Friday's 40th five (no.47/80)

Week by week we're listing 5 tracks which were big music news in the charts, on your radio or even in your record collection 40 years ago, this week in 1980:

1. Spandau Ballet - To Cut A Long Story Short. One of the defining bands of the eighties made their Top 40 debut this week with their debut single, and the highest new entry at no.18.

2. Madness - Embarrassment. The Nutty Boys are also new on the charts this week (no.31) with this track off Absolutely, allegedly about Lee Thompson's teenage sister.

3. John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him (from Double Fantasy). ABBA were straight in to the album charst at no.1 this week, while Lennon & Ono's comeback album entered at a more modest no.27. Penned and sung principally by Yoko, this track was later remixed highlighting only Lennon's vocal for the 1984 compilation album Every Man Has a Woman. 

4. Bow Wow Wow - Louis Quatorze (from Your Cassette Pet). Opening track form the 'revolutionary' mini-album by Mlcolm McLaren's latest project which, as it wasn't released on vinyl, wasn't classified as an album at all, but only as an Ep and as such failed to make the singles Top 40. 

5. Motels - Days Are OK. Lead singer Martha Davis got the Record Mirror cover this week, with a full feature on the band inside "on the eve of their UK tour". British audiences hardly warmed to this Blondie-esque US band however and the single made slow progress.

6. Boomtown Rats - Banana Republic. First new material from the Rats in 1980, and the lead single from new album coming in '81. This new single was a new entry at no.23 this week and would eventually reach no.3 by Christmas.

Friday's 40th five (no.46/80)

Week by week we're listing 5 tracks which were big music news in the charts, on your radio or even in your record collection 40 years ago, this week in 1980:

1. ABBA - Super Trouper. And they're back with a strong new single and "feeling like a number one". This single (and album) did eventually reach the top although it would also be their last one to do so. Highest new entry this week at no.13

2. Diana Ross - I'm Coming Out. Nothing to do with LGBT, and indeed Ross was apparently horrified when she discovered the double meaning of the phrase after the song had been written and recorded. Another track off her Diana album released back in May. new entry this week and eventually reached no.13.

3. Adam & The Ants - Kings of the Wild Frontier. Title track of the band's new album, a new entry this week at no.4. 

4. The Professionals - Join The Professionals (Peel session). More post-punk fun from two former Sex Pistols and a friend. This session was recorded and broadcast by Peel although a self-titled debut album never emerged. 

5. Roxy Music - Same Old Scene. Another single is squeezed out of the Flesh+Blood album and makes it to no.12, its peak position, this week.

Friday's 40th five (no.45/80)

Week by week we're listing 5 tracks which were big music news in the charts, on your radio or even in your record collection 40 years ago, this week in 1980:

1. Blondie - The Tide Is High. Blondie are back with a surprising cover version of a 1969 Jamaican reggae number. Hisghest new entry this week in 1980 at no.5

2. John Lennon  - Just Like Starting Over. Another comeback although we've waited even longer for new material than we had with Blondie. More tinges of rock n roll nostalgia in Lennon's ode to both his wife and his career in music. Into the charts at 30.

3. Rod Stewart - Passion. Another lead single from another upcoming new album, Foolish Beahviour, Rod's tenth. A fairly modest new entry at 37 but would go higher.

4. Motorhead - Ace of Spades. The heavy metal revival starts here, with the album and its title track both in the charts this week. Saxon and Whitesnake were also coming out with new material around this time.

5. Modern English - Gathering Dust. Rock of a different kind for this band's new single release on burgeoning independent 4AD label. They also recorded their first Peel session later in the month (listen here).

Friday's 40th five (no.44/80)

Week by week we're listing 5 tracks which were big music news in the charts, on your radio or even in your record collection 40 years ago, this week in 1980:

1. David Bowie - Fashion. The Duke's follow-up to Ashes to Ashes is the highest new entry this week.

2. Japan - Gentlemen Take Polaroids. From the album of the same name, this is the band's first single on Virgin (with David Sylvian looking dandy on the cover of Smash Hits).

3. Pauline Murray and the Invisible Girls - Mr X. New single getting plenty of radio play on the alternative programmes, and is certainly one of the album's strongest tracks.

4. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - 2nd Thought. OMD's new album, their second of the year, is the highest new entry at no.6.

