shot the first volley across the bow and you've sent me your list, which I've kind of edited and reconfigured slightly. And we're going to start with a controversial. And I have to say, I don't really believe in this notion. I'm not sure you do either, but you've put it rather provocatively. You put these albums under the heading of guilty pleasures or indefensibles. Now, I have to say, I really dislike this notion. I don't think you should ever feel guilty for anything you like. And I think we should be way past the point, certainly in our age, Tim, we should be way past the point where we are embarrassed to like something. But I understand. I understand what you're saying. You're kind of saying that these are records that were never hip to admit that you liked and potentially still aren't. So City to City by Jerry Rafferty. I guess he was never cool. Jerry Rafferty was he? He was kind of this rather bearded, bespectacled guy that looked like he was middle aged, even when he was probably in his mid 20s. Yes. But I mean, Baker Street, surely one of the greatest pop singles of all time.
Speaker 3Well. It was an astonishing single. I mean, beautifully produced, really ambitious, sweeping lyric and number one for God knows how many weeks. And yeah, it was one of the many singles I bought this year. And as you pointed out, you know, buying the Stranglers and buying Genesis, it was one of those periods that before you read the music papers, you're just struck by the music. You're not struck by any fashionable desire to buy the music. And I was going to say one of the weird things about this. Period is how much I kind of discovered from television, how eclectic music was on television and even, of course, the great top of the pop. So, you know, when I bought Stranglers, No More Heroes and Baker Street, I bought them primarily because I'd seen them on top of the pops. And that was an interesting thing that this was was kind of not exactly a taste maker or taste shaper, but it introduced you to all sorts of music because it was such a melting pot that era, wasn't it? Of of M.O.R. Prog rock, disco, new wave, you name it.
Speaker 2Yeah. And I think and singers, I mean, Jerry Rafferty, obviously, I guess you'd ultimately describe him as a classic singer songwriter. You know, he came from that tradition. And this is just an album that's almost. I mean, I do have the record now and I never had it at the time. But in recent years, I have bought the record and and listen to the whole record. It's just an album that is almost impossible to dislike. You know, it kind of falls into that same category of albums like Rumors, you know, and Dark Side of the Moon. It's almost impossible to dislike such a beautifully produced, beautifully performed, beautifully crafted set of quite uncool sounding songs. But you just, you know, you get to the point where you just think I don't care. You know, ABBA, of course, being the quintessential band that you would kind of put into that category, it's impossible to dislike. It's not cool. It's never going to be cool, but it doesn't matter because it just brings you so much pleasure and enjoyment. And I suppose a lot of the records in this category like you have here. Now, this is an interesting one, because I think this album. It's an absolute masterpiece. I've always thought it was a masterpiece. And it's kind of illustrating in a way what I was talking about, how the influence of disco and punk are having an influence on almost every corner of the music business. Jeff Wayne's musical version of The War of the Worlds. This is essentially a conceptual progressive rock album that uses disco as its kind of rhythmic bass. So it's kind of very rooted in that era in the sounds like it could almost be played alongside Earth, Wind and Fire. And Donna Summer records, because it has this kind of funky disco rhythmic element, which it wouldn't have had if it had been made two, three, four, five years earlier. So it's very much reflecting the time it's in. But essentially, it has the conceit of being a old fashioned in the best possible sense of the word conceptual rock album. I just think this album is genius. I never get tired of it. So, I mean, what's your take on this album? You put in the guilty pleasures. I kind of understand why, because it was never a hit record. You wouldn't. You wouldn't get the kids who were listening to The Stranglers and Specials admitting they were listening to Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. But that is apart from us, because
Speaker 3obviously I was listening to The Stranglers, The Specials and this. Yeah, I mean, it's one of those albums that I did buy at the time. Loved the package. I loved the scope of it. I'm also a big fan of the H.G. Wells novel, which I recommend people read. And probably once more, it's a top of the pops discovery because it would have been the single forever. forever autumn that would have attracted me to the album um and it's one of those that you're talking about your peter hamill story of you know nadir's big chance being associated with pink gloop that tasted vile and i always have an utterly bizarre memory associated with this because um it was a very turbulent period for me personally which is why i have quite an attachment to some of these records because music really was an escape from a pretty horrible adolescence and um my biggest memory of war of the worlds was that my grandmother was having a nervous breakdown while my foot my grandfather was having a heart attack in the house next door and dying and i had to keep my grandmother entertained while waiting for ambulance and the only thing i could think of was to play her war of the worlds because she loved richard burton yeah so i was going
Speaker 2to say i bet it's the richard burton factor yeah and
