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.

Spandau Ballet - Chant No 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)

I love 1981 - pt. 14

And hail the new club culture of Thatcher's Britain with Spandau Ballet abandoning their Baltic tablecloth look in favour of the smarter, sharper zoot suits of London's trendy nightclubs.
It's the summer of 1981 and storming up the charts this week is ver Spands new single, the clumsily titled Chant No 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On) with a new look and new sound featuring funky guitars, horn (oo-eer) section and expensive doof-doof electronic drums to boot.

Although the preceding Glow had hinted at a slightly new sound, Chant No. 1 was a sharp change of direction for the band who had obviously caught on to the fact that the Blitz style make-up and clothing, and music were out and this was what was going down, Beat Route (geddit?) 'n' all.

As with Depeche Mode's New Life there was also a 12" version with extended mixes of the A side and the B Side Feel the Chant, which, as a variation on Chant No. 1 must make it one of the first "extended remixes" of its kind. Sadly, Feel did not emerge on the recent re-releases in any form. Anyways here's the Chant video but it's Vemo you'll have to go all the way over to YouTube to see it in all its fresh-faced and horny glory.

lyrics in Smash Hits

Spandau Lorry

Mamma mia.... Not quite sure how this very odd collaboration came about, but here's Spandau Ballet's Tony Hadley crooning along on the latest single by Italian pseudo-hippy singer Caparezza "Goodbye Malinconia".
Stick with it to see our Tony doing a nifty bit of truck-driving t'ords the end. (thanks to A Welshie in Italy for the tip-off)

Next up, Simon Le Bon joins Carla Bruni on their version of "Au Revoir Les Wild Boys".

I Love 1980 - 26

Spandau Ballet - To Cut a Long Story Short
And yes it was 30 years ago this week, about, that five grown men in kilts, tablecloths and floppy fringes made their way onto Top of the Pops to perform their first single. Emerging from The Blitz scene which had been bubbling in London's underground clubs and things during the past year or so, this was the first hit single of the genre generally known as New Romantic, whatever that means, meant or was meant to mean. Some may argue the re- vamped Ultravox preceded and indeed inspired everyone else and Bowie's Scary Monsters album simultaneously drew from and fuelled the movement both in fashion, attitude, ....oh and the music, although Spandau Ballet are generally considered to be the first of their kind to hit the big time with several others to follow, including Brummy rivals Duran Duran who were still sweating it out in frilly blouses on the Midlands club circuit.

Sad in a way that the Spans soon abandoned the dish-cloth style and bold, rhythmic, electro-based music which first brought them onto the scene, preferring a more MOR "soul boy" approach within a couple of years with True and all that, suited though it was to the upcoming wine bar culture (itself the logical consequence of the Blitz scene?).
We immediately loved 'em just as they were, bringing in something new and exciting, and - as far as I was concerned more importantly than the kilts - vaguely electro (even tho the driving synth line had been mixed down vis à vis the original demo versh). It was foppish but laddish at the same time, a pint of lager with lipstick on the rim, epic poetry for the dancefloor ....listen to the sound of the Spandau Ballet..

To Cut a Long Story Short - chart stats
Spandau Ballet's first mention in Smash Hits (p.15)

Ballet Dancing

For those brave enough to venture into post-Diamond territory Spandau Ballet have released expanded and remastered editions of their 'True' and 'Parade' albums this week.
'True' is released as a three disc edition featuring a CD of the original album, remastered; a CD of bonus material including previously unreleased remixes and live tracks and a DVD of the band playing live at London's Sadlers Wells theatre in 1983. 'Parade' appears as a 2-CD edition, featuring the remastered album and a number of bonus tracks on one disc and a BBC In Concert show recorded at Wembley Arena in 1984 on the other.

We're very much in mid-80s territory here so the uninitiated please beware . Gone were the days of eccentric clothing and Blitz-era dance classics such as To Cut a Long Story Short and The Freeze and even the spruced up Beat-Route boys of Chant No. 1 or Instinction. Communication, Gold and Lifeline off 1983's number one album True (knocked off the top spot by Thriller) are still bearable although the sickly sweet sleeze of the title track was the shape of things to come. Only When You Leave, I'll Fly For You and Round and Round off Parade a year later were very much the soundtrack of wine bar smooching and such like up and down the country ....

Oddly The Spans' success hardly went much further than this, with later albums Through the Barricades and Heart Like a Sky producing relatively modest sales. The courtroom was just around the corner...

Spandau Ballet circa 1984 . ...do we look mid-eighties in this? Oh dear..

Spandau Ballet chart stats

Journeys to.....pants!

Spandau Ballet have recently re-released their 1981 debut album Journeys to Glory in 're-mastered' and expanded CD special edition, although judging by the reviews, the results are less than favourable.
One reviewer on amazon.co.uk described the new issue as "Absurdly unlistenable. Harsh, painful, tinny. Spandau's best album ruined", while another states "It is physically hard to listen to, compressed, squashed, tinny, flat, and incredibly harsh and metallic." Another punter while lamenting the sound quality also complains about the omission of the Musclebound 12" and lack of DVD visual material.
LIM also has a first hand description of the albums 'digipak' packaging which is equally pants with bad printing and sloppy overall design. Oh dear.
Ths Spans' second album Diamond has also undergone the re-issue treatment although sound quality is apparently better. Something to do with the originals?

Let's hope fellow-New Romantic pioneers Duran Duran fare better with their re-release of their eponymous debut due the end of this month with re-mastered sound, B sides, extended versions etc. and DVD!

read The Quietus' excellent review of both Spandau albums and their collocation in time here.


ver Spans circa 1981 .. "pretending it's art.." - quite.