9 weeks at number one from w/e 26th March 1983
Is there a danger that I may be adding nothing here? If you head over to your favourite search engine now and try to find videos, blog posts and think pieces about “Blue Monday”, you’ll be spoiled for choice. Aside from a few smart Alecs on Internet forums playing devil’s advocate, you will find a set of almost unified voices gushing very genuinely about the song; its sound, the sleeve design, and the way it transformed Factory Records and therefore (arguably) Manchester.
What you tend to hear less about is how it was received when it was released in March 1983. Some journalists loved it unreservedly, as expected – New Order were, after all, press darlings even at this point – but there wasn’t the unified response you might expect. Right at the bottom of the Smash Hits singles review pages, almost as an afterthought, you can read David Hepworth’s uncharitable verdict:
“It had to happen. New Order have dumped moody, repetitive guitars in favour of moody, repetitive synths and a drum kit with a pronounced stutter. After the first twenty minutes or so, it starts to cause a tense, nervous headache”.
His Single Of The Fortnight was Bobby “O” with “She Has A Way”, which doubtless caused nods of approval from Neil Tennant on a nearby Carnaby Street office desk. Bobby “O” has certainly been influential on his career, but the verdict that “She Has A Way” is not only better than “Blue Monday”, but better by notable lengths and margins is surprising. It's playing on a field that's closer to New Order than you might expect, but is like a slap on the back from a mate on a crowded dancefloor in comparison to their record - bouncy, jovial and uncomplicated.
Over at the NME, Julie Burchill was so frustrated by Factory’s reluctance to label the A and B sides properly that she reviewed the version on the flipside “The Beach” instead, fleetingly and half-heartedly, before moving on.
Record Mirror went one better and ignored “Blue Monday” in their review pages altogether.
Even New Order themselves have since seemed perplexed by the single’s dominance of dancefloors and the public imagination. Their original aim was to produce something they could leave a machine to play as an encore while they remained offstage, and Bernard Sumner once stated “It’s not really a song, it’s more of a machine that sounds good on club systems”. He then added, without further elaboration, “There was a lot of trickery going on that you don't realise. It's not just the bass, there's quite a lot of subsonic”, sounding slightly like Bill Drummond by way of Derren Brown as he did so. Maybe he was just genuinely dumbfounded by the single’s success and reached for the only explanation that made sense, that some kind of irregular sonic hypnotism was at play in making the track a success,
Whatever certain segments of the press or the group themselves thought, it was a given that the New Order single that followed “Temptation” was probably going to be a minor hit. The goodwill and the fanbase left hanging over from their Joy Division days would see to that, and “Blue Monday” confidently (but not breathtakingly) pushed its way into the national charts at number 37 on the week ending 19th March.
The expected run for singles by cult bands at this point was for the single to nudge another few places up the charts, perhaps resulting in a triumphant Top of the Pops appearance by the group, only for the single to fail to cross over to the general public and disappear. What “Blue Monday” did instead was far odder, hanging around the Top 100 for 38 straight weeks, often nudging up a few places or falling a few notches as if it had no bigger plans other than to hang around. By June it had fallen out of the Top 40, only to return again with a fresh wave of goodwill in September, eventually climbing to the top ten for the first time.
Early in its run on 31st March 1983, the group appeared on “Top Of The Pops” and put in a live appearance so nervous, chaotic and devoid of charisma that I found myself red-faced, desperately defending the record to my family - “But it usually sounds brilliant!” I yelled (to which my Dad’s admittedly sensible response was “Well, if you want to appear live on television you’d better make sure you can actually manage it first”).
The dominant myth is that the single dipped down the charts the following week as a result of disgusted would-be purchasers voting with their feet. This is actually not true – it climbed the chart defiantly. Had New Order decided to show up and put on a glove puppet show live on air, it wouldn't have killed the record’s momentum, if “momentum” is an adequate word to describe its mid-table stamina. Neither music critics, radio DJs refusing to play all seven-and-a-half minutes of it, its unavailability on seven inch single or Factory Records themselves could kill “Blue Monday” off – it knew it needed to reach everyone, and if it managed it slowly and stealthily rather than in a typical eighties rush, then so be it.
