Mostly, I’m guessing it’s because young people today don’t know what a single is, though there is still a chart announced every Sunday and music consumption is at an all time high.
I’ll go first.
Musings on the byways of popular culture
Mostly, I’m guessing it’s because young people today don’t know what a single is, though there is still a chart announced every Sunday and music consumption is at an all time high.
I’ll go first.
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The Passions – I’m In Love With A German Film Star.
What makes you think that this one has been forgotten, Tiggs?
When did you last hear it on the wireless?
Tricky one – certainly not on Radio 3 recently…
Wireless. As if anyone under 40 listens to the radio.
I’d say 6 music breakfast plays it about twice a year, either as part of Cloudbusters or one of the playlists. Always a joy to hear it (as is Not So Manic Now by Dubstar)
Remember it being NME single of the week, I bought it. Think it made the lower reaches of the top 40. I haven’t forgotten it, but it was pretty good
Oddly enough I saw today that Andy Bell, Michael Rother and Dot Allison have just collaborated on a cover of I’m In Love With A German Filmstar.
Nice to see the bassist toting an SB1000 there.
I agree that it’s a great single, but it does seem to appear on compilation albums that come out. For example, I think it’s on the Now Yearbook from the respective year (1980? 1979?). I guess CD compilations are not mainstream any more, but at least it suggests that it may have some kind of afterlife (I first heard it one of those stupid Best Punk Albums in the World Ever CDs that came out in the 90s).
The Chris Morris radio show Blue Jam played this one in-between the sketches and it fitted in perfectly.
Music Industry Statistics
https://headphonesaddict.com/music-statistics/#:~:text=The%20music%20industry%20revenue%20growth%20increased%20by%2018.3%25,spent%2018.4%20hours%20per%20week%20listening%20to%20music.
I’ll play. I think the last time I heard this was 1979.
My brother bought this at the time. One of the very first records on the independent Mute label. The Normal is basically Mute supremo Daniel Miller and I played this and the flip side near-constantly. I must have been about 13.
When the same label came out with other stuff, I really wanted them but I
only had paper round money. However I made an exception for Depeche Mode’s New Life – a massive reason for buying it was the sound of Warm Leatherette/TVOD. And here we are.
I’d returned to art school in 1979 and unsurprisingly this was a decided favourite amongst my paint pushing post punk pals.
Love it. TVOD is pretty good too. Then, a short while later, Grace Jones covered it magnificently.
…came here to post that one.
Nice. A great, scary record but is it that forgotten? It has been a staple of post-punk/electronica comps for years.
The Clash get played on the radio (sometimes), but Big Audio Dynamite … oh so rarely:
The Bottom Line
That whole first album was a complete joy from beginning to end, and The Bottom Line, Medicine Show and E=MC2 were wonderful cine-literate classics.
Terrific singles band full stop, were BAD. Just Play Music, Sightsee MC, C’mon Every Beatbox, V Thirteen all spring to mind.
Mick was the soul of The Clash – even in Carbon/Silicon he was doing good music.
I would have LOVED to see BAD live. Complete magpies, taking the spirit of Sandinista as far as they could.
Have you read Viv Albertine’s autobiography? Lots about Mick and the dawn of punk. The first volume is excellent.
BAD played Leeds uni while I was in my 1st year there and it was terrific – the ceiling was dripping onto us. Support from the Chiefs of Relief, fronted by Matthew Ashman of Bow Wow Wow with Paul Cook on drums.
I saw BAD at the Birmingham Powerhouse on (Google tells me) 11.11.86, a great gig, my two main rememberances being:
1) Mick introducing E=MC2 by saying “this is the kind of song that makes record companies send flowers to your dressing room”, and
2) encoring with a cover of Prince’s “1999” which lasted about 20 minutes
I bunked off double P.E. (cross-country running) to buy This Is BAD when Tracks Records opened at its doors at 9am, and played it twice, in the house of one of The Two Garys (the other Gary was also present). We then splashed water about ourselves, climbed through a gap in the hedge, and jogged back to school.
