438. The Undertones - The Undertones (1979)

















Track Listing

1. Family Entertainment
2. Girls Don't Like It
3. Male Model
4. I Gotta Getta
5. Wrong Way
6. Jump Boys
7. Here Comes The Summer
8. Billy's Third
9. Jimmy Jimmy
10. True Confessions
11. She's A Runaround
12. I Know A Girl
13. Listening In
14. Casbah Rock

Review

This is a really fun album, I would have a bit of a difficulty placing it in any distinct genre, really. It sounds punkish but then it is eminently poppy. The tracks are all catchy bits of pop with very pronounced punk influence, the lyrics are more akin to something like the Beach Boys than any punk really, there is no real anger here, there's some frustration at being young and it almost sounds like throwback lyrics to a more innocent age.

That said it is a lot of fun, the tracks are perfectly crafted, and altough not included in the original release, the single Teenage Kicks, which is a part of most re-releases is a perfectly crafted piece of pop-rock, and most other songs in the album follow the same concept, to different levels of success.

The Undertones produce an album of what is really pretty inconsequential music, but thoroughly enjoyable, almost bubble gummy. It is light punk and there is nothing wrong with that, but it is with albums like this that you know that punk is dead.

Oh, sorry for the strange review yesterday, but I was drunk.

Track Highlights

1. Girls Don't Like It
2. Here Comes The Summer
3. Jimmy Jimmy
4. She's A Runaround

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

By 1977 they were performing their own three-chord pop punk material, and in 1978 they released their debut four-song EP Teenage Kicks on Belfast's Good Vibrations record label. The EP became a hit with support from BBC DJ John Peel, who considered the title song his all-time favourite. The song has been covered by many acts, including: Ash, Skunk Anansie, Busted, Groovie Ghoulies, Sahara Hotnights, The Saw Doctors, Nouvelle Vague, Green Day, Franz Ferdinand, The Coral, The Raconteurs, Violent Delight, Snow Patrol, KT Tunstall, and the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. Falling sales linked to their changing musical direction and tensions within the band led to their split in 1983.

Here Comes The Summer:

437. Chic - Risque (1979)
















Track Listing

1. Good Times
2. Warm Summer Night
3. My Feet Keep Dancing
4. My Forbidden Lover
5. Can't Stand To Love You
6. Will You Cry (When You Hear This Song)
7. What About Me

Review

I just fucking love The Sugarhill Gang.

Nice!

Track Highlights

1. Good Times

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:


Risqué includes three classic Chic hits; "Good Times" (#1 Pop, #1 R&B June 23 1979), "My Forbidden Lover" (#33 R&B, #43 Pop October 13 1979) and "My Feet Keep Dancing" (#42 R&B, #101 Pop December 8 1979). Risqué reached #5 on the US albums chart and #2 on R&B and was followed by the release of the band's first greatest hits compilation Les Plus Grands Succès De Chic: Chic's Greatest Hits in late 1979.

Good Times:

436. Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures (1979)
















Track Listing

1. Disorder
2. Day Of The Lords
3. Candidate
4. Insight
5. New Dawn Fades
6. She's Lost Control
7. Shadowplay
8. Wilderness
9. Interzone
10. I Remember Nothing

Review

This is a pretty amazing album from the best band ever to come out of my adopted land of Manchester, but that is not the only reason why it is so good. This is post-punk at its best, the slower pace, the threat the depression, the doom, it is all here ant it is all perfect.

We had some gothy music with Siouxsie in 1978, but this is an even more radical departure from Punk into something darker and more menacing. Few albums have been more laced with death than this one, but it is done so perfectly that you get the strange oxymoron of it being a joy to listen to.

The name of the band is actually pretty appropriate, taking their name from an SS division there is this whole Eros and Thanatos thing going on here. It all sounds amazing, there is not a single dud in the whole album and there are two real standouts in She's Lost Control and New Dawn Fades, two amazing dark anthems. And then there is that cover, the radio emissions of a star dying, nothing could have been more appropriate and albums rarely have been better than this.