How and why this happened isn’t an entirely stupid question. Bernard Sumner is right to point out that the song follows no conventional “hit song” structure, and nor are its constituent parts necessarily entirely original. The opening “stuttering” drum machine trick can also be heard on Donna Summer’s track “Our Love”, taken from her Moroder produced 1979 album “Bad Girls”. On that, the effect is somewhat subdued and features as an occasional brief gimmick rather than a central driving force. New Order pocket it and open the track with it, ensuring the flaw in the machine is the uncertain step they lead on – a brave but very effective move.
Following this half-inched rhythm, the track gradually introduces the synth loops, menacing bass line (influenced by Sylvester’s “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”) and twittering hooks that have subsequently gone on to define it, and Sumner begins despondently outlining a relationship gone sour – which many have stated is actually about his relationship with the press and live audiences. “Those who came before me, lived through their vocations” and “I still find it so hard to say what I need to say” could therefore be interpreted as a bit of a cry for help as he found himself cast into the main spotlight in Ian Curtis’s absence, the following line “But I’m quite sure that you’ll tell me just how I shall feel today” perhaps mocking music journalists who saw fit to analyse his movements anyway (there’s actually a weird parallel here with Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd swansong “Jugband Blues”).
It’s unconventional to set your own pocket diary blues, your own complaints about being out of your depth or even (to give the song its most logical interpretation) your own itinerary of relationship irritation (“I thought I told you to leave me while I walked down to the beach!”) to such an insistent, nagging groove. It goes against all logical approaches, which even in 1983 would have involved a soulful lead vocalist delivering something emotive and definite. Martin Fry would have torn up those lyrics and replaced them with some which had drama and theatre at their core, but the song wouldn’t have worked as a result.
The mistakes and the naive artistic decisions combine to make a fascinating whole. Gillian Gilbert accidentally missed a note while programming the main melody, then realised that this gave the track a quirk, an urgency it didn’t otherwise have. Bernard Sumner’s grumbled vocals do not act as immediate encouragement to get on the dancefloor, and instead delay their entry and feel everyman enough to work by the time you’re there, like the subconscious misgivings of all human beings while they are glammed up yet hopelessly out of their depth.
Perhaps the reason the group have never really given “Blue Monday” the praise it was due – they were even caught in 1988 describing it as “our Birdie Song” – is that so much went wrong around it, and many of the studio mistakes which actually worked happened without their guiding hand. Perhaps, to their minds, it was a huge hit written purely while the dice rolled astoundingly both with them and against them, a big row of ones and sixes producing a million-to-one creative outcome.
I don’t entirely buy that. When in a more straightforward mood, the group have admitted that they just wanted to cut a record they could play at the Hacienda, and in that respect, they knew exactly what they were doing. Sumner’s work with fellow Factory act 52nd Street had given him the experience, their time wasted at the Hacienda had given them the knowledge, and Kraftwerk and Moroder had given the group the understanding. You can’t just ask fate to magic up something like “Blue Monday” in an idle afternoon. You have to put in the hours first, listening and producing.
What happens when you set that plan in motion, however, is both up to you and also not. New Order may have poured their influences into the record, but ultimately couldn’t escape their own inherent moods, post-punk ideas and melancholic trappings. By trying to sound like other people they otherwise had little in common with, they ultimately sounded like nothing and nobody else. “Blue Monday” is not just the final reveal of their own new identity, but also a totally new idea in pop music as well. Thank God for mistakes and independent amateurism.
Trivia
- There’s an absolute abundance of other facts, stats and theories I could bring into play about “Blue Monday” but this YouTube clip about somebody cracking the “Blue Monday code” on the sleeve the week they purchased it is beautiful – like a cross between an episode of Ludwig and thoughtful indie geekery.
- “Blue Monday” may have been influenced by Kraftwerk, but the group were bewitched by the track and asked how the drum sounds were created on it. The group offered to just send Kraftwerk a floppy disc with the relevant sound on it, but Krafwerk were adamant: “You must show us the process!”
Elsewhere in the Charts
For the sake of my sanity I’m not going to attempt an in-depth dive of every single track that entered the indie charts while New Order sat for nine weeks at number one, but let’s take a look at some of them – because there are some wonderful noises going on here too.
Week One
17. Mezzoforte – Garden Party (Steinar)
17. Mezzoforte – Garden Party (Steinar)
Peak position: 10
If you’re ever asked “Who were the first Icelandic group to enter the British charts?” in a pub quiz, you should never answer “The Sugarcubes”. Way before they were formed, let alone even had a nightmare about entering the Top 40, jazz funk artistes Mezzoforte did Iceland proud with their success across Europe.