The last time I did that was to buy Hysteria by The Human League, which was definitely a wasted effort all round.
Radio might have something against Mick Jones, cos you don’t get to hear this too often either
Good Morning Britain
Love this one, but I always feel like I’m owed an explanation for ‘the echoes of eternity with a rak-a-rak feel’
WHAT?
There’s this of course.
And now this Saturday lunchtime, it’s over to Frank Bough for Grandstand …
Wow. Is that intentional? I’m sure Grandstand’s theme tune goes back way before this.
Writer Andy McMaster has both acknowledged and denied the nick. Keith Mansfield (who wrote the Grandstand theme) never pursued it. Everybody happy … la la la la la
I thought this was a great song and duly taped it off the radio. I remember it doing poorly in the charts and thought “well, we won’t be seeing them any more…”. In those days if you had a flop single is was really hard to get back.
This footage is also a great cups & cakes moment for Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart to savour with added Roy North as a bonus.
Another memory of that time is The Tourists played my brother’s University some time after this and a friend of his was involved in the sound for the show. He described Lennox as a “stupid cow” who spent far too long on the sound check as if she was a big star or something.
I mean…as if, Annie.
(Fairly) interesting thing about The Tourists is that Dave ‘n’ Annie weren’t the songwriters for the band, that was the never-heard-from-since Peet (sic) Coombs… talking of forgotten singles, I bought Eurythmics’ first (non-hit) single on 12” (“Never Gonna Cry Again”) but went off them by the time the LP came out…
A threefer
.
.
The man who wrote Cheryl’s Going Home – a damn near permanent fixture in John Otway’s live set, and formed the basis of a Rock Opera created with Attila The Stockbroker
Pretty much everything’s a permanent fixture in Otway’s set.
The set remains the same.
I had a listen to Bob Lind’s album a while back. Apart from those two songs it’s a bit dull. Much too wordy a lyricist.
Wade In The Water is an incredible song, sung by Harriet Trubman to encourage the slaves escaping the ships. Oddly, given that context, I do really enjoy Eva Cassidy’s version.
My favourite Wade; dark and sullen and hypnotic:
…and the album it’s on is a belter.
you rarely hear any Was (not Was) on the radio and they were a great singles band a couple of my favourites …
Ph. D. Won’t Let You Down 1981. Great? In it’s way.
Jim Diamond was back 3 years later, and going one place better in the chart to Number One … only 1 week because Band Aid was released the following Monday
By then he’d reconciled himself to his receding hairline and joined the list of slaphead chart-toppers.
He did get a second number one as part of The Crowd alongside luminaries such as The Nolans, Joe Fagin, Tony Christie, Kenny Lynch and Dave Lee Travis
Way back in 2015 @jackthebiscuit started an obituary thread about Jim.
I posted this:
“This thread has reminded me that I have a self-titled album by “Bandit” and Jim Diamond is the singer.
I can’t remember when or why I bought it and I haven’t listened to it for years, probably decades. Now I’ve pulled it off the shelf I will do so sometime over the next few days.
Looking at the LP now, what I love about it is the musical history wrapped around the band members which is only apparent with the benefit of hindsight. You can imagine the disappointment of the band in 1976 when their album was released and immediately made “old fashioned” by the explosion of punk. Little did they know what was to come:
Vocals: Jim Diamond – what I admire is his sheer tenacity . . . . discovered by Alexis Korner, had several big hits in different guises including the theme tune to a top TV show, and seemingly a really nice man who was able to work with top musicians: PhD included Tony Hymas (who was later in bands led by Jack Bruce and Jeff Beck) and Simon Phillips (who toured with The Who, played with Gary Moore amongst many others and replaced Jeff Porcaro in Toto).
Guitars: Danny McIntosh – guitarist with Kate Bush and later married her. I’ll say that again: he married Kate Bush.
Guitars: James Litherland – became a member of Colosseum. After that he had his own band called Brotherhood which included Roger Ball and Molly Duncan (both later to join AWB) and John Wetton (who you may know as a member of Family and King Crimson). I saw Brotherhood play at a little festival in North Wales in 1970 on a bill with many unknown groups that included players who were later to move on to great things. Oh, he is also the father of James Blake / Harmonimix.
