Many of us who Just Can't Stop It (jumping about like idiots that is) when we hear the first English Beat album struggle with the rest of their catalog. Wha'ppen is an enjoyable calypso-reggae-pop record and Special Beat Service is one of the finer pop albums of the eighties but they both suffer from drastically diminished amounts of the driving ska-punk fusion that so invigorated their debut.
Whatever your Beat bias, you'll find something to your liking on this crisp-as-hell but never officially released recording of their show at The Hammersmith Palais in October of 1982.
Unity Rockers link is in the comments Speaking of comments, if you'd like to hear more rare Beat leave us a few words about the band's work !!
Since The Beat was a kinda dull band name shared by two very exciting late-seventies acts, North Americans got a rushing power-pop band named Paul Collin's Beat and a roaring ska-punk one christened, The English Beat. Nomenclaturaly, I'd say The English Beat won out as theirs was a peculiarly English beat, with rhythms learned from American R&B and Jamaican ska interpolated into the relentless forward-motion of the English strain of punk rock.
These three Peel Sessions show their early punkifed-ska sound as well as their later, smoother pop side, both of which are to be treasured for somewhat different reasons.
November 5, 1979
1. Tears Of A Clown
2. Ranking Full Stop
3. Click Click
4. Mirror In The Bathroom
5. Big Shot
September 22, 1980
6. Too Nice To Talk To
7. New Psychedelic Rockers
8. Monkey Murders
9. Walk Away
March 29, 1982
10. Spar Wid Me
11. She's Going She's Gone
12. Save It For Later
13. Pato And Roger A-Go Talk
14. Sole Salvation
For our list (with videos!) of "The Better Parts of Urgh! A Music War"* please come visit The Big Takeover!
Urgh: A Music War was a filmed document of the British and American punk and New Wave scenes circa 1980, while Derek Burbidge's film was not an artistic achievement on par with say, The Decline of Western Civilization, it's creation of a permanent visual records of oft-neglected but deeply influential bands was a gift to the ages.
1. The Police – "Driven to Tears" 2. Wall of Voodoo – "Back in Flesh" 3..Toyah Willcox – "Danced" 4. John Cooper Clarke – "Health Fanatic" 5. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – "Enola Gay" 6. Chelsea – "I’m on Fire" 7. Oingo Boingo – "Ain’t This the Life" 8. Echo & the Bunnymen – "The Puppet" 9. Jools Holland – "Foolish I Know" 10. XTC – "Respectable Street" 11. Klaus Nomi – "Total Eclipse" 12. Athletico Spizz 80 – "Where’s Captain Kirk?" 13. The Go-Go's – "We Got the Beat" 14. Dead Kennedys – "Bleed for Me" 15. Steel Pulse – "Ku Klux Klan" 16. Gary Numan – "Down in the Park" 17. Joan Jett and the Blackhearts – "Bad Reputation" 18. Magazine – "Model Worker" 19. Surf Punks – "My Beach" 20. The Members – "Offshore Banking Business" 21. Au Pairs – "Come Again" 22. The Cramps – "Tear It Up" 23. Invisible Sex – "Valium" 24. Pere Ubu – "Birdies" 25. Devo – "Uncontrollable Urge" 26. The Alley Cats – "Nothing Means Nothing Anymore" 27. John Otway – "Cheryl’s Going Home" 28. Gang of Four – "He’d Send in the Army" 20. 999 – "Homicide" 30. The Fleshtones – "Shadowline" 31. X – "Beyond and Back" 32. Skafish – "Sign of the Cross" 34. Splodgenessabounds – "Two Little Boys" 35. UB40 – "Madame Medusa" 36. The Police – "Roxanne/So Lonely"
The Like's back story involves both being the progeny of famous musical figures and having made a botched major label debut album. Their preset sound, however, is like a version of The Bangles for the 21st century. Release Me missed my 2010 best-of list (where it might've slotted in nicely between the The Sugar Stems and The Young Veins) because it was just brought to my attention by fellow Winnipeger over at Teenage Dogs in Trouble (that's a Young Fresh Fellows song, you might like to know).
MRML is a blog about the devestating effects of culture: music, politics, comics plus etc. blah blah blah. At times MRML will post fine, unpurchasable three-chord obscurica (punk, pop-punk, new wave, mod, power-pop, gospel, reggae, hardcore, rockabilly, folk, country...whatever.) - - - - - - "The otherwise unavailable files in this blog are posted for a limited time and are intended for educational, non-commercial use. These files were transcribed from what are believed to be out-of-print sources. If you are aware of any of these items being readily available from commercial sources, or if any of these files infringe upon rights that you hold, please notify us so that we can quickly remove the referenced items immediately." - - - SUPPORT THE ARTISTS - BUY MUSIC!
If you have any questions or music to donate you can contact me at musicruinedmylife (at) gmail (dot) com
Re: Re-Ups
MRML does not plan to restore all of the content lost in The Great Mediafire Gutting of 2012. Polite requests may be made in the appropriate section, regular commenters will get priority.
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