If they’ve been left out of Nordic pop history since, it’s probably because their work was somewhat tame. “Garden Party” was so close to being library music that it could indeed regularly be heard in the background during BBC trailers. “Library music” isn’t necessarily bad music, obviously, and nor really is “Garden Party” – but its celebratory sax riffs and jaunty rhythms do sound as if they were custom made to soundtrack light entertainment stars on their way to a Palladium stage or flash young things out “on the cruise” in their new Ford motor car.
It sounds fascinatingly timelocked in the 1983-85 period now, its cocktail party swishness ensuring its ignored by retromania and endless other revivals, but for a few weeks it could be heard booming from car stereos in Essex just as often as “Blue Monday”.
20. Punilux - Hold Me (Never Mould Me) (Red Rhino)
Peak position: 17
26. Go Betweens – Cattle And Cane (Rough Trade)
Peak position: 14
“His father’s watch, he left it in the shower/ From time to time the waste… memory wastes”.
“Cattle and Cane” remains one of The Go Betweens finest moments, evocative lyrics about distant childhood memories making Brisbane sound like somewhere exotic and unfathomable. It was later covered to brilliant effect by native Australian and easy listening star Jimmy Little, who turned it into something beautifully wise and ancient sounding.
30. Rabid – Bring Out Your Dead (Fallout)
Peak position: 30
Week Two
11. The Damned – White Rabbit (Big Beat)
Peak position: 3
Decidedly strange gothic cover of the Jefferson Airplane classic which, to The Damned’s credit, does at least rip up the original and blow its nose all over the contents. Does it take us somewhere we actually need to be, though? As Grace Slick’s subtle, slightly frightening vocalisations are replaced with Vanian’s dramatic bellowing, you have to wonder.
13. Blood And Roses – Love Under Will (Kamera)
Peak position: 9
16. Cocteau Twins – Peppermint Pig (4AD)
Peak position: 2
A Peppermint Pig is apparently a type of moulded confectionary commonly encountered in North America at Christmas time; I personally have never seen one. On “Peppermint Pig” the single, it sounds positively menacing, like a phantom porcine werebeast. Guitars shift slightly out of tune, Liz Fraser warns with childish irritation, and it does its damnedest to alienate the listener despite never barraging them with noise.
The single was produced by Alan Rankine of The Associates and the Cocteau Twins were reportedly unhappy with the end results.
19. Julie London – Cry Me A River (Edsel)
Peak position: 13
If you poured my Mum a glass of wine and sat still for long enough, she would probably have talked to you about how underrated Julie London was. “Cry Me A River” was one of her favourite singles of all time, and was her only charting record in the UK, climbing to number 22 in 1957.
It is the real deal, though – smoky, bottom of the gin glass heartache with London’s world weary vocal front and centre; plain, simple, and exhausted. Its emergence in the indie chart can be partly attributed to Mari Wilson’s cover charting at around the same time (“And who does she think she is?” - my Mum) but really, no excuse is needed.
23. Ben Watt – Some Things Don’t Matter (Cherry Red)
Peak position: 20
Ben Watt’s solo career prior to Everything But The Girl was woody, plain and simple, sitting between slightly jazzy feels and plaintive English folk. EBTG put his solo plans on hold, but “Some Things Don’t Matter” and the parent album “North Marine Drive” are a fair guide to what might have been up ahead if the pair had never met.
Week Three
14. Omega Tribe – Angry Songs (EP) (Crass)
Peak position: 4
A fascinating anarcho-punk release which explores livid thrash one minute before morphing into melancholy piano led folk melodies the next. Omega Tribe had a punk attitude but also a desire to experiment, values not always shared by all their fellow travellers.
23. Valentine Brothers – Money’s Too Tight To Mention (Energi)
Peak position: 12
The original version of “Money’s Too Tight To Mention” emerged a mere year before Simply Red’s sympathetic cover (or cynical/inferior cover depending on your point of view) emerged and turned into a proper hit. In 1983, this crossed over from the dancefloors just enough to peek its brows over the bottom end of the National Top 75.
The lyrical subject matter and slick but passionate performance made it catnip to journalists at IPC as well, who were quick to point towards it as one of the finest singles of 1983. While the biggest stars of 1983 appeared wealthy and decadent, this offered the dancefloor something that actually spoke to the experiences of many young people at the time.
