Social History

444. The Buggles – Video Killed the Radio Star (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

No song sums up the dawning of a new decade and changing times like Video Killed the Radio Star. It heralded the video age, with MTV choosing it to kick the channel off. And it introduced the world to one of the best producers of the 80s.

Before

Trevor Charles Horn was born 15 July 1949 in Hetton Le Hole, Houghton le Spring, County Durham. The second of four children, Horn’s father was a semi-professional musician, who taught him how to play the basics of double bass when he was only eight. He also learnt the recorder at school, but by the mid-60s he loved The Beatles, Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones. By then, Horn had already been in a group, The Outer Limits, as a guitarist, but after leaving school he worked at a rubber factory and spent two evenings a week as a Dylan-style singer. He even had his songs played on BBC Radio Leicester.

Horn moved to London at 21 and became a session musician, producing jingles and recording with rock groups. He also featured in Ray McVay’s big band, appearing on the BBC’s Come Dancing. Three years later, Horn was becoming increasingly interested in production. He became involved in the completion of a recording studio in Leicester and subsequently produced there, among others, Leicester City FC.

By 1976, Horn was back in London and joined the touring band for the disco singer Tina Charles as her bassist. Her keyboardist was Geoffrey Downes.

Downes, born 25 August 1952 in Stockport, Cheshire, had musical parents, who played piano. He followed in their footsteps, taking up keyboards in several local bands. He studied at Leeds College of Music and then moved to London for session work on jingles. Downes then featured in the group She’s French, before meeting Charles and Horn.

Horn briefly became Charles’s boyfriend, and he studied the techniques of her producer, Biddu, who made her number 1 single, I Love to Love (But My Baby Loves to Dance). Also in the touring band was guitarist Bob Woolley, and Horn, Downes and Woolley found they shared a mutual interest in Kraftwerk’s The Man-Machine album. The trio talked about the future of pop, and imagined a time when there would be a record label without any human artists, just a computer in a basement with one man creating groups and songs on his computer. One such group would be called The Buggles, perhaps, in a reference to The Beatles.

The trio began recording demos above a stonemason’s. One song, Video Killed the Radio Star, was written in an hour one afternoon in 1978. Largely by Horn and Woolley, the latter was the man behind the infectious chorus. A demo was recorded, with Charles on vocals. Perhaps in part due to her star power and the fact Downes’ girlfriend worked for Island Records, the label decided to sign them. Of course, it could have just been that they recognised a bloody good song when they heard it.

As The Buggles, the trio began recording the album The Age of Plastic six months after their debut single had been written. But Woolley, who had also co-written Clean, Clean and On TV, decided to form a different new wave group. The Camera Club also featured Thomas Dolby, and their version of Video Killed the Radio Star was released before the more famous version. Without Horn and Downes’s production, The Camera Club version was rougher around the edges and not a patch on The Buggles version, but it’s a decent enough curio.

Meanwhile, The Buggles more complex version needed time to get right, and took more than three months work in the studio. Downes contributed a new intro and middle eight and the verses were extended. The instrumental track was recorded at Virgin Records’ Town House in West London in 12 hours. Mixing and the vocals were put together at Sarm East Studio.

In addition to Horn on bass and lead vocal, Downes provided synthesisers and percussion. Paul Robinson was on drums, Dave Birch played lead guitar and Debi Doss and Linda Jarmin provided the backing vocals. The song was mixed by Gary Langan, who later recalled it took forever, in part due to Horn’s obsession with the sound of the bass drum and the vocals. To achieve the old radio effect of Horn’s vocal, featuring a clipped accent akin to the type of singers heard back in the first days of the singles chart in 1952, his voice was compressed and played through a Vox amplifier.

Review

I’ve always enjoyed and been fascinated by Video Killed the Radio Star, dating back to seeing the video as a child. Due to Horn’s ‘mad scientist’ appearance, the female backing singers and the production used on Horn’s vocal, you can be fooled into thinking it’s nothing more than a catchy but possibly annoying novelty song. But of course there’s more to it than that. The Buggles are at once looking to the future of music and mourning its replacing of the past. Woolley, Horn and Downes certainly predicted well – video did become incredibly important in the early 80s, and it was inevitable that the fledgling MTV picked it to mark its debut on 1 August 1981. Videos have become more common in this blog of late, and once I reach the 80s, most number 1 singles will have one.

For this song, the video is almost as important was the song itself. Written, directed and edited by Australian Russell Mulcahy, it was filmed in South London in a day. A young girl, who wears a rather creepy, deadpan expression, fiddles with a 50s-style radio, before a black-and-white Horn appears holding the type of mic held by the likes of trad-pop singers in the formative years of the charts. The radio explodes and suddenly we’re transported to the future. The Buggles perform in an all-white studio while a woman in a futuristic outfit and wig cavorts in a clear plastic tube. The all-white studio is a regular feature of late-70s, early-80s videos – was it a deliberate style choice or was it done to save money? The weird camera angles and generally odd demeanour of everyone definitely freaked me out as a young boy, but there was no denying the quality of the song. Oh, and famous film composer Hans Zimmer makes a brief appearance too.

Horn’s vocal is of course comical, but it adds colour to the song and recalls the days of yore when singers and radio announcers really did talk like that. The new wave vocals of Doss and Jarmin are a great counterpoint, with the production making them swirl and stand out when listening on headphones. Although the production and video certainly embrace the future, the lyrics to Video Killed the Radio Star suggest otherwise, and profess a wish to hold back time and see ‘VTR’ as the enemy (not VCR, as I thought until googling the lyrics). I love the pause and ghostly echo before ‘You are the radio star’, and you get more of the melancholy behind the song with the coda that comes at the end of the album version. Although The Buggles may not have had the star power to be remembered for more than one song, it’s clear from Video Killed the Radio Star that Horn was going to be a brilliant producer in the years ahead.

After

Video Killed the Radio Star went to number 1 in many European countries and Australia, but only scraped into the US chart at 40. The debut Buggles LP, The Age of Plastic, was released in January 1980 and peaked at 27 in the UK. Their second single, Living in Plastic, climbed to 16, then Clean Clean reached 38. It was the last chart action the duo had.

As The Buggles set to work on their next album, the prog rock band Yes were in the next-door studio. Their vocalist Jon Anderson and keyboardist Rick Wakeman had left during the sessions and they had yet to find replacements. Horn in particular was a big Yes fan, so Horn replaced Anderson, Downes was the new keyboardist, and The Buggles worked on the new Yes LP, Drama. Although the album performed well, many hardcore Yes fans weren’t keen on the new line-up, and Yes were booed during the accompanying tour. They split up that December.

The Buggles reconvened in January 1981 to begin second album Adventures in Modern Recording. However, Downes had decided to join the new supergroup, Asia. On the first day of recording with Horn, he quit The Buggles.

Horn soldiered on alone and Adventures in Modern Recording was released that November. It was a flop, but many of the studio techniques he adopted over the next few years were introduced here, including the use of sampling thanks to the Fairlight CMI. Without a band to help out, he enlisted Sheffield New Romantics ABC (by then he was working on their classic album Lexicon of Love). Their performance on Dutch TV to promote the single Lenny marked the end of The Buggles.

Over the years Downes became the longest-serving member of Asia. He also released solo albums, sometimes as The New Dance Orchestra. since 2011 he’s worked with Yes and Asia. Along the way, he made it into the Guinness Book of Records by performing with a record 28 keyboards on stage during one performance.

And Horn? Well, he produced some of the hottest acts of the 80s and worked on some of the greatest singles of all time, many of which went to number 1, so we’ll see his name a lot in years to come. Grace Jones, Dollar, Malcom McLaren, Yes, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Pet Shop Boys all benefitted from his magic touch. Relax, one of the greatest chart-toppers of the decade, was, bar Holly Johnson’s brilliant vocal, all Horn’s work. He also co-formed avant-garde synth pop group Art of Noise, in 1983. Such was his influence, he became known as ‘The Man Who Invented the Eighties’.

In the 90s Horn worked with Seal, Paul McCartney and Tom Jones, to name but three. In 2002 he produced the number 1 All the Things She Said for Russian duo t.A.T.u. It’s worth noting that in 2009 he produced the Robbie Williams album Reality Killed the Video Star, which showcased their mutual disdain for shows like The X Factor.

In 2006 he formed supergroup The Producers, featuring, among others, Lol Creme of 10cc. They’re now known as The Trevor Horne Band. He’s also worked with current stars including John Legend and performs with Dire Straits Legacy.

The Outro

Horn and Downes have reformed The Buggles briefly several times since 1998. It wasn’t until 2010 that the first ever actual concert, billed as ‘The Lost Gig’, finally happened. This fundraiser for the Royal Hospital for Nero-disability saw them perform The Age of Plastic in its entirety, with help from a cavalcade of stars including Creme, Alison Moyet, Gary Barlow and Richard O’Brien.

