Believe it or not but this is a Joy Division-inspired t-shirt being sold by Disney. I guess I should be outraged at this besmirching of a band that meant so much to me when I was 18 but I just find it funny as I’m too old to have a dog in that fight anymore. I might even get one myself.
Download: Novelty – Joy Division (mp3)
If The Clash’s debut album sounded like being hit over the head with a brick, Siouxsie & The Banshees’ was like being stabbed with broken glass. The screeching, fingernails-dragging-down-a-blackboard guitar sound on it seemed to literally have sharp edges and slash at you like Norman Bates in a bathroom. It was the first time I’d heard music that put my teeth on edge and made me feel disoriented and a little bit sick — but in a good way!
The term “Post-Punk” was actually coined to describe The Banshees and they were one of the first bands to show the way beyond the simple three-chord thrash into darker and more choppy waters, something I don’t think they quite get enough credit for. I can only assume that’s because important, pioneering bands aren’t supposed to have long and successful careers, and being tagged with the “Goth” label later on probably didn’t help — I know that whenever I’ve called anyone a Goth I haven’t meant it as a compliment.
It’s not often these days that I have the same reaction to records that my 16-year-old self did, especially the darker stuff (like all teenagers he was rather more serious than me), but “Jigsaw Feeling” still cuts me to ribbons with the same assaulting, slashing power it had back in 1978. When it’s over I have to check if there’s any blood on the floor.
Download: Jigsaw Feeling – Siouxsie & The Banshees (mp3)
Buy: The Scream (album)
Somehow one doesn’t expect the lead singer of New Order to be dressed like this.
There is a persistent urban legend that the “Establishment” did some mucking about with the sales figures to prevent The Sex Pistols’ “God Save The Queen” from getting to number one in the charts during the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977 — can’t have these spotty oiks insulting Her Majesty, can we? — but whatever the truth behind that it was to be another year before the first so-called (by The Guinness Book Of British Hit Singles anyway) “punk” number one single. Blondie had made it as far as #2 with “Denis” earlier in 1978 but were held off the summit by the double-team of Brian and Michael (the horror, the horror) so the first to finally reach the top and plant a flag for the new generation were The Boomtown Rats with “Rat Trap”.
Of course it’s not a punk record at all, and if I was being unkind could be described as Bruce Springsteen’s first number one so shamelessly does it pinch from his “Jungleland” right down to the big sax solo. But I love it anyway and great lines like “Deep down in her pocket, she finds fifty pee” give it a kitchen-sink feel that made it more relatable to us kids in the UK than Brucie’s Hollywood-sized epic. No barefoot girls and soft summer rain in this town.
Punk or not, The Rats were at least a “New Wave” band which meant something, a sign that the citadel had been stormed and “our” side was winning, especially when they went on Top of The Pops and Bob Geldof tore up a photo of John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John whose “Summer Nights” they had just toppled from the top after seven weeks. The following year The Rats had another number one with “I Don’t Like Mondays” and Ian Dury, Blondie, The Police, and Gary Numan all hit the top slot (with more to come from The Jam, The Specials, and Dexy’s) as the charts entered something of a golden era that lasted several years. If you were a particular age back then it would have forever shaped/warped your expectations of how great the pop charts can be which is why we’ve been doomed to disappointment ever since, we were spoiled.
Download: Rat Trap – The Boomtown Rats (mp3)
