One week at number one w/e 11 December 1982
If you’d taken me to one side years ago and told me I would spend 2024 writing thousands of words about The Anti-Nowhere League, talking about their relevance to the early eighties and the dying embers of British punk, I wouldn’t have believed… well no, actually I would have believed you. I probably would have replied “Oh, OK. And this would be for some niche blog I started, I suppose?”
Entries about the group are among the least-read on here so far, but ironically, that’s the inevitable price of writing about the movements of sales charts rather than the enduring influence or critical acclaim artists have. The Indie Chart may be seen as a safe ghetto for innovation, but in reality it was as susceptible to fleeting novelty, hype or shock tactics as any specialist chart – and just as Motley Crue and Limp Bizkit were cartoonish fratboys who burnt rock and roll down to its basic chemical property of loud, brash oafishness in the Rock Charts, ANL did the same for punk rock in 1982. Their schtick wasn’t “for everyone” back then, and it certainly isn’t now.
Despite this, for anyone who didn’t want to be troubled by politics, anarchy or evidence of the lead singer’s impeccable collection of reggae and krautrock records, to those who just enjoyed records that were loud and offensive, and also to impressionable teenage boys who were sorry they were in Junior School when punk broke, they filled a void. The word “edgelords” comes up time and time again on social media when I mention them, except ANL were being offensive contrarians before that insult even existed.
It's slightly surprising to discover that their fourth indie number one of 1982, and indeed the final new indie number one of the year, is probably the only genuinely surprising step outside their usual zone so far, and fittingly it seems to be a basic justification for their stance. “For You” isn’t even particularly punk rock; it’s an anthemic pub rock chugger which might have been heard in a Camden boozer circa 1975, only lyrically speaking the song speaks to the multitudes of fans most of those bands never had:
“We laugh… but no-one's laughing/ We kiss… and no-one cares/ So we shout… but no-one's listening/ So we live… like no-one dares” sings Animal, before launching into a chorus about the remains of punk rock before him, his own army of droogs: “For you/ Well I'll be your soldier/ For you/ I'll bury friends”.
As we’ve established, trying to get under the skin of The League is a fool’s errand, like trying to understand why the old biker in your local Railway Tavern is such a rude bastard. Nonetheless, “For You” is as close as we’re ever going to get to a ‘tell’. Unlike Crass, the group were never going to go on a political crusade for society’s marginalised, but they speak volumes about the mindset of the second wave punk audience here; it afforded a safe space in economically troubled, conservatively minded times, a club to make friends when the rest of society had written you off as an oddball or a failure. In that sense, it served the same purpose punk always did, it’s just that this group, for a whole host of reasons already explored, are an outlier and really don’t fit the modern critical overview of what punk was and should be. History is written by the winners and ANL were only the victors in one largely forgotten year at the arse end of everything.
“For You” also exposes one chink in the group’s armour which come to light yet again in 2016. When faced with outrage about the blatant homophobia in their track “The Day The World Turned Gay”, Animal went off-script about the attempts to ban them and began rambling on their official website about how betrayed he personally felt. “I have been in the PUNK scene now for nearly 40 years, I ride motorcycles, I also write and play PUNK music, Punks have always accepted me for what I am,” he began, even though his “punkness” wasn’t the main point anybody was seeking to address. You get the impression he felt wounded by the criticism from one of the few places he felt welcome, and “For You” is an early hint to his sincere allegiances.
How much anyone outside his own social circle ever cared about Animal’s sense of belonging is perhaps a moot point. “For You” was the first single of theirs to fail to enter the national top 75, almost proving that even in 1982, nobody was particularly invested in his loyalties or thought of him as their leader. They just wanted another brash, offensive, rapidfire 45 to chuckle at and throw themselves around to. They would be in for a very long wait.
15. The Maisonettes – “Heartache Avenue” (Ready Steady Go)
Peak Position: 2
Released on a subsidiary of UB40’s previous label Graduate, “Heartache Avenue” sees the money generated by their success being put to both great and questionable use simultaneously. In the first instance, this single is an ageless beauty, an adorable, punchy bit of retro pop indebted to uptempo Northern Soul styled heartache. Slapping rhythms and irresistible hooky riffs are all stacked into a dangerous pile.
Far from being unemployed young kids signed to an indie, the group also had history – lead singer Lol Mason had previously been a member of the seventies rock group City Boy who managed one top ten hit in 1978, “5.7.0.5”. The cynical, seasoned nature of the group possibly led to the distinctly un-indie move of hiring female models to help promote the record rather than the feminist group Proper Little Madams who actually recorded the track with them; a tacky move which sat uncomfortably with the values of the era.