In 2017 Horn announced that he, Downes and Woolley were working on a musical called The Robot Sings. Based on The Tempest, it would feature The Buggles’ number 1, plus new compositions by Downes.

The Info

Written by

Bruce Woolley, Trevor Horn & Geoff Downes

Producers

The Buggles

Weeks at number 1

1 (20-26 October)

Meanwhile…

23 October: All remaining foreign exchange controls were abolished.

24 October: Welcome home to ITV! After 10 weeks of industrial action, the ITV strike came to an end.

443. The Police – Message in a Bottle (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

Formed in the ashes of punk, The Police were one of the most successful new wave bands, combining rock, punk, reggae and jazz influences. They had five UK number 1s between 1979 and 1983 and sold over 75 million records, making them one of the bestselling bands of all time. And singer-songwriter Sting went on to become very famous indeed as a solo star.

Before

Two thirds of The Police first teamed up in late November 1976, when Stewart Copeland met Gordon Sumner. Copeland was born in Alexandra, Virginia, but moved to the UK briefly in the 60s and again in 1974 to become the road manager for prog rock group Curved Air. He then became their drummer, but the band had split by the time of his first encounter with Sumner.

Sumner, from Northumberland, was a teacher who performed bass with the Newcastle Big Band and Phoenix Jazzmen on his time off. While with the latter he earned his nickname due to a black and yellow striped jumper he was fond of wearing. He co-founded the jazz fusion group Last Exit in 1974 but they split the same year as Curved Air.

Copeland was inspired by punk and suggested to Sting they form a new group and join the scene in London. Sting moved there in January. He was less keen on punk, but ambitious to succeed and saw how it could create opportunities. Corsican guitarist Henry Padovani became the third member.

The Police performed their debut gig in Newport, Wales on 1 March 1977, which apparently only lasted 10 minutes. Two months later came their first single, Fall Out, on Illegal Records, founded by Copeland, his brother Miles Copeland III and Paul Mulligan, their manager.

That May, Sting was invited by former Gong member Mike Howlett to perform in his new project Strontium 90. When the planned drummer became unavailable, Sting took Copeland along. Also in Strontium 90 was Andy Summers. The Lancashire-born guitarist had previously played with Eric Burdon and The Animals and with Kevin Ayers. Strontium 90 recorded some demo tracks and among them was Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, a future number 1 for The Police.

Sting was becoming frustrated with Padovani’s ability and asked Summers to join The Police. Summers would only do so if he replaced Padovani but Sting and Copeland couldn’t go through with telling him, but only two gigs later, Summers issued them with another ultimatum and Padovani was out. He joined Wayne County & The Electric Chairs.

Sting became more excited about the avenues The Police could explore in their new line-up, and the songs came thick and fast. But they were struggling for money, and it was the opportunity to star in an advert for Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum, directed by Tony Scott, which resulted in the trio dying their hair blonde. The advert never aired, but there peroxide cuts made them stand out, as did their looks in general, particularly Sting.

Copeland III leant The Police money to finance their debut LP, Outlandos d’Amour. Released in November 1978, it had been preceded by Roxanne in April. This reggae-influenced tale of a prostitute was claimed by their label to have been banned by the BBC, which wasn’t true. But they did ban the follow-up Can’t Stand Losing You due to the sleeve pic of Copeland hanging himself. Neither single, nor their next, So Lonely, charted.

However, in February 1979 Roxanne was released in the US and it did pretty well, peaking at 32. It was re-released in the UK and following a performance on Top of the Pops it scored them their first hit, climbing to 12. Suddenly they had momentum. A US tour was followed by a re-release of Can’t Stand Losing You, which was a number two smash.

In the same month the re-release of Roxanne catapulted The Police to stardom, they recorded Message in a Bottle at Surrey Sound Studios. In September it became the first single from their second album Regatta de Blanc. This was, incidentally, the same month the film Quadrophenia, based on The Who album from 1973, was released. Sting played Ace Face.

The central guitar riff to Message in a Bottle had been thought up by Sting and was intended for a different song originally. The arpeggiated guitar part before the third verse was Summer’s idea. Copeland’s drumming, later considered by Summers to be his finest drum track, was overdubbed from around six different parts.

https://youtu.be/MbXWrmQW-OE

Review

Me and The Police have a strange relationship. With their unique mix of different genres including dub, reggae and jazz, I should in theory have a lot of time for them. And at least two of their number 1s are brilliant. But I’m often put off by Sting’s voice. I’m really not a fan of his attempt to sound black and I’m surprised in today’s #cancelled culture that it isn’t more widely criticised. Thankfully he reins it in during their later years but it’s here in full effect. The ‘o’ at the end of many of the lines is irritating and rather patronising.

I can’t deny the band themselves sound great, though. Without the polish of the later years, there’s a real muscularity to their sound, and all three put in a great effort. And Sting’s lyrics, in which a castaway puts a message in a bottle to try and find love, only to discover a year later ‘a hundred billion bottles on the shore’, from likeminded souls, are rather poignant. Love the music behind Sting every time he sings the title moodily, too. It’s quite a lengthy track but at the same time flashes by all too quickly. I’d love to hear a longer version.

The official video, as seen above, mostly features the band miming to the track in a dressing room, intercut with shots of a city and the band performing live. Sting mostly looks rather menacing, while Copeland manically drums on parts of his drumkit.

After

Despite The Police’s varied influences, Message In a Bottle is a great pop song, and a deserved chart-topper. It also went to number 1 in Ireland, and five in Australia, but somehow failed to catch on in the US. All three band members still regard it highly and Summers thinks it’s their best ever track. Number 1 for three weeks in the autumn of the year, The Police would soon follow it up with an even better single.

The Info

Written by

Sting

Producers

The Police & Nigel Gray

Weeks at number 1

3 (29 September-19 October)

Trivia

Deaths

10 October: Psychologist Dr Christopher Evans

442. Gary Numan – Cars (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

Four days after Tubeway Army went to number 1 with the influential new wave sound of Are ‘Friends’ Electric?, singer-songwriter and producer Gary Numan had dropped the band name and recorded a John Peel session as a solo artist. His next single, Cars, was a stone cold electro-pop classic and a deserved second chart-topper.

Before

Numan was already working on his debut solo LP, The Pleasure Principle, when Tubeway Army promoted Are ‘Friends’ Electric? on Top of the Pops. Paul Gardiner remained on bass, but Cedric Sharpley was the drummer and their ranks were bolstered by Ultravox keyboardist Billy Currie (his band were on hiatus) on violin and Chris Payne on keyboards. This line-up were now, in effect, just Numan’s backing band.

The Pleasure Principle was recorded in London’s Marcus Music Studio and saw Numan drop guitars altogether in favour of an almost entirely electronic array of instruments, with most sounds emanating from a Minimoog and Polymoog, played by either himself or Payne. As with Tubeway Army’s Replicas album, most of his lyrics were sci-fi based, focusing on subject matters including the last machine left on Earth.

A more contemporary and down-to-earth lyrical concept was Cars, which Numan later claimed was written before Are ‘Friends’ Electric? and his first attempt at a straightforward pop song. The lyrics were inspired by a road rage incident, in which the singer claimed he was in a traffic jam in London when people in the car in front got out and tried to pull him from his car and attack him. Numan locked the doors and managed to get away by driving on the pavement.

In addition to vocals and synths, Numan provided synthetic percussion alongside Sharpley’s drums and percussion. Gardiner and Payne were also involved but Currie wasn’t. The Minimoog was mostly used to augment that classic bass riff, while the Polymoog provided the icy synthetic string accompaniment.

Review

Numan later described Cars as ‘pretty average’ but it’s one of the best number 1s of 1979. Musically, like Are ‘Friends’ Electric?, it’s incredibly simple, but that’s part of the charm and why the public took to it so well and it’s still so fondly remembered. That riff is of course the main weapon to hook listeners in, but I love the proto-New Romantic Polymoog sound that heralds the early-80s pop production sound.

It’s fascinating to hear Numan come at cars from a different angle to Kraftwerk, who of course were a huge influence on Numan. Whereas the German electronic pioneers had written Autobahn as a lengthy love song to driving on the motorway, Cars is short and to the point. Numan sees his vehicle as sanctuary from the outside world, locking himself away from human contact.

‘Here in my car,
I feel safest of all,
I can lock all my doors,
It’s the only way to live,
In cars’

As someone with Asperger’s, it’s fair to say Numan is probably writing about himself here. However, as the song progresses (and there’s actually few lyrics here at all – the second half of the song is instrumental), Numan realises he actually does need companionship: ‘Will you visit me please/If I open my door’. The door is literally left open as the song plays out.

