So if Disc 1 was the Showpeople album and a handful of bonus tracks, and Disc 2 was a lot of the pre-album demos and some live tracks recorded before and around the first album, what could Disc 3 possibly hold for us?
The answer is: the best of the rest. In particular, these 2022 remixes (and in one case, a 2021 remix), remastered from the original tapes by Tot Taylor himself are just the bee’s knees. You think you’ve heard “Baby It’s True” and “Beat the Beat” enough times already, but you my friend are wrong.
Sadly, there aren’t any YouTube versions of any of the 2022 remixes, so instead the videos we include will be some rare items and later appearances (so don’t be alarmed by the change in hairstyle!)
Our first choice was a stop of the 2016 Heaven 17 UK tour (which we got to see two dates of, but sadly not this one in Bury St. Edmonds), where Mari performed two songs you along side Martyn Ware and the band. So enjoy.
So the first half of Disc 3 is just these fabulous new remixes , with the second half being the “odds-n-sods” collection — a US remix here, an alternate take there, a Spanish version found in the rumpus room, and a 7-inch edit balanced precariously on the liquor cabinet.
There’s even an instrumental version in here somewhere. Let’s dive in, shall we?
THE MUSIC
The disc kicks off with sonically wider, cleaner, and “glow-up” 2022 remix versions of Showpeople tracks “Baby It’s True,” “Beat the Beat,” and “Ecstasy.”
There’s also new remixes of “Glamourpuss” (two remixes, in fact, in different years!) “Rave,” “She’s Had Enough of You,” “You Look So Good,” and the US remix of “Just What I Always Wanted.” There’s also the original UK version of “Ecstasy,” just thrown in for good measure.
For the 2022 remixes of the album tracks, the new version beats the original every time — with one exception. The 2022 version of “Ecstasy,” replaces the 80s drums of the album version with traditional ones, but quickens the pace considerably — it might actually be a little too fast. The UK original version elsewhere on this disc keeps that same manic speed, so I have to bow to the wisdom of the US record company that made them re-do the song at a sensible tempo.
The 2022 remix of “Rave” is really a cleaned-up and slightly re-edited version of the “live in the studio” version heard on Disc 2. Oddly, the Wilsations are not co-credited on the Disc 3 version, though of course they are still there.
Likewise, the 2022 remix of “She’s Had Enough of You” is a notable improvement on the original we heard on Disc 2. It seems like it is pitch-shifted a little from the other version, which only benefits the song.
This brings us to the 2021 remix of “Glamourpuss,” here given the subtitle “(Scenario).” The piano intro is completely different, and jazzier, just for starters, and then the sax comes in. Sadly, this version keeps the corny b-side “band introduces the singer” gimmick, and then the original piano comes in and the song gets underway.
Give me the 2022 remix version on this one any day.
The “U.S. Remix” version of “Just What I Always Wanted” starts off with the whispered “Let’s Go,” then proceeds to drag out the intro of the song and ruin the energy of the original until Mari finally shows up and gets the number going properly after the first minute. Of the three versions found on this box set, the original album cut is the best, in my opinion.
Note to Tot Taylor and/or Tony Mansfield: when you have someone say in a song “let’s go,” there needs to be a burst of energy that follows that. I’m not quite sure how you missed that, but them’s the rules.
So now we move into the second half of Disc 3, which offers no remixes but more alternate versions. We start with a song only heard on Disc 1, “One Day is a Lifetime.”
This time, The Wilsations are credited, even though we don’t hear a peep out of them vocally. It’s listed as an “Alternate Version,” and apart from correcting an editing error at the very beginning of the original Showpeople track, the main change is the band’s presence is felt throughout the track rather than only sporadically.
“Tu No Me Llores” is “Cry Me a River” in Spanish, and a classic is a classic in any language. The middle-eight reverts back to English, but the verses have been rewritten slightly to rhyming purposes. After the instrumental break, we come back to Spanish.
This is followed by an instrumental version of “Would You Dance With a Stranger.” A solo sax starts us off for a few bars, then the piano softly comes in behind the sax.
Finally the upright bass arrives, and the disc officially earns its Apple Music and Spotify classification of “Jazz” with no qualifiers. It’s a beauty in either version, but as lovely as it is the lack of Mari is keenly felt.
The 7-inch DJ Edit of “Wonderful (To Be With)” is shorter than the lead-off track on Disc 1, but otherwise unchanged. Again, The Wilsations get credit on this version, where they didn’t on the Showpeople album track.
The last two tracks on Disc 3 should be classified as “curiosities” or perhaps “experiments.” It’s two versions of the song “Let’s Make This Last,” first heard on Disc 2 as the “De Lorean Style Mix,” with squiggly sonic effects at the intro.
The first version on Disc 3 is referred to as “Let’s Make This Last (A Bit Longer),” a clever name for an extended mix, but also has the subtitle “Stereo Shift Mix Loop One” that really makes hay with the synth remix effects.
It takes nearly two minutes for Mari to finally appear and the song to get going properly. I can see where a club DJ would make great use of this, but its an awfully odd duck on an album of faux-60s poppy love songs.
The second version opens with crowd noise (not from a live gig), and is another busy remix, but with no time wasted on extended synth loops (though that’s not to say there aren’t some, just that they get moved to the middle). Like the first mix, this wouldn’t work outside of a club, but at least its much shorter.
On the other hand, the actual song is chopped to ribbons, with the verses removed entirely and replaced with random cheering-crowd snippets. Just my opinion, but this is a pretty awful way to end the disc.
I think if these needed two mixes needed to be included at all, they should have come earlier — maybe right after the 2022 remixes. Move the beautiful “Tu No Me Llores” and “Would You Dance With a Stranger” instrumental to the end, and you’d finish the experience of this box set on a high note.
Sadly, we’re coming to the end of the Toy Box set with Lene’s final album for Stiff — No Man’s Land from 1982. As usual, it’s a another album choc-a-bloc with catchy tunes, including one of my favourites of hers. Unfortunately, as I wrote many years ago in a review for a newspaper, “it sounds like they didn’t really have enough material for a full album, so they threw in what should have been the b-sides to the five potential singles, and called it day.”
Kind of a brutal assessment, in retrospect, but not wrong. The album is thin on fully-fleshed-out songs and heavy with other tracks that are quite good musically but light on lyrics with much meaning. The “A” material here is pretty strong, particularly the two lead-off tracks — both of which were in fact singles that found some traction — “It’s You, It’s You (Mein Schmerz)” and “Blue Hotel.”
I also very much liked “Special Star,” “Sister Video,” and “Maria,” and I remember all three getting some college/indie radio airplay at the time. Most of the rest of the tracks, while catchy, seem seriously undercooked lyrically. This could have been papered over with more of those great “Slavic male chorus” bits that made the first record so entertaining, but after the original band broke up, we only ever get (double-tracked) Les handling that — and just him is kinda thin and too sparsely used.
Starting with the New Toy EP, most of the background vocals were done by Lene herself — which is not by itself a bad thing because she’s awesome — but the call-and-response you got on Stateless and to a lesser extent on Flex has gone, and the songs sound less varied as a result — even as the production work improves.
Speaking of production, the fact that this album has more engineers/studios listed (eight!!) than it does musicians adds to the inconsistency factor. The truth is that this record was cobbled together from the multiple smaller sessions with various producers and studios by order of Stiff Records’ Dave Robinson, who wanted another “hit” from Lene, which he eventually got in the two lead tracks — at least in the US.
This one also had the most “writers” on any of Lene’s 80s albums, with “It’s Only You” and “Sister Video” both being written by others, and “Blue Hotel” using a co-writer (Maruo Goldsand). While still equal parts hit and miss, No Man’s Land is still a better record than most acts at the time were putting out, but it misses the high bar Lene and Les set for themselves on the two previous albums, and is very symbolic of their deteriorating relationship with Stiff.
Lene writes about Stiff a lot in the booklet, and is generous with her thanks to Dave Robinson and the other people who worked there, but from her perspective Dave was growing increasingly disenchanted with the lack of UK hits (she did better in the US, particularly on this album), and eventually lost interest, making No Man’s Land the last album on Stiff.
It’s still an enjoyable album, make no mistake, but even the bonus tracks are (mostly) extended or remixed versions of the album tracks. Speaking of which, the legend that is Bob Clearmountain did the remixing on the album (with assists from Lene and Les and Dick Wingate), so from a high-fidelity perspective this is the best-sounding album to date.
THE BONUS TRACKS
Just for variety’s sake, we finally get the two “missing” tracks from the “New Toy” EP that was release prior to the album here: the original studio version of “Savages” and the original “Special Star,” which both ended up in extensively reworked (and superior) versions on the album. Likewise, the “Single Version” of Blue Hotel is a pretty different version to what ended up on the album, though it does actually have Les and Lene singing together on the chorus, which is nice.
We then move on to the “Remixed, Extended Version” of “It’s Only You,” which you might be forgiven for thinking is actually the “Instrumental Version” for the first 1:06 before Lene finally comes in. The vocal and Lene’s background vocal are the same, but quite differently mixed from the album version. This bonus version uses more of Lene’s own bv’s and so I kinda like it better, though the album version swings more.
This is followed by a wholly new song, “Blue,” (no hotel involved). It’s rather frantic, and will remind listeners of “old” Lene, even though the vocal is a bit sparse. It probably should have been on the album proper, but its a lightweight effort despite the speedy 50s overtones.
Next up, a very remixed and mostly instrumental “dub” version of “It’s Only You,” with Lene only providing bv’s and sound effects here and there. It’s not really suitable for your own karoke version, since it wanders off from the better-known version of the song, but for anyone who wants to hear Les’s isolated contribution to a given Lene song, this is a good example — and it runs nearly two full minutes longer than the album version, so there’s some great noodling going on here.
Oddly, this is followed by the “US Extended Dance Mix” version, which is nearly as long as the Instrumental Version at 5’39”, but hurrah, we have Lene’s vocal back in. The lengthening comes in the form of a long mid-song instrumental break that gets sparse at the beginning and end, but is very effective and makes you all the more thrilled when the vocals return, and we even get some extra vocals.
From there, we go on to a “US Dance Mix” of “Blue Hotel,” which adds a minute-and-a-half to the song more cleverly than it was with “It’s Only You,” by keeping the instrumental extensions, mostly quite short until the mid-point. These two “US” extended versions are the most successful of the bonus tracks, since they simply give us more of what we love in the respective songs … and by that of course I mean “more Les Chappell croaking like a frog.” Bonus points for the fake-out false ending before the real ending!
The album ends with a genuine B-side: “O Seasons, O Castles.” It’s a slow-moving but another colourful, well-performed theatrical number with a sudden ending.
THE WRAP-UP
If you like Lene Lovich’s work beyond just any singles you might have heard, you should pick this box set up (if you can find it — it has sold out from Cherry Red!). The remastering work really adds spit and polish to the sound of all three albums, and the plethora of bonus tracks get as close as anyone outside hardcore Lene artifact collectors are likely to come to “everything” she recorded for Stiff.
It’s clear that the “project manager” for this box set, Michael Robson, really cared about the material and getting the look of the set and booklet right. Scott Davies of Rubellen Remasters did a fabulous job of remastering, and the previously-unseen (by me, at least) photo taken in Boston in 1983 just perfectly showcases the amazing look and talent of Lene, alongside other rare photos within the booklet. Best of all from a collector perspective, the box is the same size as the CDs, making for easy storage (waves to fellow obsessive-compulsive collectors).
Lene’s written comments, supplemented by Robson and Davies, do a good but brief job of telling the story of the albums from her perspective as well as some historical background. The booklet also touches on some other things Lene did (including “Mata Hari” and her pre-Stiff musical escapades) and places those events into the timeline succinctly. Lene’s post-Stiff career and home life is also mentioned, which is nice.
Cherry Red have been a winning streak of late, and this is another gold star for them for getting this out. I hope they will continue to work with Robson and Davies on other projects that the pair are passionate about, since they love they have for Lene and Les shows through every aspect of the care evident in this package.
The only downside to Toy Box is that I am now hungry — nay, starving — for Super Deluxe Editions (SDEs) of March and Shadows and Dust, but in the meantime, get the single CDs of her later albums — they’re also great!
Toy Box: The Stiff Years is a four-CD box set covering everything (or nearly so) Lene and her band recorded for Stiff Records, which amounts to three albums, two “mini-LPs,” and some odds and sods, all of which have been gathered up together. For me, who has collected Lene faithfully for decades (and once did a lovely interview with her and Les in Atlanta), there’s not a lot here I hadn’t already heard or own, except for one pretty significant thing (which we’ll get to shortly).
From her 70s and 80s peak years, most everything is here apart from the brilliant 1989 album March, but of course it wouldn’t be — it didn’t come out on Stiff. Each of the albums are supplanted with bonus tracks, including a lot of “early versions” (home studio demos), instrumental versions, variations, remixes, live versions, and promo or b-side type stuff.
As with these sorts of “everything boxes,” as I like to call them, it’s really great having this all in one place (super handy when storage is tight, eh, fellow collectors?), and while I’m sure there’s a few oddities missing — for example I have the full Lene “Interview Disc” on vinyl where the DJ would ask questions and “Lene” (on the included record) would respond — but this is as complete a catalog of the Stiff music from her as we’re likely to get. Plus, it’s Cherry Red — there’s a fabulous booklet that includes Lene’s own memories and comments, plus some supplemental information from Scott Davies (of Rubellan Remasters, who handled the audio remastering for this project) and Michael Robson (who sheparded the project and designed the booklet and box).
One last thing before we dive in: It wasn’t originally my intention to do another artist who rose to full prominance in 1979 this soon, I had actually picked out another quite different artist boxset to do; but I was joking to some friends one day last month that it would be ironic if I covered three of Lene’s four 70s/80s albums in … wait for it … March, and so here we are.
STATELESS — BACKGROUND
A two-CD version of Lene’s debut album, you ask? How can this be, even with bonus tracks? The original album was barely longer than 30 minutes! This is the “pretty significant thing” I alluded to earlier — both the US and UK versions of Stateless are present here, and as I’m embarrassed to admit (having owned a vinyl UK copy of the album for decades but never actually listened to it because I also had the US version) — I was unaware of just how different the two versions were/are until now. So, for me at least, there’s a brand-new record in here.
Consequently, this calls for a side-by-side comparison of each album track. We’ll also review the non-album bonus tracks — all 21 of them! — and pick out the gems.
The short story on the two versions is that after the record originally came out in the UK (with the pre-release hit single of “I Think We’re Alone Now”) in October of ’78, the US label felt it needed some further cooking, and had Roger Bechirian (well known among New Wave et al album collectors) remix and re-record some parts for the US release, which made “Lucky Number” a minor hit in the States as well.
The US version used a different — and frankly better — cover shot as well, though I like the way Lene (in the booklet) refers to the UK cover as “like ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch.” When the album was re-issued in the UK in ’79, some (but not all) of the Bechirian versions were included, so getting to hear the original mix is a treat.
The Bechirian version of most of the songs was then used for the subsequent rest of world versions, which along with the US version came out in April of ’79. The full story on this is a bit more complicated (variations on how many Bechirian remixes were used on different countries’ album version, plus a couple of mis-stamped pressings), but to consolidate matters Cherry Red has Disc 1 as the original LP mix (only a little Bechirian) and Disc 2 as the “US/UK remix” version (tracks 1-8 and 11 were “Bechirian’d”). For the bonus tracks it is not spelled out, but our Roger is also credited with production as well as backing vocals (for “Trixi,” meaning that song was likely created during the re-record sessions).
The album did pretty well: while it didn’t chart in the US, it went Silver in the UK (250,000 sold) and did well all over Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. The first single, a remake of Tommy James and the Shondells’ “I Think We’re Alone Now,” reached #3 in the UK. It had the “early version” of “Lucky Number” as the b-side.
The subsequent single, the revamped “Lucky Number,” went to #2 in Australia and #3 in New Zealand, and also charted elsewhere. In the US, the song was a sleeper success, never hitting the Top 40 but it was an early video and club hit.
Before we get to the UK vs US compare, I do want to mention my general feelings for this album: obviously I liked it at the time, but this revisit has reminded me of how much I adore this record. It’s a rare album where 100 percent of the songs are strong, polished, and timelessly enjoyable, and of course Les and Lene’s talents mesh so beautifully here that the whole thing — UK or US version — is just a joy. It’s one of the very best albums Stiff ever put out, and was by no means a one-shot wonder.
STATELESS — SONGS SIDE-BY-SIDE
These will be comparisons of the “UK original” and “US/remixed” versions of each song, acknowledging that having an experienced engineer remix/redo some stuff is bound to sound better a lot of the time. We’ll use the original UK running order for the album.
Lucky Number Winner: US/remixed Bechirian knows what he’s doing when it comes to mixing: this has a brighter tone and a more swinging tempo; beefier drum fills; more manly background vocals; a slightly more “quirky” lead vocal, and the brilliant addition of the monk-like “number” chant for the outro.
A slightly different, live (?) version from Top O’ the Pops
Sleeping Beauty Winner: US/remixed The US version has a new vocal (this will be a theme in many of the US/remix wins), but the UK original is clearer and more natural — Lene doesn’t fight the instruments to be heard as much. That said, the US version is better mixed throughout, and adds more bv’s and stronger bell sounds. It also has a new guitar solo, and the song cuts to the ending much quicker, losing 30 seconds of repetitive vamping from the original version, which gives it the win.
Home Winner: UK original Some may disagree, but I think the UK original mix retains more of that surfer/psychedelic feel. This seems like the first song were Lene’s vocal wasn’t re-recorded in the US version, but then again, the US mix adds some new guitar twang and louder FX during the middle eight.
Lip synced version from Dutch TV
Too Tender (to Touch) Winner: UK original The US version features the bells much more prominently, which is an improvement on the UK version, but oddly tries to bury Lene’s vocal under a significantly louder piano (excellent work by Don Snow) and some organ bits. Again, it’s the same vocal on both versions, but Lene never really comes to the fore in the US version until the bridge, and even then a new and different piano solo gets thrown in for no clear reason.
Say When Winner: US/remixed Conversely, on this one it’s not even close: Bechirian’s significantly re-mixed and re-recorded version is just vastly superior. It’s a fun song either way, but Lene’s terrific new vocal contrasted with more male bv humming, and a far more prominent organ, some nicely-placed reverb and other touches just make this one the definitive version (plus an extra count-up!).
Lip synced for Dutch TV
Tonight Winner: tie Nick Lowe’s “Tonight” gets a really nice 1950s treatment in both versions, but each one drops the ball in one way or another. The UK version puts Lene front and center vocally throughout, as it should, but it criminally dwells on the sax (which is very good, don’t get me wrong) at the expense of not bringing in the crucial supporting background “echo” bv’s until the song is more than half over. While the US version corrects that mistake, Bechirian piles on all the instruments too much, frequently drowning out Lene’s climatic vocals in the choruses.
Writing on the Wall Winner: US/remixed Another 50’s influenced number, this time the tragic story-song that skirts doo-wop territory at times. The US version brings in sax, better mixing for the organ, and adds more male bv’s to give the song more atmosphere.
Telepathy Winner: US/remixed A very funny song, which backs off the 50s influence somewhat but still has an echo of it. Once again, the US version brings in the background vocals right away and keeps them around throughout, and Lene’s re-recorded vocal actually improves on the UK original. The better mixing and more vocal power wins the day.
Momentary Breakdown Winner: UK original We’ve now moved firmly (with “Telepathy” and now this one) into early 60’s (fake) girl group sound. This time it’s the UK version that gives the “girls” plenty of spotlight, and Lene’s incredible, four-octave finale is just … (chef’s kiss). The US version mostly buries the bv’s until the middle eight, but does offer better separation for the instruments, and the end of Lene’s octave stunt isn’t the end of the song this time, she just descends and starts over (briefly).
One in a 1.000.000 Winner: UK original This song always reminds me of “Say When” in its franticness, strong vocal, and playful arrangement — you could image a chorus line of western burlesque dancers high-stepping this number at an old west saloon. The US version again puts Lene back a little in the mix (with bv’s more prominent, but to be fair they’re very good), but the two versions are by far the most similar between the two releases, with only a slight change to the sonic staging on this one.
I Think We’re Alone Now Winner: tie Bewilderingly, the US version on this song flips the typical script on the way it’s mixed, with the instruments nicely separated from Lene’s vocal, with the bv’s a little less prominent and her own background sounds getting some of that spotlight also. The difference between the US version and UK version is still a little subtle and for me, either one is the best version of this song I’ve ever heard.
The final disc in this three-CD set feels a lot like someone spent a lot of time on the first two, then realised “oh crap, there’s a mountain of stuff I haven’t even gotten to yet!” and tried to cram as much of it in at the last minute — which reminds me of me and my suitcase packing. There is a marathon 27 tracks here (literally hitting the 80-minute CD limit), and as with the other two discs, the “hits” are in the minority and the also-rans are in the majority.
Much of the fun of this set is discovering some lost gold, but also this whole set paints a picture of both the fall (but lasting influence) of punk and the rise of post-punk, which dominated ’79 until fashion (and better/more affordable synthesizers) entered the picture, whereupon it evolved again into New Wave. Some acts were more forward-looking (XTC, Human League, The Monochrome Set, The Vapors, The Wall), some weren’t (Swell Maps, Disco Zombies, The Regents, Notsensibles) but most were just taking advantage of the spirit of the times to either play at being a rock star (The Zipps, The Monks, The Freshies), or seriously explore their own creative path (The Mekons, PiL, Scritti Politti).
What I like about these sorts of “specific year, period, or genre” comps, at least the way Cherry Red does them, is that they make you a true Whitman’s Sampler of the subject, rather than focusing on the most memorable hits like most labels would — thus grossly misusing the term “Best of.” Instead, we get a marbled slice of the whole cake — nothing truly terrible, but the gamut of acts that got to the record-cutting stage who ended up being run-of-the-mill at worst, and gloriously daring and original at best.
One thing I noticed about the third CD was that the famous/infamous “two minutes-ish” standard was really starting to slip – most of the songs here are over two minutes, many are over three minutes, and a handful sail right past a scandalous four minutes!
At a total of 76 tracks, “Revolt Into Style” is probably best suited as the soundtrack for a 1979-themed party, with prizes for those who can name the more obscure tracks, but … as a snapshot of a moment in music, it is far better and more representative of a time where the “next big thing” wasn’t yet clear, and popular music was open to more possibilities than had been there for a while.
THE MUSIC
Disc 3 starts off with a strong set of four songs — one from the quixotic XTC, who managed to become a minor but mainstream success with a number of charting hits; two from bands that are beloved by their fans (which include me), but all but unknown to everyone else (The Revillos aka Rezillos and The Monochrome Set); and a oddly attracting but utterly obscure song about driving habits (!) from a band that sank without a trace (Passage).
★“Making Plans for Nigel” is one of Colin Moulding’s unlikely hits, which must have confused the heck out of main songwriter Andy Partridge (who had to wait quite some time for one of his to climb the charts. It is, as is a theme throughout the entire boxset, not a love song — and showcased their angular soundscape and unconventional vocals, yet still managed to become their first Top Twenty single and bring more attention to the band. Happily, they kept following up with strong choices for single and album material for quite a while.
★“Where’s the Boy for Me?” is a brilliant mod-ish parody of teenbeat songs (like those of Lesley Gore, whom I adore) and those boy-crazy beach movies. It features the best damn fake Farisa sound around, plus the requisite twangy guitar solo, great garbage-can-lid drums, and starts frantic and builds up to a sudden hard stop. Not the first band to create a warped image of the 1950s, but one of the best.
★“The Monochrome Set” by The Monochrome Set is, surprisingly, not the only self-named single on this disc (!), but in this case it’s a manifesto of wit and whimsy from the point of view of the bored, cynical offspring of the rich — one of those things Noel Coward might have tossed off if he’d been a pop star. The single version included here was reworked a bit for the album version (found on Strange Boutique), but its the blueprint for Bid’s entire ouevre of smart, humourous songwriting.
★Passage were the first band on the disc that were utterly new to me, and the song “Taking My Time” is … odd … in its subject matter, but it has lodged itself firmly in my head for some reason. I mean, who writes a song about bad driving? It really makes me curious to explore whatever other music they put out. Perhaps the fact that it was produced by David Cunningham of the Flying Lizards gives it a touch of commerciality (with surprise cello at the end), coupled with a simplistic chorus and odd subject.
THE BEST OF THE REST …
★Other winners on this disc for me included “Empire State Human,” which is technically the very first Human League single (the one before, “I Don’t Depend On You,” was done under the name The Men). Of course Human League were one of the bands that took their very forward-looking sound and made commercial hay with it, but this one stands out even on this disc the way Gary Numan did on Disc 1. It’s a story-song, which I always like, plus its really funny.
It didn’t actually do well on initial release, what with being a song about a man who is deteremined to become the tallest person in the world (and succeeds), but was re-released later and became a hit. The segue out of the song features the lyrics “fetch more water, fetch more sand/biggest person in the land,” which somehow works with the whole bizarre thing. I love it.
★“Kiss the Mirror” by The Wall is an early dark-rock song that predates the big obsession with that genre as we suffer through the Thatcher reign of austerity in the UK, followed by the election of war-happy Ronnie Ray-Gun in the US. While this particular track suffers from some poor production or mastering, it can’t hide the band’s talent — and made me go look up some more of their scattered discography, all of which I sampled was in much the same solid vein.
Their first single, “New Way,” was another John Peel favourite (as you may have gathered, his opinion was very important to the compilers of this set, as it was to most young people in the UK at the time). “New Way” borrowed a chorus from the Sex Pistols, but they’re forgiven because the song was produced by former Pistols Paul Cook and Steve Jones. Beset by personnel changes, the band split up in 1982, but have had at least one reunion (in 2007), and their two studio albums have been augmented by a live album in 2009 and a compilation of the Ian Lowry material that came out in 2021.
★Public Image Ltd’s lesser-heard single “Memories” is an other example of a band that doesn’t sound like everyone else (often a problem for the also-ran bands, on this disc in particular). Long-forgotten but brought to my attention in this track is the repeated use of the phrase “I could be wrong” — which he used again to even greater affect on the band’s biggest hit, “Rise.” Feeling nostalgic after hearing this, I went to look up their latest album (End of World) and sampled the song “Car Chase” — yep, still Johnny, still unique, still great.
The very next track on the disc is the compilers sneaking in a musical joke. “Johnny B. Rotten” by The Monks, who have no aspirations of imitating either the Sex Pistols or the former Mr. Rotten; it’s just a fun pop song taking the piss — or maybe it’s meant as the flip side of “Johnny B. Goode.”
★Then we come to a breath of fresh air with The Vapors’ first single, “Prisoners.” In many ways, it’s the same old “three chords and a cloud of dust” approach so many of the other bands use, but smart backup vocals and the stylish interplay between David Fenton and Ed Bazelgette really shows off their talent. It can’t have hurt that Fenton borrowed a musical phrase from Bruce Springsteen’s 1975 hit “Born to Run,” but I love how he used it here.
★Finally, we get to a ska song (sort of), and it’s Madness’ “Bed and Breakfast Man,” a very mainstream hit from the Nutty Boys, again in the tradition of a Kinks-ian story-song but with that ska influence. This was the one that proved the band wouldn’t be a one-hit wonder, and that they could grow and embrace other styles as well.
★There’s also a single by the emerging Dexy’s Midnight Runners called “Dance Stance” (originally called “Burn It Down” when they were still a punk band, and that titled returned for the album version). Singer Kevin Rowland and guitarist Al Archer had soured on punk, rethought their goals, and came up with Dexy’s style of northern soul.
This was the first indicator of their new direction, and it’s thus rougher than what they would become, but it still captures that rebellious spirit the fuelled punk, addresses an anti-Irish sentiment that was prevalent during “The Troubles,” and takes it in a different direction (including a litany of Irish literature legends name-checked in the song). Thankfully we get the demo version here, rather than the official single (which stripped out the remaining punk element and just wasn’t as good).
★Another keeper was The Lurkers with “New Guitar in Town,” which does a lovely job with what would later be called “jangle pop.” It closely follows the style of drum-and-guitar driven fast pop that dominates the sound of ’79, but good vocals and agile play make it work.
★The last of the highlights for me was the inclusion of the perennial post-punk novelty number, “Where’s Captain Kirk?” by Spizzenergi. You gotta love a man (Kenneth Spiers) who has made an entire career (still going!) out of a single song (okay, that’s not quite true … have you heard his cover of “The Model” by Kraftwerk?), and ever-changing band names on the theme of “Spizz.” Fast, fun, whacky, excellent guitars and gratuitous vocal effects (plus a human farisa organ!) … what’s not to love?
… AND THE REST OF THE REST
Another wrinkle that occasionally gets into the music here (and throughout the collection) is the introduction of sax and occasionally other horns to add some soul and punch to the guitar-heavy sound. In the earlier discs, bands would often lead with the bass and drums, but by Disc 3 bass has been mostly pushed into the background in favour of more guitar. We’re also sloooowwwwlllyyy getting back to love songs, which isn’t a bad thing — but we were enjoying the break and the variety of other subjects that dominate this compilation.
As we’ve noted across these discs, there was (and still is) a tradition of the occasional single (that sometimes does rather well) of a bunch of lads on a musical lark (see also “Zip Nolan” by the Cult Figures on Disc 2). These days its mostly the realm of novelty Xmas singles or forcing the tournament football team to make a loutish charity record, but a … let’s call it “project” … called Swell Maps managed to make a career out of it for a while.
The example given here, “Real Shocks,” will remind listeners of the Cult Figures, but to be fair one can detect more musicianship than is immediately evident in this basement-studio type sound of young men having a good time, semi-melodically. Having sampled them a bit more (going back to 1972!), I acknowledge that they didn’t always sound like this — in their early days they were more acolytes of Can and Faust — but I doubt any of their output will ever make it into my collection except by means of a compilation like this.
That said, it is similarly paired well with the next track, “Friends” by The Zipps, who really were a group of students from Belfast who recorded exactly two songs and then went back to school and the rest of their lives. Even though there was only this one single from them, it actually ended up as a pretty good effort — but lead singer Mel Power just wasn’t lead-singer material (though I think it could be a hit if some more-talented group covered it).
Next up is “Disco Zombies” by the Disco Zombies. Now, I’m kind of a sucker for bands that write songs about themselves (see also “The Monochrome Set” and “Hey Hey We’re the Monkees”), but this one is a bit on the meh side, relying like many of the songs here on a limited set of guitar chords. As with The Zipps’s effort, the song isn’t actually bad, just poorly produced — and without the spark of much talent.
“Number 12” by The Pack is, as you’d expect from a Rough Trade release at this point in its history, pretty “yelly” and punky. It’s actually the b-side from the “King of Kings” single, but ultimately The Pack went nowhere. The lead vocalist Kirk Brandon and Simon and Jon Werner (guitar and bass, respectively) got together years later as Theatre of Hate, which was a more successful effort.
The Mekons, who are still active (but slowing down) to this day, are represented by “Work All Week,” a pre-album single not included on the album until a 1990 reissue. Given that they came from the same group of students that formed Gang of Four and Delta 5, and that the band used Gang of Four’s instruments to record it, as you can imagine it sounds a lot like them.
