Here's a compilation of some music lists mostly culled from Smash Hits and Record World magazines in the Summer of 1981. The laziest post I have ever made, but it's 118 degrees in Washington State and I just...can't ...do more.
Sunday, June 27, 2021
Wednesday, June 23, 2021
What's a Doll To Do? David Johansen and Syl Sylvain releases
When the New York Dolls lost their recording contract the band split up with Johnny Thunder and Jerry Nolan forming The Heartbreaks and Syl Sylvain teaming up with David Johansen for Johansen's solo career. Sylvain helped with the songwriting on a couple of songs here but this is mostly the work of Ex Beach Boy/sideman extraordinaire Blondie Chaplin. Out of the gate, "She Loves Strangers" is the song that connects from Here Comes The Night, released in June of 1981. "Homer" Robert Christgau graded the album a very generous A-, writing "If In Style sounded desperate, this one sounds past caring, and carelessness was always the Dolls' secret. Inspirational Cliché: "You think I'm a whore/But I got a heart of gold."
Sylvain Sylvain : Formidable
Syl Sylvain and the Teardrops is the second solo album from the Dolls guitarist, who passed away in January of 2021. It's a charming pop effort, pretty much lost to history. Hey, I guess that's I do this blog when Trump can't. In any case "Formidable" got some radio airplay in the Summer of '81.
Monday, June 21, 2021
The Specials release the Song of the Year
The Specials : Ghost Town
In June of 1981 The Specials released the Ghost Town EP. The title track would spend three weeks at #1 in the UK and would top the critics end of year polls at the NME, Sounds and Melody Maker. The Village Voice Pazz and Jop Critics poll listed Ghost Town as the best EP of the year as well.
The song was inspired by a UK tour The Specials did to promote their second album.
In 2002 Dammers told The Guardian, "You travelled from town to town and what was happening was terrible. In Liverpool, all the shops were shuttered up, everything was closing down ... We could actually see it by touring around. You could see that frustration and anger in the audience. In Glasgow, there were these little old ladies on the streets selling all their household goods, their cups and saucers. It was unbelievable. It was clear that something was very, very wrong."
The song is also a reflection on the band, which had been written off by critics and would soon break up. There's surely enough misery here for everyone.
The Kinks : Better Things
If you're looking to the Kinks to get cheered up, you're out of luck. Despite the title, the UK#46/US#90 "Better Things" is a a breakup song Ray Davies wrote about his failing marriage. This Give The People What They Want track was covered by Pearl Jam and Dar Williams.
Future Yo La Tengo/ present day rock critic Ira Kaplan named "Better Things" one of his fave songs of the year.
IRA KAPLAN (alphabetical):
Cramps: "Goo Goo Muck"/"She Said" (I.R.S.);
Cyclones: "You're So Cool"/"RSVP" (Little Ricky);
Fleetwood Mac: "Farmer's Daughter" (Warner Bros.);
Funky Four Plus One: "That's the Joint" (Sugarhill);
Vic Godard and Subway Sect: "Stop That Girl" (Oddball import);
Grace Jones: "Pull Up to the Bumper" (Island);
Kinks: "Better Things" (Arista);
R.E.M.: "Radio Free Europe"/"Sitting Still" (Hib-Tone);
Skeletons: "Trans Am"/"Tell Her I'm Gone" (Borrowed);
Voggue: "Dance the Night Away" (Atlantic).
The Freshies: I Can't Get Bouncing Babies By The Teardrop Explodes
Chris Sievey returns with another long-titled single that sounds like something the girl on the Manchester Virgin Megastore check-out desk might tell a customer.
Ben Watt : Can't
Finally future Everything But The Girl Ben Watt releases his first single on Cherry Red Records. It's called, in keeping with this post's theme, "Can't". The song and the two B sides are produced by Kevin Coyne.
Saturday, June 19, 2021
Juju is a new peak for Siouxsie And The Banshees
Siouxsie And The Banshees : Arabian Nights
On June 19, 1981 Siouxsie and The Banshees released Juju, one of the albums recorded with Magazine's John McGeoch on guitar. His swirling guitar sound joins Budgie's drumming and Steve Severin's bass playing to create a dark and heavy atmosphere for Siouxsie's commanding vocals. And by commanding, I mean that she commands listeners on Spellbound "When your elders forget to say their prayers, take them by the legs and thrown them down the stairs".
Met with critical acclaim, Juju peaked at UK#7 and was released in North America on PVC in October where the band toured for six weeks, selling out shows in Los Angeles. Severein told Cashbox "We're not interested in cracking America. We like success and our audience seems to be growing all the time, but we'd rather enjoy ourselves than 'slog away' like so many other bands. The desperation to make it really big brings out the worst in people. "
ROCKERILLA BEST ALBUM OF THE YEAR 1981
1. Siouxsie & the Banshees - Ju Ju
2. Joy Division - Still
3. Echo & the Bunnymen - Heaven up here
4. P.I.L. - The flowers of romance
5. New Order - Movement
6. Brian Eno & David Byrne - My life in the bush of ghosts
7. Motorhead - No sleep till' Hammersmith
8. Clock Dva - Thirst
9. Psychedelic Furs - Talk talk talk
10. Cure - Faith
11. Iron Maiden - Killers
12. John Foxx - The garden
13. Riot - Fire down under
14. Bauhaus - Mask
15. Lounge Lizards - The Lounge Lizards
16. Killing Joke - What' this for
17. Tuxedo Moon - Desire
18. Exploited - Punk's not dead
19. Rip Rig & Panic - God
20. Tygers Of Pan Tang - Spellbound
Friday, June 18, 2021
The Sparks Brothers: Your Favorite Band's Favorite Band
Sparks has been called your favorite band's favorite band.