26. Marine Girls – Don’t Come Back (Cherry Red)
Peak position: 26
28. Dave Phillips & The Hot Rod Gang – Tainted Love (Rockhouse)
Peak position: 28
A rockabilly version of “Tainted Love”? No less valid an interpretation than a synth-pop version, I suppose, and it reveals itself to possibly be one of the most flexible songs of all time by actually standing up damn well to the idea.
Dave Phillips and his gang were – and remain – a lively proposition, mixing rockabilly covers with spirited originals. “Tainted Love” is probably their most famed moment, but they imagined a whole world where Gene Vincent’s arrangements and style and strut were the answer to both every cover version and every new song written.
29. The Maisonettes – Where I Stand (Ready Steady Go)
Peak position: 24
The Maisonettes tried to extend their careers beyond “Heartache Avenue” but found the public weren’t buying. “Where I Stand” didn’t even crack the Top 75, which was somewhat harsh treatment. It dials down the uptempo Motown approach of their debut towards something more despondent, and maintains a powerful chorus.
Problematically, the production sounds rather hollow here and the single lacks power and dynamism as a result, so all the strengths of “Heartache Avenue” are flattened into something which punched with less swing than a Phil Collins Motown pastiche. With a few tweaks, I’m still convinced this might have been a minor hit. As it stood, they wouldn’t be given another chance.
Week Four
9. Sex Gang Children – Sebastiane (Illuminated)
Peak position: 4
Sweet, dramatic fiddles meet snarling Lydon-esque vocals, thundering rhythm patterns and the typical low-budget ambition of the early eighties goth sect, who believed that a lack of a chorus mattered not a jot if you had at least 50 different dramatic ideas competing in the mix.
Sex Gang Children were a name group to quote in certain quarters, but never managed to cash in on their notoriety to the same degree as their friends with similar inclinations.
17. Colourbox – Breakdown (4AD)
Peak position: 17
26. The Waterboys: A Girl Called Johnny (Chicken Jazz)
Peak position: 9
Of all the authentic, serious songsmiths to come through the indie chart in 1983, Mike Scott has probably proven himself to be one of the most enduring examples. I can’t remember the precise time I last heard “The Whole Of The Moon” being played on a pub jukebox by a mystically leaning Celtic bloke with a gutful of beer, but it probably wasn’t much longer than a fortnight ago. It is to 2024 what “Hi Ho Silver Lining” was to 1983.
“A Girl Called Johnny” sets out The Waterboys stall without hesitation and with absolutely no pandering to scratchy indie values. That insistent beat is there already, combined with pleading sax riffs, sincere vocals and an abiding sense that this should be treated as serious stuff for big boys and girls with anger and passion in their bones. Plenty threw their arms around Mike Scott and hailed him a prophet, while others found his furrowed brow sincerity and poetic hectoring a little much. Guess which side of the divide I fall on?
29. Serious Drinking – Hangover (Upright)
Peak position: 10
None of all that for Serious Drinking, of course, and talk about dedication to a very limited and specific cause. By 1983 beer seemed to have found a place in some punk’s hearts which was almost up there with LSD in the late sixties, only this group were sometimes keener to explore their particular drug’s obvious downsides rather than getting evangelical about it.
Week Five
8. Peter & The Test Tube Babies – Zombie Creeping Flesh (Trapper)
Peak position: 2
The Test Tube Babies go goth on this baffling 45 which, as with all their records, was obviously tongue in cheek but steers so close to the cloakroom of the Batcave that it makes no difference. You truly know that a subculture has crossed over when even Punk Pathetique bands begin adopting its stylings and almost sound bona-fide.
19. The Violators – Life On The Red Line (Future)
Peak position: 11
Strange things were brewing in the world of second-wave punk, particularly on the No Future label who were desperately tapping their wristwatches and prodding their groups to develop their sound as punk’s dying embers were slowly pissed out.
“Life On The Red Line” is actually a perfectly good post-punk record which still bares close to no relation to the group’s earlier singles. It feels naive and tentative in places, but shows an extended reach and ambition they previously eschewed in favour of simple abrasion. Sadly, their fans were having none of it. The top YouTube comment states: “I remember when my Violators did this to me. Such a sad day.”
There would be no further records from them until 2018.
23. The Blood – Megalomania EP (No Future)
Peak position: 8
25. Special Duties – Punk Rockers (Expulsion)
Peak position: 23
“Development” wasn’t a word that existed in the vocabulary of Special Duties, of course, who were going to continue misusing stolen school detention badges and three chord riffs until everyone stopped offering them money.
