What some have called the most original and best album of the original punk generation was unleashed 43 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]

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

Jesus Built My Hotrod was released on November 7th 1991 as the first single from their fifth studio album Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs. It was written by the band's frontman Al Jourgensen, bassist Paul Barker, drummer Bill Rieflin, session keyboardist Michael Balch, and the Butthole Surfers lead singer Gibby Haynes, and was co-produced by Jourgensen and Barker. The industrial metal track features elements of rockabilly and psychobilly, and is influenced by the Trashmen 1963 hit "Surfing' Bird", and Flannery O'Connor novel Wise Blood; the song’s instrumentation is defined by its polyrhythmic structure.

The single reached No. 19 in the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart with approximately 128,000 copies sold as of mid-July 1992, preceding the later success of Psalm 69.

Jesus Built My Hotrod 12”

A. Jesus Built My Hotrod (Redline/Whiteline Version) 8:13
B1. Jesus Built My Hotrod (Short, Pusillanimous * So-They-Can-Fit-More-Commercials-On-The-Radio Edit)
B2. TV Song

Lyrics

Soon I discovered that this rock thing was true
Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil
Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet
All of a sudden, I found myself in love with the world
So there was only one thing that I could do
Was ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Ding dang a dong bong bing bong
Ticky ticky thought of a gun
Every time I try to do it all now baby
Am I on the run
Why why why why why baby
If it's so evil then?
Give me my time, with all my power
Give it to me all again (wow)

Ding a ding a dang a dong dong ding dong
Every where I go
Every time you tell me baby
When I settle down
Got to get me a trailer park
And hold my world around
Why why why why?
Ding ding dong dong dong ding dong
Dingy dingy son of a gun
Half my time I tell you baby
Never am I all for sure
Why why why why why baby

Sicky sicky from within
Every time I stick my finger on in ya
You're a wild wild little town bitch
Now how 'bout ding a dang dong dong dong ling long
Dingy a dingy dong a down
Every time you tell me baby
When I settle down
Got to get me a trailer park
And hold my world around
Why why why why?

In my dang a ding a ding a ding dong
A sticky sticky son of a gun
Ding a danga danga dong dong ding dong
Why why never know
Why why wack a dong a dang ding dong
Then you take it on the bill
Ding dang dong don't dong
Whoa!
I want to love ya!

Why why why, why why darling
Do you do you tell me to play?
Half the time I talk about it all now baby
You know what I'm talkin' about I said
Why why why it'll
Ticky ticky ticky ticky son of a gun
Ding ding dong a bong bong bing bong
Ticky ticky thought of a gun

Bing bing bang a bang a bang bing bong bing a bing bang a bong
Binga bing a bang a bong bong bing bong bing banga bong
Bing bing bang a bong bong bing bing binga binga banga bong
Bing bing bang a bang bang bing bong
Ding dang a dang bong bing bong

Ticky ticky thought of a gun
Every time I try to do it all now baby
Am I on the run
Why why why

It'll ticky ticky ticky ticky ticky ticky
Dawn of a gun
Bing bing bang a bong a bong bing bang a
Ticky ticky thought of a gun
Bing bip bip a bop bop boom bam
Ticky ticky through the day
If you got a doubt 'bout baby
The memory is on the bed
Why why why why why

Darlin' uh it don't know
When my time is on
Might tell me never do it on his own
If my time was all as is yours
Make me burn a wish
When my time with you is brutish
No I'll never not ever
Why why why why why why baby heavy hell

Alone and it's here it's this thunder
The thunder oh thunder
Oh!
Jesus built my car
It's a love affair
Mainly Jesus and my hot rod
Yeah, fuck it!

(Allen Jourgensen / Paul Barker / William Fredrick Rieflin / Gibson Haynes / Michael Bruce Balch)

DISCOGS

The elder-statement of Goth, Bauhaus released 'In The Flat Field' 41 years ago on 3 November 1980. The echo of this masterpiece still vibrates through modern music. The album was recorded between December 1979 and July 1980 and record label 4AD's first full length release.

This was the punk death-bell soaked in screeches of feedback and vocals scattered in doom and angst, the zero-hour for goth as a genre. The collision of art-experimental and the glam of the 1970s sunk with the darkness of the mind created the big bang, Bauhaus wove it all together to create theatrics in the sound, atmospheric and tense. They were the real McCoy in a world of pretenders.

'In The Flat Field' arrived almost fully formed, for a debut it was a well-realized piece of work. 'Double Dare' acts as the perfect entrance to their world or into ours. Feedback screeches and descending, menacing guitar-riffs herald their arrival, Pete Murphys vocals are astonishing coming directly from the abyss itself.

The title-track takes things to another level, more Bowiesque and rock-orientated, still it is drenched in a weird-collage of feedback squeals, whereas 'A God In An Alcove' is a surrealist terrifying journey, slower paced for that maximum impact.

The interspersed electronic sounds of 'The Spy In The Cab' create a minimalist background for Murphy to paint his pictures of despair, the noise-generated guitar of Daniel Ash is eerie at best, using the instrument as a machine and not in the conventional sense.

David J gives a hypnotic bass-riff, funky at times to the proceedings, a perfect base for Ash to perform his guitar-acrobatics of doom, thirty-eight years later 'In The Flat Field' still stands as a masterwork of terrifying art.

"A gut pull drag on me
Into the chasm gaping we
Mirrors multy reflecting this
Between spunk stained sheet
And odorous whim".

Tracklist:

1. "Double Dare"
2. "In the Flat Field"
3. "A God in an Alcove"
4. "Dive"
5. "The Spy in the Cab"

1. "Small Talk Stinks"
2. "St. Vitus Dance"
3. "Stigmata Martyr"
4. "Nerves"

[KB]