Bass: Cliff Williams – was in a great little band called Home with Laurie Wisefield (who later joined Wishbone Ash and played in Roger Chapman’s band). He toured with Al Stewart and then became bass player for AC/DC.
Drums: Graham Broad: has played, recorded and toured with an amazing variety of artists including Roger Waters, Bucks Fizz, Van Morrison, Five Star, Jeff Beck, Wham! and Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings. I believe he also wrote and played the infamous drum fill for the Eastenders TV theme!
So that was Bandit. What a lineup! What a band. What a collection of lives well lived.”
Whilst I’m here, my contribution to the great singles (that maybe could be better known} is:
If any Afterworders have watched the UK TV series “First Dates” in the past few years, they might like to know that the narrator of the series from the start has been Brian Protheroe – the same Brian Protheroe who recorded “Pinball” all those decades ago…
Good song spoiled by the guys weedy voice, IMO.
The bit where he’s stuck in a telephone box reminded me of a weird Spanish short movie I saw a couple of times. “La Cabina”.
Yes! It seemed to appear as a short before the main picture quite a few times. There was another one featuring animated kidney beans too.
..and now they’re playing the AW’s theme song..
Verruca Salt – Seether
Ultra Vivid Scene – Special One
Ultra Vivid Scene really deserve some sort of reissue: Joy 1967-1990 is one of my picks for albums that seem to have been forgotten .
Great track, I loved The Pirates… I had a hand in releasing their last album, even introduced them on stage once, and carried Mick Green’s guitar home for him after a rather raucous post-gig curry…
Excellent!
First that came to mind…
Nice one. This comes to mind – I still have it, though it’s quite rare as the publishers of the original Leiber and Stoller song took horrified legal action and copies were withdrawn. Marvellous subversion of old school lurrv and take a moment to listen to that mix. I’d love to know more.
Annie Nightingale played this for me on her request show once while it was still banned and you couldn’t buy it… many years later the 7” was the very first thing I bought on some newfangled website called eBay.
I’ve never heard that version before…
Peggy Lee’s version is great too. Especially in After Hours
I’ll leave it at two choices. I could be here for a while.
Here’s one – might still have the single in the attic…
And this. Just a magnificent vocal.
You see that model of telephone that Meri Wilson has in her hand? They were very common in Sweden in the 70s and 80s. They were made by Ericsson and were called the Cobra Telephone. I never ever saw one in the UK when I was growing up, though. Have any Afterworders seen one in the UK?
Checking on Wikipedia, I see that Ms Wilson was American. Perhaps they had the Cobra phone over there in the US of A?
ABC The Night You Murder….. Oh! you want to hear The Look of Love,…. again
Nice enough song.
No. singalong bits though.
Hence the failure.
Thing is, these days, you can’t be sure that a forgotten tune doesn’t get dug up again and become a thing. A new popular discovery.
Two from me
This?
Or…this?
The latter – a truly beautiful song from the only Wire album I know. I used to really enjoy A Bell Is a Cup…
Ahead, from the previous “first comeback” album, The Ideal Copy, which sounds a bit New Ordery:
Then there’s this, one of my favourite singles…and catchy as all get out
New Ordery, Mr F? Well, I guess we shouldn’t hold that against them…
This might be the best place to add their associate, A.C.Marias and her 1989 single “One of Our Girls Has Gone Missing” : the album is really good as well.
One for Twang – a catchy non-LP Tull single from 1978:
A French earworm from 1981 – Chantal Goya ‘Comme Tintin’:
That is wonderful @Colin_H! And of course it made me think of Frank Sidebottom.
And that of course made me think of this classic!
The mighty…
That is stupendous @Pencilsqueezer!.
I love this YT comment:
“I saw Stereolab in Bellingham and they played one chord for 15 minutes. Something in me shifted. I brought back home belief I could create eternity.”
