Number one for five weeks from 17 April 1982
Any keen student of the indie chart in the eighties will know that there were records which seemed to hang around forever, yo-yoing around the bottom end of the listings as if they didn’t have homes to go to. Two factors seemed to particularly trigger this phenomenon – hit singles being purchased by stragglers or new fans long after the song’s peak, and long-term dancefloor hits. Sometimes, particularly in the case of a future 1983 leviathan (which I can’t even believe I’m bothering to be secretive about) the two factors combined to an astonishingly potent degree.
After its debut in 1981, “Papa’s Got A Brand New Pigbag” crawled up and down the indie chart, disappearing after pressing runs dried up then reemerging, beginning the process afresh, then evaporating into thin air. Its popularity appeared [citation needed!] to be largely driven by club play and word of mouth in its earliest days. It wasn’t generally heard on daytime radio and as a small boy I don’t recall hearing it at all until 1982, although my older teenage brothers already seemed familiar with it by the time it first emerged in the grown up charts.
The track feels taken for granted nowadays, and in some circles – certainly those of particular football fans – it’s become a party favourite, a carnival cracker, something to dig out when a goal is scored, a promotion is guaranteed, or just deployed at the right time when everyone is in the correct mood. I’ve seen the effect “Papa” has on audiences, and it’s immediately recognised and understood, having a galvanising effect and crossing most cultural divides.
In one respect, this is explicable enough. The central aspect of the record is a stupendous fanfare backed with the kind of funky rhythm section that everyone finds irresistible. The horns and the clappy backbeat beckon you towards the floor even if you’re one of life’s most apologetic wallflowers. It's the part everyone can whistle when asked, the aspect that pulls everyone towards the centre of the floor.
But then… the track takes numerous detours which really aren’t courting the Mr and Mrs Saturdays on the dancefloor at all. It’s not clear to me whether some of the “verses” (for want of a better description) were improvised, but they sound as if they were; the honking, discordant wheezing which emerges at various points is surely the closest the Sunday teatime chart rundown ever came to improvised jazz, and just as it hits its most discordant screech, the chorus lands again. It’s a trickster of a record, hanging some bait beneath the mirrorball, then once everyone takes a bite, screaming “now eat some free jazz, suckers!” in their faces at a loud volume.
Back in the noughties I used to attend a regular live night called The Klinker in The Sussex Pub on the edge of Islington. The Klinker was a home for the esoteric, eccentric and even the questionable, so as well as hosting improvised jazz, it would take on anti-comedy, twisted performance art, and sometimes the house punk improv act Fuck Off Batman would thrash and rant for thirty minutes using lyrics which were only anagrams of the words “Fuck”, “Off”, “Bat” and “Man”. Lest anyone think I’m being critical here, I absolutely adored the night and I’m proud to say it was where I was booked for my first spoken word gigs. The Klinker was a welcome home for some of the greatest improv musicians in the country, but it also housed people who were so peculiar they often struggled to get booked elsewhere even on the tolerant and open-minded London circuit.
The pub itself, on the other hand, was a run-of-the-mill backstreet traditional boozer in those days. To get to the toilets, you had to work your way through the main bar area which would often play unchallenging upbeat pop music. This meant that if you left the room at the right moment, you could hear Lol Coxhill losing himself in a ratty squawl on his sax while walking into whatever straightforward pop groove was playing in the next room – then achieve the same effect in reverse on your way back in.
In my mind, this has always felt similar to what’s happening in “Papa”. It’s a conga line too snaking and long to contain itself, so it’s constantly bursting into rooms where it has no right to be, those weird unkempt areas of pubs and candle-lit basements where stranger things are happening. The twelve inch version, for some reason listed in the NME’s chart in favour of the standard seven incher, takes that voyage further, so the track honks and moans despairingly towards the tail end while the party carries on indifferently.
It’s tough to think of any similar parallels in pop which were equally successful. Post Punk obviously allowed for all manner of experimentation and risk-taking across a single, but so little of it actually did anything more than sit in the margins. To some people, “Papa” will be a cop-out, too catchy, too joyous, too straightforward to belong among the best of that genre. To others, and those others would include me, it sounds like a bit of a subversive act, as if the group were trying to find out how much they could get away with if the groove and central riff were seductive enough.