Looking at the song another way, it’s perhaps a take on a near-future. Numan plays up his android persona with that Bowie-like vocal technique, giving the impression of a human stripped of emotion, driving round a dystopian landscape in which people no longer interact.

Of course, most people lost likely just liked it because it was really memorable and a song about cars is somewhat of a novelty, and guaranteed to be used on a million TV shows whenever a song about cars is needed, because why not, it’s the song Cars?

In the video, Numan and co play up the Kraftwerk similarities even more. Starting with Numan standing alone on a pyramid stage (in a nod to the artwork for The Pleasure Principle, in which Numan stares at a small pyramid on a desk), he’s then joined by the rest of his band, who all stand emotionless, joining Numan in acting like robots. Ruining this somewhat is Sharpley, who is in classic rock drummer mode, seemingly playing a totally different song to everyone else. Then, there’s five Numans holding imaginary steering wheels as on the single’s sleeve, stood on a giant Polymoog. It’s a fun, cool study in new wave electronic cool.

After

Released on 21 August, a month later Cars was in pole position in the UK. It did very well elsewhere too, earning him his first (and, alas, only) US hit, peaking at nine. The Pleasure Principle went to number 1 in the UK album chart, and the next single, Complex, reached six.

The following year came the album Telekon, featuring a larger array of synths but returning guitars to the mix. It spawned two top 10 singles – We Are Glass (five) and I Die: You Die (six). Never much of a fan of touring back then, he announced his retirement from performing live and said goodbye with live shows at Wembley Arena. Soon after came a new album, Dance in which Numan began to move away from the electro-pop sound, just as it exploded across the charts courtesy of the New Romantic movement. It featured Queen drummer Roger Taylor. It’s one single, She’s Got Claws, went to six.

As up-and-comers such as Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, The Human League and Duran Duran started notching up hits, Numan’s commercial fortunes declined. Although the 1982 album I, Assassin included the excellent funk sound of Music for Chameleons (as mimed to by Steve Coogan in I’m Alan Partridge) and We Take Mystery (To Bed), the latter was his last top 10 single to date, peaking at nine.

1983 album Warriors saw Numan explore jazz-funk further and he announced his return to touring. It was his last LP for Beggar’s Banquet and he released several on his own label, Numa. Berserker (1984) featured samplers for the first time but was his least successful release at that point. The Fury didn’t do much better a year later but Strange Charm in 1986 did at least feature two top 30 singles – This Is Love (28) and I Can’t Stop (27). However, it was the last release on Numa.

In 1987 Beggar’s Banquet released a remix of Cars to promote a greatest hits compilation. The E Reg Model remix is pretty good – I don’t know who’s behind the production but there’s some nice touches added and it avoids the trap of many mid-80s remixes of veering off into bombastic production. It deservedly reached 16.

Numan signed with IRS but they angered him by changing the 1988 album Metal Rhythm to New Anger and remixing it against his wishes. After 1991’s Outland he reactivated Numa but Machine + Soul marked a low ebb, released mainly to try and pay off debts. With moral support from his future wife Gemma, Numan decided to give up on trying to rekindle his pop career and instead begin writing more personally. The result, Sacrifice, proved timely. Released in 1994, he played all the instruments himself and created a dark, industrial sound, just as bands he had influenced, like Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson, began to gain popularity.

Numan shut down his label permanently as his critical stock began to rise once more. A third remix of Cars (this one was known as ‘The Premier Mix’; there had been an unnamed one in 1993) charted in 1996 after its use on an advert for Carling Premier. Similar in sound to the ‘E Reg’ version, it earned Numan his first top 20 song in nine years, motoring to 17. The albums Exile (1997) and Pure (2000) were lavished with critical praise and Rip, from the latter, reached 29 in 2002.

With Scottish industrial singer Rico, he scored a number 13 hit in 2003. Quite a remarkable comeback. He also provided vocals for dance music duo Plump DJs that year. With money coming in once more, Numan launched Mortal Records and released Jagged in 2006, accompanied by a successful tour. Two years later, to commemorate his 30th year in music, he toured the Tubeway Army LP Replicas (1979) in its entirety.

In 2011 Numan released Dead Son Rising and collaborated with US experimental rock outfit Battles. Two years later came the eagerly awaited Splinter (Songs from a Broken Mind), which became his bestselling album in 30 years, only to be overtaken by the sequel, a concept album about a post-apocalyptic world caused by global warming. Savage (Songs from a Broken World) was his most popular release since Telekon.

Numan’s 21st and latest album, Intruder, was released in 2021. Over the decades he’s gone from being reviled by some, and/or a figure of fun (he’s said in recent years how announcing his support for Margaret Thatcher did lasting damage) to a respected figure in music. And rightly so, because his two number 1s are brilliant.

The Outro

Now 63, he won’t ever be admired to the level of David Bowie and Kraftwerk, who he was often accused of ripping off, but he’s stuck it out and influenced many through the years. And all along, his hardcore devotees, the Numanoids, have stuck with him through thick and thin.

The Info

Written & produced by

Gary Numan

Weeks at number 1

1 (22-28 September)

Trivia

Births

22 September: Labour MP Rebecca Long-Bailey
28 September: Gymnast Annika Reeder

Deaths

27 September: Comedian Gracie Fields/Wings guitarist Jimmy McCulloch

Meanwhile…

25 September: Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opens the new Central Milton Keynes Shopping Centre. The then-largest indoor shopping centre in Britain had taken six years to build.

441. Cliff Richard – We Don’t Talk Anymore (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

Remember this guy? Once a mainstay of this blog, the ‘Peter Pan of Pop’ hadn’t topped the charts since Congratulations won Eurovision in 1968. 11 years later, Cliff Richard’s comeback, which began with Devil Woman, was complete with this 10th number 1.

Before

The Shadows, who often acted as Richard’s backing band, with who he shared many hits and number 1s, decided to split at the end of 1968. Their last single together was Don’t Forget to Catch Me, which reached 21. Despite being unfashionable, he still had a large enough following to notch up plenty of hits, ending the 60s with two top 10 hits in 1969 – Big Ship (eight) and Throw Down a Line (with Shadows guitarist Hank Marvin), climbing to seven.

The 70s began with Richard fronting his own BBC series, It’s Cliff Richard, which ran from 1970 to 1976 and featured the singer with musical friends including Marvin and Olivia Newton-John. His 50th single, the intriguingly named Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha, went all the way to six in 1970. Many of Richard’s singles for the first half of the 70s were in line with his Christian beliefs – I’m not going to listen to them all to find out, but I’d put money on Jesus (1972) being a prime example.

Having been considered almost as much an actor as a singer in his peak years of the 60s, Richard gave up his film career after starring in the film Take Me High in 1973. He also had another bash at the Eurovision Song Contest that year. Power to All Our Friends finished third that year. Apparently he was so nervous during the competition he took valium and his manager struggled to wake him. It was at least a big hit, climbing to four and earning him his best chart performance for the next six years.

The next couple of years were lean for the not-very-mean machine. His only single in 1974, (You Keep Me) Hangin’ On did OK (13), but he messed up in 1975 when he chose to cover Conway Twitty’s Honky Tonk Angel. Richard recorded a video, 1,000 singles were pressed up and EMI expected it to perform well, but when Richard discovered ‘honky tonk angel’ was Southern American slang for a prostitute, the whiter-than-white pop star was horrified and insisted it was withdrawn. What on earth would God have made of it? This meant that, for the first time in his career, Richard had gone a calendar year without a chart entry.

However, it was decided that, rather than continue down the purely righteous path Richard seemed hell-bent on, he should be repackaged as a rock singer. At the time this must have seemed laughable, and to be honest I’m struggling to imagine it while typing this. But, good Lord, it worked!

Teaming up with Bruce Welch (another guitarist from the Shadows) on production duties, the nicely titled LP I’m Nearly Famous was an unexpected smash. And not only commercially – guitarists Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton were just two of the rock stars spotted wearing ‘I’m Nearly Famous’ badges in honour of the comeback kid. Although Miss You Nights (15) was a ballad, the follow-up, Devil Woman, is a classic slab of pop-rock, with a hell of a chorus. And listen, that’s Cliff Richard singing a song with ‘devil’ in it! With punk rock rearing its ugly head, a more edgy Cliff Richard was very timely.

The comeback didn’t last long though. The next album, Every Picture Tells a Story, spawned only one hit – My Kinda Life (number 15 in 1977). Perhaps feeling he must atone for his sins, Richard then released an album of Christian gospel called Small Corners in 1978. Neither that or his next pop LP, Green Light, performed well. 1978 was also the year Richard reunited with The Shadows for concerts at the London Palladium, as captured on Thank You Very Much.

Despite appearing on stage with Welch once more, the Shadows guitarist didn’t produce his next album, Rock’n’Roll Juvenile. That honour went to Terry Britten, who had worked with Richard many times in the past. Recording sessions began back in July 1978 but vocals weren’t begun until January 1979.