The musical style is still gelling on this one, but the lyrics make a good comment on the price of love under capitalism. This really should have been paired with “You Got to Pay” by The Only Ones from Disc 1.
Following this we have a deliberate attempt to be “commercial” by punk band 999 after various singles and a couple of albums failed to interest the public — they did better later — and this didn’t move the needle for the band. It’s pretty meh, to be honest, but astonishingly they are still together, playing and releasing albums as recently as 2020.
The Outcasts were an interesting story: a decent band, you might like them if you only listen to the music, but apparently the members were all hooligans who constantly got in fights and other such shenanigans. The song included here is called “Self Conscious Over You,” and it’s not bad at all, and it’s one of the few songs about love on this disc. It’s a pity they self-sabotaged themselves out of a potential career.
“Children of the World” by The Freshies changed up the mood as a middle-of-the-road pop band with a nice sound but un-followable lyrics. Chris Sievy had (and still has) a propensity for silly titles, and indeed in 1981 he had a hit with this band with a cute song called “I’m in Love with the Girl on the Virgin Manchester Megastore Checkout Desk,” which a glorious title for a single. These days, he’s better known as Frank Sidebottom, another odd but enjoyable cult thing.
Secret Affair, a “mod” revival band with punkish leanings, are also still around — having taken a long break after the third album — and this song, “Glory Boys” was indicative of the direction they would take for the rest of their recording career.
“7 Teen” by The Regents shows up on a lot of post-punk compilations, and is the only song on this disc explicitly about sex. Cleverly put together with a female backup crew that gave them a strong faux-50s vocal sound, the single version used here includes the lyric “a permanent reaction” rather than the original “a permanent erection.” It hit #11, but The Regents never had a successful follow-up.
The Boys (formerly the Choirboys) are up next with “Kamikaze” — a hard-rocker story-song that has a low opinion of Japanese-made motorbikes. It would be seen today as a bit racist, but I can testify that this was “a thing” back in those days, with Harley fans spitting on Honda and Kawasaki bikes for being small and fuel efficient.
“Easy Way Out” by the Carpettes is an enjoyable but kind of a fatalistic punk number. They eventually went full-on New Wave (with Mod influence) later on in their career and for me were more interesting in that period.
This brings us to an early Scritti Politti single “Messthetics,” of which the clever title is the best thing about it, apart from Green Gartside’s fine (and slightly lower register) vocal. The song itself is a bit of a mish-mash, but you know — refer back to the title!
This brings us to the very last track and that feeling you get where you’ve completed a very long, somewhat grueling yet pleasant journey. The Notsensibles (who might well be Swell Maps collaborating with Cult Figures, they’re that similar) bring us “I’m in Love with Margaret Thatcher.” Have I mentioned the influence she had on most of this music? That said, I suppose we do have to “thank” her for a lot of the protest content that came out in these years.
She was a very hated woman in many quarters, and remains so to this day — as is only right and proper. Sadly, the Tories learned nothing from this, then or now. Even worse than that, it’s no longer too fashionable to craft protest songs about bad government policies on either side of the Atlantic, and that’s a damn shame. As Johnnie B. Rotten himself once said, “Anger is an energy.”
THE WRAP UP
Even though this set covers a tremendous pivoting year in music, it’s frankly not for everyone — or even most people. They’ll want “the hits” or at least more familiar songs from 1979 from bands they recognise, and that’s fine … but it’s not this box set’s purpose.
As I mentioned previously, it’s more like a candy box — there’s (almost) nothing here that isn’t sweet and nice, but if you’ve ever gotten a box that has no “map” of what’s inside the chocolates … there’s a few you’re sure you will like, but the others are a little bit of a gamble.
Thanks to the thoughtful curation, a wide gamut of power-pop tastes are catered to, and for those who like a bit of adventure and are open-minded, this is a fun journey. It’s augmented nicely by some brief but informative notes about each release that occasionally shine a new light on the music you’re hearing.
1978 through the early 80s was a period where record companies really had no idea what was going to “hit” with the public, and with the birth of the indie label, almost anyone with a interesting sound or look had a shot. Those days seem long gone now, and music is likely to be done by “AI” in the near future with minimal human involvement (or emotion), so enjoy some passionately hand-crafted <s>pottery</s> music that may or may not be very good, or is good but not to your taste, or is familiar and fun, or is utterly fantastic and right up my alley and why have I never heard this before?
If you’re up for a little musical spelunking, you’ll hit the highs and (relatively soft) lows with this set, and maybe open up your tastes a little bit more. Can’t ask for much better than that.
Moving on to disc 2, we find a higher ratio of commercially-successful singles, but still a fair selection of “who?” bands and also-rans. For me, at least, the ratio of obscure bands dropped considerably, and the number of tracks that actually charted went up.
Sadly, this disc also features a couple of tracks I’m not inclined to listen to again. I didn’t hate anything here — the tunefulness of this collection, along with the humour evident in even some of the “bad” songs is one of the hallmarks of 1979 (the year we could make fun of punk, apparently), but we’ll come back to some of those later.
That said, it also has a higher ratio of “add to playlist” songs (11 out of 24 tracks) and a bit more variety. The brash, angry influence of punk is starting to fade, but thankfully not the sense of urgency: most of these songs hover around three minutes, with some closer to two minutes (and one that’s even less than that!).
THE MUSIC
The disc kicks off with “Up the Junction,” a really clever composition by Squeeze from their second album that pulls off an entire UK kitchen-sink drama told within a song of love won and lost without using any repeated lyrics or offering a chorus. As I listened beyond this story-song, I kept coming back to it to check that it really did sound as muddy from a production standpoint as I initially thought it did, and indeed its true; very muffled drums and bass, and the vocal was a bit understated but at least properly recorded.
After a few re-listens to be sure, I decided to check my copy of the album — only to find that the entire Cool for Cats sounds pretty bad, even by then-contemporary standards. Producer John Wood (and the band), for shame!
Just for the record (heh), Squeeze’s first album (titled U.K. Squeeze outside the UK) did not have this problem, even though the band itself produced two of the tracks, with John Cale producing the rest of the album. Although the band didn’t like working with Cale too much (he wanted “tougher” songs than they had been doing), I think the debut album holds up pretty well, and the two tracks the band produced themselves slot nicely into their general ouevre.
The very next track on Disc 2 is also by a band that went on to bigger and better, so let’s take a look at all the best-known tracks here first. “Groovy Times” by The Clash was an interestingly off-beat choice for this comp, as it comes from an EP released after the second of their influential “punk” albums.
It’s an alarmingly relaxed and amiable single, with Joe trying to croon as best he can, but the lyrics are a bit snarky still. Hard to believe this is on the same EP as their blistering cover of “I Fought the Law,” which for me is the definitive version of that song.
Track 3 is a rougher single than you might expect from The Records, who hit it big right out of the gate with their first single, “Starry Eyes.” Good to hear them doing something a bit harder, but this track reminded me that I haven’t listened to the band’s non-singles output in years, and that I should rectify that. “Girls That Don’t Exist” is a song that grows on you, though it is less than their best.
Other notable tracks I enjoyed on the disc from the “name brand” bands include Skids’ “Masquerade” (very anthemic, but I’m still not quite sure what it’s about); Gang of Four’s “At Home He’s a Tourist” because it’s still brilliant; “Disorder” by Joy Division (for being the most New Order-ish of the JD songs); the Jags’ best-known song “Back of My Hand” because it’s a damn-near-perfect pop single; “Kid” by The Pretenders because “first and best” lineup doing a different sort of ballad; and The Jam’s energetic “When You’re Young” for its less-chosen single status and teen-life subject. There’s also the Echo & the Bunnymen version of “Read It in Books” as an alternative to Julian Cope’s version — long story short, McCullogh and Cope (and Pete Wylie) were once in a band together, and they wrote this back then.
Having just mentioned Julian Cope, I should add that the “original” (aka demo) version of “Bouncing Babies” is here, and like the Squeeze song the sound quality pretty bad compared to the tracks around it — Cope (whose vocal is nicely clear) is pushed back in the mix like he’s singing from inside a wardrobe. The drum sound is akin to someone beating on carpet rolls with an exhaust pipe, and the bass isn’t much better — and yet you still can’t hide what a good song it is.
The Undertones may be a band you’ve not heard before, but I’ve been a fan from the debut of their first album from the moment it was available as an import. It showed some fresh-faced Irish lads on the cover, it was a Sire record, and their logo had an arrow pointing forward in it. I was sold, and even more delighted to hear its light, happy pop-punk sound (remembering that “The Troubles” were still going on when this came out), complete with the most Irish vocalist you could hope to hear this side of the Rovers in Feargal Sharkey (also a very Irish name, to be sure!).
“Here Comes the Summer” isn’t their best song, but it’s very representative of that early-era sound they had, and is just naturally infectious. Happy, cheerful Irish people? Don’t breathe a word of this to James Joyce!
The first real clanger you come across is track five, by Clive Langer (and the Boxes). “The Whole World” features some nice guitar work by Clive, but is otherwise pretty undercooked and unmemorable, and we’re back to “working class” accents with not much to say. Thankfully he became a producer (along with Alan Winstanley), and was responsible for a lot of great stuff from other artists.
As for the other “lesser” tunes on this disc, “Burning Bridges” by The Cravats wasn’t a bad song per se, but it had a really bad vocalist. Spat-out and snarled spoken lyrics work well in punk songs, but less so in hooky, sax-driven, upbeat frantic rock. It’s short (2’27”), which musically is a shame … but vocally, it’s a relief.
Speaking of bad singers, “Citinite” by Fashion is represented here, featuring short-lived original vocalist Al James. The rest of the band are pretty good, but oh my gosh he’s terrible. I’m so glad they dropped him, and the promise you can hear musically on this song is more fulfilled by the time we get around to their best-known album, Fabrique.
Rounding out the “crap singer” trilogy, we have the Teenbeats with “I Can’t Control Myself,” that pairs a really catchy riff with a singer who only occasionally delivers a smooth vocal — the rest is pretty rough, and sounds put-on, like someone told them to sound “edgier.”
“Alternative Suicide” by The Numbers isn’t actually bad, but it just doesn’t gel. It’s a dark rocker with an amusing viewpoint, but if I’m being kind I’ll say that it’s ahead of its time with its Mopey Goth Kid style.
It does pair well with Adam and the Ants’ “Whip in My Valise,” though … a slow-burn ode to the “pleasures” of BDSM with very arch, darkly campy vocals from Mr Goddard. It’s really more notable for featuring the original Ants — guitarist Andy Warren went on to the Monochrome Set (where he resides to this day), and the bassist and drummer were stolen away by Malcolm McLaren to form Bow Wow Wow.
A special mention of badness has to be given to The Stranglers, and it’s astonishing to think that their song “(Don’t Bring) Harry” was ever considered a single, when in fact it may well be the worst thing they ever recorded (and certainly the worst song on this disc). As a big fan of the original lineup and early albums, the slow pace of the song doesn’t throw me off nearly as much as Hugh Cornwall’s attempt at a whispery “dreamy” vocal featuring a lot of low notes he doesn’t quite hit, in a song about heroin that has some fine musicianship but a vocal that sounds like Cornwall was on heroin when it was recorded.
The remaining songs on this disc range from “meh” to “good, but not quite there,” and there’s only a handful of them, thankfully. Ruts’ “Something That I Said” is a fully competent rock song that moves along well but repeats its title way too many times, covering up for a lack of lyrical meaning. Plenty of tasty guitar work for you to pump your fist to, though.
Likewise, “There Must Be Thousands” by The Quads was a nice find, a working-class club-friendly band pouring out the earnest rock with above average subject matter, with feeling. “Radio-Active” by The Cheetahs is a pretty pleasant slice of power-pop, but its anti-radiation theme (admittedly a significant topic of the times) wears a bit thin now, and this one is a forerunner of the many songs of the 80s that were also had that (less obvious) fretting about the potential for nuclear attack.
Cult Figures’ “Zip Nolan” is kind of funny if you’re drunk (as the band seems to have been); it comes across as an improvised theme song for a fictional action hero put together at the pub that’s barely coherent and sounds like frat boys having a laugh at karaoke.
Another dumb/funny song is the final track on the disc, “I Want My Woody Back,” by The Barracudas. It starts off as a lament, but like it’s a double-entendre for … something … so the band feel the need to explain in the song that a “Woody” is a wood-paneled car you take your surfboards and girlfriends to the beach in for a day doing beach stuff. Unlike “Zip Nolan,” though, this one is well performed and might make a cute girl blush, and thus it brings the disc to a gentler, lighter-hearted end.