Speaker 3it was in between yeah well it wasn't but this was it so in between wild exclamations from a woman having a nervous breakdown she'd go oh lovely voice richard burton what a voice
Speaker 2well and it and it yeah and i understand that no and it is it's it's that proustian thing where you hear a piece of music and it takes you back to a very specific moment in time and sometimes those moments in time are you know they're kind of bad memories in a way or bad things are happening but the music is kind of the soundtrack in your in your kind of memory playback of that time in your life isn't it so i get i get that totally i mean i just i remember listening to jeff wine's war of the worlds with my first ever proper girlfriend uh probably at the age of like 12 or 13 you know just sort of both sort of on our on our fronts reading the booklet as we listen to it and just kind of in awe of that and of course i didn't i hadn't read the book so this the ending was a surprise to me you know it's like uh the oh my god um the bacteria killed the martians sorry that's not a spoiler folks everyone knows that surely right um and it is kind of unique in the world of progressive rock in that it does have this disco funky disco beat on a lot of the songs and i can't think of anything quite quite like it in that respect i was gonna say
Speaker 3alan parsons project had that to an extent didn't they because they're on this year's pyramid they also great album sort of blended disco and funk with a floyd aspect um and it's interesting because because again i was you know like you huge fan of sort of uh donna summer's disco albums of the time and a huge fan of pink floyd so an album like war of the worlds made complete sense to me and there were some beautiful melodies you know the interesting thing about these two albums we've discussed the rafferty and the wayne is that they've both got these immaculate smooth productions that i also associate with parsons work with al stewart and al stewart had town passengers released this year which was it was another strong follow-up that was to his year of the cat success but um yeah i think you're right i think it moves very beautifully it's an album that's clearly had an awful lot of thought behind it unbelievable
Speaker 2years of planning years of planning i mean you can hear that you know a ditto i think this other record you have on the list here andrew lloyd webb's variations this is this is basically another wolf in sheep's clothing isn't it this is a jazz fusion record made by a bunch of jazzers and progressive rock musicians but if you listen to it i mean everyone kind of knows at least everyone in the uk knows variations one to four because it was the theme for many years to the south bank show a very famous tv show but that's only the tip of the iceberg isn't it the more you listen to this record the more you realize it's very very very much immersed in that world of fusion and again progressive rock isn't it um yeah and for that to be coming out in 1978 and being such a big crossover chart success is very much what people are going to forget about this era isn't it they think that they think that it was very much a case of the new sweeping away the old and as we see with these records on this list very much the opposite was the truth that some of the biggest records of the era were the the quote-unquote old-fashioned
Speaker 3records yeah well i mean it wasn't only an album like this i mean think of bands like renaissance and lindisfarne had their biggest hits in 78 as well um i mean this was another album i discovered through tv really because i was an avid south bank show watcher and there was a documentary about it in fact they did a couple of well several music documentaries over the years they did one on talking heads a couple of years after this which was amazing uh yeah well of course smith's um i think this year they did the documentary on variations and they also did a documentary on daryl way who had concerto for electric violin and um it was giving a lot of exposure to this music and i guess that what it was was that an older demographic was maybe buying it that you know we might have been the kids who would have bought the very variations but i think that it would have also been our parents because i remember with variations i think that was in our house because my dad bought it i guess there are still
Speaker 2equivalents to that you know these days you might have albums like you know ibiza songs done by the london symphony orchestra you know albums that attempt to try and straddle that world you know of of sort of hip electronic music and a more kind of you know middle-aged aesthetic for want of a better expression but this this was definitely i think this album is a big success you know success as well as commercial success success i i love it i think it still stands the test of time we're going to move on to two others now now it's interesting that again uh we touched on the fact that the myth of course about the late 70s is that punk rock did away with the old god and and as we've said many times nothing could be further from the truth but it's certainly true to say that a lot of the original way of doing it is not the original way of doing it it's the original way of of quote-unquote progressive rock groups were going through some kind of to put it kindly transitional phase to put it unkindly identity crisis and in your guilty pleasures you have a couple of records that i think fall into the latter category one of these i really really like which is the yes album from this year tomato i'm a big apologist for this record i don't understand and i know you feel the same i don't understand why it gets a bad rap i think it's a very uh it's it's a mad record uh you almost have to you almost have to just go with it it's it's kind of insanity in a way because it's so off with the fairies uh as so often anything with john anderson involved is in the best possible sense of the word but here tracks like arriving ufo and circus of heaven you really have to you really you really have to go with him don't you and i you know i love it and if i allow myself to do that i absolutely love it but you know they're also just fantastic tracks like future times uh on the silent wings of freedom i think as good as
