D.I.Y.: Teenage Kicks - UK Pop I (1976-79)

Undertones / Only Ones ahead of most of the pack here. then maybe XTC / Skids.

Some heavy hitters here, but I'm going with "Do Anything You Wanna Do," mostly because it is one of those songs that I'm always happy to find popping into my head every now and then.

"Do Anything You Wanna Do" seconded, it's glorious.

I have never heard Jilted John, Kursaal Flyers, Yachts, or Pleasers!

"Teenage Kicks" is undeniable here imho

I have this..."Another Girl" over just about every damn song ever.

Oooh this is a hard one. I guess they all are. Skids doesn't belong here though do they?

Another Girl, Another Planet is perfect but maybe not what I think of as POP? Whole Wide World is sublime.

But i'm gonna have to go with Undertones I guess. I mean it's a perfect pop song if there ever was.

Probably "Whole Wide World" but really just wanna shout out BRICKFIELD NIGHTS

I like the Skids track, but it definitely feels like it should be on one of the Punk comps, not Pop.

Sort of corny to pick the song I already knew and loved before I got this comp, but it's still "Another Girl Another Planet" for me. If it were "Get Over You" instead of "Teenage Kicks" on here it might be another story.

Pub-rock's not really my thing, but "Do Anything You Wanna Do" is great.

(Or maybe I'm wrong...I thought they came out of that.)

"Another Girl" and "Do Anything You Wanna Do" are inseparable. Talking of pub rock, I really like the Motors' songs too.

I'd loved "Another Girl" for a couple of decades before I learned it was about heroin!

The Motors, Jilted John and The Skids were on the radio non stop when i first got my own one so I definitely consider them all pop.

I'd hazard a guess that the majority of people my age in the UK still know all the words to Jilted John. My sister and I always used to sing "Eff off" instead of "Airport" whenever we heard it.

I've been over exposed to Teenage Kicks so it's going to be between Eddie & the Hot Rods and The Only Ones. Squeeze a close runner up.

Might be the only one to vote for them, but that Rich Kids track absolutely smokes!

By the way, I just voted for my favourite song. Some seem to be voting for what you consider the best pop song according to your definition of a pop song.

"Airport" is a straight pop song, in fact it's almost synth pop, I don't think it really belongs here. "Dancing the Night Away" is close to "Do You Anything You Wanna Do", pub rock lags somehow managing to come up with a convincing anthemic rock song.

"Airport" sounds more like ELO than punk or new wave!

I knew "Airport" before I'd flown out of one, it still sounds kinda otherworldly.

Cheapo was playing this album the other day, great as ever. I didn't stay long enough to hear Rich Kids but still gotta go with that.

25 years ago, would be Only Ones no question, still one of the most underrated bands beyond that single song, that Peel Sessions disc is definitely a top 5 Peel Sessions album... 30 years ago, XTC - another one where the 7" version is far superior to the lp version, but as is typical with this band it wasn't that the 7" was an earlier rawer record, they re-recorded it after the album to give it some punk-funk... but these days I do hear in Marie Provost a new glimmer of a singer who knew that one day he'd be past his prime too, but couldn't really muster the compassion his subject deserved, and chuckled at his own callousness. Perhaps one of the lesser songs on Jesus of Cool when listened to in that context - lacking the production sparkle that makes that record unique - but of course it was the highlight of the "Bowi" ep and it's really stuck with me over the years.

Honorable mentions to Rich Kids, Skids, Hot Rods, Wreckless, "Dancing the Night Away", basically everything on it is great except maybe "Airport" and "Precis of a Friend" which I can't really remember. This was the first of the series I bought, on the strength of a cool kid at the record store recommending it in spite I already had a few of the songs.

Wow i’d not heard airport it’s lol with elo. I mean it’s fine at it, but that is funny

Didn’t know Airpot either. But of a Deaf School vibe too.

Didn’t really know Kursaal Flyers either. It’s like washed away by punk was an entire generation (year) of bands who were almost pub rock and Roxy Music wannabes who either disappeared or changed their image/style and made it through.

all these songs are absolute top bangers:

Eddie & the Hot Rods - Do Anything You Wanna Do
Whole Wide World - Wreckless Eric
Another Girl, Another Planet - The Only Ones
This is Pop? - XTC
Brickfield Nights - The Boys
Jilted John - Jilted John
Teenage Kicks - The Undertones
Into the Valley - Skids

I think I have to go with Wreckless Eric

OK, hoping to build off the great response cryptosicko's been getting to these, I'm opening up a classic punk write-in poll!

https://i.imgur.com/UVEx99b.png

Hope to see you there!