“Punk Rockers” is another record to mention lager as a central aspect of the punk lifestyle. It’s a long way from here to corporate craft beers with names like “Punk IPA”, but at least the journey had begun.
Week Six
16. The March Violets – Crow Baby (Rebirth)
Peak position: 6
21. Various – A Country Fit For Heroes (EP) (No Future)
Peak position: 17
Week Seven
24. Cook Da Books – Low Profile (Kiteland)
Peak position: 24
Da Books return with another gloomy groover which seems to predict the bassline to Sly Fox’s “Let’s Go All The Way” without adopting any of its optimism or urgency.
“Low Profile” is instead tight and hypnotic, trying to worm its way into your affections with austerity and honesty.
29. Testcard F – Bandwagon Tango (Backs)
Peak position: 18
The fantastically named Norwich synth-poppers nose their way into the Indie Top 30 with this track, which utilises the much-used (and abused) “Rock 1” rhythm setting on the pocket Casio VL Tone. Turn that bloody blimey space invader off, chaps.
It certainly wasn’t going to give New Order any worries about holding down the number one position for an eighth week. “Bandwagon Tango” sounds like a gang of mates trying to write a synth pop hit during a convenient lunch break, and as such it’s cheaper and more hurried than anything on Mute or Factory, but somehow more authentic and charming for that. Does that mean it’s better or worse? That, I would say, depends completely on your personal inclinations and the mood you’re in the day you choose to listen to it.
30. The Destructors – Forces of Law (Illuminated)
Peak position: 30
Week Eight
23. Darkness & Jive – Furnace (Red Rhino)
Peak position: 16
This track has had 53 views on YouTube since being uploaded 3 years ago - probably the harshest 21st Century treatment of an indie chart hit I’ve seen since starting this blog. Whenever I encounter a situation like this, I have to wonder why the track has failed to endure, and it’s usually an unlucky combination of a short-lived band dabbling in tones and styles which haven’t endured.
Darkness & Jive’s final single on Red Rhino isn’t short of contorted angst, atmospheric twangs and bottom heavy drum patterns like many of its indie chart cousins, but it’s too polite to leave a firm impression on the way out. That combined with a lack of a studio album seems to have sealed their fate.
24. The Adicts – Bad Boy (Razor)
Peak position: 3
25. Section 25 – Beating Heart (Factory)
Peak position: 21
Bernard Sumner produced this single which might have fared better had Factory not been totally distracted by the enduring success of “Blue Monday”. “Beating Heart” is truer to New Order’s ideas prior to “Temptation”, putting Joy Division drum patterns, airy synth washes and faintly off-key vocals front and centre.
Section 25 are still active today, largely thanks to the flexibility and willingness to look to the dancefloor for inspiration – qualities that “Beating Heart” only faintly nods towards.
26. Red Lorry Yellow Lorry – Take It All Away (Red Rhino)
Peak position: 26
The enduring and persistent Lorries debut Indie chart entry offers few surprises for those who know their work. It may sound cheaply recorded and as if it's tearing around the edges, but their rumbling, clattering sound is fully formed, and would become more headstrong and industrial as their releases progressed.
29. GBH – Catch 23 (Clay)
Peak position: 4
30. Erazerhead: Werewolf (Flicknife)
Peak position: 24
Week Nine
11. Anthrax – Capitalism is Cannibalism (Crass)
Peak position: 7
The sight of the Oi and second wave bands who despised Crass sinking further down the indie chart as the Epping anarchists held their own is an hilarious sight.
Stylistically speaking, though, there’s sometimes not a lot in it, and it does sometimes feel like a case of the same sounds with a less troublesome element behind them. Anthrax are not to be confused with the Thrash Metal group of the same name, obviously, and “Capitalism Is Cannabilism” may be an awkward two minute racket with a defined political message, but it’s not miles away from the same high treble, spittle-flecked rants towards the bottom end of the indies.
22. Gene Loves Jezebel – Screaming EP (Situation Two)
Peak position: 10
The Aston brothers from Wales discovered make-up and angst-ridden rock theatrics long before The Manic Street Preachers had left school. Image isn’t everything, though, and Gene Loves Jezebel’s earliest work in particular had a proclivity for sprawling song structures and doom-laden urgency. “Screaming” is a fascinating entrance, sounding like a distress call.