5. Joy Division - Atmosphere. A late release on Factory, and ultimately Ian Curtis' epitaph, is straight into the indie charts at no.1  

40 years on: Top 10 albums of 1980

 Top 10 albums of 1980 (in chronological order)

1. John Foxx - Metamatic
2. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
3. Genesis - Duke
4. The Human League - Travelogue
5. Gary Numan - Telekon
6. David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
7. Simple Minds - Empires & Dance
8. Japan - Gentlemen Take Polaroids
9. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Organisation
10. Mike Oldfield - QE2

It was 40 years ago today...

Another occasional series!

So many 'fortieth anniversaries' this year as, yes you've worked it out right, it's 40 years since that magic year of 1980, the year that the Future really began.

As well as being a crucial year for me as I reached 16 years of age, did O levels, left secondary school, did some proper work for the first time, and moved on to 6th Form college and the Big City, there was some great music too, stuff which really went on to shape my tastes and my life in general.

Luckily I also kept a very interesting and fairly detailed diary in that year, mostly noting down what I was up to, the banalities of routine, school, parents, friends, and of course music which I was hearing, listening to and eventually buying whenever 'pocket money' allowed it!

An important entry came about half way through the year, on 12th July, a Saturday. I'd finished my O levels, left school (waiting to go to 6th form) and was grafting hard out in the fields strawberry picking and crucially earning my own money! Thus I'd saved uo enough to buy my very first radio cassette player. I could now tape stuff off the radio! Revolutionary!

That very same day I also bough both Smash Hits and the NME, which featured Phil Oakey of The Human League, with his characteristic haircut, on the front cover (see pic.) with a group feature and the famous 'consumer guide to synthesisers' on the inside. The band also featured in Smash Hits (full issue here) with an interview, the lyrics to Empire State Human and the memorable full page colour pic/poster of the four members looking down into the camera lens (pc. left). I had the brilliant idea of sticking this page onto my bedroom ceiling directly above my bed, so for many weeks I had the Human League watching over all I did on and in my bed  (!).

Although I and many others didn't know it at the time, these press articles were a last ditch attempt to get some kind of commercial success for what would be this 'first version' of The Human League who had some critical acclaim but not so many sales, especially in the lucrative singles sector. Their "Holiday 80" EP/double 7"/singles package had failed to chart (some consumer confusion?) even after lead track Rock n Roll had been performed on prime-time TOTP, and Virgin were now trying again with the Empire State Human single release, a track from not the latest but thie debut album dating back to almost one year ago. Alas, we know how it all went, the group split into two in the autumn and the rest is history.

But going back to my radio/cassette recorder/player, NME also ironically enough carried an article about home taping which was 'killing music'. Forty years into the Future and although music has not been completely killed, it's certainly more easily avaiable to all, which basically was what we were aiming at with home taping, be it either with cassette copies of LPs or songs recorded off the charts, fingers ready on pause/rec button as appropriate.

Friday's 40th five (no.14/80)

Week by week we're listing 5 tracks which were big music news in the charts, on your radio or even in your record collection 40 years ago, this week in 1980:

1. Genesis - Behind The Lines. Opening track form their new album which goes straight into the album charts at no.1 this week.

2. Madness - Night Boat to Cairo. the Nutty Boys' Work, rest & Play EP is the highest new entry this week at no.14.

3. Pretenders - Talk of the Town. New material from the band fronted by Chrissie Hind is also a new entry at no.26.

4. Dr Hook - Sexy Eyes. This one is up an amazing twenty-nine places to no.9 this week.

5. David Essex - Silver Dream Machine. Essex makes yet another comeback an bikes into the chart at no.40

Friday's 40th five (no.03/80)

Week by week we're listing 5 tracks which were big music news in the charts, on your radio, on the telly or even in your record collection 40 years ago, this week in 1980:

1. Jon & Vangelis - I Hear You Now: an unlikely debut hit for an unlikely duo - highest new entry at no.25 this week.

2. Rupert Holmes - Escape (The Pina Colada Song). Another debut hit for this American singer/songwriter and another new entry at no.38

3. The Regents - 7 Teen. Another debut at no.31 for these post-punksters getting a lot of radio play.

4. Magazine - A Song From Under The Floorboards. From the band's fourth Peel session, first broadcast this week.

5. New Musik - Living by Numbers. 1980s computer-age ennui starts here. Still outside the Top 40 but on TOTP and tipped for the top.

