In a sense, that shouldn’t be too surprising. Punk may not have been big news in 1981, but it still had an audience. The key development was that major labels had grown to understand that audience’s limitations; they knew they tended not to be cash-rich kids who were able to spend all their readies on picture discs and extended 12” singles, and in many cases wouldn’t have wanted to even if they could. Even as early as the late seventies, some music business moguls were even beginning to comment that the opportunities punk presented were limiting, that no matter how much promotion or clever marketing you threw at a punk band, chances are the maximum reach would always be around 60,000 willing buyers.
Major labels aren’t usually interested in acts who can just about break even – they’re interested in long-term propositions, acts with a global reach who are able to build on their earliest successes rather than stay rooted to the spot. The Clash were able to develop in a way that fulfilled that brief, but the vast majority of punk bands couldn’t, especially once the mainstream media and the music press became desensitized to the movement’s initial impact and began to move on.
Big business did what it always does when confronted with these problems, by signing the more commercial acts who had absorbed punk’s influences into the broader church of “New Wave”, and ignoring any who didn’t seem as if they stood a chance of getting playlisted at Radio One. Essentially, this meant that if you were a group determined to make a demented racket in 1981, or even an established punk band whose last album on EMI charted at a disappointing number 67, you were decamped to the indie ghetto to try your luck there.
By this point, I suspect a lot of punk bands were able to make the indie sector work relatively well on their behalf. Those signed to fair-minded fledgling labels on contracts with extremely favourable royalty deals probably even did better – 15% of 40,000 sales will always be better than 5% of 60,000. The bigger problem is that indie labels were more cash-strapped and volatile, less equipped to deal with the queues at pressing plants and the bribes the major labels could offer (the yo-yoing of some of these records up and down the charts tells its own story in that respect) and often couldn’t afford to invest in a band’s long-term promotion.
What they could do, however, was quickly get a punk band in the studio to record a fast and dirty album or EP without fuss and without their commitment or attention wavering. They were cheap and easy to produce and ideal indie sector fodder.
Coming up, the 1982 charts coming up do present a continuation of the dominant story with possibly even more punk entries than 1981 (I haven’t done a tally, but it feels that way) but by the end of the year, the largest of the second-wave punk bands will become rather battered and demotivated and in some cases cease to exist. Despite that, punk never quite loses its hold over the indie charts, and as time moves on, even if there are no bona-fide first or second wave punks in the chart at all, the listings are dominated by people who will – subconsciously or otherwise – have been influenced by the movement, whether that’s Nirvana, Happy Mondays, Pixies or any number of C86 bands. As we’ve started, we will continue – kind of.
In the meantime, turn your attention to the massive Spotify playlist of 1982 chart entries to your right. That is all the advance listening you’ll need for what’s up ahead.
1981’s menu is available (again) below, but don’t eat it all at once. Seriously. It’s a bad idea (it’s also nine-and-a-half hours long, so your day would need to be spectacularly well organised).
Big business did what it always does when confronted with these problems, by signing the more commercial acts who had absorbed punk’s influences into the broader church of “New Wave”, and ignoring any who didn’t seem as if they stood a chance of getting playlisted at Radio One. Essentially, this meant that if you were a group determined to make a demented racket in 1981, or even an established punk band whose last album on EMI charted at a disappointing number 67, you were decamped to the indie ghetto to try your luck there.
By this point, I suspect a lot of punk bands were able to make the indie sector work relatively well on their behalf. Those signed to fair-minded fledgling labels on contracts with extremely favourable royalty deals probably even did better – 15% of 40,000 sales will always be better than 5% of 60,000. The bigger problem is that indie labels were more cash-strapped and volatile, less equipped to deal with the queues at pressing plants and the bribes the major labels could offer (the yo-yoing of some of these records up and down the charts tells its own story in that respect) and often couldn’t afford to invest in a band’s long-term promotion.
What they could do, however, was quickly get a punk band in the studio to record a fast and dirty album or EP without fuss and without their commitment or attention wavering. They were cheap and easy to produce and ideal indie sector fodder.
Coming up, the 1982 charts coming up do present a continuation of the dominant story with possibly even more punk entries than 1981 (I haven’t done a tally, but it feels that way) but by the end of the year, the largest of the second-wave punk bands will become rather battered and demotivated and in some cases cease to exist. Despite that, punk never quite loses its hold over the indie charts, and as time moves on, even if there are no bona-fide first or second wave punks in the chart at all, the listings are dominated by people who will – subconsciously or otherwise – have been influenced by the movement, whether that’s Nirvana, Happy Mondays, Pixies or any number of C86 bands. As we’ve started, we will continue – kind of.
In the meantime, turn your attention to the massive Spotify playlist of 1982 chart entries to your right. That is all the advance listening you’ll need for what’s up ahead.
1981’s menu is available (again) below, but don’t eat it all at once. Seriously. It’s a bad idea (it’s also nine-and-a-half hours long, so your day would need to be spectacularly well organised).
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