The group would later become magazine cover stars and were hyped as future rock stars, but would firmly remain a cult concern despite everyone’s efforts.
26. Friends Again – Honey At The Core (Moonboot)
Peak position: 26
Much fancied Scottish group who very nearly followed Roddy Frame into the Top 40. Their initial release “Honey At The Core” is everything you’d expect, combining jangling sweetness with the kind of arrangement that keeps slipping away from your fingers every time you think you’ve managed to grip it.
Peak position: 3
Decidedly strange gothic cover of the Jefferson Airplane classic which, to The Damned’s credit, does at least rip up the original and blow its nose all over the contents. Does it take us somewhere we actually need to be, though? As Grace Slick’s subtle, slightly frightening vocalisations are replaced with Vanian’s dramatic bellowing, you have to wonder.
13. Blood And Roses – Love Under Will (Kamera)
Peak position: 9
16. Cocteau Twins – Peppermint Pig (4AD)
Peak position: 2
A Peppermint Pig is apparently a type of moulded confectionary commonly encountered in North America at Christmas time; I personally have never seen one. On “Peppermint Pig” the single, it sounds positively menacing, like a phantom porcine werebeast. Guitars shift slightly out of tune, Liz Fraser warns with childish irritation, and it does its damnedest to alienate the listener despite never barraging them with noise.
The single was produced by Alan Rankine of The Associates and the Cocteau Twins were reportedly unhappy with the end results.
19. Julie London – Cry Me A River (Edsel)
Peak position: 13
If you poured my Mum a glass of wine and sat still for long enough, she would probably have talked to you about how underrated Julie London was. “Cry Me A River” was one of her favourite singles of all time, and was her only charting record in the UK, climbing to number 22 in 1957.
It is the real deal, though – smoky, bottom of the gin glass heartache with London’s world weary vocal front and centre; plain, simple, and exhausted. Its emergence in the indie chart can be partly attributed to Mari Wilson’s cover charting at around the same time (“And who does she think she is?” - my Mum) but really, no excuse is needed.
23. Ben Watt – Some Things Don’t Matter (Cherry Red)
Peak position: 20
Ben Watt’s solo career prior to Everything But The Girl was woody, plain and simple, sitting between slightly jazzy feels and plaintive English folk. EBTG put his solo plans on hold, but “Some Things Don’t Matter” and the parent album “North Marine Drive” are a fair guide to what might have been up ahead if the pair had never met.
Week Three
14. Omega Tribe – Angry Songs (EP) (Crass)
Peak position: 4
A fascinating anarcho-punk release which explores livid thrash one minute before morphing into melancholy piano led folk melodies the next. Omega Tribe had a punk attitude but also a desire to experiment, values not always shared by all their fellow travellers.
23. Valentine Brothers – Money’s Too Tight To Mention (Energi)
Peak position: 12
The original version of “Money’s Too Tight To Mention” emerged a mere year before Simply Red’s sympathetic cover (or cynical/inferior cover depending on your point of view) emerged and turned into a proper hit. In 1983, this crossed over from the dancefloors just enough to peek its brows over the bottom end of the National Top 75.
The lyrical subject matter and slick but passionate performance made it catnip to journalists at IPC as well, who were quick to point towards it as one of the finest singles of 1983. While the biggest stars of 1983 appeared wealthy and decadent, this offered the dancefloor something that actually spoke to the experiences of many young people at the time.
26. Marine Girls – Don’t Come Back (Cherry Red)
Peak position: 26
28. Dave Phillips & The Hot Rod Gang – Tainted Love (Rockhouse)
Peak position: 28
A rockabilly version of “Tainted Love”? No less valid an interpretation than a synth-pop version, I suppose, and it reveals itself to possibly be one of the most flexible songs of all time by actually standing up damn well to the idea.
Dave Phillips and his gang were – and remain – a lively proposition, mixing rockabilly covers with spirited originals. “Tainted Love” is probably their most famed moment, but they imagined a whole world where Gene Vincent’s arrangements and style and strut were the answer to both every cover version and every new song written.
29. The Maisonettes – Where I Stand (Ready Steady Go)
Peak position: 24
The Maisonettes tried to extend their careers beyond “Heartache Avenue” but found the public weren’t buying. “Where I Stand” didn’t even crack the Top 75, which was somewhat harsh treatment. It dials down the uptempo Motown approach of their debut towards something more despondent, and maintains a powerful chorus.
