I haven’t featured a song from The Clash’s classic album London Calling since July of 2009, way back at Song of the Day #357. I guess the Random iTunes Fairy thought that was too long.
London Calling is indeed a great album, considered one of the best of all time by many critics. It has the urgency and directness of great punk music but the ear candy melodicism of pop radio. It’s not an album I revisit often but it’s one I always enjoy when I do.
‘Up the Hill Backwards’ is the second track, and fourth single, from David Bowie’s 1980 album Scary Monsters.
This was Bowie’s first album following his critically-praised but commercially-challenged Berlin trilogy, and it had a more mainstream sound than its predecessors. First single ‘Ashes to Ashes’ gave him his second #1 hit in the UK.
‘Poison Arrow’ is the second track, and second single, from New Wave English band ABC’s debut album, 1982’s The Lexicon of Love. The song was a top ten hit in the UK and reached #25 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in the U.S.
The third single, title track ‘The Look of Love,’ fared even better reaching #4 in the UK and #18 in the U.S. ABC went on to decent success worldwide through the 80s and into the early 90s before going on hiatus. The band reformed in 1998 with lead singer Martin Fry as the sole official member, recording and performing with a touring band.
Aimee Mann’s 1993 Whatever is one of the great debut records, a dazzling collection of smart, emotional pop songs. It began a three decades and counting run of wonderful output by one of music’s most underrated songwriters.
While this was Mann’s solo debut, it’s easy to draw a line to Whatever from ‘Til Tuesday’s final album, 1988’s Everything’s Different Now. That record, for which Mann wrote or co-wrote all but one track, has all the hallmarks of her solo work only in glossy New Wave packaging.
‘Speedway’ is the closing track on Morrissey’s 1994 album Vauxhall and I, arguably his finest solo release. My personal fave is 1992’s Your Arsenal but this one is right up there.
Morrissey has released nine more albums since but none of them managed the mix of angst, wit and whimsy quite like this one and its predecessors. I’d argue that any legit fan of Morrissey needs to know everything The Smiths ever did plus those first four solo albums.
Meet Me In Montauk 