It's been a wonderful weekend, I've had a great time, and feeling quite 'up' for a Sunday evening.
Kinda taken aback to suddenly realise that it is now thirty years since these debut tracks were released. My world's still shaking from the implications of these...
Is there a rule for debut singles? I kinda think they should be like a manifesto. After all, it may be the only shot you ever get, so sing it loud and sing it proud...
The Fall -'Bingo Master's Breakout!' mp3
Steel Pulse -'Ku Klux Klan.' mp3
Scritti Politti -'Skank Bloc Bologna.' mp3
Gang Of Four -'Damaged Goods.' mp3
Adam and the Ants -'Young Parisians.' mp3
Magazine -'Shot By Both Sides.' mp3
This is a cheat, but it was the b-side and just as good as the a-side...
The Cure -'10:15 Saturday Night.'mp3
I could also have posted Siouxsie and the Banshees, Kate Bush, P.I.L...
the big question is: will we realise who all the good debut singles of 2008 were by at the end of this year, or in thirty years' time? Answer below please...
17 comments:
Good point, Ed ... and great choices :)
Other notable debutants could've been SLF, B52s, Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, Mekons, Undertones, Human League .... the list goes on!
Looking back, it seems that there was a huge amount of great new singles released in '78, but it's just a fraction of the amount of music that's released every year now.
That makes it hard to keep up ... and reinforces just how essential John Peel was. With his 8 hours broadcasting a week you could hear pretty much everything that was new on his show ...
Of course, you help with this problem quite a bit :)
cheers, Craig
"Of course, you help with this problem quite a bit :)"
Aw, cheers, I do my best!
Ed
I cannot believe I didn't mention those, and of course, the Human League's being Boiled, which I posted a few weeks ago, but belongs in that list, being, allegedly Britain's first completely electronic record.
Spiffing idea for a post, Eduardo: but, as Peelie said in one of the recently unearthed 400 Box shows, the Fall track was recorded in 77 and sat on the shelf for a year. I seem to remember 'It's The New Thing' being their first release as such.
Will investigate...
Ed
Well, as far as I'm concerned, the answer to your 'big question' is: 'no'. I think the massive amount of stuff which is being released (or being made available to the public in one form or another (www)) these days makes it rather difficult to spot the real highlights. And even if you spend hours and hours in trying to achieve this, at the end of the day you will recognise that the quality of these tunes just isn't comparable to the quality of those from 25 - 30 years ago: back then so many records just 'blew you away' ... nowadays you sometimes think: 'oh, now THAT's a nice one' ... and that's just not enough to make a song 'outstanding', if you know what I mean.
But perhaps I'm alone with that thought. Because I'm too old or too old-fashioned ....
Steve -fink you and i are going to have to agree to disagree on this one, two separate discograhies I have found online have this as their debut, with 'it's the New Thing' as the second single. Both cool, though.
Dirk - think there is still good stuff coming out, but sometimes it's good to let the dust settle a bit. One of my favourite best records of all time books didn;t include anything that had been released in the previous 18 months on the these grounds.
Plus; if a band self-release a downlaodonly single, then sign a major deal, what's the proper debut? Any answers, anyone...
I'd say the debut is from the time the first recording is publicly available for money .... if a song is on someone's Myspace / website for free then it counts as a demo IMHO :)
And rather like Dirk, it's a long time since I heard something that truly made my jaw drop ... without me spotting the influences. But perhaps that's me being a cynical old git.
cheers, Craig
I think that it depends on your age, let's face it some of us will be lucky to be able to remember our names in thirty years time. People were probably saying the same thing thirty years ago, although comparing 78 to 58.
There have been some really good tunes this year, particularly liking The Asteroids Galaxy Tour.
But on the whole for me there will not be anything this year that will grab me the way Suspect Device does but I think that that is more a reflection on me than the current music scene, i hope so because it would be really sad if those growing up today don't get that buzz on hearing something new for the first time.
Drew
Craig/Drew -I don't know if i'm a cynical old git, but I'm sorta still more fired up by stuff from that era, though i have heard some great stuff this year, too much to list.
Still discovering new stuff, so that's kinda good...
OK, Ed, you have me on this one! It beat 'New Thing' to the shops by three clear months (evidence as seen here). Sorry.
Some records are born great, others become great, and others have greatness thrust upon them. As JP once said about the Bluetones' 'Slight Return', 'the first time you heard that, you felt as if you'd known it all your life', and he neatly encapsulated the characteristics of a classic track for me in that one line.
sig - that does kind of sum it up! The Bluetones did do some great singles, just seemed to not cut it with the albums, IMHO. Still going in 2008...
I'm not a great fan of Later with Jools, but one of the all-time classic shows had the Bluetones in their first blush of success, and ZZ Top on the same programme.
I'd like to have heard the backstage conversation there :)
cheers, Craig
If you're a Fall fan you might be interested to know that there's a new biography of them out soon if not now called The Fallen by Dave Simpson. Then again if you're a fan there's a pretty good chance you already know this :o)
Actually, I didn't know, but it's great TO know!
Ed
All the tracks on "Bingo Master's Breakout" are fantastic, but I think "Repetition" is the most interesting. Who'd have guessed that MES would still be alive, let alone going strong(ish) 30 years later...?
Terrapin
http://terrapinlistens2.blogspot.com
Currently reading Mark E. Smith's biography which is pretty fascinating...
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