Smash Hits: Sept 6-19 1979

As you can see, they abbreviated the name of the month and I’m staying true to that despite really wanting to write it out in full.

And there on the front cover – a band who, little over a month earlier, were unknown to the bulk of the readership. This “hot new band will shift lots of copies” philosophy will be repeated on the cover of the next issue, too.

Turning the page we get lyrics to The Stranglers’ Duchess, little realising that I’d find myself singing this 19 years later when hearing a song by Manic Street Preachers for the first time. The next couple of pages feature three songs so different that it feels like the phrase “strange bedfellows” could have been made for them. The rapidly declining in popularity Boney M and Gotta Go Home, the re-released Boredom from Buzzcocks’ Spiral Scratch (listed as Buzzcocks with Howard Devoto – just so we didn’t confuse it with anything new) and Squeeze with Slap & Tickle.

Following an interview with The B-52s (and still no words for Rock Lobster), the first of the Bitz pages introduces us to “London band Madness”. Whatever happened to them? Squeeze’s Chris Difford shares his wide-ranging Top 10, with Elvis Costello taking top spot with Stranger In The House. In case you don’t know it, EC wrote it for a George Jones album in 1978 and his own version was given away as a limited edition single with early copies of This Year’s Model. It also featured on a Peel session, recorded with The Attractions. Probably a good time to share a version.

There is footage of Elvis and George duetting on this, but it’s from 1981, so I’m guessing this is the version to which Chris refers.

Also on the Bitz pages is the first of three mentions for a release on Stiff Records entitled Peppermint Lump. Its singer, 11 year-old Angie (Angela Porter), we are told “is an experienced juvenile actress who has appeared in such masterpieces as Wombling Free, Nationwide and The Rod Hull Show”. With it also featuring later on the magazine in the Singles Reviews and as Rob Jones’ “Disco” Pick, it felt like this was going to be the Next Big Thing. Pete Townshend produced it and played guitar on it and future Big Country man, Tony Butler, played bass. It failed to chart. I have literally just heard it for the first time ever, and feel somehow grateful that none of us appears to have been taken in by the hype.

Moving swiftly along, a two page interview with The Jam is followed by a full page advert for “The new game from XTC”. Making Plans For Nigel’s first 20,000 copies include a free game. Given that this is 18 months prior to my introduction to strategic board gaming, I opted not to purchase this. Fool.

Across the page are the words for the rather insipid Love Will Make You Fail In School from Rocky Sharpe And The Replays and a band who seemed to land five years later than they should have done and were continuing to linger like a bad smell – Racey and Boy Oh Boy.

There’s an interview with The Specials and a quiz, in which I would today comfortably score 20/20, but appear to have only managed a meagre 12 at the time. A photo of Squeeze occupies the centre pages.

The disco pages feature one song that I absolutely love – The Crusaders’ Street Life, one I can vaguely remember – Commodores and Sail On, and one I don’t think I ever heard – Fat Larry’s Band and Lookin’ For Love Tonight. Their time would come. These lyrics are all spread over a picture of a rather tall-looking woman on all fours wearing a swimsuit. It’s explained thus: “If you’re wondering why New York disco star Grace Jones is crawling across this page and there’s no pic of Fat Larry or The Commodores, then you’ve obviously never seen a pic of Fat Larry”. Harsh. I had no idea who Grace Jones was at the time and did briefly wonder if she was the vocalist on Street Life – that would have been interesting!

More lyrics with Gerry Rafferty having the final Top 40 morsels from his dining out on the back of Baker Street, with Get It Right Next Time. Below that was the song which had my father looking briefly at the magazine – the awful If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me from The Bellamy Brothers. And this:

It references a Jensen Interceptor – my favourite car – so I have some affection for this, but it is terribly cheesy when compared to the ska sounds that were now hitting the airwaves. Nevertheless, Bill’s only hit did reach #12.

Eddie Cochran features for the second issue running, this time via an article telling his story. I’ll skip past the Singles Reviews, with some of the discs there featuring in forthcoming issues, and pause at the Album Reviews. What’s the top scorer? Talking Heads and Fear Of Music at 7.5/10? Nope. Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures with 8/10. No, sir. With a score of 8.5/10, album reviewer Red Starr plumps for Risqué by Chic. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that Mrs TGG was masquerading under the Red Starr moniker with those scores (but she would only have been 13 then, like me – I’m a week older than her). It is the Chic album that includes Good Times, so it should get a decent mark, but better than Unknown Pleasures?!?

The lyrics request spot continues its fixation with releases from 1978 – this time it’s The Clash and White Man In Hammersmith Palais. As we’ve moved into September, there are no outdoor shows with varied line-ups to share from the Gigs page, but acts performing in Manchester that fortnight that I could have seen, had I been able to go, included Shake, Boney M, Nils Lofgren, XTC, The Crusaders, The Chords and one my father would have been interested in – The Shadows.

