What some have called the most original and best album of the original punk generation was unleashed 46 years on 10 November 1978, ‘Germfree Adolescents’ by X-Ray Spex stands at the pinnacle of what punk would accomplish in its first incarnation.

The dynamo that drove this punk-rock strike of defiance was loaded with anti-capitalist view which all spewed from an unlikely young girl, only nineteen at the time of its recording but this respectable, well-mannered young girl with braces on her teeth which were a feature when she smiled, but then she would open her mouth to sing and the shy, quiet Marion Joan Elliot-Said would transform into the high-priestess of a revolution, Poly Styrene.

The album opens with a four-syllable disdain: “Ar-ti-fic-ial!”, as it phases the music launches and this Richard Hell in knickers summons up the powerful and depressed emotions of the day in a twelve-track assault. It becomes clear that Poly Styrene delivers conviction in every word she sings, every sneer and roll of the tongue, each phrase is delivered with the same oppressed intensity as the last.

As for the musicianship of X-Ray Spex, they provide the perfect backdrop for Styrene to wage a verbal war, this album contains some of the best drumming on a punk record over which a very loud, old-school guitar pumps distorted rock and roll riffs that build in intensity throughout the albumthe inclusion of a saxophone to give the songs an extra depth may not be not common on records of the ‘Generation-X’ but it works here in galvanizing the sound.

The songs themselves are not love songs as such, they are rather the points of everyday society such as “Warrior In Woolworths”, “Plastic Bag”, “ I Am A Poseur” and of course the title track, not many bands could make songs about personal hygiene and supermarkets cool, though these themes make the album relatable and accessible to the youth of the day and stands as a time-capsule of late 70s culture.

Germfree Adolescents (original 1978 track list)

Side A

'Art-I-Ficial' – 3:24
'Obsessed with You' – 2:30
'Warrior in Woolworths' – 3:06
'Let's Submerge' – 3:26
'I Can't Do Anything' – 2:58
'Identity' – 2:25

Side B;

'Genetic Engineering' – 2:49
'I Live Off You' – 2:09
'I Am a Poseur' – 2:34
'Germ Free Adolescents' – 3:14
'Plastic Bag' – 4:54
'The Day the World Turned Dayglo' – 2:53

DISCOGS

[KB]

“Jesus died for somebody’s sins,
But not mine..”

This day 49 years ago, Patti Smith released her groundbreaking debut album “Horses” (10 November, 1975) and music thankfully was never the same since.

The album went on to become the most influential and important release of the Punk-Rock movement, in fact it is quoted as not just being the album held on the punk-pedestal but one of the true artistic statements in twentieth-century music.

What separates “Horses” from other releases of the day is down to the intelligence in the songs of Smith, a deeper meaning not usually associated with punk, poetry set to the sound of rage and delivered with a snarling-venomous voice and three chords played exceptionally loud.

New York and in particular CBGB’s quickly became her battlefield and the birthplace of a legend, “Horses” was born out of the frustration and the pain Smith felt in the loss of the dominant, otherworldly rock stars such as Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.
“All I ever wanted, since I was a child, was to do something wonderful”.

The album opens with a quiet moment of self-realization, that slowly gathers tempo, “Gloria” a track recorded originally recorded by Them and then The Doors and it is Morrison’s version she claims here, a slice of power and angst as producer John Cale steered the runaway train from leaving the tracks.

Across the albums eight-tracks all avenues are explored in full, from gender to violence, the influence “Horses” cast is heard in the music of Siouxsie And The Banshees, The Smith’s, R.E.M, The Slits and PJ Harvey who all owe a debt to the electric troubadour.
But her arrival on the music scene was exactly what Punk needed, with inspired lyrics similar to the folk-rock crossover that erupted ten years before when Dylan turned electric she blended aggression with intuitive words that rang in the ears of the listeners making nobody feel alone.

“In the sheets
There was a man
Dancing around
To the simple
Rock & roll
Song”

Horses (Original 1975 Track Listing)
Gloria
Redondo Beach
Birdland
Free Money
Kimberly
Break It Up
Land: Horses/Land Of A Thousand Dances/La Mer (De)
Elegie

DISCOGS

[KB]

Electric Café is the ninth studio album by the electronic group Kraftwerk, originally released on 10th November 1986. In 2009 it was re-released under its original working title, Techno Pop.
The initial 1986 Electric Café came in versions sung in English and German, as well as a limited "Edición Española" release, featuring versions of "Techno Pop" and "Sex Object" with only Spanish lyrics.
It was the first Kraftwerk LP to be created using predominantly digital musical instruments, although the finished product was still recorded onto analog master tapes. The album was recorded with the Emu Emulator II sampler (used previously on "Tour De France" and the demo of "Techno Pop" album) and various contemporary devices including Yamaha FM-engines, a Linn drum, and digital effect processors.

The album is somewhat infamous for taking the band almost half a decade to produce. Work is said to have begun as early as 1982 (with the working titles of Technicolor and then Techno Pop) but the project was delayed due to band member Ralf Hütter suffering a cycling accident and then due to concerns within the band that the production quality of the album was not sufficiently cutting-edge, necessitating much re-work. It is the last Kraftwerk album to feature Wolfgang Flür, who subsequently left the group in 1987.