Looking forward to that, but be prepared for the same kind of preliminary arguments genre movie polls get--everyone will have their own interpretation of "classic" (time-wise) and "punk."

Well - classic will mean recorded between 1975 and 1984. Punk will mean whatever you want it to mean. We'll see where the discussion takes us! Will post the thread shortly...

Whole Wide World

I don't think I'd ever heard that Wreckless Eric song before. I like it. Also, I've heard that Skids song many times, but didn't know who it was by. But for me this is "Another Girl, Another Planet" with honorable mention to the Rich Kids, Undertones, and Rezillos.

Just realized I left this one open for longer than the usual week, likely as a result of screwing up the date format. Sorry about that.

voted

Love both of these comps so much. Probably would've gone with Undertones for the longest time but the Rich Kids snuck up on me over time. 'Ghosts of Princes in Towers' is suuuch a jaaaam.

That's true of most of these tracks, though. Tuff poll!

I saw The Rods (formerly Teenage Eddie and The Hot) when they plaved an elderly, more than vintage theater in downtown Tuscaloosa, ca. '77, on the same bill with the Police (both, apparently, in sep, Volkswagen vans). Eddie, or whoever he was, ran around the stage and I think wore a(n American?) football jersey and everything sounded beefed and beered up and totally fine for the barely off-campus deli-club where bands were starting to bring the frats and Village Voice readers together for evenings that started with the songs of childhood, like "Pushin' Too Hard" and "Double Shot of My Baby's Love" (by Birmingham's own Swingin' Medallions" and ended, or maybe got to intermission with, "Beat On The Brat" and "God Save The Queen."
"Do Anything You Wanna Do" was perfect for that, and I thought it might become an anthem (long before "Fight For The Right To Party"), but the drunking age was 18 and there were many contenders.
Still good, and I might have voted for that or even for "Another Girl Another Planet" if I hadn't always been so turned off by/vaguely nauseated by Peter Perret's goaty, whiney little voice, on all of cobbled-for-the US Special View (though yeah I know he's supposed to sound good on their Peel Sessions etc.)
Gonna go with "Whole Wide World" which has stayed in my head and never sounded quite like anything else (though maybe it would if I'd ever heard any more of his originals)(did dig his cogent cover of "Crooked Beat" on remarkable v.a. The Sandinista! Project). That mix of urgent confidence and fresh, possibly naive, but skilled, freewheeling focus---
I was revived when it was, for this Superbowl commercial:

Bowl Commercial
The 1977 new wave classic has been covered by Elvis Costello, Cage the Elephant, and others over the decades.

Published on February 10, 2022By Lexi Lane

Ahead of the Super Bowl, AdWeek has shared a first look at Expedia’s commercial, which is set to air during the February 13th game. The thought provoking, 30-second spot stars Ewan McGregor, who reflects on the fact that memories made while traveling matter more than material purchases. “I doubt that any of us will look back on our lives and think, ‘I wish I’d bought an even thinner TV, found a lighter light beer, or had an even smarter smartphone,” muses the actor. “Do you think any of us will look back on our lives and regret the things we didn’t buy?” The ad closes with McGregor walking onto a beach, while Wreckless Eric’s new wave classic, “Whole Wide World,” soundtracks the picturesque moment.

Featuring guitar licks by Nick Lowe and drums by Steve Goulding, “Whole Wide World” was first released on Stiff Records in 1977, and became Wreckless Eric’s best known song. Throughout the decades, other musicians have also cemented its popularity through various covers, including Elvis Costello and Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong. In 2017, when Cage the Elephant covered “Whole Wide World” on their live album, Unpeeled, the song charted at No.11 on Billboard’s Alternative Songs Chart.

n a 2008 interview with the blog Turn It Down, Eric reflected, “Back then, I had my first album and ‘Whole Wide World,’ it was great. But I was pretty weird, I was the space cadet, I was the rustic whiz kid. We played free jazz and people did not quite understand but they were mesmerized. It was this mixture of free jazz and pop.”