J’adore Stereolab. Not so much a band more of a belief system. They inspire devotion. I am planning a small séance later today.
Ah, Stereolab were HUGE for me in the 90s. An absolute obsessive, until Dots and Loops and then me and the ‘Lab agreed to go our own ways. Still, I just ordered the expanded vinyl reissues of Transient Random Noise Bursts With Announcements and Mars Audio Quintet and have been bathing in the in sound from way out.
Me too, Sal, but we went to see them at the Astoria in the mid-90s and the future Mrs F hated them (she doesn’t like long guitar solos, weirdness or, more generally, wig-outs). So I have to play them out of earshot.
Our next gig was Morphine upstairs at the Garage in Islington. A venue even more of a dump than the Astoria, and a band comprising drums, a two-string bass and a sax player who often played two instruments at once. Mrs F absolutely loved them.
There’s no accounting for taste {insert your own punchline here}.
I assume you mean Slot, not Sal, but as I am here…
Morphine for me every time. I saw Stereolab at the Colchester Arts Centre once in the late 90s – like audio corduroy.
This is more my sort of thing: Top Floor, Bottom Buzzer – bass notes a plenty from all around.
So I did! Note to self: don’t try to do two things at once.
I can understand the Marmite aspect – I was very much into the 25-minute monochord grooves and wig outs but really, if you don’t enjoy that then it would be pretty hellish to endure. Funnily, I remember around 1998 – 2002 or so, I was going to Upstairs at the Garage a lot – a dump indeed, but many happy nights.
One of the best things I’ve ever seen was MBV doing 25 minutes of one-chord 130dB white noise during You Made Me Realise. Ear, gut, and life-changing.
I didn’t take Mrs F. Eh? I said, I didn’t take Mrs F. Eh? etc…
Love it and loved seeing them play live.
Edison Lighthouse – Love Grows..big hit, great song. One of the first I remember that my parents and us kids loved. Soon forgotten.
Ah yes…featuring singer-for-hire Tony Burrows, who on a single episode on TOTP in 1970, sang with three separate groups:
The Edison Lighthouse, as above.
White Plains (My Baby Loves Love).
Brotherhood Of Man (United We Stand).
Explained here:
https://www.elsewhere.co.nz/weneedtotalkabout/10691/we-need-to-talk-about-tony-burrows-the-famous-anonymous-star/
And discussed further in Will Hodgkinson’s inordinately entertaining book ‘In Perfect Harmony’.
I’ve seen the footage, and you’d think he would’ve changed his shirt
Has Saturday Night Beneath The Plastic Palm Trees been forgotten? It rarely gets a mention anywhere. I love it.
Singer Geoff Deane’s (later of Modern Romance) book is an absolute hoot and thoroughly recommended.
Excellent choice @Gary.
In my old hood, namely Pinner, Saturday night was alright for fighting!
That was covered last night by the band playing in my local.
Never mind your Slade, your T-Rex, your Alice Cooper or your Sweet, Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting is the ultimate glam rock stomper. It rocks like an absolute bastard. If you don’t believe me, go and listen to it again. See? told you so. Great band. Great song. He really should have done more like it.
Ellery Bop – Torn Apart. Championed by Janice Long, this was one of the first singles I bought, along with Pale Shelter and Right by Your Side.
Just as good is the B-side – a Mad Professor remix
From the Who the Fuck is Alice hitmakers..
This should’ve been a hit and I used to think one of those manufactured bands like Six or even Steps could have easily rehashed this and had a hit with it…
Brilliant choice.
I shared a flat in the early/mid 80s where Care and Jam Science were big favourites.
All together now
Big fat nemesis parthenogenesis
Everybody happy as the dead come home
I could just as easily have suggested All Lined Up. Way ahead of it’s time to my ears.
or this
That was on a recent Jon Savage 1980s comp and I was jolted by just how good a song it is.
This was another favourite around that time.
b movie
And the Adventures (who have new album coming out in March)
See also Drowning In The Sea Of Love by The Adventures. Love the acapella first line!