We Don’t Talk Anymore was recorded in one day, five months later. For some reason, Welch received production credit for Richard’s 10th number 1. It was written and arranged by Alan Tarney, a new collaborator, who also played guitar, keyboards, synthesiser and bass on the track, as well as performing backing vocals. On drums was his former bandmate in Quartet, Trevor Spencer.

Review

It’s no Devil Woman, but We Don’t Talk Anymore is a decent pop song and Richard’s best number 1 since Summer Holiday in 1963. I have to confess that I used to think this came much later in his career, and was a Stock Aitken Waterman production from the late-80s or early-90s. It’s something about that catchy, melancholic yet soaring chorus combined with a very light production sound. In its own way, it’s as contemporary as Are ‘Friends’ Electric? with its keyboard-heavy arrangement. Though not nearly as good.

Has to be said though, I’ve never heard Richard sound so passionate. I mean, it’s not exactly a raw, emotional performance – this is Cliff Richard we’re talking about after all. But he gives it a rare bit of oomph! The verses are pretty bog-standard ‘my woman has left me’ and not much to write home about – it’s all about the earworm of the chorus really, and the emotion at the end. Weird lyrical phrasing too – ‘It’s so funny/How we don’t talk anymore’. None too shabby. With The Beatles long gone and Elvis Presley six feet under, Richard could still sell records, when he tried.

The video for We Don’t Talk Anymore is as 70s as it gets, featuring Richard and band performing amid a smoky stage, Richard occasionally merging into himself through a dated but charming kaleidoscopic effect.

After

Cliff Richard fared better in the 80s than the 70s, regularly appearing in the upper reaches of the charts. But it would be seven years before his 11th number 1, for which he shared billing with a series named after one of his most famous chart-toppers…

The Info

Written by

Alan Tarney

Producer

Bruce Welch

Weeks at number 1

4 (25 August-21 September)

Trivia

Births

14 September: Rugby league player Stuart Fielden

Deaths

27 August: Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (see ‘Meanwhile…’)
28 August: Doreen Knatchbull, Baroness Brabourne
29 August: Painter Ivon Hitchens

Meanwhile…

27 August: Lord Mountbatten of Burma, cousin to the Queen and uncle of the Duke of Edinburgh, was assassinated by a Provisional IRA bomb while on board a boat when holidaying in the Republic of Ireland. His 15-year-old nephew Nicholas Knatchbull and boatboy Paul Maxwell were also killed, and Dowager Lady Brabourne died from injuries sustained a day later.
Also that day, 18 British soldiers were killed in Northern Ireland at the Warrenpoint ambush.

30 August: Two men were arrested in Dublin and charged with the murder of Lord Mountbatten and the three other victims of the bombing.

2 September: Police found the body of 20-year-old student Barbara Leach in an alleyway near Bradford city centre. She was to be named as the 12th victim of the Yorkshire Ripper.

5 September: The Queen lead mourning at the funeral of Lord Mountbatten.
Also on this day, Manchester City paid a British club record fee of £1,450,000 for Wolverhampton Wanderers midfielder Steve Daley.

8 September: Wolverhampton Wanderers broke the record by paying just under £1,500,000 for Aston Villa and Scotland striker Andy Gray. 

10 September: British Leyland announced production of MG cars would cease in the autumn of 1980. 

14 September: The government announced plans to regenerate the London Docklands through housing and commercial developments.

21 September: A Royal Air Force Harrier jet crashed into a house in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, killing two men and a boy. 

440. The Boomtown Rats – I Don’t Like Mondays (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

The Boomtown Rats had been the first new wave act to score a number 1, in 1978 with Rat Trap. Far better known is the Dublin outfit’s second, this piano-led ballad about a real-life school shooting spree.

Before

16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer lived in poverty across the road from Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, California with her alcoholic father. They slept together on a single mattress on the floor. At some point Spencer suffered a head injury and it’s suspected it had affected her mental health.

In 1978 Spencer, who had been skipping school, told her parents she was suicidal. Later that year she was arrested for burglary and shooting from the window of the school. Following a psychiatric evaluation in December, her probation officer recommended she be admitted to a mental hospital for depression. Her father refused and instead bought her a rifle for Christmas. As you do. Later, Spencer stated ‘I asked for a radio and he bought me a gun.’ When asked why he would do that, she replied ‘I feel like he wanted me to kill myself’.

On 29 January 1979, Spencer opened fire at staff and pupils in the playground of the school as they waited for Principal Burton Wragg to let them in. Spencer killed Wragg as he tried to help, plus a custodian who was trying to pull a student to safety. She also injured eight children and one police officer. Spencer escaped and barricaded herself in her home. While there she was interviewed over the phone by a reporter for The San Diego Union-Tribune. When asked for a motive, Spencer’s chilling response was ‘I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day’. Eventually she surrendered after she was promised a Burger King. She remains in prison.

Boomtown Rats singer-songwriter Bob Geldof and keyboardist Johnnie Fingers were being interviewed at Georgia State University when they saw news of the shootings come through on a telex machine (hence the mention in the lyrics). The opening lines ‘The silicon chip inside her head/Gets switched to overload’ were inspired by Steve Jobs, as the Apple co-founder had contacted Geldof in the hope of The Boomtown Rats playing a gig for Apple.

Geldof had been told by a US rep of the band that if the band were to repeat their UK success in the States, they needed to write songs more relevant to American life. Which begs the question – was I Don’t Like Mondays an honest insight into Geldof’s horror at the senseless shootings, or a cynical attempt to cash in? It’s likely it was a bit of both. In later years Geldof has insisted it wasn’t written to exploit Spencer, and even that he regrets writing it as it has made the shooter infamous. However, it hasn’t stopped him or the band performing it over the years.

Deciding that this was a song that would work better shorn of the usual Boomtown Rats new wave sound, Geldof and Fingers (Geldof was solely credited upon this single’s release, but in 2019 he and Fingers reached a settlement and he is now also credited) wrote a piece that sounded more like Elton John. It’s likely Fingers came up with the piano and other than that, all you have are the vocals and strings in the background. Oh, and the handclaps. It’s at once sparse and bombastic.

Initially Geldof considered I Don’t Like Mondays would be best as a B-side but changed his tune when he saw how well-received it was on their US tour. It would be the first material released from the band’s third album, The Fine Art of Surfacing.

Review

I can find myself agreeing with critics of I Don’t Like Mondays. It is preachy and shows that self-important side of Geldof that some would find unlikeable during the Band Aid/Live Aid era. I don’t think it’s aged so well – in fact I used to prefer this to Rat Trap, but while writing my blog I’ve found myself thinking the opposite. However, cynical or not, it is an interesting subject matter for a song and personally I think Geldof’s lyrics are pretty good at asking how and why such terrible events can happen. And Fingers’ epic piano work is enjoyable. Part the problem may well be that, sadly, school shootings in the US are much more commonplace these days.

Wisely, The Boomtown Rats chose to not directly reference the Cleveland Elementary School shootings in their surreal video, directed by David Mallet. It begins with Geldof, bassist Pete Briquette, guitarists Garry Roberts and Gerry Cott and drummer Simon Crowe as a choir performing in a school in front of a creepy, monged class of kids, with Fingers on a piano. One girl leaves and enters her family home. Geldof sits there playing with his hair before somehow becoming the girl and Briquette, Roberts, Cott and Crowe demand Geldof ‘Tell me why’. Next, we’re in a stark, white background with only Geldof and Fingers present. The singer doesn’t help his defence of the song here, wearing shades and seemingly more concerned with looking cool than getting his message across. Then, it’s back to the school hall, before zooming out to the Rats, other cast and crew looking on at the school. Odd, but memorable.

After

Despite the initial promising response to I Don’t Like Mondays in the US, it was one of the few countries where the song failed to make its mark on the charts. The next two Boomtown Rats singles did well, Diamond Smiles reaching 13 and Someone’s Looking at You peaking at four. Next album Mondo Bongo spawned their final top 10 hit – Banana Republic, which reached three in 1980. Cott left the group in 1981, having distanced himself from the others in recent years. He had a short-lived solo career.

The Boomtown Rats struggled over the next few years but were given a new lease of life thanks to Band Aid. Everyone of course knows Geldof and Ultravox’s Midge Ure wrote Do They Know It’s Christmas?, but the other Rats (bar Roberts) were among the superstar line-up on the single, all providing vocals on the chorus. And the band were obvious choices to be part of Live Aid in 1985, with Geldof’s minute-long silence after singing ‘And the lesson today is how to die’ becoming one of many iconic moments. However, it kind of misses the point as the lesson that day was how not to die, surely? Also, apparently Geldof always did the long pause at live performances, but whatever I guess.

