Introduction: Audibly Edible Items

"The Leggy Blonde One turns in her usual Sweet Little Sixteen vocal," cooed reviewer Cliff White, "the arrangement and production are a treat for the feet." He continues, "the group is cooking on regulo 9", and, just to finish up on a slightly less complimentary note, "the song is not just throwaway junk." Blondie's "Heart of Glass" was huge and everyone — well, at least one critic at any rate — saw it coming. White's Smash Hits review cites it as the one most likely to thrive on the charts but nowhere does he state that it's his personal favourite.

"Going Underground", "Oliver's Army", "Love Will Tear Us Apart", "Ashes to Ashes", "Kids in America", "Geno", "Making Plans for Nigel", "Tainted Love", "Cars", "Video Killed the Radio Star", "Ghostown", "Don't You Want Me": late-seventies/early-eighties British pop is loaded with remarkable singles. Virtually all were massive hits at the time — sorry Nigel, obviously hitting the top of the charts wasn't part of the plans they were making — and they're all well-remembered to this day, even by listeners who weren't around at the time to enjoy them. Some were part of the zeitgeist of Thatcherism and strikes and an all around sense of malaise of the time. And like "Heart of Glass" not one was a Smash Hits Single of the Fortnight.

Of course the SOTF spot didn't exist in these early days of ver Hits so I've had to go over Brian McCloskey's indispensable Smash Hits archive to spot any early examples. Some, like "Heart of Glass" as well as "Going Underground", were highly acclaimed but weren't specifically cited as the best of the bunch. It's only once we get midway through 1981 that the SOTF starts to become a thing and that's where we'll be kicking things off in the next post. For now I could only find seven singles that reviewers picked out as "single of the week" (sic.) or "most essential swap for a quid note this fortnight" or — my personal favourite — "arguably the most audibly edible item on the menu this sitting".

Date	"Artist"	Single
26 July 1979	Glass Torpedoes	"Someone Different"
20 September 1979	The Freeze	In Colour EP
21 February 1980	The Gibson Brothers	"Cuba"
15 May 1980	Roxy Music	"Over You"
4 September 1980	XTC	"Generals & Majors"
18 September 1980	The Teardrop Explodes	"When I Dream"
16 October 1980	XTC	"Towers of London"

Glass Torpedoes: "Someone Different"

The spidery riffs and a hard-plonking beat make this an easy to like if kind of underwhelming first SOTF. The ghostly, expressionless vocals and minimalist atmospherics put it very much in the context of late-seventies new wave. It seems they were very young at the time — the fact that they were on a label known as Teen Beat sort of gives away their age — and, thus, were a promising bunch. Or so it seemed.

The Freeze: In Colour EP

Guest reviewer Andy Partridge of XTC — a rather big part of this maiden blog post I'm happy to report — thumbed his nose at virtually every single on offer in this issue, kind of liked "Video Killed the Radio Star" but still wasn't convinced it could be a hit (then again, he hardly possessed cunning smash single instincts, did he?) and then proceeded to give Scots indie noisesters The Freeze his stamp of approval. I can't see why. Whereas Glass Torpedoes must have seemed like an act that people in the know wanted to keep an eye on, The Freeze are just tired, churning out the same unconvincing punk rock that was already a cliché by this point. Clearly some had yet to move on — and that goes for reviewer and reviewed.

The Gibson Brothers: "Cuba"

At last, a hit! The only selection here without a trace of indie cred, this has elements of the suave, literary side of disco perpetuated by the likes of Chic and Dr Buzzard's Original Savannah Band. The catchy, discophied Latin rhythms also fit in well alongside reggae and ska. If only the vocal wasn't quite so earnest and pleading. Oh well.

Roxy Music: "Over You"

The Rox handed in their weakest album at this point but their creative nadir didn't have any effect on the public and, indeed, on critics. As one (possibly pseudonymous) Mrs Esmé Sprigg of Hounslow raved, "Stand aside. Here comes a perfectly executed pop record, reeking of class and presenting Roxy Music at their dazzling roxiest." If by that she means "by numbers and nowhere near "Virginia Plain" or any of their old stuff but probably the best they could do at the time though worryingly evident of a dullness they would never be able to shake" then, yes, I wholeheartedly agree.

XTC: "Generals & Majors"

Old Farters Parters may not have had great taste in records but he and his chums knew a little about pumping out ace stuff of their own. Seemingly as much attracted to this due to its value-for-money two record set as for its infectious synthesized whistling and all-around jauntiness, it's interesting to note just how much emphasis reviewers placed on B-sides and extra tracks in making their evaluations. It's commendable of them to do so but in the case of "Generals & Majors" they needn't have bothered as it fizzles with energy and is a perfect launch pad for their sublime album Black Sea — and a taster for what a live powerhouse they were supposed to be at the time.

The Teardrop Explodes: "When I Dream"
Reviewer Mark Ellen described this as "bursting its sides with lightness, depth and ingenuity" and it's not difficult to see why. Julian Cope and his old Teardrop mates leave nothing on the table for this, even if it does go on a bit long — although there could be a single edit that I'm not aware of, I used the version that closes the kind-of-dated-but-also-kind-of-timeless Kilimanjaro. A cracker.

XTC: "Towers of London"

UK music critics at the time were crazy about Swindon's XTC — just as North American hacks were similarly gaga for them by the end of the eighties — as this second proto-SOTF in just six weeks indicates (perhaps it was also to make amends for spurning "Making Plans for Nigel" a year earlier). Spinning a yarn over London's growth and the poor, wretched individuals who built it, the song clangs of hammered iron, which hints at what they'd eventually do on their patchy '84 album The Big Express. Clearly XTC were on course to become a preeminent eighties band. What could possibly go wrong?

And there you have it. Seven proto-Singles of the Fortnight to get this thing going. I'll be back next week with something rather less well known than Blondie, although at the same time they probably aren't quite in the realm of the obscure as Glass Torpedoes and The Freeze. They're in that pop music grey area.