Forever Running is another album where all the songs are good. One of the second division bands who never made the big time, but made good music, See also Danse Society, The Wake.
Love this. Is it forgotten?
Yes. The population that remembers this is dwindling fast.
I’m rather fond of this, um, banger. Goes down well in our care home gigs.
Off on a tangent here, but back in the 80s I read a novel titled The Doubleman by C. J. Koch (perhaps better know for The Year Of Living Dangerously, which was made into a film starring Sigourney Weaver and Mel Gibson).
It’s about the Sydney folk scene in the 60s and the author thanked Keith Potger (one of the guitarists there in The Seekers) for his help in portraying the era. He says in the note that the band in the book, The Rhymers, are in no way based upon The Seekers.
I enjoyed the book enormously at the time. Whether I would today I couldn’t say without re-reading it.
The quality of that clip is excellent in terms of both visuals and sound. The images look so sharp, it could almost have been filmed yesterday.
Haven’t heard this in a very long time. It was out around the same time that Landscape released “Norman Bates” as the follow-up to that one about Albert.
Black Celebration of this parish will be able to confirm that The Hitmen were Alan Wilder’s band prior to joining Depeche Mode… (side note: how can I remember trivia like this, but not my own ‘phone number?)
Yes indeed. Wilder lied about his age because Depeche Mode said that they wanted nobody older than 21. He hid his zimmer frame and Senatogen bottle until he was safely ensconced. He was actually 23.
Also this. What a great album Shakespeare Alabama is.
The House of Love were, very briefly, the future in 1988. By the time this lovely song came out – all of 3 years later – nobody cared. I’m sure even fewer do now unfortunately.
I also loved their “The Beatles and The Stones” single
I once bought a VW Polo that had a House of Love demo tape buried deep in the upholstery of its back seat.
Releasing no new music / giving no new interviews for 28 years doesn’t help people to remember you. Though I read recently that The Sundays have become a popular choice for goth girls to soundtrack their TikToks.
I could never understand the fascination. They supported Throwing Muses on a tour in 1989 – seeing them at Portsmouth Poly, there was a massive crowd there just to see them, who left when Kristen and Tanya came on stage – probably provoked by recent front page shots from the NME & MM. A slightly indistinct and subdued Liz Frazer voice and inoffensive music did nothing for me. Cranes and Curve were slightly more entertaining at the time
I really like them; on their stuff generally, the guitar playing is really unconventional & the way it works with the bass and minimal drumming is sort of ambient. Her voice floats over it all. I like those other named bands as well, it was a good time for music.
They may be one of those bands who I dismiss for decades as being bland before giving them time for a proper listen and discovering how great they are – like I did with Prefab Sprout’s Steve McQueen ( but only that album, the rest are still dull).
Or not.
I was surprised to see they released three albums – the last two passed me by. Will give them a listen soonish.
Nice tune. In my memory, I associate this with Radcliffe and Riley’s Breakfast Radio One show.
I had to pretend I didn’t like this song when it was released because I was into The Sex Pistols and The Clash at the time.
Their main man Dicken was from Oxford and I saw him playing pubs as Mr Big in the 90s. After the original split he and bassist Pete Crowther formed Broken Home. Their first album was produced by Mutt Lange, and is a corker.
From the days when everyone listened to the radio, and choons with melody, harmony and well-crafted arrangements were everywhere, but chart success for any of them may have been fleeting:
Woke up this moʻrning with this stuck in my head – no idea why, but fits the bill here.
Elkie Brooks – Pearl’s A Singer
Luxury! I’ve had this in my head, for reasons which passeth understanding…
Elkie’s finest moment. At the time, I thought she might enjoy a better career than Robert Palmer.
It’s Immaterial – Driving Away From Home
I like this one. Sadly, the estimable Chart Music: The TOTP podcast didn’t rate it at all when it came up on their show.
@rigid-digit @leedsboy I would say that both have not been forgotten and are pretty regularly anthologised. Their pre-Lifes Hard singles however have well and truly been erased. The title may play a role in this case, but what a cracking single:
Ed’s Funky Diner is both better still and more forgotten.