The Rats split in 1986 at another benefit concert – Self Aid, which aimed to raise awareness of unemployment in Ireland. Geldof went solo, while continuing to work with Briquette. Roberts co-wrote songs for Kirsty MacColl before quitting the music business. Fingers and Crowe formed the band Gung Ho and when they split, Fingers became a producer in Japan while Crowe joined a folk group and ran a clock-making business.

I Don’t Like Mondays was rereleased in 1994 and did respectably well, reaching 38 in the UK.

The Outro

Over the years the Rats occasionally performed together again in various incarnations. Roberts and Crowe even formed a group called The Rats in 2008, with Cott and Fingers occasionally joining them. Then in 2013 The Boomtown Rats were together once more, though Fingers opted out. After touring together they returned to the studio and released a new album, Citizens of Boomtown, in 2020.

The Info

Written by

Bob Geldof

Producer

Phil Wainman

Weeks at number 1

4 (28 July-24 August)

Trivia

Births

30 July: Golfer Graeme McDowell
5 August: Footballer David Healey
20 August: Singer Jamie Cullum
23 August: 5ive singer Ritchie Neville

Deaths

8 August: Novelist Nicholas Monsarrat – 8 August
9 August: Humanitarian Cecil Jackson-Cole
11 August: Novelist JG Farrell
5 August: Comedian ‘Mr Pastry’ Richard Hearne – 23 August

Meanwhile…

9 August: A naturist beach is established in open-minded Brighton.

10 August: The entire ITV network is shut down by a technicians’ strike, bar Channel Television. It remained off-for for over two months, meaning massive audiences for the BBC.

14 August: The Fastnet yacht race ends in tragedy, with 15 deaths after a storm hits the Irish Sea.
Also on this day, disgraced former Labour MP John Stonehouse is released from jail after serving four years of a seven-year sentence for faking his own death.

438. Anita Ward – Ring My Bell (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

Originally intended to be sung by an 11-year-old, disco song Ring My Bell was an innocent tune about children talking on the phone. With new, saucy lyrics, it became a one-hit wonder for US singer Anita Ward.

Before

Ward was born 20 December 1957 in Memphis, Tennessee. She loved gospel from an early age, and joined the Rust College A Cappella Choir. Ward graduated with a degree in psychology and became a substitute teacher, but the music bug didn’t leave her. She got herself a manager, who put her in contact with one-hit wonder singer-songwriter Frederick Knight, who had scored a number 22 UK hit with I’ve Been Lonely for So Long in 1972.

Knight agreed to record a three-song demo with Ward, but during recording he became so enamoured with her voice, they had nearly an album’s worth of material. But they needed one last song. Knight remembered he’d written one for 11-year-old Stacy Lattislaw. Knight kept the chorus as it was but rewrote the verses, so that Ward could sing from the point of view of a horny housewife waiting for her husband to return home so they can get it on. The song’s title was now far less innocent than originally planned. Ward didn’t like the song but Knight insisted they needed an uptempo tune to take advantage of the disco craze, so she relented.

Review

You either like or dislike Ring My Bell, it seems, depending on your tolerance for the Synare electronic drum. This pad was used throughout and is responsible for the decaying high-pitched tom tone at the first beat of every bar. Personally, I’m a fan for retro disco drum sounds, so bring it on. I’m also a fan of Ward’s performance, cooing her way through the lyrics breathlessly, putting across the mood of sexual anticipation effectively.

The lyrics could be taken as demeaning towards women if you consider the idea of a housewife telling her husband, ‘Well lay back and relax/While I put away the dishes’. However, I think the opposite. I see it as empowering and, for its time, refreshing to see the woman so forward in her desires, striking out of the classic Victorian marital setup. I can certainly see both sides of the argument though.

You can’t deny it’s a cool little tune. Slinky guitar and disco bass seemingly doing their own thing. I recommend the album version, which at 8:11 allows the groove to hypnotise like the best disco 12-inches do. Ring My Bell isn’t a classic, but it’s better than I remember it being in the past.

After

Ward’s debut single was a huge hit, reaching number 1 in the US, UK and several other countries. The album that spawned it, Songs of Love, also did well, reaching eight in the States. But that was as far as stardom stretched for Ward. Sweet Surrender, her second LP, was released only a few months later, but it tanked. Nothing else matched the catchiness of her sole hit and she failed to chart ever again – which apparently is what Ward had feared when Knight presented her with Ring My Bell.

Ward and Knight had a fractious relationship and a third album was abandoned. The Ring My Bell singer was involved in a severe car accident, and that coupled with the disco backlash, meant she disappeared into obscurity.

The Outro

10 years after her initial brush with fame, Ward released a third album, Wherever There’s Love (though not in the US). It contained an inferior remake of her hit. She had a daughter soon after and disappeared again, resurfacing briefly in 2011 to release a single, It’s My Night. Ward occasionally makes live and TV appearances, reminding nostalgic disco fans of her place in history.

I recommend the reggae remake of Ring My Bell, by Blood Sisters. Listen here.

The Info

Writer & producer

Frederick Knight

Weeks at number 1

2 (16-29 June)

Trivia

Births

19 June: Paralympic springer Graeme Ballard
29 June: 5ive singer Abs Green

Meanwhile…

18 June: As Labour continues to reel from their defeat in the General Election, Labour MP Neil Kinnock becomes the shadow education spokesman. 

22 June: Former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe is cleared in court of the allegations of attempted murder of  Norman Scott with whom he had allegedly had a relationship. Thorpe’s career never recovered.

435. Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

US soul singer Gloria Gaynor’s disco classic I Will Survive was originally an afterthought, a B-side, with little studio sheen added. It’s now considered a feminist and LGBTQ+ anthem and is a karaoke mainstay.

Before

Gaynor was born Gloria Fowles on 7 September 1943 in Newark, New Jersey. Music was a constant in her youth, with her father Daniel singing and playing ukulele as part of a nightclub group called Step ‘n’ Fetch-it. The Fowles were a large, poor family – five boys and two girls, including Gloria. Four brothers formed a gospel group but she wasn’t allowed to join them. The family moved to a housing project in 1960 and a year later Fowles graduated.

She became a singer in a local nightclub and within a few years she was part of jazz and R’n’B group The Soul Satisfiers. In 1965, as Gloria Gaynor, she released her debut single She’ll Be Sorry. It was produced by Johnny Nash, later to have a UK number 1 with Tears on My Pillow (I Can’t Take It). It was Nash who had suggested she change her name.

Nothing came of it but Gaynor spent years becoming experienced at performing live. Then in 1973 she was signed to Columbia Records by Clive Davis and released another flop, Honey Bee.

Gaynor hit pay dirt when she signed to MGM Records and released debut album Never Can Say Goodbye in 1975. The first side consisted of a remake of Honey Bee, plus covers of soul classics Never Can Say Goodbye and Reach Out, I’ll Be There. Thanks to an uncredited Tom Moulton, this record contained a historic first – it was the first album to consist of one long continuous mix of the tracks. This earned Moulton the title ‘father of the disco mix’. The title track became a hit single, peaking at two in the UK and nine in the US. Reach Out, I’ll Be There then reached 14 on these shores.

It began to look like Gaynor would be a flash in the pan as singles from Experience Gloria Gaynor didn’t grab the attention of the public. One exception was a cover of jazz standard How High the Moon, which climbed to 33 in 1975. Her next few albums – I’ve Got You (1976), Glorious (1977) and Gloria Gaynor’s Park Avenue Sound (1978) all bombed.

Gaynor’s next LP, Love Tracks, was recorded for release in November 1978. A month before that came the single Substitute. Her label Polydor thought this former Righteous Brothers track would be a worldwide hit as it had been for South Africa girlband Clout. However, several DJs – including Richie Kaczor of Studio 54 – began taking note of the B-side, I Will Survive, instead.

It had been written by two former Motown producers, Dino Fekaris and Freddie Perren. The latter had co-written three Jackson 5 US number 1s – I Want You Back, The Love You Save and ABC. After being sacked by Motown, Fekaris was unemployed and wrote the lyrics to I Will Survive after seeing a song he’d written for Rare Earth being used on TV. He took it as a sign things would work out. And they did.

Fekaris and Perren formed their own production company and made Reunited with Peaches and Herb, which became a hit. Afterwards they decided to give I Will Survive to the next singer they worked with. Gaynor was the lucky one.

https://youtu.be/ARt9HV9T0w8

Review

On Gaynor’s previous hits, her voice was pitched up in order to make her songs faster for playing on the dancefloor. And as with most disco songs, the productions would feature a more polished, layered production. It’s interesting to consider whether I Will Survive would have been treated the same way had it been considered for the A-side originally. I’m not sure it would have the same power if it had been.

The highlight of the track is Gaynor’s raw, soulful performance. You really feel the hurt and anger in her voice and the message of the song suits an untamed vocal without any studio trickery. Though the performance is raw and the production understated, the piano at the beginning and the strings after the chorus do a great job of adding to the drama of the song.

Pop songs about love going wrong often portray the ‘loser’ as weak. Even the icy cool Debbie Harry lets the mask slip briefly in Heart of Glass. But what Gaynor does is fool us into thinking she’s not over her heartbreak during those opening lines. But once she sings ‘And I grew strong, and I learned how to get along’, the song moves up a notch, and from then on, Gaynor sounds like someone you shouldn’t mess with as she belts out those lyrics to I Will Survive.

Obviously, I Will Survive has survived and will always be considered one of the highlights of the disco era. It’s an alluring theme for a song, that of empowerment for the underdog, so there’s no wonder it was adopted, as previously mentioned, by feminists and the LGBTQ+ movement, both fighting back against an era in which political correctness wasn’t high on the agenda of mainstream culture.

However, although there is a lot to enjoy here, I Will Survive is not up there with my favourite disco songs. A lot of that, to be fair, isn’t down to the song, or to Gaynor. It’s the way it’s been done to death over the years by the media. It’s all the parodies. It’s drunk people bawling it when leaving the pub, followed by It’s Raining Men. It’s just a bit tiresome, sadly.

I used to wonder why Gaynor’s performance seemed slightly weird in the video to I Will Survive. It was filmed at the New York discotheque Xenon. Her stance is unusual and she looks genuinely pained. She was. Giving the song a whole new dimension is the fact that in 1978 Gaynor fell over a monitor on stage during a choreographed tug-of-war with her dancers. She was paralysed from the waist down and thought she would never walk again. Surgery helped Gaynor back on her feet but she recorded the song, and the video, in a lot of pain and wearing a back brace. It wasn’t until further surgery in 2018 that the pain went away.

As for the rollerskating dancer in the video, that was Sheila-Reid Pender from skating group The Village Wizards. Gaynor and Pender were filmed separately and didn’t meet until 2014 at a book signing event held for Gaynor’s autobiography, We Will Survive.

After

The song was a global smash and topped the charts in many countries. It came along just in time, as by the end of the year the disco backlash, mainly a thinly veiled excuse for homophobes, racists and sexists to vent anger, had begun.

Hits were few and far between from then on. Let Me Know (I Have a Right) climbed to 32 in the UK in 1979 but it was four years before her next success. She became a Christian in 1982 and distanced herself from what she considered a sinful past. Then in 1983 her version of I Am What I Am also became adopted by the gay community as an anthem and climbed to 13 in the UK chart.

For the rest of the 80s Gaynor continued to release music but nothing troubled the mainstream. DJ and producer Shep Pettibone remixes of I Will Survive were released in 1990. They didn’t chart, but Phil Kelsey’s remix in 1993 coincided with a nostalgic interest in disco and peaked at five. With Gaynor back in the public eye she turned to acting in the late 90s, with cameos in That 70s Show and Ally McBeal.

The Outro

Gaynor continues to release albums sporadically, and of course, I Will Survive has been revisited many times over her career, with remixes, Spanish language versions and lyrics sometimes rewritten to reflect her Christian beliefs and also referencing tragedies such as Hurricane Harvey in Texas in 2017. Her most recent album, the roots gospel collection Testimony, earned Gaynor her second Grammy, 20 years after her first.

There’s been many covers of I Will Survive over the years and the rock version by Cake in 1996 is well worth a mention.

The Info

Written by

Dino Fekaris & Freddie Perren

Producer

Dino Fekaris

Weeks at number 1

4 (17 March-13 April)

The Info

Births

9 April: Actor Ben Silverstone
10 April: Singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Deaths

19 March: Actor Richard Beckinsale
23 March: Footballer Ted Anderson
24 March: Founder of Tesco Sir Jack Cohen
30 March: Tory MP Airey Neave

Meanwhile…

17 March: Nottingham Forest defeat Southampton 3-2 at Wembley Stadium to win the Football League Cup for the second year running. 

18 March: Three men are killed in an explosion at the Golborne colliery in Golborne, Greater Manchester. 

22 March: Sir Richard Sykes, ambassador to the Netherlands, is shot dead by a member of the Provisional IRA in the Hague. 

28 March: The Labour government loses a motion of confidence by just one vote, which forces a General Election.

29 March: Prime Minister James Callaghan announces a General Election will be held on 3 May. Having missed the chance to call one before the Winter of Discontent swayed public opinion against Labour, all the major opinion polls point towards a Conservative win, which would make Margaret Thatcher the first female Prime Minister.

30 March: Tory Northern Ireland spokesman Airey Neave is killed by an Irish National Liberation Army bomb in the car park of the House of Commons.

31 March: The Royal Navy withdraws from Malta. 

4 April: 19-year-old bank worker Josephine Whitaker is murdered in Halifax. Police believe she is the 11th woman to be murdered by the Yorkshire Ripper. 

434. The Bee Gees – Tragedy (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

The Bee Gees rounded off an astounding few years with a fourth number 1. It was to mark the start of another downward slide in their fortunes, however.

Before

Thanks to the disco boom and their part in the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever, the Gibb brothers were everywhere in the late-70s. After Night Fever became their third UK number 1, the LP was mined further. Yvonne Elliman’s version of If I Can’t Have You was a US number 1. The Tavares’ version of More Than a Woman was a number seven hit in the UK. In March 1978 songs by The Bee Gees held the number 1 and two spots in the US with Night Fever and Staying Alive – a feat unrivalled since The Beatles. Five songs written by the Gibbs were in the top 10 at once over there that month, too.

Barry Gibb and brother Robin wrote Emotion, a number 11 UK hit for their Australian friend Samantha Sang and The Bee Gees performed backing vocals and Barry wrote the classic theme to the smash-hit cinema adaptation of Grease, sung by Frankie Valli – a US number 1. It wasn’t a good time to be alive if you weren’t a fan of the Gibbs.

However, not everything they touched turned to gold. They starred in their manager Robert Stigwood’s famous flop Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, based on The Beatles’ concept album, in 1978. The critics hated it and the public ignored it. They featured heavily on the soundtrack too. But at least while working on the film, the Gibbs did co-write the excellent Shadow Dancing for their younger brother Andy, which also became a US number 1.

From there, they went to work on their follow-up to Saturday Night Fever. Spirits Having Flown, their 15th album, was co-produced by Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson. Galuten has claimed that it was he, Richardson and Barry who did most of the work, though keyboardist Blue Weaver disputes this. They both agree that Robin took on more of a behind-the-scenes role, active in songwriting and offering feedback during the recording process. He performed only one solo lead vocal, on Living Together, amounting to the least work he had featured on a Bee Gees album since the 60s. It wasn’t a happy time for Maurice, who was an alcoholic and struggling with back pain. Although he recorded bass parts, he didn’t know they were later overdubbed.

In a bid to prove they weren’t just about filling disco dance floors, the first single from Spirits Having Flown was the ballad Too Much Heaven. It was another US number 1, and peaked at three in the UK. That single and the next, Tragedy, had been written by Barry, Robin and Maurice earlier the same day as Shadow Dancing.

Review

I’ve mixed feelings about Tragedy. I’ve never been much of a fan until relistening for the blog just now. I previously found it overblown and too melodramatic, with the Gibbs harmonies, which I normally enjoy, just too much. Now, I can see it’s a decent enough tune, just not up there with the likes of Staying Alive and Night Fever. I mainly like the bubbling synth sound on the verses. But it outstays its welcome somewhat and is a sign the Gibbs were starting to slide creatively. Though nobody can deny they’d had a bloody good run.

After

It would be eight years before The Bee Gees next held the top spot in the UK. Just as with psychedelia at the close of the 60s, the genre the Gibbs had aligned themselves with, disco, became unfashionable. The Bee Gees were much more successful at the point though, and had farther to fall. The backlash became so strong, they were forced into writing hits for others.

The Outro

Tragedy would return to the top of the charts in 1998 when it became half of a double A-side with Heartbeat for the dance-pop group Steps. It became their signature song and led to a stupid trademark dance as well. Shorn of the synths, it’s not as good as the original.

The Info

Written by

Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb

Producers

The Bee Gees, Karl Richardson & Albhy Galuten

Weeks at number 1

2 (3-16 March)

Trivia

Births

12 March: The Libertines singer Pete Doherty

433. Blondie – Heart of Glass (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

Simultaneously one of the hottest and coolest new wave bands, US six-piece Blondie were also one of the most successful, notching up five UK number 1s in under two years (and another in 1999). Heart of Glass melded new wave, rock, disco and pop with a slither of punk attitude, and it’s their best single.

Before

Blondie’s beginnings start back in New York in 1973. Guitarist Chris Stein joined rock band the Stilettoes. He began a romantic relationship with one of their vocalists – Debbie Harry. She had been a waitress, a Playboy Bunny and a member of folk-rock group the Wind in the Willows in the late-60s. Harry and Stein decided to leave the Stilettoes and start a new band in 1974. Together with former bandmates Billy O’Connor on drums and Fred Smith on bass, they became Angel and the Snake that August.

Two months later and with only two gigs under their belts, they changed their name to Blondie. As the whole world knows, Harry was one of the most beautiful women in the world, and would turn heads wherever she went. Among no doubt filthier shouts, lorry drivers would bark ‘Hey, blondie!’ at her as they drove by her walking down the street.

Fast forward to spring 1975 and Blondie’s line-up had changed several times – including experimenting with female backing singers. Drummer Clem Burke then joined them, along with Gary Valentine on bass. They became regular performers at hip joints CBGB and Max’s Kansas City, wowing crowds with power-pop and Harry’s stage presence. A few months later they recruited keyboardist Jimmy Destri to fill out their sound.

Signing with Private Stock Records, their eponymous debut LP was released in December 1976. It made little of an impression, and first single X Offender sank without trace, despite them supporting Iggy Pop on tour. However, the follow-up In the Flesh became a number two hit in Australia after being played by accident on TV (they were supposed to be showing X Offender).

Blondie decided to buy back their contract and switched to the British label Chrysalis Records. Blondie was re-released on Chrysalis in October 1977 and the critics began to take note. Nevertheless Valentine left the group and they recorded second album Plastic Letters as a four-piece, released in 1978.

The first single from the album Denis (a cover of a 1963 song by Randy and the Rainbows) finally saw their commercial stock rise – all the way to number two in the UK, where the music papers made a story out of Harry battling it out for the top spot with another strong female pop star, namely Kate Bush, who won out with Wuthering Heights. Denis did reach the top spot in the Netherlands and Belgium though, and when the next 7-inch, (I’m Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear peaked at 10 in the UK, it seemed Blondie were here to stay. They were.

Hiring Frank Infante on guitar and British bassist Nigel Harrison, the six-strong Blondie toured the UK and became one of the first new wave acts to hit the mainstream. Here at last was a rock group in which the men stayed out of the spotlight. It shone fully on Harry, who had star power like few others at the time.

In a clear attempt to really leave their mark on the pop scene, Blondie worked with a big-name producer. Australian Mike Chapman had been half of ‘Chinnichap’ with Nicky Chinn. Together they wrote and produced glam rock number 1 classics by The Sweet, Mud and Suzi Quatro. The latter proved particularly appropriate, as Chapman had experience in helping female rock stars climb the charts with catchy commercial pop songs.

Blondie’s Chapman-produced third album Parallel Lines was released in September 1978. first single Picture This climbed to 12 and Hanging on the Telephone peaked at five. Their first number 1 was next.

Heart of Glass was one of Blondie’s earliest tracks. Originally known as Once I Had a Love, it was written by Harry and Stein and 1974 and demoed a year later. Although slower and funkier than the released version, It had a disco influence right from the start, having been influenced by one of the genre’s earliest hits – The Hues Corporation’s Rock the Boat (1974). Harry later recounted that the lyrics to Heart of Glass weren’t directed personally to a former love of hers, it was written as a ‘plaintive moan about lost love’. They tried it as a ballad and even reggae over the years, but it never quite worked.

Blondie remained in thrall to disco, to the consternation of some rock die-hards, over the years, occasionally adding dance floor hits to their setlists. Harry expressed her love of the work of producer Giorgio Moroder in the NME early in 1978, and the band surprised a CBGB crowd with a cover of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love later that year.

When it came to meeting Chapman to start work on Parallel Lines, the producer asked Blondie to show him what they could record. At the end he asked if there was anything else, and the band sheepishly decided to perform Heart of Glass. Despite their reticence, Chapman loved it and saw a potential hit. Blondie began to agree, but having also become fans of Kraftwerk, wanted to recreate the futuristic sounds of the German innovators as well as Moroder’s hits.

The six-piece assembled at the Record Plant in New York in June 1978 to record Heart of Glass. Unusually at the time, a rock band chose to build the song around a drum machine. The Roland CR-78 had only been released earlier that year, and it was Stein and Destri who introduced it to the studio, having bought one from a store in Manhattan. Destri in particular had a lot to do with the sound of Heart of Glass and brought in some synthesisers. Other technology used in the production included the Roland SH-5 and Minimoog.

Review

Heart of Glass is one of my favourite number 1s of the 70s and one I’ll never tire of. It never dates either. You could argue the 80s began right here and it certainly had an influence on music over the next few years. It’s icy, cool as fuck and one of the greatest disco tracks of all time – despite not actually being that easy to dance to. I love the lyrics, which suit Harry’s ‘not arsed mate’ attitude. Yes, she was once in love. She’s not any more, and you only have to listen to the first few lines to know she’s totally over it.

The lyrics to Heart of Glass are fascinating. What actually is a heart of glass? Does she have a heart of glass or does he? If it’s him, does she mean she’s cut herself because of him? Or does she mean she’s discovered her heart is fragile and he broke it into pieces? Hard to tell, because although she’s given the impression she’s moved on, the choruses suggest otherwise. In the second one Harry suggests he’s cheated on her, and she sings ‘I’m the one you’re using, please don’t push me aside’. ‘Mucho mistrust’ also suggests infidelity.

It’s worth noting that, as far as I can tell, Heart of Glass is the first chart-topper to contain a swear word of sorts. Blondie decided to try and get away with one instance of ‘Soon turned out, it was a pain in the ass’ in both the single and album mixes. It soon got replaced on the radio with another ‘heart of glass’, but good on them for trying! The song then ends on that catchy-as-hell, resigned ‘Ooh ooh ooh, ah-ah’, which comes across as another ‘ah, fuck it’.

With Heart of Glass, Blondie and Chapman really melded those influences of Moroder and Kraftwerk together to create something unique. Like I Feel Love, it feels like it could go on forever and that wouldn’t be a bad thing. I listened to 45 minutes of different versions of this in one go and I only began to tire towards the end. And like Kraftwerk, its machine-like, but scratch the surface and there’s human emotions underneath.

For the single, Chapman beefed up the sound and accentuated the double-tracked bass drum. For me, the best version is the 5:50 ‘Disco Version’ released as a 12-inch. Unlike a lot of 12-inch mixes of the time, it doesn’t sound like bits have been unnecessarily tacked on. It sounds like the natural version, just for letting the rhythm stretch out that bit longer.

The promo video to Heart of Glass was directed by Stanley Dorfman, a British director who did just that on the very first edition of Top of the Pops. The film begins with aerial shots of New York, slowly revolving like a mirrorball, before showing the streets of the city and landmarks including the Ed Sullivan Theatre and Studio 54. Although we’re meant to get the suggestion the latter is where this is filmed, it was actually made in a long-forgotten, short-lived club.

The rest of the video alternates between close-ups of Harry miming and mid-distance shots of the rest of the band ‘performing’. Harry looks particularly drop-dead gorgeous here, her hair slightly dishevelled, in a silver dress with one shoulder strap. Her bored, slightly pissed-off performance really suits the song and apparently came about through a genuine sulk. Harry wanted to dance but she was told to stay still. She wasn’t keen on Dorfman after that and didn’t appreciate all the close-ups. Nonetheless, it’s an iconic performance.

After

Heart of Glass was a deserved global smash and number 1 in most countries, including the US. Harry became a pin-up and hero to millions of teens and were a breath of fresh air. With this song toppling Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick, 1979 was shaping up to be a hell of a year for pop.

The Info

Written by

Debbie Harry & Chris Stein

Producer

Mike Chapman

Weeks at number 1

4 (3 February-2 March)

Trivia

Births

13 February: Labour MP Rachel Reeves

2 March: Comedian Jocelyn Jee Esien

Deaths

14 February: Conservative MP Reginald Maudling – 14 February

19 February: Comedian Wee Georgie Wood

Meanwhile…

9 February: Trevor Francis signed for Nottingham Forest. He was the first player to sign a deal worth £1 million.

12 February: The Winter of Discontent continued, with more than 1,000 schools closed due to the heating oil shortage caused by the lorry drivers’ strike.

14 February: Talks between unions and the government, known as the ‘Saint Valentine’s Day Concordat’ marked the end to the Winter of Discontent.

15 February: However, the damage was done. Opinion polls showed the Tories up to 20 points ahead of Labour.

22 February: Saint Lucia became independent of the UK.

1 March: Scotland voted for a Scottish Assembly in the devolution referendum. However this was less than 40% of the electorate, which meant it wasn’t followed through.
Also on this day, Wales voted against devolution.

432. Ian Dury and The Blockheads – Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick (1979)

/ robbarker1979 / 4 Comments

The Intro

In 1979, anything seemed possible in pop. Need proof? How about outsider misfits Ian Dury and The Blockheads scoring a number 1 with the new wave classic Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick?