This issue’s lyrics are concluded with two from Wings. Getting Closer and Baby’s Request. I had to look this up as I can’t recall either song. It was a double A-side that peaked at #60, and the last Paul McCartney release billed as Wings. He’d be back before the end of the year with a song that, annoyingly, I can recall only too well, because I’ve heard it every year since.

Finally, the back page photo is of Gibson Brothers (you know, Him, Thingy and Wotsit). At the time they were (and may still be), the only act from Martinique to have ever hit the UK Charts. Obviously the photo has them standing in front of a beach and some palm trees.

I’ll warn you now – the next issue has some very stern-looking people on the front cover.

TGG

April 19, 2024

1. 

   JC

   April 22, 2024

   Dear God….if you’d given me 100 guesses as to which label had released that Peppermint Lump monstosity, I’d still never got it. Unlistenable.

   Surprised that Unknown Pleasure was even given a review in Smash Hits, far less scoring so highly. 

   Also fascinated by Virgin Records taking out a full page ad for the next XTC single….wouldn’t have imagined Smash Hits readership being the normal target audience for the group, but then again, they were about to release a bona-fide pop classic.

   This remains a fascinating read. Cheers

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2. 

   thegreatgog

   April 22, 2024

   Thanks JC – glad you’re enjoying it. I’m finding it fun regressing to the 13 year-old me, and trying to recall how I felt at the time. I’m guessing I was in the demographic that Smash Hits was aimed at in 1979. Both male and female peers were buying the poppier “new wave” releases as well as the 2-tone and mod stuff. If you look at the other singles covered, they weren’t really aimed at teenagers – Gerry Rafferty, Boney M, etc. Even the disco releases would have been more for the older teenagers who were actually going to clubs.

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Unsung Songs #7: Immaculate Fools – Immaculate Fools

It really is time that I got round to sharing my thoughts on this one. The idea to do a piece on this tune occurred to me in the aftermath of writing the Shane MacGowan item back in December. If you recall that piece, you’ll be aware that part of the story was about my liking of music that some of my less enlightened peers did not. This has been a pretty constant theme throughout my life, hence the existence of this series.

I can’t recall where I first heard what was the only song by Immaculate Fools that I knew for many years, other than the B-side. I’m guessing it was the juke box in the common room at my college. It generally had a smattering of current hits, but there were always the odd one or two which someone somewhere thought would have been hits by the next time they rocked up to change the records. I remember putting my money in said juke box rather a lot during the early part of 1985, as well as the accompanying cries of “Oh, God – no, not that shit again”, as the synth intro to Immaculate Fools rang out to my fellow students who were playing pool, a bizarre video bar football game or pinball among other activities. Like this:

I couldn’t easily tell you what it is I like about the song. The video above appears to have been made a couple of years later, but other than being slightly longer than the single, is pretty much true to what I was listening to. It was some time later when Mrs TGG heard it on one of my numerous mixtapes of the early 90s and said that the vocals reminded her of The Psychedelic Furs. Somehow I hadn’t clocked that, but I had to admit that she had a point.

So my love of this song appears to boil down to it sounding like another band that I like and the fact that at the age of 19, I just loved being annoying. The song was the band’s only UK singles chart entry, reaching #51 in its 4 week stay. It’s done well in recent times though, picking up just under 2.8 million plays on Spotify at the time of writing. The only other person I know who admits to liking it is my mate Steve (the one that was at Rewind North last year) – I found this out back in 2006 when I was showing him how the iTunes Store worked!

Immaculate Fools – consider yourselves welcomed to the Unsung Hall Of Fame.

I expect my next scheduled piece will be some more Smash Hittery – I’m enjoying both re-reading the magazines and then writing about them as well. And that’s before I start the research on some of the more obscure tunes that are mentioned.

TGG

April 9, 2024

1. 

   JC

   April 10, 2024

   I have absolutely no recollection of this one at all…….feels as if it hasn’t dated very well. Get where Mrs TGG is coming from re The Furs-style vocals.

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Smash Hits: August 23 – September 5 1979

I was going to do an Unsung Song that I’ve been meaning to write about for a while, but I so enjoyed writing the last one of these, I thought I’d do at least one more first. We move forward 14 days and are greeted on the cover by the nearest thing 1979 had to a boy band.

Except they weren’t actually all that young, as will be discussed shortly….

On to some song lyrics first, and another of the many classic hits from 1979 is first up on page 2, Cars by Gary Numan. Then we have the band mentioned in the previous issue’s Bitz, already making the breakthrough to having the words of their only (very minor hit) published.

Their prime time TV appearance resulted in them getting no higher than #40. Yes, that is Mick Talbot’s brother, Danny. Hard to believe that a mere 4 years later, Mick would be involved with the far more sophisticated output of The Style Council.