Not that this cynical sheen stops the single from being superb, or prevented it from reaching number 7 in the National Charts – a position I suspect it would have reached regardless of any aesthetic tweaking (it’s not as if Captain Sensible replaced The Dolly Mixtures with glamorous models for his Top of the Pops appearances, is it?)
18. The Expelled – “Government Policy” (Riot City)
Peak position: 18
The Expelled were a female-led second wave punk band from Rothwell in Yorkshire who seemed to go through vocalists in the manner Spinal Tap lost drummers. “Government Policy” is a ferocious buzzsaw attack on the Thatcher Government of the day and its effect on the youth and northern industry: “Born to lose then criticised. Unemployed, victimized/ And we've got no jobs now. Unemployed, victimized/ We're the ones, can't you see? Unemployed, victimized/ You won't change us so let us be. Unemployed, victimized” the group chant, as if holding banners at a rally.
Sadly, the Government didn’t heed their words.
19. Crux/ Crash – “Keep On Running/ Fight For Your Life” (No Future)
Peak position: 19
This split EP featuring four tracks from each band (technically making it a mini-album, but the NME Indie Charts were liberal on such matters) is now a collector’s item, regularly attracting price tags in excess of £50; not exactly the kind of windfall to excite your nearest and dearest this Christmas, but certainly higher than most of the Oi records we’ve come across.
Crux offer a legs-apart, heads-down chugger on Side A, whereas Crash froth away on Side B. Crux seem to be the group that offer collectors the most excitement, but for my money Crash’s impersonation of a pack of irritated, snapping Jack Russells on Side B is the more enticing, so that’s the video I’m embedding here. You can almost feel the skin ripping off your ankles as a hundred feral underdogs stick their teeth in.
22. Marc Bolan – “Christmas Bop” (Marc On Wax)
Peak position: 11
Another Marc Bolan outtake dug up, tidied up and retooled for 1982, “Christmas Bop” had originally been proposed for a festive single release in 1975 but failed to emerge, possibly due to a lawyer-worrying melodic resemblance to “Under The Boardwalk” in places.
It’s hard to hear it as a lost Christmas number one, though; it’s essentially the T Rex sound of 75, repetitive glam with soulful elements incorporated, and some festive lyrics as a seasonal cherry on top. The public weren’t biting on Bolan’s material as hard by this point, so there’s little to suggest this would have “done a Slade”.
Would it have ended up on endless Christmas playlists in the 21st Century, though? Well, if Elton John’s “Step Into Christmas” can manage it, there’s no reason why this couldn’t. Bolan’s performance is as passionate and excitable as a small child’s thrills on Christmas morning here, and the whole thing snakes and grooves persuasively. Sadly, it’s a bop that only appealed to the man’s hardcore fans in 1982, leaving it somewhat ignored in most round-ups of festive glam singles.
30. Farmer’s Boys – “More Than A Dream” (Backs)
Peak position: 4
More bare, precise, no frills metronomic jangle pop from the Norwich boys, all yearning vocals and hard right angles. While it’s possible to hear the influence of groups like Orange Juice or The Associates here, they also point towards the future of mid-eighties indie, a world where scratchy, bright melodies were recorded in cheapo recording studios beneath railway arches or in the basement of local discount stores.
“We laugh… but no-one's laughing/ We kiss… and no-one cares/ So we shout… but no-one's listening/ So we live… like no-one dares” sings Animal, before launching into a chorus about the remains of punk rock before him, his own army of droogs: “For you/ Well I'll be your soldier/ For you/ I'll bury friends”.
As we’ve established, trying to get under the skin of The League is a fool’s errand, like trying to understand why the old biker in your local Railway Tavern is such a rude bastard. Nonetheless, “For You” is as close as we’re ever going to get to a ‘tell’. Unlike Crass, the group were never going to go on a political crusade for society’s marginalised, but they speak volumes about the mindset of the second wave punk audience here; it afforded a safe space in economically troubled, conservatively minded times, a club to make friends when the rest of society had written you off as an oddball or a failure. In that sense, it served the same purpose punk always did, it’s just that this group, for a whole host of reasons already explored, are an outlier and really don’t fit the modern critical overview of what punk was and should be. History is written by the winners and ANL were only the victors in one largely forgotten year at the arse end of everything.
“For You” also exposes one chink in the group’s armour which come to light yet again in 2016. When faced with outrage about the blatant homophobia in their track “The Day The World Turned Gay”, Animal went off-script about the attempts to ban them and began rambling on their official website about how betrayed he personally felt. “I have been in the PUNK scene now for nearly 40 years, I ride motorcycles, I also write and play PUNK music, Punks have always accepted me for what I am,” he began, even though his “punkness” wasn’t the main point anybody was seeking to address. You get the impression he felt wounded by the criticism from one of the few places he felt welcome, and “For You” is an early hint to his sincere allegiances.
