There’s a small number of rock and pop albums that impacted me like no other. As a teenager I stuck the vinyl on the turntable, placed the stylus down, and was blown away. The albums concerned are a varied bunch from punk to indie and prog rock. Yes – prog rock. Tell me which albums changed your life in the comments below but here goes with mine.
CORRECT USE OF SOAP – MAGAZINE
Punk was dead. Long live post-punk. That’s how it seemed around 1979. But what was post-punk? Well, I got my answer when I bought the album Correct Use of Soap by the band Magazine at Small Wonder Records in Walthamstow, east London, in 1980. I took the album out of its dowdy, minimalist brown sleeve, stuck it down on the record player and within seconds was in a state of amazement.
I don’t even know what made me buy this unusual pop album. Maybe its deliberately understated cover with a typography that was very early 1980s – all angular and a bit Soviet. My investment was vindicated when I heard the songs. Lead singer Howard Devoto’s snarling lyrics with bags of cultural and political references that impressed me as a teen brimming with angst.
I went on to buy other Magazine albums, but Correct Use of Soap is one of those perfect LPs where every song was a banger, the production was tight, and it was effortless to listen to the whole thing in one sitting.
FIND OUT MORE: Walthamstow – Mecca of punk and New Wave
COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING – KING CRIMSON
I resisted prog rock throughout the 1970s preferring disco, punk, and new wave. Earnest chaps at school would stand around in the lunch break discoursing on the meaning of Yes and Genesis lyrics and I’d stifle a yawn. But by the end of the decade, I was looking for something different to inspire my ears. I’d ridden the New Wave, skanked to Ska/2Tone, and played air guitar to what was termed the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM).
At some point in early 1980, I finally yielded to prog rock. However, I wanted to avoid the pretentiousness of Yes, the bombastic performances of ELP (Emerson, Lake, and Palmer) and the farmer chic of Jethro Tull. Punk had come to overthrow all of that so I needed to find a prog rock band that wasn’t too offensive. What I chanced upon was a magical album from 1969.
I knew absolutely nothing about King Crimson but seeing the unusual cover of Court of the Crimson King, I just bought it on impulse. And what a great move that turned out to be. The title song crashed into my bedroom with a big drum roll and the haunting strains of that classic 1960s keyboard, the mellotron. Though I would have hated the comparison at the time, there were hints of the Moody Blues. The track Epitaph was similar to Court of the Crimson King with Greg Lake’s voice crooning what were rather pretentious lyrics but hey – this was prog rock…..at its very finest.
I ploughed my way through everything by King Crimson in the early 1970s and in my humble opinion, the band of that era ceased to exist after the 1974 album Red. What resurrected in the 1980s, still under the dictatorial eye of Robert Fripp, was not to my taste.
PENETRATION – MOVING TARGETS
My late mother begged me to take this gem among punk albums off the turntable. A jarring sound with Pauline Murray’s voice, siren-like on every song. In 1978 I walked round with this now largely forgotten punk rock classic at school, and to parties, insisting that Firing Squad was the best single ever. I had a luminous pearly white vinyl pressing that failed to glow convincingly in the dark, as promised. But that didn’t put me off.
Moving Targets was sold to me by an American punk kid at my school called Steve. Throughout the academic year his spiky hair alternated between jet black and brightest blonde. The transaction took place in the ‘crush hall’, a space next to the assembly hall where money was handed over for LPs, 12 inchers, and singles. Ray sold disco and Steve sold punk.
The only other album that my mother detested for its noisy bleakness was Joy Division’s Closer. She almost paid me to put Moving Targets back in its sleeve never to re-emerge. The LP cover of Penetration’s album had a collage of iconic images including Lee Harvey Oswald and Jesus Christ. Firing Squad was not on the album, so Life’s a Gamble was the outstanding track on that LP.
Would I listen to it now? In very small, controlled doses.
DISCOVER: Memories of Liverpool in 1981
TRANSFORMER – LOU REED
Lou Reed seduced me with Satellite of Love. I loved that song so much that I dashed down to the piano in the living room and tried to work out the chords. All the tracks featured Lou Reed’s witty observations on New York characters and life in general. And Transformer benefited hugely from being produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson who were massive fans of Lou Reed’s previous band – the legendary Velvet Underground.
The standout composition on Transformer is Walk on The Wild Side, an ode to various personalities who hung out at Andy Warhol’s New York art studio – the Factory. It’s a celebration of cross-dressers and transgender folk like Candy Darling, a trans actress who died very young in 1974. A photo of Candy on her deathbed featured in the recent exhibition of Elton John’s photographic collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
Lou Reed was undoubtedly a Marmite personality and loathed by many. Some of his other pop albums were more of a chore to endure. At the end of the 1980s, he gave us the very commercial New York album, but while the songs are great – it lacked the charisma and naughtiness of Transformer. Different era I suppose.
2112 – RUSH
My unexpected love affair with prog rock at the end of the 1970s, betraying everything that punk stood for, continued with Rush. Around 1980, I had a prolonged flirtation with these Canadian rockers beginning with their dystopian concept album, 2112. I always felt conflicted with Rush because I was adopting very left-wing views at the time and they were clearly libertarian right-wingers, although they deny this now. However, 2112 carried a dedication statement on the cover to the ‘genius of Ayn Rand’ – a conservative, anti-communist writer whose books included ‘The Virtue of Selfishness’.
Rush occupied a grey zone between prog rock and heavy metal that appealed to me. Their popularity surged with the 1980 release of the Permanent Waves album and the single, Spirit of Radio – which even featured on Top of the Pops with a ridiculous dance sequence by Legs & Co. That year, I saw them perform at the Hammersmith Odeon and it’s one of the best gigs I ever attend.
However, a year later I was at university and moving back in a New Wave/indie direction. Emulating the cowardly apostle Peter, I repeated denied any association with Rush or prog rock. Me – no -never. But Rush has remained a guilty pleasure over the years. Like reading something illicit under the bed covers. The opening track on 2112 is crazily over the top but I recommend a listen if you need a musical pick me up.
Those are five rock and pop albums that come to mind but there were others that gripped my attention for a while. I would single out the Velvet Underground and Nico’s banana album, John Cale’s 1919, Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush, everything by Iggy Pop (even that weird New Values LP of 1979) and David Bowie (up to Let’s Dance), everything by Kraftwerk, ABC’s Lexicon of Love (another guilty pleasure), and Michael Nyman’s collected works.
As I say – eclectic!!
I know there are classic albums of the era that you might expect me to have mentioned. Never Mind the Bollocks by the Sex Pistols. Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd. Exodus by Bob Marley, the entire works of Talking Heads, The Clash, etc, etc. But I swore to pick out five and there they are. Incidentally, The Clash is a deliberately omission – I don’t rate them as I once did. Scream if you wish.