Oh yeah, that Tuscaloosa show was soon after "Roxanne," so '79.

Meant to make clear that this downtown Rods set *would have* been fine at the barely off-campus etc.

Great story, dow.

The best cover

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEb1a5Bp6PQ

Thanks!! Will also be sendin' out an S.O.S. request to Susanna Hoffs on Twitter (yall do that too).

Costello and Wreckless did not get on.

EC said recently "One good song", interesting if his cover actually exists...

He didn't get on with Ian Dury either iirc. EC that is.

Nor with his bass player, or so I have heard.

"Dancing The Night Away" already won the Festive 50 so it's ok if it doesn't win here.

"Take Me I'm Yours" is underrated.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Dammit, I totally missed this. Would love to revisit this album if I had time.

One thing I realized from this is that "do anything you wanna do" is a whole lot more like "starry eyes" than I'd ever thought

Bought on 7" at the time: So It Goes, Do Anything You Wanna Do, Mary Provost (on the Bowi EP), Jilted John (original Rabid pressing), Top Of The Pops, Into The Valley.

Voting for Rods.

My "bought" list (within a year, funds being pocket-money)

So It Goes - Nick Lowe
Mary Provost - Nick Lowe
Whole Wide World - Wreckless Eric
Dancing the Night Away - The Motors
Jilted John - Jilted John
Top of the Pops - The Rezillos
Teenage Kicks - The Undertones
Into the Valley - Skids

Probably voted John.

Very glad to have discovered The Rods here, but yeah, Teenage Kicks.

I never fully clicked with "Teenage Kicks" in the way that I clicked with a lot of other Undertones tunes. It was my least favourite track on the EP! Obviously there is something wrong with me.

I liked "Teenage Kicks" well enough, but liked "Get over you" more, especially because it meant that they were clearly going to be around for a while.

I think I've heard "Teenage Kicks" far too much in my life tbh. Especially as, again, it was never a favourite Undertones track of mine to begin with.

I like it fine and always enjoy hearing but agree with these last several posts.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Results as expected. Maybe I was the single vote for “Mary Provost”? Unless I forgot to vote and it was someone else.

Shame to see The Skids only getting one vote. If for no other reason, it deserves better for providing the music to one of the best adverts to air in the UK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gib916jJW1o

Classic.

This got no votes, which, on this basis of this performance at least, doesn't seem fair:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8X1EKyhLHw

I feel bad about that as well as “2-4-6-8 Motorway” getting no votes. Wish I could have had more than one vote but the magic word is “Sockpuppet.”

"2-4-6-8 Motorway" is a good song, probably would be my 5th favorite from this list.

HI DERE! #onethread

Tom Robertpollardinson

I didn't vote in this because the only 3 tracks that I can recall from memory are... drumroll... the tracks that received the top 3 most votes.

you know I never really gave Eddie and the Hot Rods any time till this thread but goddamn does Starry Eyes owe a lot to Do Anything You Wanna Do.

I did play that Motors 12" plenty at the time, and it was Peel's favourite that year.

Just, too many others to vote for.

Airport is such a great pop moment and possibly the most 1978 thing ever. It's got my favourite bits of pub rock, power pop, new wave and sad synth pop.

Probably in the minority by my favorite song by The Motors is the one that sounds exactly like a song by The Grass Roots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caDlnvqZCh0

Almost said #onethread but then I realized I was mixing up The Grass Roots and The Guess Who again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLHMxFGqhIs

^^^ exactly the comparison I made at the time!

At this point I am starting to think we will eventually track it back to some kind of maverick melody in common use by bluesmen and songsters back in the day. Maybe there was even some sheet music associated with a learn parlor guitar method book.

Should have said “Sooner or Later” instead of “eventually.”

D.I.Y.: Starry Eyes - UK Pop II (1978-79)

i can't remember if i voted but it would've been "another girl, another planet"!

New Cherry Red comp... https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/kids-on-the-street-uk-power-pop-and-new-wave-1977-1981-3cd-box-set/?fbclid=IwAR28JQjFt6niPYcprggN5fQTrDFiXyrLV5rYD0VGIdZYPc3kjmCCQP7MEus