Ed’s Funky Diner is brilliant in 7″ and 12″ version (The Keinholz Caper being the better and completely different from the 7″ version).
But perhaps my favourite is A Gigantic Raft
I’m sure I can’t be the only Afterworder to have a fondness for “Picture on the Wall” by the Natural Ites. …
And a particular thumbs-up for the spoken introduction:
“They have a picture of His Majesty Rasta
(Yes Iyah, Jah Live!)
And they have a picture of His Majesty Dread
(Yes Iyah, Jah is within I!)”
The actual New Yardbirds?
Love this: Alphaville
But the remix is beyond that, being as near perfection as can be attained.
Another one from my singles box.
OK it may not be exactly great, but for a few months in 1979 he was pretty big and is now almost completely forgotten. Surely unless you were between the ages of 12 and 18 in 1979 you’ve never heard this?
https://youtu.be/gjjuY5qetnw?si=IvwvhPu4levA9gYa
Co-wrote a lot of stuff with Mike Rutherford for Mike and the Mechanics including the big hits.
Also Carrie and Wired for Sound. Didn’t know any of that!
Did this too.
Me neither. I remember the kerfuffle with Annabel Lwin though.
I loved Bang Bang at the time. I think I still have a copy of the single (in the same sleeve as the one BA holds at the end of the video).
I’d look it out, but I have nothing to play it on now.
Well, I bought the single in -82 and I still love this – I’ve never heard it on the radio (then or now) but perhaps this is only true in Sweden? Is this getting any airplay in the UK?
Sometimes the dumbest songs are the best.
Is this getting any airplay in the UK?
Not since 1982 …
Not to be confused with…
And this gem from 1978 has everything I love in a song. I fell head over heels in love with it on first listen and I’m still in love. If any song can be said to represent me in music form, it’s this one.
Or, possibly, this one:
I came to loathe this record because the tune (sans vocals) was licensed by our company – Glaxo – to be the ‘dynamic’ background music for a cringeworthy Reynholm Industries style corporate video. Even now when I hear it I can see the sales reps getting out of their company Vauxhall Cavaliers and doing a fake greeting with a client. I’m sure Mr Jackson got paid a few bob for it.
Another one that seems to be forgotten.
I give you Python Lee Jackson’s finest moment. The guest vocalist became quite well known, I believe.
He got a new set of mats and seat covers for his Lotus
as an eightieth birthday present?
You may know this song because Annie Lennox had a top 10 hit with a cover version,
Here from 1986 are Liverpool duo, The Lover Speaks,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lover_Speaks
with the original version.
It’s a cracker. As is this.
I just found out that the backing vocals on The Lover Speaks’ No More I Love Yous (a cracker, I agree) are by June Miles-Kingston, who also also sings backing and drums on this.
Not a forgotten single I guess, but an excuse to post The Fun Boy Three’s Our Lips Are Sealed.
This is a very dangerous thread to get involved in, so many great singles which have got lost from playlists or never made it on to them …. this one is just epic with one of the best song titles ever
loved the sheer cheesy joy of the Pipettes
bit of Jon Spencer’s other band
and finally in this section a beautiful bit of Cousteau
Always happy to listen to a Boss Hogg track. This has to be my favourite – so good
Four fines choices @exilepj!
That Cousteaux song ought to have been a massive hit.
The Pipettes video is thoroughly brilliant. Not only are the band on top form but the director has also created the feeling that it is a clip from a (60s) movie with lots of different stories going on.
Interestingly, The Pipettes’ music features in a film called Angus, Things and Perfect Snogging which was filmed in their home town of Brighton. But I don’t think they appear in the film.
“…the director has also created the feeling that it is a clip from a (60s) movie with lots of different stories going on.”
This might tip you off….
Thanks @Sniffity. That is a stupendous clip from a very enjoyable movie.
But what’s remarkable is that the director of The Pipettes video has lovingly recreated it, shot by shot, and done a very fine job.
The director seems to have been a guy called Ben Foley.
https://www.filmaffinity.com/en/name.php?name-id=607225195
I think spellcheck may have changed thongs to things.