6 Music: 28.01.2019

Another week ahead for BBC 6 music as the new schedule settles in. We're still not used to hear Keaveny in the afternoon although his morning absence is in part atoned by Hawkins' extra half-hour. They seem to be 'over-promoting' themselves a bit still, as if people were really thick and not realising Laverne is now in the breakfast slot etc. She was even on The One Show this week to promote her own show. Desperate?
Anyway this week Lammo is on his travels as he visits 'independent' venues around the UK starting with Edinburgh on Monday, York on Tuesday, Worcester on Wednesday, Bedford on Thursday and winding up at the 100 Club on Oxford Street no less for the Specials, er, special live performance. Good to see they've chosen the not so obvious usual cities (Liverpool, Manchester, Brum et al.)

This week's playlist begins to see some new stuff at last although 2018-veterans Maribou State, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stealing Sheep and Lizzo are still coming up more or less every hour - not that we disdain any of those of course. However, the best new track of 2019 so far seems to be this new one from Foals which is very catchy and even has a kind of 80s-production vibe to it. It's rightly on the A list (and on Radio 1's B list). New album coming in March (and another in the autumn!) Meanwhile,enjoy:

6 Music: 07.01.2019

The much anticipated new daytime schedule is already in full swing on 6 Music with - if you needed reminding - the following line-up as from Monday 7th Jan.:

• 5.00 - 7.30 am Chris Hawkins (extra 1/2 hour)
• 7.30 - 10.30 am Lauren Laverne "Breakfast Show"
• 10.30 am - 1.00 pm Mary Anne Hobbes Morning Show
• 1.00 pm - 4.00 pm Sean Keaveny "Lunchtime Show"

Hawkins seems to be dealing quite well with the extra half-hour (he calls it the new conservatory extension), which is also quite welcome. He's introduced the new "Exit Music" feature towards the end of the show (penultimate track played) whereby listeners can request a song for leaving the house in the morning.
Laverne is trying very hard (too hard?) with the arduous task of taking over from Keaveny although of course it's practically an impossible task and she is quite rightly doing her own thing. We here at LiM are still sadly missing the earworms, the Parkinson theme, Hill Street Blues and even Let's Play..Pontoon! (and Georgie).
Admittedly we haven't been listening to Hobbes or even the new Keaveny properly in order to pass any judgement. Time will tell.
Lamacq plods on and this week is featuring forgotten 80s tracks (thanks for reading our mail, Steve). Roundtable Thursday afternoon and Friday Free For All carry on as usual.

Radcliffe & Maconie (sans Maconie, for now) take over the weekend Breakfast Show but we're not expecting any big surprises there, although wondering how he/they will cope with the early start!

25 Years of Rock has been extended to include the extra 5 years of 30 Years of Rock, which finishes on Friday, to be replaced by Alan Freeman's epic 1994 series The Story of Pop starting Saturday.

Movement 2019

New Order have announced a bumper re-issue package for their 1981 debut album Movement. A series of replica 12" singles from the same period, characteristically not included on the original album, will also be issued in the run-up to the Movement box-set date, 5th April 2019.
The 12" re-issues are:

1. Ceremony (version 1) / In A Lonely Place  
2. Ceremony (version 2) / In A Lonely Place 
3. Everything's Gone Green / Cries And Whispers, Mesh
4. Temptation / Hurt

The Movement "definitive" four disc box set contains the original album both on 180 gr. vinyl and on CD (remastered?), a second CD of 18 previously unreleased tracks (demos, rehearsals etc.), and a DVD of live concerts, TV performances of Movement tracks. The box is currently available to order with a price tag of around £110.00.

More details here and here

Solo Sylvian re-issues

The first three solo albums by David Sylvian, Brilliant Trees (1984), Gone To Earth (1986) and Secrets of the Beehive (1987) and the "intermediary album" An Index of Possibilities (1985) are all to be re-issued on 180g 'deluxe vinyl' in 2019. Although it's not specified if the audio has been remastered in any way, there are some changes to the artwork and presentation. Whiole retaining the same front cover photo, the solo debut Brilliant Trees is now housed in a gatefold sleeve, while the other three LPs all feature brand new artwork with printed inner bags. The revised artwork has not found favour with many die-hards although via facebook, the man himself had this to say:

As the original art for my albums had been lost/destroyed on its journey from one label's stewardship to another, I decided against scanning pristine copies of the original vinyl covers (as Universal did with the recent Japan reissues) and instead create a series that works as a ‘collection’ incorporating new photographic prints and design elements. With no budget, but access to Yuka's archives and Chris’ design contributions, we feel we've created something beautifully expansive as will be evident once the set is seen in its entirety.

(full statement here, more details and ordering here)

The re-issues are scheduled for 22 February 2019.

Gone to Earth 2019 gatefold sleeve