It’s that time of the month again. No, no, not THAT time of the month, just the time during which this one man’s deranged ramblings about music gets published. It is, perhaps, an opportune time to say that going forwards, bar any spur of the moment pieces that we put up on a whim, this series will be the only contributions that you see published on here, the last Sunday of each month as usual. That said, there’s another few pieces scheduled throughout the year still for one reason or another, so it’s not entirely over, it’s just, Ben and I are in a different place in our lives to where we were when we continued writing here. Plus, with our weekly videos, you still get our opinions, if you want them, so go check us out there instead.
Now, shall we get to it?
This was, would you believe, a Christmas Number Two – for 1978, specifically. As such, I’ve actually already covered it, and you know what, I still stand by what I said, so go check it out there. 9/10
Ian Dury and the Blockheads – Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick
I can’t actually review this one fairly – I listen to fairly regularly as part of a playlist that I have put together and sing along with gusto. Suffice it to say, I very much enjoy this song, the way it comes across as more spoken-word than a song, the tri-lingual presentation, the brass instrument in the middle that sounds a bit like a droid from Star Wars, the international locations and the general madness that can be presented by becoming more and more frantic when you shout “hit me” with the words. It’s just a great song and well worth a listen if you aren’t familiar. 8/10
I only went and did a piece about this too, didn’t I? What are the odds? I knew Artist Focus was going to do me some favours, one of these days! As before, go check it out there. It was recent enough that it’s not worth re-evaluating… 8/10
Bee Gees – Tragedy
Ah, the Bee Gees. I struggle with falsetto at times, as long-time readers will know. It’s not that I hate it, I just don’t get on with it. Hurts my ears in a brain way. I will say, Greg Davies, the comedian, does a surprisingly good impression of Barry Gibb. Check it out.
For real though, why the falsetto? I mean, sure, their most famous songs are from after the introduction of it to their vocals, but still. It’s a bit much. The music here is very disco and it’s very worth noting that unless your name is Stu, disco is very much dead, which is exactly where it belongs. There is a place for disco tracks – the grave, for most, though some are worthy of placement in history as having been decent tracks. This, as much as I’m not enjoying it, would fall under the latter group. It’s just too high for me, I struggle to enjoy it, heck, struggle to understand a lot of it too, and that is not conducive to an enjoyable experience. 4/10
Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive
You won’t bloody believe this. I wrote about this one, too. It featured as one of the seven break up songs in last year’s Valentines’ Day piece. No score though, so I’ve had a listen and I’m going to go with… 7/10
Art Garfunkel – Bright Eyes
I’ve never watched Watership Down, nor do I ever plan to. The fact that this song includes a like about following the river of death means that it seems suitably fucked up and therefore apt for the movie. Back in the day, it seems like they were desperately trying to give kids mental problems. Who knew all they had to do was invent the internet, give a generation of us unrestricted access and then let us pass on our own mental problems to our kids? Much simpler. Probably.
There’s a place for Art in my mind, and that place is beside Paul. I’m not overly fond of the track, it’s a bit too haunting for my liking, but in a more poltergeist kind of way, than a kindly ghost way. The music overpowers the vocals, except for when it feels like the vocals have been artificially increased in volume so as to avoid being overpowered by the music. That’s right, folks, they’ve screwed up the mixing. Oh, those pesky mixers!
No, in all seriousness, this song isn’t for me, it’s not enjoyable, it’s a bit slow and overall, quite disappointing from one of the most famous musicians of the time. 3/10
Blondie – Sunday Girl
I covered some Blondie songs before, as you’ll have seen above. This was not one of them. You know what, though, it’s a decent enough song that I sort of wish it had been. It’s got a double-clap-gap-clap in it, which is always good, the drumming in general keeps an upbeat and enjoyable pace, the rest of the instruments are mostly unappealing, but they are there and supporting the drums enough to be considered relevant. The vocals are haunting in that sort of more poppy Rapture way and that doesn’t do much for me, but I can understand why it does stuff for the folks that got it to number one for two, three weeks. It feels a somewhat playful song – perhaps a bit aloof? Either way, not their best work by a fair margin, but worth a listen if you’re not familiar. 6/10
Anita Ward – Ring My Bell
I appear to have stumbled across an eight minute version of this song, but I know shorter ones exist which mean I can’t criticise the length of the song here. I will say that this song is punchline when I play MOBA games that require you to place vision-providing items onto the battlefield, as my MOBA experience is mostly DotA 2 based and they call such things “wards”. Yes, if I need to place such things, I need to ward, or, more comically, Anita Ward. In my head, “Ring My Bell” is an equally valid way of making sure people know what needs to happen. I’ve been getting the urge to play that again lately, but my quitting was such a big deal, I’m not convinced that I can.
Anyway, the song. It’s dance/electronic, apparently, which isn’t something I tend to enjoy, and for the most part I don’t really enjoy the song all that much. It’s the chorus in particular that does it for me, as repetitive as it is. Something about the “boooooo” noise, the bell, the “you can ring my bell” lyrics just do something for me. It’s fun, it’s enjoyable, it’s worth four minutes of your time if you get the shorter version. 7/10
Tubeway Army – Are ‘Friends’ Electric?