If you were a young person in the very late 70s, but old enough to be really into music, then you’ll be aware that 1979 was a pivotal year in the aftermath of the punk revolution in the UK. Where 1977 saw punk “die” (not) and fall off radio’s radar, it diversified and injected fresh excitement into ska and mod music, and 1978 was where punk-influenced music began to chart again, becoming a lasting influence in popular music.
Witness for the prosecution, exhibit 1: Cherry Red’s “1979: Revolt Into Style,” a three-disc buffet of singles both famous and completely obscure that collectively represent what I would call the DIY-versification of rock and pop after the kick in the nads the corporate-label acts got from punk. The youth of the late-70s, who saw little to no future and what might be coming under Thatcher looked pretty bleak, protested in the form of their own contributions to sound and culture.
Importantly, punk (and let’s not forget The Velvet Underground) taught a LOT of artists across genres that it was okay to write political songs, angry songs, message songs, and really just anything that was on their minds more so than just love songs. It also took from punk rock the idea that your message should be important, so get to it quick and don’t hang about — plus it wore Lou Reed’s “not a trained singer” influence as a badge of honour for quite a number of the vocalists.
Punk’s most direct musical mutation was collectively known as New Wave, but a fair amount of it was just pop and rock underneath a studied anti-style — or as Bowie would phrase it just a year later, “same old thing in brand new drag/comes sweeping into view.” Following the punk explosion of musical rage, David seemed to be signaling that being too political and serious all the time might make Jack a dull boy before too long, and Scary Monsters was the proof.
Bowie needn’t have worried. As a new decade containing a fearful future foretold by Orwell loomed, the forces of traditional pop put up a brave fight to hold on to their power and popularity. As Bill Nelson puts it in the lead-off track, “Though I know the time is nearly 1984, it feels like 1965.” The song in which he sings that takes its title from a poem about Elvis (Presley, not Costello) that includes the line “he turns revolt into a style.”
And that’s exactly what was happening by the time 1979 rolled around. The songs in this compilation — which showcase that half-way point between wanting to change the world and the more traditional rock-band path of wanting to get rich & famous & groupies — range from deadly serious to clearly taking the piss, using whatever sound and vision they had to hand.
The accompanying booklet for the set contains bits of background info about each song, which provides for a list of interesting tidbits. The journey through the sets themselves provide all the variety of a musical rollercoaster, and even the hit-and-miss parade of songs do succeed in painting a picture of the emerging “new normal” for bands and artists.
Though still bound musically by the traditional rules of rock music, the new “wave” here comes to the fore in singing styles, subject matter, arrangements, and a sense of urgency that gives a lot of the music its power. In a few cases, the mastering for these records sounds as though it came from the 45s themselves, as undoubtedly the master tapes in some cases couldn’t be located.
As with all samplers, whether music or chocolates, it’s all basically good — and half the fun is finding new gems. We’ll highlight our previously-unknown best cuts, and what we thought was the worst songs on each given disc.
DISC 1 – THE MUSIC
As mentioned, every disc in this set has a mixture for familiar and “new to my ears” material, which keeps things interesting (another key rule for the post-punk set: don’t get too formulaic). While there were only a handful of tines on Disc 1 that I’d keep on rotation (nine or 10 songs out of the 24 on this disc), not a single song rated a no-star or one-star rating from me, and you gotta love a disc with a packed 77 minutes of runtime and little filler.
Among my favourites on Disc 1 was the lead was the lead off, “Revolt Into Style,” by Bill Nelson’s Red Noise — very much ahead of its time and probably would have been a bigger hit if Nelson’s vocals were more prominent in the mix. Other four- or five-star efforts in my opinion included:
★ “I Feel Flat” (Andy Arthurs and the Rock-Along Combo), which showcased the adenoidal style singing that was briefly in fashion, paired with a very catchy tune and “not a love song” lyrics about loneliness.
★ “Rhythm of Cruelty” by Magazine, which — alongside “The Staircase” by Siouxsie and The Banshees, “Rebellious Jukebox” by The Fall, and “Sink Your Boats” by Ian Dury and the Blockheads on this disc — showcased bands that emerged into the public consciousness fully formed, like Zeus’ children, and already sure in their trademark sound.
★ “Stop Being a Boy” (the Squares), which may or may not be an ahead-of-its-time song about gender identity but with a hefty dose of irony in the way it is sung versus its lyrics. I don’t want to spoil it, but I could imagine the late Tiny Tim having a go at a song like this (!).
★ “Me I Disconnect From You” by Gary Numan is far and away the most original song, both musically and lyrically, on this disc — and as anyone who knows Numan’s second album (as Tubeway Army) can attest, this single served as a powerful advance scout for the synthesizer armies already assembling, that would come into their own with the 80s. Young Mr. Webb had some money and skills behind him, and it really stands out in the context of this mostly bass/drum/guitar driven disc.
★ “Highly Inflammable” by X-Ray Spex, by contrast, shows off more range that they had previously been known for — hinting at a future new direction — but became their farewell single when singer/songwriter Poly Styrene (Marianne Elliot-Said) left.
There were a few ties for two-star rated tracks, but for me the single worst song on this disc was by Toyah (the band, starring Toyah Willcox) with the “why on earth is this here” prog-rock track “Victims of the Riddle (Part 1),” which the influential New Musical Express (NME) accurately dubbed “theatrical froth.” She’s a strong singer in the Kate Bush mold, but let’s just say I’m in no rush to hear Part 2.
Another noteworthy “odd man out” is Eddie & the Hot Rods’ song “Media Messiahs.” They were a traditional power-rock band (hence the name) that got the memo and tried gamely to go with the flow, reasonably successfully.
This was an unsubtle but relevant “message” song about the existing mainstream media of the time. The band never quite cut it with me, but at least they were reading the tea leaves of the times and trying to become (stay?) relevent as the world temporarily moved on from crotch-rock, and as a result they have managed to wangle their way onto quite a number of “New Wave” samplers, and even made the soundtrack album to Rock n Roll High School.
The other tracks here range from “Not bad, not great” to “amiably forgettable,” and quite a few of the artists not singled out in the list above still went on to bigger and better — but again the important thing is not just the songs you find you like and/or are familiar to you from way back then. It’s the journey of hearing these artists working with their new insights, new rules, and new sounds is itself a revistation to a time, place, and political reality that had a profound effect on what had been, to this point, a more easily-defined decade of mainstream entertainment.
The Chasbah 