How much anyone outside his own social circle ever cared about Animal’s sense of belonging is perhaps a moot point. “For You” was the first single of theirs to fail to enter the national top 75, almost proving that even in 1982, nobody was particularly invested in his loyalties or thought of him as their leader. They just wanted another brash, offensive, rapidfire 45 to chuckle at and throw themselves around to. They would be in for a very long wait.
New Entries Elsewhere In The Chart
15. The Maisonettes – “Heartache Avenue” (Ready Steady Go)
Peak Position: 2
Released on a subsidiary of UB40’s previous label Graduate, “Heartache Avenue” sees the money generated by their success being put to both great and questionable use simultaneously. In the first instance, this single is an ageless beauty, an adorable, punchy bit of retro pop indebted to uptempo Northern Soul styled heartache. Slapping rhythms and irresistible hooky riffs are all stacked into a dangerous pile.
Far from being unemployed young kids signed to an indie, the group also had history – lead singer Lol Mason had previously been a member of the seventies rock group City Boy who managed one top ten hit in 1978, “5.7.0.5”. The cynical, seasoned nature of the group possibly led to the distinctly un-indie move of hiring female models to help promote the record rather than the feminist group Proper Little Madams who actually recorded the track with them; a tacky move which sat uncomfortably with the values of the era.
Not that this cynical sheen stops the single from being superb, or prevented it from reaching number 7 in the National Charts – a position I suspect it would have reached regardless of any aesthetic tweaking (it’s not as if Captain Sensible replaced The Dolly Mixtures with glamorous models for his Top of the Pops appearances, is it?)
18. The Expelled – “Government Policy” (Riot City)
Peak position: 18
The Expelled were a female-led second wave punk band from Rothwell in Yorkshire who seemed to go through vocalists in the manner Spinal Tap lost drummers. “Government Policy” is a ferocious buzzsaw attack on the Thatcher Government of the day and its effect on the youth and northern industry: “Born to lose then criticised. Unemployed, victimized/ And we've got no jobs now. Unemployed, victimized/ We're the ones, can't you see? Unemployed, victimized/ You won't change us so let us be. Unemployed, victimized” the group chant, as if holding banners at a rally.
Sadly, the Government didn’t heed their words.
19. Crux/ Crash – “Keep On Running/ Fight For Your Life” (No Future)
Peak position: 19
This split EP featuring four tracks from each band (technically making it a mini-album, but the NME Indie Charts were liberal on such matters) is now a collector’s item, regularly attracting price tags in excess of £50; not exactly the kind of windfall to excite your nearest and dearest this Christmas, but certainly higher than most of the Oi records we’ve come across.
Crux offer a legs-apart, heads-down chugger on Side A, whereas Crash froth away on Side B. Crux seem to be the group that offer collectors the most excitement, but for my money Crash’s impersonation of a pack of irritated, snapping Jack Russells on Side B is the more enticing, so that’s the video I’m embedding here. You can almost feel the skin ripping off your ankles as a hundred feral underdogs stick their teeth in.
22. Marc Bolan – “Christmas Bop” (Marc On Wax)
Peak position: 11
Another Marc Bolan outtake dug up, tidied up and retooled for 1982, “Christmas Bop” had originally been proposed for a festive single release in 1975 but failed to emerge, possibly due to a lawyer-worrying melodic resemblance to “Under The Boardwalk” in places.
It’s hard to hear it as a lost Christmas number one, though; it’s essentially the T Rex sound of 75, repetitive glam with soulful elements incorporated, and some festive lyrics as a seasonal cherry on top. The public weren’t biting on Bolan’s material as hard by this point, so there’s little to suggest this would have “done a Slade”.
Would it have ended up on endless Christmas playlists in the 21st Century, though? Well, if Elton John’s “Step Into Christmas” can manage it, there’s no reason why this couldn’t. Bolan’s performance is as passionate and excitable as a small child’s thrills on Christmas morning here, and the whole thing snakes and grooves persuasively. Sadly, it’s a bop that only appealed to the man’s hardcore fans in 1982, leaving it somewhat ignored in most round-ups of festive glam singles.
30. Farmer’s Boys – “More Than A Dream” (Backs)
Peak position: 4
More bare, precise, no frills metronomic jangle pop from the Norwich boys, all yearning vocals and hard right angles. While it’s possible to hear the influence of groups like Orange Juice or The Associates here, they also point towards the future of mid-eighties indie, a world where scratchy, bright melodies were recorded in cheapo recording studios beneath railway arches or in the basement of local discount stores.
For the full charts, go to the UKMix Forums
Number One In The National Charts
The Jam: "Beat Surrender" (Polydor)
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