Bizarrely, the record was also the band’s undoing. Founding member Chris Hamlin left shortly after its release, complaining that an enormous band with so many egos was proving too difficult to deal with, while Roger Freeman quit the night before they were due to record their Top of the Pops performance for being asked to wear a suit. In truth, Freeman was already frazzled by their demanding gig schedule, but losing two core members meant that Pigbag were never quite the same again, and the aspirations of the renewed line-up eventually threw the group into unexpected, and altogether less chaotic, directions.
In week one, a brace of punk singles enter the chart at the exclusion of anything else new, from The Violators at number 14 with “Gangland”, to Gary Bushell’s group The Gonads with “Pure Punk For Row People” (for fuck’s sake…) at number 15, The Mob with “No Doves Fly Here” at number 16, Blitzkreig with “Lest We Forget” at number 19, Expelled with “No Life No Future” at number 20, The Pack with their “Long Live The Past” EP at number 28, and Rudimentary Peni’s 12 track EP at number 29.
Of the above, The Mob are the most interesting, sprawling and stretching the ideas of what a punk single could be way past the standard three minute play time. Most of the rest are on the Spotify playlist for your pleasure, but are generally cut from the kind of cloth you’d expect.
a
Week two sees The Fall emerge with “Look Know” at number 14, its minimal rock and roll stomp periodically disintegrating into messy, spiky agitation. It proved to be their second and final official single on the Kamera label. Smith generally had an unusually contented relationship with them, but as the jaws of bankruptcy began to close on the label in 1983, they released album track “Marquis Cha Cha” in an attempt to generate some funds, a move which was altogether less well received. In the meantime, “Look Know” reached number 3.
Sophisticated lounge indiepop exponents Weekend entered at number 18 with “View From Her Window”. The group were increasingly highlighted as an example of how jazz could be effectively fused with unexpected and potentially mismatched genres to enormous effect, but they remained a stubbornly niche act. “View From Her Window” feels surprisingly close to both dank indiepop basements and plush cocktail evenings, but perhaps they were proving the point that it was possible to have both in your life at once. It eventually peaked at number 8.
After its debut in 1981, “Papa’s Got A Brand New Pigbag” crawled up and down the indie chart, disappearing after pressing runs dried up then reemerging, beginning the process afresh, then evaporating into thin air. Its popularity appeared [citation needed!] to be largely driven by club play and word of mouth in its earliest days. It wasn’t generally heard on daytime radio and as a small boy I don’t recall hearing it at all until 1982, although my older teenage brothers already seemed familiar with it by the time it first emerged in the grown up charts.
The track feels taken for granted nowadays, and in some circles – certainly those of particular football fans – it’s become a party favourite, a carnival cracker, something to dig out when a goal is scored, a promotion is guaranteed, or just deployed at the right time when everyone is in the correct mood. I’ve seen the effect “Papa” has on audiences, and it’s immediately recognised and understood, having a galvanising effect and crossing most cultural divides.
In one respect, this is explicable enough. The central aspect of the record is a stupendous fanfare backed with the kind of funky rhythm section that everyone finds irresistible. The horns and the clappy backbeat beckon you towards the floor even if you’re one of life’s most apologetic wallflowers. It's the part everyone can whistle when asked, the aspect that pulls everyone towards the centre of the floor.
But then… the track takes numerous detours which really aren’t courting the Mr and Mrs Saturdays on the dancefloor at all. It’s not clear to me whether some of the “verses” (for want of a better description) were improvised, but they sound as if they were; the honking, discordant wheezing which emerges at various points is surely the closest the Sunday teatime chart rundown ever came to improvised jazz, and just as it hits its most discordant screech, the chorus lands again. It’s a trickster of a record, hanging some bait beneath the mirrorball, then once everyone takes a bite, screaming “now eat some free jazz, suckers!” in their faces at a loud volume.
Back in the noughties I used to attend a regular live night called The Klinker in The Sussex Pub on the edge of Islington. The Klinker was a home for the esoteric, eccentric and even the questionable, so as well as hosting improvised jazz, it would take on anti-comedy, twisted performance art, and sometimes the house punk improv act Fuck Off Batman would thrash and rant for thirty minutes using lyrics which were only anagrams of the words “Fuck”, “Off”, “Bat” and “Man”. Lest anyone think I’m being critical here, I absolutely adored the night and I’m proud to say it was where I was booked for my first spoken word gigs. The Klinker was a welcome home for some of the greatest improv musicians in the country, but it also housed people who were so peculiar they often struggled to get booked elsewhere even on the tolerant and open-minded London circuit.