Speaker 3any yeah well onward as good as any of their ballads you know um it was another thing isn't it because i'm going for the one i think was was yes firing in all cylinders you know for me it's a equal best album along with close to the edge and oblivious to all the prevailing trends you know we're making awaken there's absolutely no sense of 1977 going on around that band and and i think it's all the better for it with tomato you're right suddenly you're going to hear a lot of things about the band and you're going to hear a lot of things about the band and you're going to hear a lot of things about the band and you're going to hear a lot of things about the band and you're going to hear a lot of things about the band and you're going to hear a lot of things about the band and you're going to hear a lot of things about the band and you're going to hear a lot of things about the band and you're going to hear a lot of things about with love beach number one it's a stronger more coherent album than works and works volume two works volume two which was just a collection of singles besides outtakes anyway if you gave it a different cover maybe put an armored armadillo on the cover if you started with memoirs of an officer and a gentleman i think people would have a completely different view of it i think this album well i think it's 90 viewed through the cover which of course if for those who don't know it is one of the worst covers of all time where a band associated with mystery mystique and a certain level of quality uh they're on a beach with palm trees behind them bearing their hairy chests and medallions it's it's like a comedy pastiche of um a bgs cover of what people think bgs covers are but the album itself features a 20 minute epic with music by emerson and lyrics by sinfield which i think has some of their sweetest melodies it sounds a little undercooked underproduced but it's actually quite a reasonable story it's beautifully sung because i think lake still has his voice at this stage the other side has one emerson instrumental canario which is okay if you like that type of emerson instrumental and six relatively bland lake attempts at pop ballad so i'm not really going to defend that side i just think it's a really good album i think it's not as bad as people say and i suppose i've always defended it because while i hardly think it is a pinnacle of artistic achievement nor do i think it's the nadir that it's often discussed as being the cover is
Speaker 2awful you're right but then the cover to tarkus is fucking awful too now it's interesting because i was going to mention this about the yes tomato album as well do you think that album would be better regarded if it didn't have a cover because it's a concept that probably sounded good in prince which just doesn't work so is it is it is it perhaps that sometimes the covers distort our our impressions of i was going
Speaker 3to say on one level i think you're entirely right with this medium but on another level not because it was said before we were talking with paul about covers and blue gnar you know one of my favorite bands of all time i i think bar one cover universally dreadful sleeve images but it doesn't dictate doesn't my love of the music but you are right one of the things that i think is what i think these two covers have which maybe the blue gnar don't i don't like the blue gnar covers but what they're not is slapdash and if you look at tomato you look at love beach they're really slapdash it's as if the band do not give a shit they do not care about this and even that squash tomato on the back it's almost like their comments on the music and love beach almost
Speaker 2seems to be mocking the audience well i think that's the difference isn't the blue gnar covers maybe dull but they're not laughable yeah these these covers are laughable and and when you when you combine that with the fact that then the knives were out for these kind of bands at this this period in time certainly in terms of the british uh music press the knives were out when you put a cover like that on your album you're basically just asking to be you know you're putting a target on your backside aren't you yeah i mean you're right you're asking to be punched but somehow when i listened to the music pretty much for the first time ever in my life i was the music kind of seemed to go with the cover i couldn't divorce the two in my mind because the music was not surprising me with how good it was quite the opposite i suppose i still
Speaker 3maintain that if you'd put an hr geiger cover on that and you'd started with the epic though it would not be regarded as one of the best it wouldn't be regarded as the disaster what i'm saying to an extent it's the period it was released in it's the slap dash mocking cover that to an extent dictate our response to that album their factors outside the music because one of the things i was going to say about this year is partly i question my taste more in this year than any other maybe because i was young when i discovered a lot of this music and less formed and so it emotionally impacted on me in a way that it couldn't six or seven years later i don't know it's almost like the year that taste forgot in some respects and and i and i question my liking certain things so you may be right that you know partly because i'd have heard it at a certain time i'm more forgiving of it than i would be ordinarily but also you know sometimes it's fun to defend albums that people think are the utter nadir of western yeah absolutely