This is the first song on this list that I couldn’t place before listening to it, which says a lot for the music that I know. Now I’ve started listening to it, I’m familiar and I know I’m not a fan. It’s a bit bleurgh, mostly because of the overly repetitive backing music which only becomes more grating the longer you’re listening to it. For me, at least. The vocals aren’t overly distinctive from the backing, beyond being a bit whiny, it’s generally a mess and if it wasn’t for the vague punky tones (and it’s not punk, just to be clear), I don’t think it would have been as successful as it ended up being. 3/10
The Boomtown Rats – I Don’t Like Mondays
Alright, fine, I’m scraping the barrel a bit here. I wrote about this one back in 2011 and then again in 2013, but I’m linking to the 2011 version because it’s more tasteful, which is strange when you consider that I was 17 at the time. Given the time-difference between then and now, I’ve had another listen and I’ve re-evaluated, and I’m going to go with a slightly lower score this time round – 7/10.
Cliff Richard – We Don’t Talk Anymore
I have, at times, been quite rude about Cliff Richard and his music. I don’t overly care for it, though I will admit he has had his moments. This track, I think, is one of those moments. It has moments where it’s just a bit too much – the falsetto vocalising, for example – but others that make it stand out as being, quite possibly, a contender for his best song. There’s something about his vocals in the verses that convey an almost innocent feeling, right up until the “can’t believe you throw it all away” line, or whatever it is. The music, again for the verses and more so at the start, sound playful, though the keyboard grates on me by the second half of the track. It takes a backseat during the verses, so that’s probably why I enjoy them more. The drum keeps a decent beat, too, which isn’t always as simple as it would seem, but is absolutely the whole point, right? I can’t work out how to word what I mean from this, but I do think it’s a reasonable song. Not his best, after more listening, but definitely worth listening to if you want to have any chance of thinking he might be a decent musician. I’m not sold on the idea, but hey, you might be. 6/10
Gary Numan – Cars
Ah yes, what we want from every song we listen to – a sort of synthesised vibration sound that makes one think they may be being beamed up by aliens. I’m not a massive than of synthetisers, though I understand that they have a place in the world. For me, this song relies on them too much and his vocals are far too monotonous to be something enjoyable to listen to. Sure, put it in a driving playlist, because then you’ve got a song about cars (though I’m not that sure what it’s actually about), or at the very least, a song worth skipping. Like I say, too much synth for me. I prefer something a bit more real when I’m listening to sound. 2/10
The Police – Message in a Bottle
Ah yes, I’m familiar with this one. Bit repetitive, I would say. In fact, I’m thinking that I might be a bit repetitive, saying how these songs are, themselves, repetitive. Irony, right? The song takes a tonal shift around about the time they start talking about sending the message in the bottle, and it’s a tone they shift back to every time they do the whole “sending out an S.O.S” bit, excluding when they do it no less than 25 times in a row at the end. I told you, repetitive.
I’ve never cared much for The Police, so this won’t come as a surprise, but I’m not really a fan. The drum is fine, the rest just doesn’t really do anything for me and that tonal shift, which I’ve just gotten to again, is a bit more jarring than it ought to be. 3/10
The Buggles – Video Killed the Radio Star
Now this is a track that feels like it was made on a computer, and yet, somehow, works. I think part of it is to do with the way the vocals sound like they coming through a radio; the drumbeat, the bass guitar, the detached call and response style to the lyrics and the place in history that this song represents – the shift in media dominance from radio to TV. And oh my, was that a xylophone? And there we are, we’ve got the drum beat kicking in again and it’s just lit. It’s lit. That’s what the kids used to say, right? Lit? Fire? Real? I don’t know, I don’t do slang, I just know that this song works despite the fact that there shouldn’t be that much going for it. The electric guitar picking up near the end, before becoming what sounds like it would be the closing piece of music for a TV show on a piano, strings and then that little hint of synth in there too. That’s how you use a synth – barely! 8/10
Lena Martell – One Day at a Time
Oh lovely, a country-coded song with religious tones to it. Look, we know this isn’t my kind of thing, I could go into why, but honestly, the mixing is poor enough that it’s making me want to cut my ears off. It’s actually making the inside of my ears itch, this song. Can music even do that? At the end of the day, it’s a track about how bad the world is, and how Jesus needs to help her get through it, one day at a time. Lena, the world sucks, it always has, it always will. Jesus won’t help. 2/10
Dr. Hook – When You’re In Love with a Beautiful Woman
A song about how, when you’re in a love with a beautiful woman, you’re constantly conscious of the fact that everyone else wants her instead. Maybe that’s a 70’s thing, cos I don’t have that issue, despite having the beautiful woman. She’d be embarrassed if she ever read this, but she’ll never read this and, statistically, none of you will either. I dunno, it seems a non-problem, this song, and while the presentation of the track comes across nicely, there are a few mixing issues where the music is just a bit more powerful than the vocals; the backing vocals work nicely and Dr. Hook’s voice is quite soothing to listen to, though I can’t help but think some of the lines are a bit longer than they need to be, given the way he seems to rush through them. 5/10
The Police – Walking on the Moon
Were The Police high? First they’re castaways on an island, now they’re walking on the moon, all with a sort of vaguely Rasta-sound. No, I’m not convinced they were entirely there. Frankly, I don’t have the patience for it today, so suffice it to say that the rushed drumwork sort of does something for me, the bass guitar, while over-repetitive, complements it well and beyond that, the song has no redeemable qualities for me. 3/10
Pink Floyd – Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)
And since it’s a Christmas Number One, we already know I tackled this one back in 2021, don’t we? Recent enough to fob you off with it, it’s getting linked and you can check it out there if you want. 7/10
Well, it seems the winner this month, for 1979, is The Village People with Y.M.C.A. Who’d have thunk it, especially back at the start when I started pulling this together. Not me, that’s for sure.
Those Guys That Review Stuff 