Problematically, the production sounds rather hollow here and the single lacks power and dynamism as a result, so all the strengths of “Heartache Avenue” are flattened into something which punched with less swing than a Phil Collins Motown pastiche. With a few tweaks, I’m still convinced this might have been a minor hit. As it stood, they wouldn’t be given another chance.
Week Four
9. Sex Gang Children – Sebastiane (Illuminated)
Peak position: 4
Sweet, dramatic fiddles meet snarling Lydon-esque vocals, thundering rhythm patterns and the typical low-budget ambition of the early eighties goth sect, who believed that a lack of a chorus mattered not a jot if you had at least 50 different dramatic ideas competing in the mix.
Sex Gang Children were a name group to quote in certain quarters, but never managed to cash in on their notoriety to the same degree as their friends with similar inclinations.
17. Colourbox – Breakdown (4AD)
Peak position: 17
26. The Waterboys: A Girl Called Johnny (Chicken Jazz)
Peak position: 9
Of all the authentic, serious songsmiths to come through the indie chart in 1983, Mike Scott has probably proven himself to be one of the most enduring examples. I can’t remember the precise time I last heard “The Whole Of The Moon” being played on a pub jukebox by a mystically leaning Celtic bloke with a gutful of beer, but it probably wasn’t much longer than a fortnight ago. It is to 2024 what “Hi Ho Silver Lining” was to 1983.
“A Girl Called Johnny” sets out The Waterboys stall without hesitation and with absolutely no pandering to scratchy indie values. That insistent beat is there already, combined with pleading sax riffs, sincere vocals and an abiding sense that this should be treated as serious stuff for big boys and girls with anger and passion in their bones. Plenty threw their arms around Mike Scott and hailed him a prophet, while others found his furrowed brow sincerity and poetic hectoring a little much. Guess which side of the divide I fall on?
29. Serious Drinking – Hangover (Upright)
Peak position: 10
None of all that for Serious Drinking, of course, and talk about dedication to a very limited and specific cause. By 1983 beer seemed to have found a place in some punk’s hearts which was almost up there with LSD in the late sixties, only this group were sometimes keener to explore their particular drug’s obvious downsides rather than getting evangelical about it.
Week Five
8. Peter & The Test Tube Babies – Zombie Creeping Flesh (Trapper)
Peak position: 2
The Test Tube Babies go goth on this baffling 45 which, as with all their records, was obviously tongue in cheek but steers so close to the cloakroom of the Batcave that it makes no difference. You truly know that a subculture has crossed over when even Punk Pathetique bands begin adopting its stylings and almost sound bona-fide.
19. The Violators – Life On The Red Line (Future)
Peak position: 11
Strange things were brewing in the world of second-wave punk, particularly on the No Future label who were desperately tapping their wristwatches and prodding their groups to develop their sound as punk’s dying embers were slowly pissed out.
“Life On The Red Line” is actually a perfectly good post-punk record which still bares close to no relation to the group’s earlier singles. It feels naive and tentative in places, but shows an extended reach and ambition they previously eschewed in favour of simple abrasion. Sadly, their fans were having none of it. The top YouTube comment states: “I remember when my Violators did this to me. Such a sad day.”
There would be no further records from them until 2018.
23. The Blood – Megalomania EP (No Future)
Peak position: 8
25. Special Duties – Punk Rockers (Expulsion)
Peak position: 23
“Development” wasn’t a word that existed in the vocabulary of Special Duties, of course, who were going to continue misusing stolen school detention badges and three chord riffs until everyone stopped offering them money.
“Punk Rockers” is another record to mention lager as a central aspect of the punk lifestyle. It’s a long way from here to corporate craft beers with names like “Punk IPA”, but at least the journey had begun.
Week Six
16. The March Violets – Crow Baby (Rebirth)
Peak position: 6
21. Various – A Country Fit For Heroes (EP) (No Future)
Peak position: 17
Week Seven
24. Cook Da Books – Low Profile (Kiteland)
Peak position: 24
Da Books return with another gloomy groover which seems to predict the bassline to Sly Fox’s “Let’s Go All The Way” without adopting any of its optimism or urgency.
“Low Profile” is instead tight and hypnotic, trying to worm its way into your affections with austerity and honesty.