Speaker 2no and and and that's partly what the show is is about you know and you and i will both defend albums to each other where the other will play devil's advocate um and this is definitely the case with with the emma slake and palmer i thought it was um shit okay so talking of covers and we are going to move now on to the the category the non-stop rise of the new wave and how many amazing bands came out of that crucible of punk how many amazing bands were given license and given record deals and given a a stage um to i don't mean literally i mean in terms of having a profile to be able to bring their music to a big audience and to be able to bring their music to a big audience because of the change the changing winds and the changing tides and the way that record companies changed the way they thought about music and who they should sign and who they should champion and who should they put their money into so they were putting a lot of money into these sort of so-called punk bands and some amazing bands that obviously had very little to do with punk got signed off the back of that kind of used it as a springboard so bands like japan squeeze stranglers magazine wire and xtc now xtc one of my favorite bands of all time i know the same for you too produced both their debut and their second record this year an extraordinary creative period of time for them both amazing records but again coming back to the hypnosis sleeve go to i think has one of the great record sleeves of all time and it's a sleeve that i kind of a little bit parodied in my future bites campaign it's almost using this idea that you're reminding the listener you're reminding the purchaser the purchaser that they are engaged in an act of commerce so for those of you who don't know it first you should go and look at the sleeve it is very unusual for a hypnosis storm with august and sleeve it's completely text based and it basically starts off by reminding you that you are buying a product and the text just goes on to tell you you're being manipulated you're being marketed to etc it's a wonderfully kind of fresh idea one that's also echoed i think in the public image album i was
Speaker 3about to say yeah public image do the same and
Speaker 2they did it with album
Speaker 3to
Speaker 2an extent as well didn't they in 86 and also with metal box to an extent putting an album in a metal can yeah yeah and a tin can so there's a i think there's a lot of this kind of way of thinking going on with the with the so-called punk or post-punk groups but let's talk about the music one of the things i love about xtc one of the many things i love about xtc is every single album in the catalog has its own completely unique personality uh and something i've aspired to in my own career too and i know you have too with your solo career white music can go to in a sense are the exceptions to the rule and they do seem like two sides of the same coin don't they but they have that kind of fusion of power pop glam um it's it seems to also have a lot in common with what's going in on in new york with the talking has a sort of quirky angular sort of edge to it i'm a big fan of this record these records and i get very frustrated when i see hear people talk about xtc and say oh yeah well you know from drums and wires i was a big fan i kind of discount everything they did before that because i think white music in its own way particularly is one of the great debut albums of all time i mean what fantastic pop songs what what a great sense of energy and playfulness and creativity just sort of tearing out of the speakers at you right from the beginning of radio's in motion what's your
Speaker 3take on these albums yeah i mean another band i discovered through tv i mean this is this was magpie this time because magpie used to do little features on music and um they did one feature which i was a big fan of xtc anyway but they had a huge feature on godly and cream making consequences and the nature of the gizmotron which was rather nice you know for the music for it for a 12 13 year old to watch on tv and with xtc they played uh this is pop and i think they might have had a discussion with the band afterwards i'm not sure but i was hooked on that i thought it was a brilliant single and um yeah i really like these first two albums i guess you could call them the barry andrews years really because they're the two albums that barry made with the band and they've got a real excitement what i think links them to the new york scene because i suspect that at that time they hadn't heard talking heads or pair ubu or patty smith or television um i suspect they were just coming from their own collections and i think what it is that there's a kind of there's a an energy buzz that sort of reminds me of beatles era mid-60s singles but then there's a dissonance that reminds me of captain beefheart and they have this old school rock and roll element that's provided by barry andrews organ and so it's this wild fusion of elements that makes for this very original energetic sound and i think it's almost kind of accidental that it somehow reverberates also in the music of talking heads i think it's probably people coming from entirely different backgrounds but maybe with similar influences because the one thing that the the american bands did have was a real sense of rock and roll culture so you can hear in patty smith and television sometimes talking heads um early funk early rock and roll Um, early Beatles, even, and certainly the birds, you know, were an influence on on patty smith group um and maybe it's that the xtc also had that respect for knowledge of 60s pop music that somehow is filtered through this late 1970s post-punk