The film was based on the book “Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging” by Louise Rennison.
I saw her many years ago as I’d read some of her books (I was working in a school library at the time and took some books along to get them signed). It was also one of the best nights of stand-up I’ve seen
My god! It’s years since I heard that Cousteau track – I used to listen to it back in the day and I had completely forgotten it! Thanks for posting that.
I saw them support Del Amitri about 25 years ago, and they very nearly blew the headliners off stage.
After years apart, they released a very good album in – checks notes – 2021. When The Bloom Has Left The Rose is a banger.
Ta.
Last night First Aid Kit did a very fine cover of Little Talks, a recentish megahit by Icelandic band, Of Monsters and Men.
None of the contestants knew the artist.
It makes me wonder how many people still remember this gem from 20 lus years ago.
Or indeed Daði Freyr and his band Daði & Gagnamagnið and their wonderful Eurovision toe-tapper. Think About Things .
How about Since Yesterday by Strawberry Switchblade? Just under three minutes of joy.
I first heard it on an NME cover cassette entitled Raging Spool. I imagine that’s gone the way of all things now (although it may be languishing in a box somewhere).
Also on Raging Spool were The Daintees with I’m A Hypocrite (A Crocodile Cryer) – when did they become Martin Stephenson and The Daintees, I wonder? – Aztec Camera’s cover of Jump and Fear, Hate, Envy, Jealousy by The Neville Brothers. … and … and … and EBTG, The Kane Gang, The Three Johns, The Go-Betweens and The Long Ryders. I remember playing the cassette a lot, but can’t place some of the other tracks … Black Stalin? Alterations? (I have, of course, had to look all this stuff up.)
I recently heard the Strawberry Switchblade song played in a supermarket in Japan, where somebody still loves them.
Sibelius needs a credit for that one…
His copyright fan out a while ago.
Just for politeness, not for cash…
It was added by their producer. I saw a documentary about women in Scottish pop, featuring them interviewed seperately, recently.
Here’s another cracker from the 80s – Will Powers Kissing With Confidence
You beat me to it.
Sometimes, one just needs a bit of Power Pop
Too new for this list?
7 years old, and 6Music (well, Liz Kershaw mainly) played the arsenal out of it
Mattiel – Keep The Change
Never heard it before. I think a great forgotten single has to have been warmly regarded at some point.
Relax ladies etc
I fear clicking play on that one.
I think I had this single!
One could do a whole thread on semi-forgotten songs that got a new lease of life thanks to their use in a movie.
Voyage Voyage in the excellent Finnish movie Cabin No 6.
You probably know it from the soundtrack of Jackie Brown, but Bobby Womack’s Across 110th Street was written for a 1972 Blaxploitation film of the same name starring Anthony Quinn and Yaphet Kotto.
The Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy have given a whole new lease of life to many forgotten hits.
Brandy (You’re a fine girl) by Looking Glass.
And , of course, Go all the Way by the Raspberries
Trippy and enigmatic, “Big” by The New Fast Automatic Daffodils was lumped in with the Madchester scene, but was their moment of glory (frustratingly, most reissues use the inferior album version)
Belting! I hadn’t forgotten this. I didn’t know it existed.
Stephen Duffy, “London Girls”: a razor-sharp caricature of Britpop that still sounds great. Duffy later had a minor hit with “Hanging Around” , but this is better.
There is case to be made that Duffy is a forgotten artist?
Indeed…
Classic forgotten great single was Hanging Around – Stephen Duffy, Alex from Blur and Justine from Elastica.
It’s Sunday morning! How about a day trip to France? Bring your dancing shoes!
Here are some insanely catchy tunes.
Les Negresses Vertes
Indila
Michel Fugain
Poom
Vanessa Paradis
And let’s not forget the Je t’aime…moi non plus Hitmaker. feat the divine Brigitte Bardot
Are these forgotten in France?
That is an excellent question @Tiggerlion. I have no idea and no idea how to find out. But I will have a bash!
I suspect that most of them are still remembered in France..
My starting point for selection was whether a song was remembered (or even known to) the denizens of the Afterword.
There are several cases of European artists who were one hit wonders in the UK but who were and maybe still are major stars at home.
For example..
Golden Earing
Focus
Plastic Bertrand
The Nits
Falco
And here’s a US based list of One Hit Wonders that I suspect you will all enjoy.
https://crazyonclassicrock.com/2022/09/15/my-one-hit-wonderland-wishlist/
Thank you. I was surprised to see Devo in there, and not their astonishing cover of Satisfaction.
Don’t expect much traction with either of these, and they didn’t mean a thing at the time, but they’ve always been faves.
Jill and the Boulevards, amazingly advanced for 1962.
And Kevin Johnson…
You may enjoy dipping into this: our jukebox full of forgotten hits.
@Kaisfatdad Oh good work. What an excellent playlist. Discovering loads from this thread.
Dubstar (did I miss that in the vids?) – several of theirs would qualify including one of my all fave things “Stars” (but the Way Out West remix, I should add).
Not in this category but their last album from a couple of years ago is fantastic from start to finish.
A Pirate Radio banger from 1968.
this afternoons selection features a single released several times but never a big hit
a beautiful song by Pippa from the band Posh
showing they are more than just ‘You’re Gorgeous’ … the great BabyBird
bit of a cinematic epic by Jack
Oh yes!!
Reportedly Frank Zappa’s all-time favourite single. Extraordinary backing vocals
The Velours “Can I Come Over Tonight”
Excellent article about it here
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/amazing-frank-zappas-favourite-pop-song/
What a remarkable story @Mousey!
“Club owner and toupe fanatic Peter Stringfellow booked the group to a club in Sheffield in 1968 where Motown was still all the rage—eventually mutating into the northern soul craze. However, the wily promoter somewhat disrespectfully billed the band as The Fabulous Temptations, hoping to cash in on the notion that their most successful counterparts might be performing.
Nevertheless, in a manner akin to Zappa’s keen background in advertising, it proved to be a masterstroke, and the show was a roaring success. So, the group stayed in England under the name The Fantastics and doo-wopped their complex little way to ninth in the charts on subsequent singles, and their group leader, Johny Pitts, even ended up settling down as a lecturer at the University of Huddersfield.”
Here they are performing in Germany.
The late 90s were a golden time to pick up CD singles like this:
Great choice, @moseleymoles.
Sadly, Stina hasn’t recorded anything for 20 years but she’s anything but forgotten here among the hipsters of Södermalm.
But I did stumble across a few vintage live tracks.
At the Swedish parliament!
From a TV show in the 90s.
Stina and the Flippermen live at Fasching!
And here’s an article from 1994 when she was the toast of London.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/show-people-the-rise-and-rise-of-little-voice-stina-nordenstam-1420632.html
Gerry Rafferty – Baker Street
Gerry Rafferty – Baker Street
I see what you did there.
I haven’t bought a vinyl single in years. This one was one of the last, back in 1984.
This thread barely loads even on desktop…a few more will surely render it loadable…
I give you Sophie and Peter Johnson. I wonder how long it took them to come up with that name??
Happy Together – a pop gem I would say.
Another mid-90s CD single classic. A middle eight to absolutely die for (one of the marks of a great single surely). Also not on Spotify – another sign it’s been forgotten.
I estimate that in my case a good two thirds of the singles in this thread are not “forgotten”, because I never knew about them at all.
Rockers Revenge’s cover of Eddy Grant’s Walking On Sunshine was one of many early 80s electro funk singles.
Bernard Fowler has been earning a living singing with the Stones for decades now, but in 1982 he sang this classic with the Peech Boys.
this banger is one to always crank up the volume to … especially when driving
@tiggerlion do you want to start a Part 2 of this thread seeing, as mentioned above, it takes ages to load? It’s heading for a triple hamper at this rate
Would it be possible for our tech-y Mod overlords to limit the number of replies on a thread before it automatically is closed, with a polite suggestion that a new thread be started?