Mick and co share a page with The Flying Lizards and their cover of Money, while across the page is a picture of future bandmate Paul Weller and the words to The Jam’s When You’re Young.

There follows an interview with Joe Jackson, before we hit the Bitz pages and that man Jackson is there again with his All Time Top 10 – a varied selection that includes both Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run and Big Youth’s cover of Hit The Road Jack. The Bitz pages also tell us that someone called Toyah Wilcox is releasing a 6 track record called Sheep Farming In Barnet. The 13 year old me would have been thinking Who? What? Why?, little realising that 45 years later, I would have seen her live on four occasions.

The other notable item on the Bitz pages (as alluded to earlier) is a photo of the Zoot Money Big Roll Band from 1964 featuring a certain Andy Summers from the issue’s front cover. “No, no, Andy, don’t thank us – it was nothing” it says, as thousands suddenly realise that Andy is offically old.

Thereafter there is a Police interview followed by the words to Angel Eyes by Roxy Music. There then follows an odd page where you can enter a competition to win an Eddie Cochran album alongside a large advert for an album by Rocky Sharpe And The Replays. Interest in Cochran would have been high due to the recent Sex Pistols covers of a couple of his hits.

Then it’s the Disco pages and Rob Jones’ Disco Pick, which to my ears is not in any way disco.

Future member of The Christians, Henry Priestman, and his Liverpudlian outfit had caught the ear of Mr. Jones, who at the time was on Radio Luxembourg. He can now be found on Boom Radio – and I bet he’s never played this on there.

There is some disco on the Disco pages though, with lyrics to Girls Girls Girls by Kandidate, Strut Your Funky Stuff by Frantique and Gone Gone Gone by Johnny Mathis. I may have heard the Frantique song at some point since 1979, but the other two?

The centre pages are basically a Gary Numan poster before we hit the most interesting article in this issue. Martyn Ware (then of The Human League) gets two pages to write about the Sheffield music scene. As well as his own band there are, among others, mentions for Cabaret Voltaire, Clock DVA, forerunners to ABC, Vice-Versa, and er… Def Leppard. Best band name goes to The Defective Turtles.

Words to Angelic Upstarts’ Teenage Warning are followed by the chance to complete a crossword and win a B-52s album. I’d just purchased Rock Lobster as a single and was gutted the words hadn’t been published due to “delays with their American publishers”.

The request spot is taken up like the last issue by another 1978 release, this time Solitary Confinement by The Members.

The Singles reviews cover a wide range of artists from Buzzcocks, and the aforementioned Toyah release to Chas ‘n’ Dave and Max Bygraves (the latter two being separate releases and not thankfully a collaborative work). As for the albums, highest mark goes to XTC’s Drums And Wires (9/10) and the wooden spoon to AC/DC and Highway To Hell (3/10). The Australians are described thus: “with the possible exception of Kiss, the worst group currently walking the face of the earth”. You can almost hear Rocky Sharpe and his mates breathing a sigh of relief at that news.

One single reviewed that I do remember hearing on the radio, but which was not a hit is this one. They got on to Swap Shop, but this would seem to be their only ever release.

Three more sets of lyrics as we near the end. Randy Vanwarmer (probably not his real name) and Just When I needed You Most, Hot Chocolate and Going Through The Motions (which I guess they were, as I don’t recall this one) and the delightfully titled The Bitch by The Olympic Runners – the words are not an easy read.

The gig listing has an interesting show on September 1 at the Edinburgh Ingliston Showground where you can see Van Morrison, The Undertones, Talking Heads, Steel Pulse and Squeeze. Wow! If only I’d not been a 13 year-old living in Stockport. At least I have seen The Undertones and Squeeze since, the latter many times.

Final song words come from The Jolly Brothers and Conscious Man (more dubious lines about being wary of the females you might get involved with) and then a song which ended up being a much bigger hit in 1984. Sister Sledge and Lost In Music.

The back page is a picture of The Undertones, which I can’t imagine ended up adorning too many bedroom walls.

And so I headed off to my third year at Senior School (or Year 9 as it is now known) armed with two issues’ worth of lyrics, facts and news with which to bore my schoolmates.

TGG

April 1, 2024

1. 

   JC

   April 8, 2024

   So many names thrown at us in this review…..I was 16 years old and totally obsessed with music, but there are so many songs and musicians in this edition that I simply cannot recall!!!

   The late 70s was an era where the boy band phenomena in pop music was nowhere to be seen. The Osmonds and Bay City Rollers had come and gone a few years previously and the likes of Smash Hits had to scramble around to find suitable substitutes. Fast forward two years and the ‘New Romantic’ bands were ushered in to fill the void.

   Another fascinating read.

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