424. X-Ray Spex - Germ Free Adolescents (1978)
















Track Listing

1. Art I Ficial
2. Obsessed With You
3. Warrior In Woolworths Back
4. Let's Submerge
5. I Can't Do Anything
6. Identity
7. Genetic Engineering
8. I Live Off You
9. I Am A Poseur
10. Germ Free Adolescents
11. Plastic Bag
12. Day The World Turned Dayglo

Review

As my wife says this is the band Blondie could have been. And not in a sarcastic way as well, this is a really amazing album. It is a punk album with two amazing secret weapons, the voice of Poly Styrene and the sax. The two together make this unlike anything else.

This is exciting music at its most exciting. The whole album is pretty amazing from beginning to end and it never lets up there is never a dull moment here, it is amazing all the way trough.

The lyrics are as good as anything in the album as well, they are little vignettes of anger towards a commodified society where even the act of being "alternative" is commodified in itself. It is great, smart stuff by Poly who was a pretty young girl at the time, just 21... it's not Orson Welles but good on her.

Really recommended, you need this album, if you didn't know that you know it now. You really need this.

Track Highlights

1. The Day The World Turned Dayglo
2. I Can't Do Anything
3. Let's Submerge
4. I Am A Poseur

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The group played a fortnight's residency at New York's CBGB's, even though Germ Free Adolescents was not released in America until 1992. Exhausted by touring, Poly Styrene left the band in 1979 to release a solo album, Translucence, before joining the Hare Krishna movement (as did Logic, who left the band aged 16 in 1977 to form a new group called Essential Logic).

Without Styrene, the group lost its momentum and split up. Hurding and London went on to form Classix Nouveaux, while Paul Dean and Rudi Thompson went on to form Agent Orange with Anthony (Tex) Doughty, who later become a founding member of Transvision Vamp.

The Day The World Turned Dayglo:



Poly speaks on The Punk Years:

423. Chic - C'est Chic (1978)





















Track Listing

1. Chic Cheer
2. Le Freak
3. Savoir Faire
4. Happy Man
5. I Want Your Love
6. At Last I Am Free
7. Sometimes You Win
8. (Funny) Bone

Review

Here's Disco! Around this time particularly in the States there was the whole Disco Sucks movement, and while it is true that a lot of Disco sucks, that whole movement was slightly misguided, because if there was a load of shit in Disco the same was true of the Hard Rock scene or whatever and then you had some gems in disco. This album is one of those.

C'est Chic is basically the album that the P-Funk would have made if their primary concern was to sell albums. High quality party music but with high commercial expectations. It is actually a pretty nifty album.

It is refreshing to listen to something as uncomplicated as this but still being some quality music. The funk influence is the most apparent thing in this album but then it is danceable... and what is wrong with that? Unfortunately not all Disco albums were as good as this and in about two years the whole scene would be dead. But they left some good remains.

Track Highlights

1. Le Freak
2. I Want Your Love
3. Chic Cheer
4. At Last I Am Free

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

"We were so fucked off at what had happened. I mean, it was Studio 54, it was New Year's Eve, it was Grace Jones, and we were wearing the most expensive outfits that we had — back then, in the late '70s, our suits must have cost us a couple of thousand bucks each, and our really fancy shoes had got soaked trudging through the snow. So 'Fuck Off' was a protest song, and we actually thought it was pretty good — 'Aaaaahh, f**k off!' It had a vibe. I was thinking 'This could be the anthem of everybody who gets cut off on the street by a cab driver or any kids who want to say this to their parents.' You know, 'Hey, I wasn't saying it, man! I was just playing the record.'

"We really had pretty big designs on completing the song as 'Fuck Off'. You've got to remember, we didn't think of that prior to sitting down and playing. Once we did sit down and play and started singing that hook, it sounded good; just as good as 'freak out'. In fact, had we not come up with ' off' we would never have written 'Freak Out' and some other song would have been our big hit record. We were screaming it: 'Aaaaahh, fuck off!' Bernard and I usually wrote the hook of a song first, and then once we felt we had a chorus that would pay off, the rest of the song would follow. So, that night we actually converted 'fuck off' to 'freak out'. That was part of the process that first night. First, we changed it from 'fuck off' to 'freak off', and that was pretty hideous. We were singing it and just stumbling over 'freak off', because it was so lame by comparison. Then, all of a sudden it just hit me. For one second the light bulb went on and I sang 'Aaaaahh, freak out!'"

Le Freak:

422. Willie Nelson - Stardust (1978)













Track Listing

1. Stardust
2. Georgia On My Mind
3. Blue Skies
4. All Of Me
5. Unchained Melody
6. September Song
7. On The Sunny Side Of The Street
8. Moonlight In Vermont
9. Don't Get Around Much Anymore
10. Someone To Watch Over Me

Review

Willie moves slightly away from Country music to grace us with songs from the great songbooks... I can't say American Songbook because September Song is by Kurt Weil. I say slightly moved away from Country because there is a definite case of Willie's roots showing here and that is not necessarily a bad thing, Willie makes these songs his own.

