Some new toys hitting the UK charts this week in 1981

 

Lene Lovich : New Toy

In the week of March 8, 1981 Lene Lovich's "New Toy" entered the UK charts at #72. The song, written by Thomas Dolby about his new Fairlight CMI synthesize, would peak at UK#53. A defining song in the new wave playbook,  I thought it would have been a bigger hit, but David Hepworth apparently had reservations about the song in his Smash Hits review.

Visage : Mind of a Toy

Visage entered the UK charts this same week at #32 with their follow-up to the Top 10 hit  "Fade To Grey".  "Mind Of A Toy" peaked at UK#13, with a great deal of help from the visionary Godley& Creme, whose music video aired on Top of The Pops on March 19th. Keep in mind, we are still five months away from the launch of MTV. 

 

What would we do without Lene Lovich?

Lene Lovich : What Will I Do Without You

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On March 23, 1980 Lene Lovich returned to the UK charts at #63  with her Stiff Record single "What Will I Do Without You",  which would peak at UK#58. The actual release consisted on two 45's made up of two studio tracks from 1979's Flex, the single and "Joan", and four live tracks, "Monkey Talk", "The Night", "Too Tender (To Touch)" and "You Can't Kill Me". The whole lot sells for 96p. 

"A marvelous record, it deserves to be huge!" sez Smash Hits.

Other new singles on the UK charts include "No One Driving" by John Foxx at #32

And "Missing Words" by The Selecter, which debuts at UK#51.

Such a Cold Bird

Lene Lovich : Bird Song

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In September of 1979, a quite remarkable month for new music, let's not forget Detroit's Lene Lovich wowed us with her third Top 40 U.K. hit, "Bird Song". The track from Flex begins and ends with Lovich using her incredible  multi-octave range to imitate a bird's song. The music video is a high concept classic that suggests Lovich is far off her rocker. 

The Undertones : You've Got My Number

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The Undertones also released their fifth single, "You've Got My Number (Why Don't You Use It)". A U.K. Top 40 hit, the song received raves from David Hepworth of Smash Hits who called it "a taut compulsive love song, resting on a guitar figure that could have been lifted from an early Buzzcocks track with Feargal Sharkey, as good a singer as you'll find anywhere, wringing the lyric for every last ounce of desperation. The number on the cover , SIR4024, refers to the Sire single's catalogue number ,not the number to Feargal's mum.

My Lucky Number's One

Lene Lovich : Lucky Number

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On February 12, 1979 Lene Lovich's "Lucky Number" b/w "Home" single entered the U.K. charts at #62. Originally released as a B-side to 1978's "I Think We're Alone Now", the new version shot up to U.K.#3 and has become a defining song of the new wave sound. Her 1978 debut album Stateless was then released in the U.S. where critics raved. Among them, Robert Christgau who gave the album a grade of A-, writing:

It took me half a year to get through my head what an original Lovich is. Women who know how to say when, while not unheard of in rock, tend to come on macho--tough mamas with hearts (and heads) as soft as Papa Hemingway's. But Lovich's goofy energy doesn't distract her from her feelings or damage her sex appeal or conceal a mawkish underside. And although it took an outsider to define her in a ditty ("Say When," which isn't on the import), Lovich does provide her own love song, which has integers in it.

 As for that "Uh-Oooh uh-Ooh" chorus, Lovich says "Sometimes when you don't have a word for what you want to say, you say the nearest thing - or you make a sound that's the nearest thing." 

Ah! Oh! Ah! Oh!

Lene Lovich : Lucky Number

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On July 28, 1978 Stiff Records released the Lene Lovich debut single "I Think We're Alone Now" b/w "Lucky Number". The A side was a cover of a 1967 Tommy James and the Shondells hit. In need if a B side, Lovich knocked out "Lucky Number' in one night. Rereleased with a big splash in January of 1979, a new version of "Lucky Number" would peak at #3 in the U.K. charts and suddenly the new wave sound was no longer a men's only club.

Science Opened Up The Door

Cerrone : Supernature

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On July 23, 1978,  French disco drummer Cerrone's infectious and timeless disco single "Supernature" entered the UK charts  at No 55. It would peak at No 8, after topping disco charts all around the world. Not that anybody was sitting still enough to listen to the environmental lyrics, but they were written by and uncredited Lene Lovich. 

If it were released today would anybody guess it was more than 40 years old? Also, weird video.