Memorable Singles from March 1981

Plastics : Diamond Head

Released as a gold flexi-disc 33 1/3 rpm single, "Diamond Head" is just as fun and quirky as you would hope to hear from this Japanese new wave band. Produced by Alex Sadkin who worked on all of the Grace Jones releases this same year. A favorite single of mine from 1981

Altered Images : Dead Pop Stars

The debut single from Glasgow's Altered Images rose to UK#67. The band, coming off a tour opening for Siouxsie and the Banshees, would shed their punk influences quickly enough to record both UK#2 "Happy Birthday" and UK#7"I Could Be Happy" before the year was out. By then front woman Clare Grogan had stolen a million hearts.

Dexy's Midnight Runners : Plan B

The new Dexy's single, which sounds like it could have pulled from Searching For The Young Soul Rebels  only peaked at UK#58. Maybe fans felt they'd already heard this before. David Hepworth of Smash Hits wasn't impressed:

Teardrop Explodes : Reward

Though released in January, "Reward" spent much of the month of March in the UK Top 10. It even got the Liverpool band on Top of the Pops. In his book 'Head On', Julian Cope says the band were doing Acid, speed, booze and weed from breakfast all the way to their appearance. The drugs would take their toll on the band, which would break up by the end of 1982.

Grover Washington Jr featuring Bill Withers : Just The Two Of Us

Thanks to the US#2 hit, Grover Washington Jr's platinum album Winelight topped the US jazz charts for too many months to count. That silky electric piano sound comes courtesy of Richard Tee who also played on Paul Simon's "Slip Slidin' Away". 

Taana Gardner : Heartbeat

The 20 year old Newark singer scored a massive disco hit with "Heartbeat" which would be sampled in the basis of "Lyrics 2 the Rhythm," the song from the "New Jack City" soundtrack by The Essence, Ini Kamoze's ubiquitous 1995 summer hit "Here Comes the Hotstepper," and De La Soul's 1989 hit "B.U.D.D.Y. Remix" 

Dexy's Midnight Runners follow "Geno" with Dear R-R-R-R-Robin

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Dexy's Midnight Runners : There, There, My Dear

[Purchase]

On July 4, 1980 the joyous new Dexy's Midnight Runners follow up to their #2 hit "Geno" is called , "There,There, My Dear" and it too, is climbing up the UK charts where it would peak at #7. That's despite the fact that this epistolary single ("Dear R-r-r-r-r-r-Robin)  is made up of indecipherable lyrics even fellow Brummies would have trouble making out. I do have it on good authority, thanks to the lyrics printed on the back of the 45, that the song provided the upcoming Dexy's debut album with its title Searching For the Young Soul Rebels.

Smash Hits' critic David Hepworth writes:

Dexy's go out on a limb with their crucial follow up, Kevin Rowland delivering the vocal from the very lip of chaos while the horns dig in and hold the rhythm down. The song, in the form of an argumentative latter, pays no mind to any kind of form and just weaves all over the shop; the only real hook is the way he rrrrrolls his rrrrrs every now and again.

Recently Kevin Rowland , upon hearing the song for the first time in a while, tweeted during a Tim's Twitter Listening Party:

 "It's criminal how under acknowledged Kevin Archer is/ The media picked me out and I needed no encouragement. Without Kevin Archer's music, we wouldn't have made a 10th of the impact."

The B-side is a clever cover of Cliff Nobles and Company's 1968 US #2 hit "The Horse"

Never Heard About Oscar Wilde

Dexy's Midnight Runners : Dance Stance

[Purchase]

In November of 1979 Dexy's Midnight Runners released its debut single "Dance Stance" on the independent label Oddball Records. It would reach #40 on the UK Singles Chart in early 1980. Kevin Rowland, an English songwriter proud of his Irish roots, references a range of Irish playwrights and writers including Oscar Wilde, Brendan Behan, Seán O'Casey, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, Eugene O'Neill, Edna O’Brien and Laurence Sterne.

 "I was sick of hearing anti-Irish prejudice all the time from really thick people and the lyrics just spilled out of me," he recalled to The Guardian. "I had this biography of Brendan Behan and on the back it said: 'Some say Behan has the potency of Oscar Wilde...' and listed all these other great writers: Sean O'Casey, George Bernard Shaw and so on."

 Rowland added, "I'd heard of them – that was all – but thought: 'I'll put them in!' I don't think I was ever claiming to have actually read them. I was saying: 'If Irish people are so thick, how come they've produced all these great writers.'"   

To be a member of the Dexy's all members had to quit their day jobs and practice  at all hours. They also had to follow Rowland's costume ideas. The early look was based on Robert DeNiro's Johnny Boy in Mean Streets. The dedication would pay off with two #1 U.K. hits, "Geno" and "Come On Eileen", which topped the U.S. charts in 1983.