Two singles were released from the album, "Musique Non-Stop" and "The Telephone Call". Both were accompanied by promotional videos. Though both singles went to #1 on the Billboard dance chart in 1987, neither of the singles performed well in the general pop charts. However, "Music Non-Stop" (based on the later version from The Mix) has been the closing piece of Kraftwerk's concerts since 1991. In the early 1990s, a completely different version of "Musique Non-Stop" – slower and more melodic – was used extensively as a jingle on the MTV Europe channel. Earlier, MTV Europe had already included elements from the original song and the video in the title graphics for MTV's Greatest Hits.

The video for "Musique Non-Stop", created in 1984 and released in 1986, is notable in itself for showcasing a computer animated representation of the band. The animation, which was complex for its time, was created by Rebecca Allen, using state-of-the-art facial animation software developed by the Institute of Technology in New York. The slow rate of the album's progress, combined with rapid changes in software animation, meant that Allen had to archive the animation program developed at the Institute of Technology until Hütter and Schneider were ready in 1986 to travel to New York to edit the images to the final version of "Musique Non-Stop".

Electric Café

Business as Usual, the debut album of Australian New-Wave band Men at Work, which was released in in Australia on 9th November 1981. Men at Work formed in 1979 and is best known for their 1981 hit "Down Under". Their founding mainstay was Colin Hay on lead vocals; he formed the group with Jerry Speiser on drums and Ron Strykert on lead guitar. They were joined by Greg Ham on flute, saxophone and keyboards and John Rees on bass guitar.

They are the only Australian artists to reach the Number 1 position in album and singles charts in both the United States and the United Kingdom with Business as Usual and 'Down Under'. The group won the 1983 Grammy Award for Best New Artist and sold over 30 million albums worldwide.

The band released two more studio albums, Cargo (1983) and crumbled apart by the time the third album, Two Hearts (1985), came out.

The band disbanded in 1986 but reformed in 1996 to disband again by 2002.

On 19 April 2012, Greg Ham (flute, saxophone, and keyboards) was found dead at his home from an apparent heart attack at age 58.

Tracklist

1. Who Can It Be Now? 3:20
2. I Can See It In Your Eyes 3:26
3. Down Under 3:39
4. Underground 3:04
5. Helpless Automaton 3:18
6. People Just Love To Play With Words 3:33
7. Be Good Johnny 3:33
8. Touching The Untouchables 3:47
9. Catch A Star 3:28
10. Down By The Sea 6:48

Down Under (Lyrics)

Traveling in a fried-out Kombi
On a hippie trail, head full of zombie
I met a strange lady, she made me nervous
She took me in and gave me breakfast
And she said
Do you come from a land down under?
Where women glow and men plunder?
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover

Buying bread from a man in Brussels
He was six-foot-four and full of muscles
I said, "do you speak-a my language?"
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
And he said
I come from a land down under
Where beer does flow and men chunder
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover, yeah

Lyin' in a den in Bombay
With a slack jaw, and not much to say
I said to the man, "are you trying to tempt me
Because I come from the land of plenty?"
And he said
Do you come from a land down under? (oh yeah yeah)
Where women glow and men plunder?
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover
Living in a land down under
Where women glow and men plunder
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover
Living in a land down under
Where women glow and men plunder
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover
Living in a land down under
Where women glow and men plunder
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover
Living in a land down under
Where women glow and men plunder
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?

(Colin James Hay / Ronald Graham Strykert)

Burning Inside (12”) was released on 7th November 1989, as the sole single from the band's 1989 album The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste. The song is featured in the intro movie of the video game Scarface: The World Is Yours.

A video for the song was released in late 1989 and became a hit on MTV's 120 Minutes. The video features the band's live show with the infamous steel fence used on the 1989-1990 tour and later a live version of the song featured on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up. Also shown in the video are a chaotic audience, a few people on fire and the band performing onstage.

In 1993 all tracks from the original 12” were re-released as part of the 3 x CD single compilation ‘Box’.

Burning Inside 12"

1. Burning Inside (12" Remix) 6:45
2. Thieves (12" Remix) 5:33
3. Smothered Hope (Skinny Puppy cover; recorded live in Chicago, 1988 with guest appearance of Skinny Puppy singer Nivek Ogre) 5:00

Burning Inside

Will these dreams still follow me
Out of dark obscurity?
Can't you see it up in the sky
As it kicks you in the face and lets you die
You never have the answers
And now you tell me the facts of life
I really couldn't be bothered with you
Get out of my face and watch me die

Burning inside! Burning inside!

Absolution and a frozen room
Are dreams of men below
I try to grab it but the touch is hot
The mirrors collapses, but the image can not
I'm scared of darkness in a light
I scare myself cause I know I'm right
I see the evil in your savage eye
As it cuts right through the sky

Burning inside! Burning inside! Burning inside! Burning inside!
Burning inside! Burning inside! Burning inside! Burning inside!

Calling the mantra with a blade in the skin
For the demons within
I feel the pain is the death and decay
But the lesson never fades away
Too little shadows, turn away
Another man through the window pane
Another slave and a victim of fate
Another lesson in hate

Burning inside! Burning inside! Burning inside! Burning inside!
Burning inside! Burning inside! Burning inside! Burning inside!

(Allen Jourgensen / Christopher Connelly / Paul G. Barker / William Riefflin)

DISCOGS