Track Highlights

1. She's Lost Control
2. New Dawn Fades
3. Day Of The Lords
4. I Remember Nothing

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The original LP release contained no track information on the labels, nor the traditional "side one" and "side two" designations. The ostensible "side one" was labeled Outside and displayed a reproduction of the image on the album cover, while the other side was labeled Inside and displayed the same image with the colors reversed (black-on-white). Near the inner groove of the Inside is etched in script: "I've been looking for a guide", a reference to the song, "Disorder". The Outside and Inside designations were also used on the inner sleeve.

She's Lost Control:

435. Talking Heads - Fear Of Music (1979)
















Track Listing

1. I Zimbra
2. Mind
3. Paper
4. Cities
5. Life During Wartime
6. Memories Can't Wait
7. Air
8. Heaven
9. Animals
10. Electric Guitar
11. Drugs


Review

I know I am probably a philistine, but no album of the Talking Heads on the list has yet lived up to the promise shown in 77. Even with my beloved Eno on production this just isn't really as good as it should be, I wasn't really that impressed.

Of course it is hard, if not impossible to say that a Talking Heads album is bad, but one can be underwhelmed and that is the primary feeling that I get from this album, I am underwhelmed. It is still better than 90% of the music out there, I can't take that away from it and frankly it does deserve its place on the list.

It just does not have the chaotic experimentalism of 77, the faults are the same I pointed at in More Songs About Buildings and Food, only more so.

So now I've been disappointed by two Talking Heads albums after falling in love with 77, there is still an opportunity for them to redeem themselves with Remain In Light in not the very distant future. So we'll wait and see.


Track Highlights

1. Animals
2. I Zimbra
3. Electric Guitar
4. Cities


Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The song "I Zimbra" was adapted from the poem "Gadji beri bimba" by Dadaist poet Hugo Ball. Its polyrhythms presaged the direction the band would take on its next album, Remain in Light.

Fascinating Youtube lipsynch of Animals... because he didn't get locked in lockers enough at school:

434. The Fall - Live At The Witch Trials (1979)
















Track Listing

1. Frightened
2. Crap Rap 2/Like To Bioxn
3. Rebellious Jukebox
4. No Xnas For John Quays
5. Mother Sister
6. Industrial Estate
7. Underground Medecin
8. Two Steps Back
9. Live At The Witch Trials
10. Future Pasts
11. Music Scene

Review

Here is one of those rare cases of what is really a subtle album, one of those which improves with every repeated listening, it goes from pretty blah to fucking kick ass in the space of some 10 listen troughs. So if you are still pretty blah about it, keep it up it will become good.

It is one of those albums because it is full of little things in it that make it better and that you only only start to notice as you listen to it again and again, and you find yourself singing along to No Xmas for John Quays or Rebellious Jukebox. Actually I want to invent a Jukebox that would randomly substitute a track for Rebellious Jukebox, like every 100 tracks or so. That would be cool. Could install them around Manchester pubs.

So it is a cool album, not the best thing I've ever listen to, but definitely something to add to my mp3 player. The lyrics are also pretty fun, especially if you have a knowledge of Manchester life. Another thing that you start noticing and liking is the pretty cool organ work on the tracks, giving it just another level.

Track Highlights

1. Rebellious Jukebox
2. Music Scene
3. Futures And Pasts
4. No Xmas For John Quays

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Live at the Witch Trials is the debut album by The Fall, first released on 16 March 1979. It is not, despite its title, a live album, but was recorded in the studio in one day and mixed by producer Bob Sargeant the next. In 2004, bassist Marc Riley told the BBC that the group had been booked into the studio for a week but that Mark E. Smith had fallen ill, leading to the cancellation of the first 3 days. No singles were taken from the album, a practice that would be commonplace for the group until the late 80's.

Interview for the Culture Show, with the precious moment of his reaction to the Death of John Peel: