LP | XTC, Elvis Costello & Buzzcocks. One Hour of Essential Listening
LP>Playlist #067. Riding the new wave.
This week I sent Andres of The Vinyl Room my contribution to his Vital Records series, which he will post towards the end of March. Selecting my three vital tracks sent me down a rabbit hole of memories and had a strong influence on my choice of tracks for this playlist. There’s a new wave/late seventies influence; I bought all of these singles at the time, when my steady diet of prog rock albums needed an appetiser. Pour a cup of tea and settle down for another hour of fine music - Spotify embed and Apple Music/YouTube buttons after the Guide.
Intro
Listening Guide #067
XTC - ‘Life Begins at the Hop’ [1979] from Fossil Fuel: The XTC Singles 1977-92
I bought this as a clear vinyl 7” single. XTC were a band I followed avidly at the time. They never got the recognition (or the hits) they deserved but they still have a committed following now, and Andy Partridge is active with projects such as The 3 Clubmen.
Elvis Costello & The Attractions - ‘This Year’s Girl’ [1978] [alternative version] from This Year’s Model
This isn’t a single I bought because it only had that status in the US. I heard it as a track on the terrific This Year’s Model album (Costello’s second album and the first with the Attractions). Apparently it was seen as an attack on women at the time, which passed me by; isn’t it an attack on the fashion industry and the ‘ideal woman’ mythology perpetuated by men?
Buzzcocks - ‘Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve?) [1978] from Love Bites (Special Edition) [1996 remaster]
A perfect pop single. Is there any more to say?
The Undertones - ‘You’ve Got my Number (Why Don’t You Use It?)’ [1979]
Superglued to memories of John Peel’s BBC Radio 1 show, (visit the archive) because he was obsessed with The Undertones. Famously, ‘Teenage Kicks’ was Peel’s personal number one record but The Undertones were much more than that one song. In the days when ‘playlists’ were painstakingly recorded from record to cassette, I made at least one where this was the lead track. A change of mind about the running order meant re-recording everything from the point of change onwards. And the kids think they have it tough these days.
The Red Guitars - ‘Good Technology’ [1983]
Another find via John Peel. I recall having a notebook handy and jotting down the records he played I wanted to acquire. Most never made it to our local record shop. This one did, on 12”. As well as sounding great, I was drawn in by the lyrics that appealed to my general state of pessimism about the world we were creating. Well, here we are, just, and still worried that technology is out of control. In the YouTube version of this playlist is the 2023 extended mix.
Ian McNabb - ‘If Love Was Like Guitars’ [1992] from Truth and Beauty
As well as being the frontman of the Icicle Works (when I do another playlist like this, they’re in) McNabb made a series of extraordinary solo albums and is still doing so. This got a little radio play in the days before formats became so rigid and shines a light on the quality of his songwriting.
Kirsty MacColl - ‘A New England’ [12” version] [1984]
12” extended versions usually only served to dilute the original record, but not here. I still regard this version of Billy Bragg’s song as my favourite extended version of a song ever. It’s over seven minutes yet still feels like a three minute single. MacColl expresses the lyric wonderfully, as ever. And what lyrics: “I put you on a pedestal / They put you on the pill” and then, later, this clever and heartbreaking verse: “I saw two shooting stars last night / I wished on them but they were only satellites / Is it wrong to wish on space hardware / I wish, I wish, I wish you’d care.” Kirsty MacColl’s own songs could match this cover, beat for beat, word for word, which is probably why she had the confidence to do it. (Note to self: write more about Kirsty MacColl soon).
Ian Dury & The Blockheads - ‘There Ain’t Half Been Some Clever Bastards’ [1978]
More about this in Vital Records. What a clever song. Note the way Dury sings the opening line in the style of Noel Coward as the line namechecks him.
Squeeze - ‘Up the Junction’ [1979] from Cool for Cats
My first draft of this playlist included a track from their new album Trixies, which is a reworking of songs Chris Difford and Glen Tilbrook wrote at the beginning of their career. A great album according to reviews, but can anything on it match ‘Up the Junction’? This is travelling the same ground as ‘A New England’, thematically.
Siouxie & The Banshees - ‘Peek-A-Boo’ [1988] from Peepshow
Based on an insistent rhythm and as much fun as the title promises. I bought this on CD single which also had the 12” version which, possibly, was just as enjoyable without going anywhere different at any point.
Thompson Twins - ‘You Take Me Up (Machines Take Over)’ [12” version] [1984] from Into the Gap
I still haven’t worked out what it is about this, especially the long version we have here, that I enjoy so much. Another strongly rhythmic track and the verse is atmospheric in an almost blues way, before a singable but not trying to hard chorus. Then the ‘Machine Take Over’ extended section takes into the noisy world of the machines. Play, and repeat.
The Human League - ‘Empire State Human’ [1979] from Reproduction
Before The Human League became a solid gold pop act with the Dare album, they made slightly odd catchy pop records (as well as deeper album cuts) such as this. Your earworm awaits.
Magazine - ‘A Song from Under the Floorboards’ [1980] from The Correct Use of Soap
Another record I heard on late-night radio, probably Peel again, and bought was soon as I could find it. Magazine were formed when Howard Devoto left the Buzzcocks, and had a hit with ‘Shot by Both Sides’. This was their song that got me; another memorable chorus sealing the deal.
The Cure - ‘10:15 Saturday Night’ [1979] from Three Imaginary Boys
Early Cure, written by Robert Smith when he was sixteen and played by the then Easy Cure when they gigged around my hometown of Crawley. Probably the song that got them signed to Fiction Records, and an early marker of the quality of an enduring band.
Bonus video: Squeeze - ‘Squabs on 45’
There was a trend, in the late seventies/early eighties, for compilation albums that glued tracks together over a repetitive drum machine beat. The series was called Stars on 45. Squeeze decided to make their own version but couldn’t avoid theirs being brilliant. Queen later did something similar at Live Aid, without the drum machine. This was originally released as the B-side of ‘Labeled with Love’.
Which records were you buying in the late seventies that you are still playing today? What other memories do you have of the time? Welcome to the conversation.
This is one of those playlists where the writing is doing as much work as the sequencing. The clear-vinyl XTC detail, the Peel notebook habit, the cassette “change one track and you re-record half your life” reality—those are the tactile anchors that make the hour feel like a real time capsule instead of a nostalgia sampler.
A few things really landed for me: your read of “This Year’s Girl” as an indictment of the manufactured ideal feels exactly right; “Good Technology” is the kind of lyric-first pessimism that has aged into something uncomfortably accurate; and that Thompson Twins long version is the perfect example of a track that shouldn’t work on paper yet absolutely does in the body.
Also: thank you for the Kirsty MacColl note. That 12” “A New England” argument is nailed—seven minutes that somehow still moves like a three-minute single. I’d happily read the “write more about Kirsty MacColl soon” follow-through when you get there.
Love this music, the list and your comments. I do not have an account on Apple or Spotify. I know it's more work, but if you put this mix on MixCloud people like me could listen to it 😁
I've put several mixes there and have not had any problem with copyright yet (knock, knock)
https://www.mixcloud.com/mmrtnt/
I think it's okay if you don't put up multiple tracks by the same artist?