ACE RECORDS
Various Artists - Jon Savage's 1976 Something Was Going To Happen Various Artists
A vinyl-only two-album set featuring the revered pop culture pundit's choice of singles from a year that culminated in the release of the first punk 45s
Here's Jon himself with the background. OK, here's the situation. The Top 10 best-selling singles of 1976 included just one banger - Abba's 'Dancing Queen' - and a variety of horrors topped by the Brotherhood Of Man ('Save Your Kisses For Me') and Elton John and Kiki Dee ('Don't Go Breaking My Heart'). At #7, after a couple of smooth US rockers, was another horror: 'Fernando' by Abba. Down a bit at #16 was perhaps the most egregious example of a bad year: the Wurzels' 'The Combine Harvester (Brand New Key)'. I was 22/23 at the time. Old enough to have grown up with a fabulous, vibrant pop arena in the 60s, right through to the mid-70s when glam began to lose power, but young enough to still want an energetic, exciting teenage culture which I singularly was not getting from 'Jeans On' by David Dundas. I was living in Chester, in a bedsit far from home, and those serial chart-toppers haunted my existence. It was as though everything pop had promised had turned to dust, was just a rotten lie presided over by simpering Radio 1 DJs.
Then, in April, imported from the USA, came the Ramones - a jump cut into the present, future, now. For me the year was broken into two halves: before and after. Before, I was listening to Dr Feelgood, David Bowie and outsider funk, looking for anything that was not bland. After April, it was just the Ramones, and records that fitted the accelerant template, or that just sounded rough and aggressive - singles and cut- outs you could buy at Rock On in Camden or Rocks Off in Soho Market.
The other soundtrack was dub reggae, the records I heard on the streets in Ladbroke Grove or booming out over sound systems at that year's carnival. 'Police And Thieves' was the sound of that summer but I was gripped by the kinetic deconstruction of Augustus Pablo's "King Tubby Meets The Rockers Uptown" and the playful, sharply observed moods of Keith Hudson's "Pick A Dub" - both of which were released in 1974/75 so are not represented here. Another obsession was Burning Spear's "Garvey's Ghost" dub album.
Some mainstream hits got through - such as Candi Staton's survivalist epic 'Young Hearts Run Free', Blue oyster Cult's Byrds-noir '(Don't Fear) The Reaper' and 10cc's pop symphony 'I'm Mandy Fly Me' - plus some weird disco records. But I was fast streaming into something else. I was a pop obsessive, so I knew something was going to happen that would take me over. I could read it in the music press and feel it in my bones. In October 1976, I found it.
For this compilation, same rules as usual: singles only, roughly chronological by UK release dates. Slight liberties have been taken with Roxy Music and Buzzcocks, but both existed in some real form during 1976. As usual, around two-thirds are records I listened to at the time and that meant something to me, while the rema
Track List
A1 - Both Ends Burning - Roxy Music
A2 - Old Marcus Garvey - Burning Spear
A3 - War In A Babylon - Max Romeo & The Upsetters
A4 - My Generation - Patti Smith Group
A5 - I'm Mandy Fly Me - 10cc
A6 - Young Hearts Run Free - Candi Staton
A7 - Shack Up - Banbarra
B1 - Teenage Revolution - Hello
B2 - Havana Affair - Ramones
B3 - Cherry Bomb - The Runaways
B4 - In The Sun - Blondie
B5 - Keys To Your Heart - The 101'ers
B6 - Horseplay (Weary Of The Schmaltz) - Eddie & The Hot Rods
C1 - Police And Thieves - Junior Murvin
C2 - Shake Some Action - The Flamin' Groovies
C3 - Soul Dracula - Hot Blood
C4 - (Don't Fear) The Reaper - Blue Öyster Cult
C5 - Heart Of The City - Nick Lowe
C6 - Top Ten Sexes - Lewis Furey
D1 - Kill That Roach - Miami
D2 - (I'm) Stranded - The Saints
D3 - New Rose - The Damned
D4 - Street Waves - Pere Ubu
D5 - Time's Up - Buzzcocks
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Product information
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Relevant Record Café,
260 Mill Road
Cambridge,
CB1 3NF.
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Steepletone and Crosley Record Players
After having several “faulty” records returned to us (that in actuality had nothing wrong with them), we cannot guarantee that any records we sell will play correctly Crosley or Steepletone branded record players.