Speaker 2sound but i think i think that's interesting because in the american bands you can hear you can definitely hear stuff like velvet underground the doors and in the english groups you can hear things like Roxy Music and David Bowie yeah I think that's a very broad simplification but I do think I don't hear a lot of influence of things like you know the Doors or the Velvet Underground on on Squeeze or XTC or or Magazine but I do hear a lot of Roxy the first four Roxy albums the the Bowie perhaps the Berlin the Berlin albums which were still very fresh at this time but also going back to things like Ziggy and also Glam Rock T-Rex you know yeah um the Sweet Slade it's all in here that kind of love of big stomping but slightly quirky guitar pop music but Andy's vocal delivery of course is something that perhaps you would say wouldn't have been like that if it hadn't been for Punk coming along and kind of pushing him in that direction it's that very kind of arch angular cynical sort of snidey sneering edge to the vocal delivery that Punk has kind of given us and I think that's a very good point and I think that's a very good point and I think that's a lot of these bands
Speaker 3yeah the Barking Seal or something
Speaker 2the Barking Seal but it's interesting because if you take that away from some of these bands there's really very little left that you could even say is Punk in conception isn't it it's usually the vocal delivery that makes it and maybe sometimes the guitar the attack of the guitar so let's I mean let's talk about Magazine I mean they're they're kind of the quintessential is it prog is it punk group aren't they and this
Speaker 3album is full of epics as well isn't it their debut I mean yeah what I love about the Magazine debut is that they just hit the ground running they are themselves straight away it's unashamedly ambitious and yes you can hear certain aspects of Bowie's Berlin experiments and definitely aspects of early Roxy but there's a kind of grandeur that is more Floydian than it is Punk and I think they're one of the great bands actually one of the things I really like about Magazine is that they're one of the bands where every single musician makes a mark and you can recognize that they're one of the great bands and I think that's a really good point and I think you can recognize them fantastic players and distinctive players and it's a band working together whereas you know a lot of band and XTC you could argue with that as well also I think interesting you've pointed out
Speaker 2that this is a year of great debuts great debut records so so we do have White Music by XTC we do have Real Life by Magazine we do have Outlander's Demour I mean let's talk about that record I mean what uh what a band and what a what a debut record I think still possibly my favorite police record the first two records actually but Outlander's Demour I mean and again what a really really unique hybrid and interesting you talk about bands where everyone was instantly recognizable here's a band here's a three-piece band where I think we talked about the police before in one of the episodes and we mentioned this didn't we how instantly you would recognize them and you could recognize them and you could recognize them and you could recognize Stuart Copeland on drums instantly you would recognize Andy Summers on guitar and instantly you would recognize Sting not only as a songwriter but as a bass player and a singer and straight away straight out of the gates that's here that's all here on the opening track on it next to you um but also classic songs you know Roxanne is a real evergreen it's almost a standard now isn't it Roxanne to think this was on the debut record a record I think they cut in like two or three days yeah I was going to
Speaker 3say with a lot of these bands though they'd had pre-history they were lucky so you know you think of magazine and you think as a police certainly they'd had experience previously and many of them were actually older than the prog rock bands you know somebody like Dave Formula the keyboard player of magazine he'd been in a band signed in the mid-60s to Decca well Andy Andy Summers yeah yeah Andy Summers of course worked with Kevin Coyne he'd worked actually with Soft Machine on tour um Sting had been in a jazz rock band and of course Stuart Copeland was in Curved Air for a while as the drummer so these people were experienced musicians and I think this is it isn't it sometimes originality can come when you're fusing your your root influences and your root experiences with what's happening in the here and now and they're giving something absolutely fresh to it and I suppose in the case of police XTC and magazine they're all very musical bands they're great songwriters and they're great musicians but they're blending all of their influences with the energy and the chaos of those changing times at the late 70s very
Speaker 2much so yeah and again so you you mentioned the fact that people like Sting and Andy Summers and Dave Formula have been around for years again they're kind of latching on to punk as a way to to get themselves a foothold in the industry and of course these bands very very quickly kind of kind of discarded the vestiges of punk and post-punk so certainly XTC within you know four or five records had become almost like this post-Beatles singer-songwriter kind of thing so I think it's a really good way to talk about that and I think it's a really good way to talk about that and I think it's a really good way to ensemble you know so that's again a very gross simplification but there was very little left from what you would say punk post-punk or certainly very little left from what you hear on albums like white music and go to and the same would be true of a band like squeeze now the first squeeze album I think is a bit of a misfire I don't think it's a great unlike white music or real life or outlands I don't think they come out the gate with a classic record it's not a good start but it's interesting again that this is a band that you'd have to say secretly they've probably had very little interest in punk yeah but they're kind of using it they're kind of using it because they're giving them a record deal they're going to get records out because this is this is the way of things at this time young bands with aggressive guitars and sneery vocals they get record deals they get on top of the pops so here's a band and actually I think the interesting the one thing I don't like about the first squeeze album is the production by John Cale it just misses the mark well I think they said that he was
Speaker 3just sort of barely there in a lot of his productions during that period and I'm pretty sure I read somewhere where the squeeze guy said that they played whole lot of love to him just as a joke that's kind of you know this is our new song and Cale's going yeah yeah yeah great okay let's get the the tape on he just wasn't listening to what they were doing and so they played some kind of hoary old rock piece and they were sort of testing his awareness throughout this so yeah I think it does sound a bit of a mess but I think take me I'm yours is a brilliant single
Speaker 2I was going to say that's the one caveat to this is there's one track on the album that John Cale did not produce which was produced by the band themselves which was the the one outstanding track on the album which was the hit single take me I'm yours and I and I do remember buying that on seven inch and loving it and then being disappointed with the record you know well
Speaker 3what's interesting about that single is that you know we were talking about influences because it's actually got quite a weird almost electro pop pulse running through it as well as quite sophisticated solos in eastern scales it's a really interesting piece of work actually and it reminds me a little bit of of a band who unfortunately kind of died uh with their one big single airport by the motors you know that was their one single which is a wonderful wonderful single but luckily with squeeze I think take me I'm yours became the template for the second album which was great you know much much better and I think you know really by the late 70s early 80s they were a stunning single band but they were also producing pretty decent albums and and they were more in tune with their influences you know obviously they had come up through the school of Lennon and McCartney and the changes that the Beatles had made and they'd applied that to the late 70s early 80s and I think you know I think very underrated
Speaker 2band absolutely and you know and again I do make the point I think they're an amazing band but this album probably was not the most auspicious start for them but thankfully they did have that one hit single off it which I guess gave them the sort of confidence to go forward or the record company to go forward and allow them to make further records and now they're a legendary band deservedly so so let's have a look at some of the other bands some of the other albums that came out this year that would fall into the non-stop rise of the new wave category two albums from Buzzcocks another music in a different kitchen love bites Elvis Costello and the Tractions this year's model is this also a debut record I think it is the debut isn't it no no my aim is true is the debut yeah yeah my aim is true beg your pardon again two albums by Japan one of our favorites so get your drinks ready guys here comes the first mention of David Sylvian would you say this is an album by David Sylvian I don't know if you've heard of David Sylvian I don't know if you've heard of David Sylvian you could say they were a little bit slow out of the gate because clearly their classic work was to come but but their early records kind of exist in their own world anyway a bit like the XTC records in that sense I'm a big fan of particularly of Obscure Alternatives the second the second album from this year I think they had something really strange and and you know important to also note that it was deeply unfashionable at the time what Japan were doing they were kind of almost ridiculed by the British music press because they didn't really fit in with the background music they were doing they were kind of almost ridiculed by the British music press to basics punk aesthetic in fact they they went for the very glammy makeup big hair and it was more clearly indebted to the the I guess where the influence of Roxy and Bowie was more sort of deep-seated and things like XTC it was very obvious in Japan wasn't it and they they kind of got a little bit of the piss taken out of them for that reason didn't they yeah I mean they also
Speaker 3had a bit of the New York dolls in the image and also the sound right the first two albums are much more raw than what is defined by the British music press I mean the one thing I I do like you I think Obscure Alternatives has got some great stuff on it plus a couple of tracks that really hint at quiet life but the one thing that is interesting that Quiet Life which obviously has a much stronger Bowie and Roxy influence but from the more sophisticated Berlin trilogy end if you like it came as a complete surprise I mean Quiet Life is such a sophisticated work it's and and Sylvan's vocal is so different it could be by a different band you know from from album two to album three they have transformed themselves and of course by Tin Drum Tin Drum is nothing like Quiet Life so one of the things that's interesting is that in a short career with five studio albums they become three very different entities and Obscure Alternatives I think is a good album first album's got some great stuff as well there's a real energy I'm not as much of a fan of the vocal style on the album and clearly it's kind of quite rough compared to what came but it's still very good very imaginative that the seeds of something special are there they're definitely not albums I'd dismiss.