29. Testcard F – Bandwagon Tango (Backs)
Peak position: 18
The fantastically named Norwich synth-poppers nose their way into the Indie Top 30 with this track, which utilises the much-used (and abused) “Rock 1” rhythm setting on the pocket Casio VL Tone. Turn that bloody blimey space invader off, chaps.
It certainly wasn’t going to give New Order any worries about holding down the number one position for an eighth week. “Bandwagon Tango” sounds like a gang of mates trying to write a synth pop hit during a convenient lunch break, and as such it’s cheaper and more hurried than anything on Mute or Factory, but somehow more authentic and charming for that. Does that mean it’s better or worse? That, I would say, depends completely on your personal inclinations and the mood you’re in the day you choose to listen to it.
30. The Destructors – Forces of Law (Illuminated)
Peak position: 30
Week Eight
23. Darkness & Jive – Furnace (Red Rhino)
Peak position: 16
This track has had 53 views on YouTube since being uploaded 3 years ago - probably the harshest 21st Century treatment of an indie chart hit I’ve seen since starting this blog. Whenever I encounter a situation like this, I have to wonder why the track has failed to endure, and it’s usually an unlucky combination of a short-lived band dabbling in tones and styles which haven’t endured.
Darkness & Jive’s final single on Red Rhino isn’t short of contorted angst, atmospheric twangs and bottom heavy drum patterns like many of its indie chart cousins, but it’s too polite to leave a firm impression on the way out. That combined with a lack of a studio album seems to have sealed their fate.
24. The Adicts – Bad Boy (Razor)
Peak position: 3
25. Section 25 – Beating Heart (Factory)
Peak position: 21
Bernard Sumner produced this single which might have fared better had Factory not been totally distracted by the enduring success of “Blue Monday”. “Beating Heart” is truer to New Order’s ideas prior to “Temptation”, putting Joy Division drum patterns, airy synth washes and faintly off-key vocals front and centre.
Section 25 are still active today, largely thanks to the flexibility and willingness to look to the dancefloor for inspiration – qualities that “Beating Heart” only faintly nods towards.
26. Red Lorry Yellow Lorry – Take It All Away (Red Rhino)
Peak position: 26
The enduring and persistent Lorries debut Indie chart entry offers few surprises for those who know their work. It may sound cheaply recorded and as if it's tearing around the edges, but their rumbling, clattering sound is fully formed, and would become more headstrong and industrial as their releases progressed.
29. GBH – Catch 23 (Clay)
Peak position: 4
30. Erazerhead: Werewolf (Flicknife)
Peak position: 24
Week Nine
11. Anthrax – Capitalism is Cannibalism (Crass)
Peak position: 7
The sight of the Oi and second wave bands who despised Crass sinking further down the indie chart as the Epping anarchists held their own is an hilarious sight.
Stylistically speaking, though, there’s sometimes not a lot in it, and it does sometimes feel like a case of the same sounds with a less troublesome element behind them. Anthrax are not to be confused with the Thrash Metal group of the same name, obviously, and “Capitalism Is Cannabilism” may be an awkward two minute racket with a defined political message, but it’s not miles away from the same high treble, spittle-flecked rants towards the bottom end of the indies.
22. Gene Loves Jezebel – Screaming EP (Situation Two)
Peak position: 10
The Aston brothers from Wales discovered make-up and angst-ridden rock theatrics long before The Manic Street Preachers had left school. Image isn’t everything, though, and Gene Loves Jezebel’s earliest work in particular had a proclivity for sprawling song structures and doom-laden urgency. “Screaming” is a fascinating entrance, sounding like a distress call.
The group would later become magazine cover stars and were hyped as future rock stars, but would firmly remain a cult concern despite everyone’s efforts.
26. Friends Again – Honey At The Core (Moonboot)
Peak position: 26
Much fancied Scottish group who very nearly followed Roddy Frame into the Top 40. Their initial release “Honey At The Core” is everything you’d expect, combining jangling sweetness with the kind of arrangement that keeps slipping away from your fingers every time you think you’ve managed to grip it.
Future releases would emerge on Phonogram, including the near-hit “Friends Again EP”, but none consolidated their initial commercial promise and after the failure of the 1984 album “Trapped and Unwrapped”, the group called it a day.
For the full charts, please go to the UKMix Forums
Number Ones In The Official Charts
Duran Duran: "Is There Something I Should Know?" (EMI)
David Bowie: "Let's Dance" (EMI America)
Spandau Ballet: "True" (Chrysalis)
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