The pub itself, on the other hand, was a run-of-the-mill backstreet traditional boozer in those days. To get to the toilets, you had to work your way through the main bar area which would often play unchallenging upbeat pop music. This meant that if you left the room at the right moment, you could hear Lol Coxhill losing himself in a ratty squawl on his sax while walking into whatever straightforward pop groove was playing in the next room – then achieve the same effect in reverse on your way back in.
In my mind, this has always felt similar to what’s happening in “Papa”. It’s a conga line too snaking and long to contain itself, so it’s constantly bursting into rooms where it has no right to be, those weird unkempt areas of pubs and candle-lit basements where stranger things are happening. The twelve inch version, for some reason listed in the NME’s chart in favour of the standard seven incher, takes that voyage further, so the track honks and moans despairingly towards the tail end while the party carries on indifferently.
It’s tough to think of any similar parallels in pop which were equally successful. Post Punk obviously allowed for all manner of experimentation and risk-taking across a single, but so little of it actually did anything more than sit in the margins. To some people, “Papa” will be a cop-out, too catchy, too joyous, too straightforward to belong among the best of that genre. To others, and those others would include me, it sounds like a bit of a subversive act, as if the group were trying to find out how much they could get away with if the groove and central riff were seductive enough.
Bizarrely, the record was also the band’s undoing. Founding member Chris Hamlin left shortly after its release, complaining that an enormous band with so many egos was proving too difficult to deal with, while Roger Freeman quit the night before they were due to record their Top of the Pops performance for being asked to wear a suit. In truth, Freeman was already frazzled by their demanding gig schedule, but losing two core members meant that Pigbag were never quite the same again, and the aspirations of the renewed line-up eventually threw the group into unexpected, and altogether less chaotic, directions.
Away From the Number One Spot
In week one, a brace of punk singles enter the chart at the exclusion of anything else new, from The Violators at number 14 with “Gangland”, to Gary Bushell’s group The Gonads with “Pure Punk For Row People” (for fuck’s sake…) at number 15, The Mob with “No Doves Fly Here” at number 16, Blitzkreig with “Lest We Forget” at number 19, Expelled with “No Life No Future” at number 20, The Pack with their “Long Live The Past” EP at number 28, and Rudimentary Peni’s 12 track EP at number 29.
Of the above, The Mob are the most interesting, sprawling and stretching the ideas of what a punk single could be way past the standard three minute play time. Most of the rest are on the Spotify playlist for your pleasure, but are generally cut from the kind of cloth you’d expect.
a
Week two sees The Fall emerge with “Look Know” at number 14, its minimal rock and roll stomp periodically disintegrating into messy, spiky agitation. It proved to be their second and final official single on the Kamera label. Smith generally had an unusually contented relationship with them, but as the jaws of bankruptcy began to close on the label in 1983, they released album track “Marquis Cha Cha” in an attempt to generate some funds, a move which was altogether less well received. In the meantime, “Look Know” reached number 3.
Sophisticated lounge indiepop exponents Weekend entered at number 18 with “View From Her Window”. The group were increasingly highlighted as an example of how jazz could be effectively fused with unexpected and potentially mismatched genres to enormous effect, but they remained a stubbornly niche act. “View From Her Window” feels surprisingly close to both dank indiepop basements and plush cocktail evenings, but perhaps they were proving the point that it was possible to have both in your life at once. It eventually peaked at number 8.
The group would eventually go on to become an enormous influence on numerous emerging independent artists, not least Saint Etienne.
In at 25 were The England World Cup Squad with “This Time We’ll Get It Right”, the team’s debut appearance – but certainly not the only one – in the indie charts. Released on their own England record label like the proper DIY John Peel courting squad they truly were, the single reached number two in the National Charts, the polite but firm promise of “This time, more than any other time/ this time, putting it all together/ we’ll get it right” seeding a million hopes in naive kids souls.
In at 25 were The England World Cup Squad with “This Time We’ll Get It Right”, the team’s debut appearance – but certainly not the only one – in the indie charts. Released on their own England record label like the proper DIY John Peel courting squad they truly were, the single reached number two in the National Charts, the polite but firm promise of “This time, more than any other time/ this time, putting it all together/ we’ll get it right” seeding a million hopes in naive kids souls.
They topped Group 4 above France, Czechoslovakia and Kuwait, but failed to progress beyond the somewhat unorthodox second group stage with Germany trumping their efforts. As for me, I never did complete that 1982 Panini sticker album, and nor did this ever top the indie charts or the national charts – it had to make do with number 8 for the Rough Trade shoppers, and number 2 for the much more rounded national charts.
Week three sees Fad Gadget return with “King Of The Flies”, a strange piece of electro-funk which drifts away from commerciality just as you think it might possibly succumb. Its far too content in its own limping, irregular sleaziness. It entered at its peak position of number 18.
Subhumans enter at 21 complaining about the “Big City” and its assortment of rip-offs, juxtaposing them with harsher realities. “Tourist attractions look at that!/ Buy me a plastic policeman's hat/ But there's a riot uptown they're fighting back/ And the boys in blue are wearing black” they warn us and presumably any willing tourists who actually heard their record.
Ex-Good Vibrations signings Rudi, meanwhile, re-emerge on the Jamming label at number 30 with “Crimson”. Despite being one of the original Northern Irish punk bands to generate excitement alongside their labelmates The Undertones, the group never quite managed to build on the initial media attention. “Crimson” is a typically fine track, but more likely than not hampered by its unwillingness to take on 1982’s harsher and harder stylings.
Week Four sees The Exploited charge straight in at number four with “Attack/Alternative”, a double A-side of two distinct halves – a furious but anthemic grind in “Attack”, and a more ambitious roar in “Alternative”, whose clattering basslines seem to be the main thing anchoring the chaos in place. Despite its impressive entry position, it climbed no higher than number 3.
Scritti Politti enter at five with “Faithless”, sounding close to the complete version of the pop band they would become. It’s a beautiful sprawl with gospel vocals, slap bass, vocoder lines and Green Gartside trilling sweetly; complex enough to be uncommercial, but strong enough to make everyone suddenly turn their heads. It eventually peaked at number 2.
Depeche Mode enter at six with “The Meaning Of Love”, a track they ultimately held in such low regard that they left it off the vinyl pressings of the “Singles 81-85” compilation. It’s an inoffensive bubble of pop with its flutey synth lines and innocent sixties beat era lyrics about the mysteries of romance, but it can’t help but sound like a cynical attempt to write a hit single to a Tin Pan Alley template. On that count they succeeded, as it reached number 12 in the national charts, but its probably one of their least essential 45s, and one of their few early releases not to top the indie chart, having to content itself with a bronze number 3 placing.
Carmel enters at 25 with her debut single “Storm”. Carmel was an early eighties example of a credible young jazz thing offering the genre a lease of life it hadn’t enjoyed in some time. “Storm” is so faithful to its roots it even has a double-bass front and centre of the mix, and while the performance is impressive, it could have been a single in either 1982 or 1962 – timelessness is apparent here, rather than cocktail bar voguishness.
“Xo-Yo” by The Passage debuts five spaces beneath it. Cherry Red seem determined to shove this one on as many indie compilations as possible, perhaps in the hope of giving it some status as a prime example of low budget synth-pop breaking through to the masses, but the reality is that its number 8 indie chart peak wasn’t really more impressive than many of Fad Gadget’s performances. It’s an awkward, flopping foal of a record, charming us with its cute ambition to look into the future, indie with silicon chips firmly attached.
In the final week of Pigbag’s reign, UB40 debut at number 24 with “Love Is All Is Alright”, a possible hint of things to come for the group; there’s a rawness apparent here, but they sound poppier than ever. Only the mildness of the chorus on offer stands in their way of recovering former chart glories. The track would eventually peak at number 4 in the indie listings, and at number 29 in the national charts.
Week three sees Fad Gadget return with “King Of The Flies”, a strange piece of electro-funk which drifts away from commerciality just as you think it might possibly succumb. Its far too content in its own limping, irregular sleaziness. It entered at its peak position of number 18.