Speaker 2Clearly proper musicians aren't they in inverted commas right from the beginning you can hear there's something different going on uh they're very unique personalities I mean again we talked about the police being one of those groups where everyone is instantly recognizable within within the context of of the group and I think the same is true of Japan if not on the first album second certainly by the second album Mick Kahn Steve Jansen Richard of course all instantly recognizable perhaps less so the guitar player but um yeah I mean I think a band as you said is a band that's very different from what you say it's it's almost hard to imagine anyone being able to like everything in the catalogue so different are the records and we consider ourselves the outliers in that sense we do like at least I like everything XTC did I like everything Japan did and it's interesting because a lot of the albums on this list a lot of the bands on this list I'm looking at I'm thinking the same is true broadly true if I think about a band like Ultravox how much they changed if I think about a band like Wire how much they changed. And you know incredibly short periods of time I mean we always kind of cite the Beatles as being the kind of poster child for this idea of a band developing I mean we forget sometimes the Beatles entire career with all of the changes in direction all of the evolutions all the developments took place in the time it makes Adele to make a follow-up album you know to to her previous billion selling record sorry to pick on Adele she's not the only example you know there are many examples these days of bands taking seven eight nine ten years to make a follow-up record Porcupine Tree here we go again and yet this is the period of time that the entire trajectory of the Beatles career played out and it's not unusual to see some of these bands on this list here the Clash I mean the Clash went from sort of very sort of almost generic punk almost setting the template for what people think about politically charged angsty punk to making ska and reggae music three or four albums later it it's something I know you and I have always loved about artists is that there's a sense of almost impatience to get on to the next thing of course Bowie again another another great exponent of that I
Speaker 3mean one who isn't often seen as this Elvis Costello I mean he has gone through astonishing shifts in his career and you mentioned the jam I mean think about Paul Weller because obviously within a few years he's doing the Style Council you know a kind of a pop soul confection after that he's in sort of folk the Wildwood territory that kind of witch season folk influence but what's important is that he's not just a pop singer he's a pop singer he's a pop singer and what's important I think with all of these artists XTC Japan Elvis Costello Weller is that they remained true to themselves I think emotionally and true to their tastes because of course you know it wouldn't be that interesting if a band went from wild disco to wild metal without a sense of creativity and cohesion and I think this is the thing that the artists brought to it you know when Costello works with Bacharach it is as visionary intense and has a certain to his work on imperial bedroom yeah you're
Speaker 2absolutely right i'm not so familiar with all of the the various corners of elvis costello's catalog but he's always fascinated me i'm always sort of interested to see what he's going to do next i remember about this time or was it a couple of years later he came out and did a country record didn't he yeah yeah yeah almost blue almost blue that's it and i remember seeing the single on i mean this is on top of the pops in 1980 nobody nobody in the mainstream certainly nobody from the sort of so-called post-punk scene was making country music in 90s i mean it's very trendy nowadays to sort of incorporate country elements into your sound isn't it it certainly wasn't then and i and i remember sort of sort of making a mental note this is a really really interesting maverick sort of musician songwriter so yeah absolutely props to him for that so just quickly go through some of the other records that came out this year black and white strings i love this record this was their third record they were kind of almost old hands by this time the stranglers incredibly prolific work right they'd already already produced ratis norvegicus and and no more heroes the previous year so onto the third album and for me that this is uh possibly their greatest record black and white i love this record and fantastic fantastic cover as well the colors yeah
Speaker 3oh that's a brilliant cover yeah that's an example of something again i mean it's so harsh but what's interesting is again if you look at the covers they perfectly encapsulate the mood music as well yes absolutely and i'd agree i think this is one of the most imaginative albums it's during you know their imperial phase and i think raven and you know i've also got a soft spot for men in black i've got to say yeah love it yeah me too really good album so um yeah great album and although it's more focused musically it's pretty diverse in terms of its use of texture uh and very dark album as well isn't it yeah very i