Before

Frontman Ian Robins Dury was born 12 May 1942 in Harrow Weald, Middlesex. His father William was absent for long periods, so mother Peggy took him to live with her parents in Cornwall. After the Second World War the Durys moved to Switzerland, where William chauffeured for a millionaire. In 1946 the family went to live in Essex with her sister, but WIlliam remained.

At the age of seven Dury contracted polio, which he believed he caught in a swimming pool during the 1949 epidemic. In and out of hospital for two years, the illness resulted in the paralysis and withering of his left leg, shoulder and arm. He went to Chailey Heritage Craft School in East Sussex, which also served as a hospital. Children were taught to toughen up and learn a trade but his mother wanted Dury to be more academic so he switched to the Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe, then aged 16, the Walthamstow College of Art. In 1967 he served under pop artist Peter Blake, who that year co-designed the legendary album sleeve for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

In 1970, while occasionally painting illustrations for The Sunday Times, Dury formed the pub rock band Kilburn and the High Roads. In 1974 they signed to Dawn Records and recorded two albums, for which he sang and wrote lyrics. Despite a support slot with The Who, they disbanded in 1975.

Meanwhile, in 1974 pop group The Loving Awareness Band formed, releasing only one album in 1976. In 1977 they split and its bassist Norman Watt-Roy and drummer Charlie Charles joined Dury and pianist/guitarist Chaz Jankel in their new band. An LP was recorded but they struggled to find a record label, perhaps in part due to Dury’s unique and unusual appearance.

Eventually however they found a home with the independent label Stiff Records. Their first release, credited to Dury alone, was Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, which was a critical success and became a slogan in itself. The album New Boots and Panties!! followed and although sales were modest at first, it’s now regarded as perhaps his finest work, including fan favourites like Billericay Dickie.

Watt-Roy and Charles’ former bandmates, guitarist John Turnbull and keyboardist Mick Gallagher, joined the line-up, as did former Kilburn and the High Roads saxophonist Davey Payne, who had played on New Boots and Panties!!. Inspired by the name of a song from the album, they became Ian Dury and The Blockheads when the next single Sweet Gene Vincent was released. Their next single, another fan favourite, was What a Waste, became their first hit when it peaked at nine in 1978. New wave was becoming increasingly popular, and this was the year of its first chart-topper, Rat Trap.

According to Jankel, who co-wrote the track, Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick was written in Rolvenden, Kent during a jam session between him and Dury. The tune was apparently inspired by a piano part on Wake Up and Make Love with Me, the opener on New Boots and Panties!!. Dury once claimed the lyrics had been written three years previous and after his death a typed manuscript from 1976 showed the lyrics, nearly fully formed, along with ideas for the music (‘drums and fuzz bass doing Roy Buchanan volume trick’). His daughter Jemima said he was working on the track as early as 1974.

The track was recorded in the Workhouse Studio on Old Kent Road in London. Unusually, an uncredited Laurie Latham produced it by recording The Blockheads live, situated in different places around the studio, with Dury sat in the centre. There were allegedly 28 takes recorded, but it was the second that was selected. Despite this, Latham was unhappy with the finished result. He was unhappy that Watt-Roy’s bass wasn’t loud enough. It’s hard to disagree, as that bassline is amazing and certainly one of the highlights. He was also unhappy with the vocal and piano, and he has a point that the piano does drop out just before the final verse. To my ears though, this kind of adds to the song’s unique power. Jankel was far more happy with the recoding. After they finished, he rang his mother to tell her he’d just recorded his first number 1.

Review

I’d argue that Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick is one of the coolest chart-toppers of all time, certainly up to this point. There’s so much to love about it – the aforementioned bassline (how is he playing that?), the ultra-catchy rollicking piano from Jankel, the way it turns from rock’n’roll and blues into cosmic funk, with Payne playing two saxophones at once, and of course Dury’s gravelly, occasionally unhinged performance of childlike lyrics that – and this has genuinely only just occurred to me – refer to sex. It is odd how his delivery seems more restrained after the funk section… or is it just because that stands out so much? Here’s a track I’ll never tire of hearing.

The video has left a lasting impression on me too. It was directed by Laurie Lewis, an old art school friend of Dury’s, who filmed the band performing the track on stage. It has an unreal, disturbing quality, and as a child I was at once frightened and entranced by Dury.

On 27 January, Turnbull, Watt-Roy and Charles were sat outside a cinema listening to a car radio when they heard the news they had toppled the Village People from the top spot. Dury was on a beach in Cannes when hotel staff gave him the news and brought him a bottle of champagne. To celebrate, the whole band bought Moss Bros suits for their Top of the Pops performance. Dury normally bought his whole wardrobe bar footwear and underwear second hand (hence his debut LP’s title). It started to look as though the record may sell a million, and Stiff announced that whoever the millionth buyer was, they would receive a mystery prize. Sales stalled however and it didn’t sell a million until downloads were counted towards sales. Nobody received a prize.

After

The group followed this up with the first LP credited to The Blockheads as well as Dury – Do It Yourself. They didn’t like to include singles on their albums, with neither their number 1 nor number three follow-up, Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part 3, featuring. The latter track is also excellent and among their best.

Jankel and Dury’s relationship had begun to sour, and the former left The Blockheads in 1980. Former Dr Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson replaced him for the recording of the album Laughter. The single I Want to Be Straight, also released that year, was their final charting single, at 22. The next, Sueperman’s Big Sister, was their last. Dury was drinking heavily, and it was taking its toll.

In 1981 Dury teamed up with Jankel and reggae duo Sly and robbie to record his second solo album Lord Upminster. It was poorly received, though it did include the controversial Spasticus Autisticus, which went from being banned by the BBC to being performed at the 2012 Paralympic Opening Ceremony. It’s a shame Dury wasn’t around to see it. Around this time, Andrew Lloyd Webber asked him to write the libretto for Cats. He refused, later saying, ‘I hate Andrew Lloyd Webber. He’s a wanker isn’t he?’.

Dury signed a solo deal with Polydor and The Blockheads disbanded. He instead recorded with the jazz-influenced Music Students, and his commercial and critical appeal floundered upon the release of their 1984 album 4,000 Weeks’ Holiday. They did however record the memorable Profoundly In Love with Pandora, the theme to ITV’s 1985 adaptation of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4. Also that year, fellow number 1 artist Paul Hardcastle remixed Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick, re-recording all the instrumental parts with keyboards.

Dury had tons of natural charisma, making it inevitable that he would make the move into acting. In 1986 he had a cameo in Roman Polanski’s Pirates and his most notable role was in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover in 1989. He also, despite his hatred of Lloyd Webber, wrote a musical, called Apples with an accompanying album released that same year.

Ian Dury and The Blockheads briefly reformed for a tour of Japan in 1987. Three years later they got together again to play two benefit concerts for the family of Charles, who had died of cancer. Steven Monti replaced him on drums. That December, with Merlin Rhys-Jones augmenting them on guitar and Will Parnell on percussion, they recorded a live album, Warts & Audience. They toured Spain, minus Jankel, the following month.

In 1992 Dury released his seventh solo LP, The Bus Driver’s Prayer & Other Stories. It featured all The Blockheads minus Watt-Roy. Jankel returned from California in 1994 when Ian Dury and The Blockheads were invited to reform for Madness’s festival Madstock at Finsbury Park – the perfect warm-up act for the Nutty Boys. Sporadic gigs followed.

The Outro

In 1996 Dury was diagnosed with cancer. After recovering from an operation, he reunited with The Blockheads to record their first album since Laughter in 1980. Mr Love Pants, released in 1997, was considered a return to form. It was to be their final album. Monti was replaced soon after by Dylan Howe and Payne left soon after, with Gilad Atzmon becoming their new saxophonist.

Sadly this line-up was cut short when Dury died of cancer on 27 March 2000, aged 57. A true original, Dury was a giant of new wave but refused to be pigeonholed and is sadly missed. But thankfully, you can hear his influence in the music of his son Baxter Dury, and The Blockheads continue to perform. These days, Jankel, Watt-Roy, Gallagher, Turnbull and Atzmon perform with John Roberts on drums. Dave Lewis also appears on sax, and Dury’s friend and minder Derek the Draw writes and sings alongside Jankel.

The Info

Written by

Ian Dury & Chaz Jankel

Producer

Laurie Latham

Weeks at number 1

1 (27 January-2 February)

Births

27 January: Actress Rosamund Pike

Deaths

2 February: Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious (see Meanwhile…)

Meanwhile…

1 February: Liverpool grave-diggers call off a strike which has delayed dozens of burials.

2 February: Simon John Ritchie, aka Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, is found dead in New York’s Chelsea Hotel, having suffocated on his own vomit after a heroin overdose. Vicious was on bail for the second degree murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, who had been found stabbed to death on 12 October 1978.