Subhumans enter at 21 complaining about the “Big City” and its assortment of rip-offs, juxtaposing them with harsher realities. “Tourist attractions look at that!/ Buy me a plastic policeman's hat/ But there's a riot uptown they're fighting back/ And the boys in blue are wearing black” they warn us and presumably any willing tourists who actually heard their record.
Ex-Good Vibrations signings Rudi, meanwhile, re-emerge on the Jamming label at number 30 with “Crimson”. Despite being one of the original Northern Irish punk bands to generate excitement alongside their labelmates The Undertones, the group never quite managed to build on the initial media attention. “Crimson” is a typically fine track, but more likely than not hampered by its unwillingness to take on 1982’s harsher and harder stylings.
Week Four sees The Exploited charge straight in at number four with “Attack/Alternative”, a double A-side of two distinct halves – a furious but anthemic grind in “Attack”, and a more ambitious roar in “Alternative”, whose clattering basslines seem to be the main thing anchoring the chaos in place. Despite its impressive entry position, it climbed no higher than number 3.
Scritti Politti enter at five with “Faithless”, sounding close to the complete version of the pop band they would become. It’s a beautiful sprawl with gospel vocals, slap bass, vocoder lines and Green Gartside trilling sweetly; complex enough to be uncommercial, but strong enough to make everyone suddenly turn their heads. It eventually peaked at number 2.
Depeche Mode enter at six with “The Meaning Of Love”, a track they ultimately held in such low regard that they left it off the vinyl pressings of the “Singles 81-85” compilation. It’s an inoffensive bubble of pop with its flutey synth lines and innocent sixties beat era lyrics about the mysteries of romance, but it can’t help but sound like a cynical attempt to write a hit single to a Tin Pan Alley template. On that count they succeeded, as it reached number 12 in the national charts, but its probably one of their least essential 45s, and one of their few early releases not to top the indie chart, having to content itself with a bronze number 3 placing.
Carmel enters at 25 with her debut single “Storm”. Carmel was an early eighties example of a credible young jazz thing offering the genre a lease of life it hadn’t enjoyed in some time. “Storm” is so faithful to its roots it even has a double-bass front and centre of the mix, and while the performance is impressive, it could have been a single in either 1982 or 1962 – timelessness is apparent here, rather than cocktail bar voguishness.
“Xo-Yo” by The Passage debuts five spaces beneath it. Cherry Red seem determined to shove this one on as many indie compilations as possible, perhaps in the hope of giving it some status as a prime example of low budget synth-pop breaking through to the masses, but the reality is that its number 8 indie chart peak wasn’t really more impressive than many of Fad Gadget’s performances. It’s an awkward, flopping foal of a record, charming us with its cute ambition to look into the future, indie with silicon chips firmly attached.
In the final week of Pigbag’s reign, UB40 debut at number 24 with “Love Is All Is Alright”, a possible hint of things to come for the group; there’s a rawness apparent here, but they sound poppier than ever. Only the mildness of the chorus on offer stands in their way of recovering former chart glories. The track would eventually peak at number 4 in the indie listings, and at number 29 in the national charts.
The full charts for these weeks are available at the UKMix Forums.
Number one in the Official Charts
Bucks Fizz - "My Camera Never Lies" (RCA)
Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder - "Ebony & Ivory" (Parlophone)
Nicole - "A Little Peace" (CBS)
The Klinker. A mate's band played there one Friday night. From memory the night was run by a mad 'instrument' playing husband and wife, the former wearing a cabbage on his head!
ReplyDeleteAh yes. You knew if it was going to be a good evening if Hugh Metcalfe got his cabbage hat out (which he did most of the time, to be fair.)
DeleteI love checking the charts out during the duration of each summit reacher's time at the top, not just for all the new entries but for the wild and wonderful list of record labels, and it's around this time we have to say goodbye to the short lived but relatively successful Recreational label, set up by Cartel members Revolver, based in Bristol.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that strikes me about this journey through the early eighties is that so many of the indie labels were here-today-gone-tomorrow affairs, even the second-wave punk and Oi labels who had a degree of mainstream chart success.
DeleteOne real advantage to signing to a major label at this point - besides the advance and the large staff force you would be working with - was knowing that it probably wouldn't fold just after your career had started to gain momentum.