“Throughout all the years that I've been making music, if you get on a tour bus with a bunch of musicians, eventually the conversation will go to Sparks,” Beck says in The Sparks Brothers, a documentary directed by Edgar Wright (Baby Driver, Shaun of the Dead).
“The reason I wanted to make this documentary is I felt that Ron and Russell and Sparks were like the greatest and most influential artists that didn't have a documentary about them,” Wright says.
During the 1970s when weird music could actually top the charts, nobody had more weird hits, at least in the UK, than Sparks.
The documentary tells the story of two Southern California siblings, Ron and Russell Mael, who joined forces to make ambitious pop music. They scored nine UK chart hits in the '70s including the operatic UK#2 hit "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us".
Evening’s Saint Bryan is a huge fan and he wondered if Ron Mael ever came up with a melody that was so convoluted that his brother wondered if he could sing it.
“He does that all the time,” laughs Russell Mael. “From day one they've been convoluted.”
“That's called Sparks songs,” laughs Ron Mael.
“No option but to sing it,” adds Russell Mael.
The band's image also caught on with fans of both sexes. Long-haired and handsome Russell Mael could be mistaken for any 1970’s pin-up. His brother, on the other hand, wore a mustache that reminded people of Adolf Hitler and glowered at the audience.
Bryan asked Ron Mael what it was like seeing teenage girls rush the stage to kiss his brother.
“Oh they kissed him too as you see in the documentary,” interjected Russell Mael. “ There's one that was a super fan who's in love with Ron.”
“I don't have quantity but I have quality,” laughed Ron Mael. “The more intellectual, introspective ones are the ones that come after me so I don't feel deprived at all.”
Sparks has kept reinventing its sound, scoring hits overseas to this day. The Mael brothers even have a second movie coming out this Summer. They wrote the screenplay and music for Annette, a film that will be distributed by Amazon Studios in August.
How long can the Mael brothers, both in their 70’s, keep this up?
“I've often asked that question,” Ron Mael says. “When we saw the first record that we had ever done in 1971, that was enough. We said we made it. That's all we need. We don't have a plan, so this could go on for quite a bit longer and Edgar has already signed on to do the sequel to this documentary so we're set."
“Sparks: the next 50th,” adds Wright.
The Sparks Brothers can now be seen in local theaters.
Thursday, June 17, 2021
Out To Offend : Oingo Boingo's debut and other June 1981 releases
Oingo Boingo : Little Girls
When Oingo Boingo released their debut album Only A Lad on June 19, 1981, the NME's Robin Eggar wrote "this record will make the kind folks up at Virgin Records as sick as parrots. You see Oingo Boingo have made the album they've always wanted XTC to make. Full of fractured rhythms, pop hooks, warped humor and commercial appeal".
The album's most notorious track is "Little Girls", Danny Elfman's character study of the a type he saw all the time. "Out here in Hollywood, you see so much of that; the older guy's in the car with some young girl who essentially asks no questions," he said. The video , directed by his brother Richard, was banned in Canada.
Some other noteworthy tracks are "Only A Lad", "Capitalism" and their cover of The Kinks' "You Really Got Me".
Killing Joke : Follow The Leader
On the second Killing Joke album furious tribal drum beating replaced synthesizers Yes, the songs on What's This For drone on endlessly but that's all for the master effect. Killing Joke played dark and disturbing music, but you definitely could dance to it! Reviews were mixed with Melody Maker's Adam Sweeting providing the dissenting opinion:"a tired and very noisy collection of ripoffs", and deemed the whole effort "unlistenable ... apart from the spaces between the tracks" .
T.S.O.L : Code Blue
In June of 1981 True Sounds of Liberty released their debut album Dance With Me. The band is essentially trying to come up with a fusion of hardcore and "Monster Mash".
The highlight is "Code Blue", a song about having sex with dead women :
Never on the rag or say leave me alone
They don't scream and they don't moan
Don't even cry if I shoot in their hair
Lying on the table she smiles and she stares
I actually saw TSOL play in New York City. I was so loud I never realized what they were singing about.
Tuesday, June 15, 2021
Some New Romantics: Double Duran and the Village People
Duran Duran : Girls On Film
On June 15, 1981 Duran Duran released its self-titled debut album, which would peak at UK#3 and US#10 a couple of years later. The A-side is almost entirely made up of hits: the UK#5 "Girls On Film", the UK#12 "Planet Earth", then "Anyone Out There", followed by the UK#37 "Careless Memories"( which sounds an awful lot to me like "A Girl's Mammaries" and, on the reissues, the 1983 UK#1 "Is There Something I Should Know". Duran Duran takes everything they could learn from Roxy Music (including Bryan Ferry's fashion sense) and the dance clubs and melds them together for one of the defining sounds of the decade.
As if pin-up looks weren't enough, the band achieved notoriety for its videos, particularly the Godley and Creme produced "Girls On Film", which featured female models in various stages of undress. Andy Warhol once said he masturbated to Duran Duran videos.
Village People : Food Fight
On the same week in June, The Village People followed up the Razzie Award winning Can't Stop The Music by rebranding. They traded in their costumes and hopped on the New Romantic scene, which was enjoying its heyday with the likes of Adam And The Ants, Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran. It's one of the more bizarre moments in musical history, but people who have taken the time to listen to the Renaissance album say it's not as bad as you might think. Still, the punk rock "Food Fight" may be regrettable.
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