Speaker 2love it yeah some of the other artists we haven't mentioned in this category uh susan the band she's produced another debut another day again a completely unique sound right there from the beginning you can tell they're going to sound like no one else they do sound like no one else right from that first record um x-ray specs germ-free adolescence tubeway army's first album again greater music would follow the following year with gary newman let's move now over to the other side of the pond and the american new wave bands and there's a very very different sound going on with the american bands but the one that definitely crossed over both in the uk and the us was blondie and parallel lines which um is this i mean this is so far away i mean new wave is this new wave it's just pop isn't it i mean i love it i love
Speaker 3it but it's great pop yeah and it's got 60s influences it's got disco influences it does have new wave influences you can see i think what it is was that this music was a reaction to prevailing trends i mean as we said those prevailing trends were the ones that were the ones that were the ones that were the trends were still going on with war of the worlds and variation you know epic concepts were still selling by the million but this was um short sharp shock music that was perhaps a reaction to what was clogging up the fm airwaves and i guess that's the similarity isn't it between um some of the the new wave bands that you know perhaps there's a there's a renewed love of the pop singles we said it was a great year for singles and blondie were one of the best singles bands there were during this time but there's enough depth there you know of course robert fripp drinking game special he gets on this album yeah so the album has slightly more depth i mean the one thing i love about the american artists you know television patty smith talking heads is that they were seemingly more worldly in a way they seem to know more they seem to have experienced more and again in a lot of cases um they were older musicians certainly patty smith group had been around for a while certainly blonde bands had been around for a while and they were blondie had been around for a
Speaker 2while yeah that's true but i do wonder if some of that isn't the grass is always greener phenomenon so we're looking at it from our point of view in the uk and new york certainly at that time would have seemed impossibly exotic to kids growing up in in your case in warrington in my case and i went instead but interesting that the the blondie album is another example of an album that or maybe it's the only example of an album that has both of the two things that i talked about at the beginning of the show the new wave and the disco going on simultaneously so the big song off the record is heart of glass which is clearly a disco inspired song but there is still elements i suppose songs like one way or another still got that kind of new you know new wave edge to um also so also in america we have devo is this the first devo album are we not men we are devo i'm no devo
Speaker 3yeah i'm not an expert either i know a few of the singles and i know that they kind of evolved into a more electro pop
Speaker 2style band had a but never loved them i know that one of their early albums maybe it was this one was produced by mr eno yeah well obviously the eno the drinking
Speaker 3game favorite he's going to come in a lot this time because he produced three albums this year of his own and then also produced the talking heads album from this year which is brilliant their second album
Speaker 2and devo is he part of the drinking game okay so let's just lay out who's part of the drinking game obviously frip sylvan is part of the drinking game yeah you know eno's part of the drinking game is it what about the ham i think
Speaker 3the ham is yeah the ham the bowser i just thought you you've got to add the bowser you've got to add the
Speaker 2bush you've got to talk talk blue nile well in our case yeah you know you're never far away from from dropping a bowser or a ham are you when we're talking yeah in fact we're coming on to the ham later it's a good year for the ham isn't it it's spectacular yeah spectacular year for the ham okay so i'm tim at this point i'm going to have to be a two-parter because we've got three pages of hours to get through we're not even we're just about halfway through page one and we've been talking for an hour and a half so i'm thinking in 1978 two-parter we did a two-parter before didn't we was it it was also a 70s year wasn't it i think it was it wasn't it 79 79 yeah well obviously it's this period in history where we're finding so much to talk about and so many great records to talk about ♪ ♪
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