At times the tracks might be a bit overly tacky or sentimental, and after Ghost who can listen to Unchained Melody without cringing? Still Willie show a definite tender side to himself and he really seems to feel what he is singing. They are definitely convincing performances.

This is one of the first cases and a door opener for many other singers later, and particularly in the last 10 years who have decided to tackle similar material in order to broaden their audience. Sometimes it works (Bryan Ferry) sometimes it is successful commercially but makes your ears bleed (Rod Stewart) and sometimes they take the reverse approach (Paul Anka)... but it seems to be a guaranteed cash-in, and it was for Willie as well. But Willie is good at it, he keeps it in his capabilities and imparts them with sincere feeling... good on him. As my wife says cute and lovely but tacky.

Track Highlights

1. Georgia On My Mind
2. September Song
3. Stardust
4. On The Sunny Side Of The Street

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In 2003, the album was ranked number 257 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.


Georgia On My Mind:

421. Marvin Gaye - Here, My Dear (1978)

















Track Listing

1. Here My Dear
2. I Met A Little Girl
3. When Did You Stop Loving Me When Did I Stop Loving You
4. Anger
5. Is That Enough
6. Everybody Needs Love
7. Time To Get It Together
8. Sparrow
9. Anna's Song
10. When Did You Stop Loving Me When Did I Stop Loving You
11. Funky Space Reincarnation
12. You Can Leave But It's Gonna Cost You
13. Falling In Love Again
14. When Did You Stop Loving Me When Did I Stop Loving You

Review

I just love the Gaye, nothing like a bit of hard Gaye action to make my day. Still this isn't the steamy Gaye loving that we have come to expect, or even the Gaye interventionism of What's Going On. This is a oeuvre of Gaye spite.

Marvin got dumped by Anna, Marvin is miffed, she is getting the royalties for this album so he goes ahead and titles it Here, My Dear and proceeds to chronicle the collapse of their relationship. Venting his spite mixed with tenderness as it always is in a hurtful breakup. He hates her now, but he loved her once... and maybe a little bit now.

OK, there are problems with the album, it is a bit monotonous, it sounds a bit like little shifts of the same song, it is sprawling over two albums and it can feel like too much of a good thing and it is overly autobiographical, making you feel like telling him to pucker up.

It is because of those things that this is not the perfection of What's Going On or Let's Get It On. Still, quite listenable.

Track Highlights

1. Is That Enough
2. Anger
3. You Can Leave, But It's Going To Cost You
4. When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

When Here, My Dear was released in the end of 1978, it was panned by consumers and critics alike, who called the album "bizarre" and "uncommercial". The album's lack of success angered Gaye to the point that he refused to promote it any further. Motown stopped promoting Here, My Dear in early 1979, by which point Gaye had gone in to self-imposed exile.

The album was re-evaluated in the years following its original release, and is today seen as a landmark in Gaye's career. It is voted as one of the greatest albums in music history including Mojo Magazine (1995) and Rolling Stone magazine's critics poll (500 Greatest Albums of All-Time) (2003), among others.


What a beautiful video for Anger, Thank you Youtube!:

420. The Saints - Eternally Yours (1978)

















Track Listing

1. Know Your Product
2. Lost and Found
3. Memories Are Made of This
4. Private Affair
5. Minor Aversion
6. No, Your Product
7. This Perfect Day
8. Run Down
9. Orstralia
10. New Centre of the Universe
11. (I'm) Misunderstood
12. International Robots

Review

I should have like this album more than I did, there are some really good things here. First it isn't just run of the mill punk, there are some original innovations here, like the use of brass in the first track for example, and the album does show quite an amount of skill and originality throughout.

Still there was some spark missing here, these are people disillusioned with the whole Punk scene, and for good reason, due to its commercialism and how conformist it had become. Basically if you were a punk you were conforming to a specific style, of clothing, speech, music and all had terribly strict rules. If you wanted to smash the system you had to conform.

The problem is that The Saints really don't deviate enough from Punk formulas, and by this time I, and everyone else is starting to get tired of those same formulas. Sure they try, but aren't terribly successful, but at least they try and therefore have some merit.

Track Highlights

1. Know Your Product
2. No, Your Product
3. This Perfect Day
4. Memories Are Made Of This

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

A transitional record for The Saints, "Know Your Product" developed the aggressive punk sound of their debut single "(I'm) Stranded" (1976) while anticipating the horn-driven R&B of their next album Prehistoric Sounds (1978). Regarding its musical influences, singer Chris Bailey later said, "Thank Sam and Dave for the brass section! And Stax's horns." Lyrically the song was a cynical take on consumerism; in a 2004 interview, guitarist Ed Kuepper agreed that it was "like a distant cousin to '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction'."

Know Your Product: