Bands Who Have Excellent Songs On Late '70s/Early '80s European K-Tel-Style Compilations

[koganbot]

I Have Never Heard Entire Albums By These Bands Who Have Excellent Songs On Late '70s/Early '80s European K-Tel-Style Compilations

Do any of them have albums worth hearing? The world wants to know, or at least I do.

The "I" who's saying this is chuckeddy. He has a feeling some folks on poptimists might be interested in this and might have input for it too, either there or here. The thread starts with these two compilations, but there are many more lists, contributed by Xhuxk and others, and quite a few YouTube imbeds:

Double Dancing (Record 2) (K-Tel Finland 1983)

GARY LOW "I Want You"
FREEZ "Pop Goes My Love" (have only otherwise heard his/their electro-hop classic "I.O.U." before)
STYLE "Dark Eyes"
BLACK LACE "Superman" (talked dance steps, sounds like an English version of Claudio Chechetto's Italian early '80s "Gioca-Jouer," or maybe the other way around)
CAROLA HĂGGVIST "Hunger"
DAVID GRANT "Love Will Find A Way" (Linx-style early '80s Brit soul I guess?)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 11 January 2009 16:59 (2 days ago) Permalink

Disco Fever (K-Tel U.K. 1977)

BROTHERHOOD OF MAN "Angelo" (Second-tier ABBAs, right?)
MERI WILSON "Telephone Man" (top 20 hit in U.S.!)
SMOKIE "It's Your Life" (superstars in this world, I guess. Lots of hits on lots of these compilations; "Living Next Door To Alice" was their only U.S. top 40)

Comments

Kenny

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Did anyone post on the ILM thread about Kenny (I started reading it but didn't finish)?

They were one of the RAK 'glam pop' (as opposed to glitter rock, before dubdobdee gets too uppity) acts that Martin and Coulter wrote for. In addition to "Fancy Pants", they had a huge hit with the excellent "The Bump" (later, much sampled) and a few other lesser hits.

They made one LP, The Sound Of Super K, which I can't vouch for quality wise. Most of it probably turns up again on the CD, The Singles Collection Plus... (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Singles-Collection-Plus-Kenny/dp/B00004Y2HF/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1231865637&sr=1-1) - this is still in print and I've half a mind to buy this myself.

Re: Kenny

[koganbot]

'glam pop' (as opposed to glitter rock...

And also opposed to glam rock, I take it.

Would glam pop be Kenny while glam rock would be Slade and T. Rex and glitter rock would be the Dolls and KISS?

And Bowie would be ?????

taxonomic agony

[koganbot]

Pulls out Jobriath album.

duppity dob dee

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

hmmm, i think my categories fall thus (presumably this is why jeff is goading me): glitter is the bubblegum wing of glam, with bolan as the boundary (and everyone else in frank's as glam)

thus sweet are glitter, and so would kenny be, despite what RAK claim on the tin

Re: duppity dob dee

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

= everyone in frank's LIST (except kenny)

Re: duppity dob dee

[koganbot]

Except in the U.S. "Glitter" was definitely the name for the Dolls, which would make it the hard rock rather than the bubblegum wing of the movement, except I have a feeling that, the movement being relatively small in the U.S., "glitter" became the name of any old thing vaguely associated with it. E.g., Lou Reed (headline in Times review of Berlin: "This Glitter Is Gold"). Not sure what they Runaways were called. By their time the terms "punk" and "metal" might have been colonizing everything else.

So Gary Glitter would be glam, right? Or is he glitter? (Hard for me to draw a big line between Slade and Sweet.)

Re: duppity dob dee

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

glitter = glitter (he's the source of the term, i suspect)

slade gave thought to albums as collections of songs; sweet not so much

by this token the runaways probably are glam: tho protopunk (uk timing) is a better bet

joan jett in particular came and hung out with the lesser pistols, rats etc -- and her whole career since is neo-glam metalgum hurrah

Re: duppity dob dee

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

>slade gave thought to albums as collections of songs; sweet not so much <

But again, they did later in their career, though, right? (At least by the time of *Desolation Boulevard* -- huge at my high school in Michigan by the way, and also a great LP -- if not earlier.)

Re: duppity dob dee

[koganbot]

I'd guess that the term is the source of Gary Glitter's name and not vice versa, as Bolan was already scoring hits and wearing glitter before Gary Glitter had hits. But I really don't know. Wikipedia not a big help in this matter (says that "glam rock" was also known as "glitter rock" and usefully informs us that "Glam fans (usually referred to in the contemporary music press as 'glitter kids') and performers distinguished themselves from earth-toned hippie culture with a deliberately 'artificial' look."

Earth-toned hippie culture?

[koganbot]

Glam or Glitter? YOU choose!

[koganbot]

Re: duppity dob dee

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

And what about Alvin Stardust (who I don't think I've ever actually heard)? David Essex (maybe none of the above)? Nick Gilder (too Canadian, and possibly too late)?

Glam/glitter distinction is news to me, too. I always thought they were the same thing. (And right, Sweet and Slade seem like they should be on the SAME side, if anything. Though when Sweet got *less* bubblegum (as in, writing their own songs), does that mean they also got less glitter and more glam?

Now I'm obsessed: Mott the Hoople I guess would be glam, right? And Hello and Smokie...glitter? (I'm not even sure, really, which ones would have been considered bubblegum in the first place. On that ILM thread, somebody explained that Smokie were Chinnichap's explicit attempt at an *album rock* band, but fans just kept only buying their singles anyway!)

the hard distinction is mine (afaik)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i mean i kind of extrapolated from what i'd unconsciously taken on board when much younger, but when i wrote this (http://tashpile.pitas.com/), i drew a line and used the words to make it concrete: that's to say, i think the distinction's real enough, in terms of how the the different wings were responded to (and by who), but i'm not aware the distinction had been made rigorously, qua upfront definition, before this piece

(that said, i quite possibly stole it wholecloth from something i read 20 years previously -- if i did, i donlt remember what it was i read)

anther way to define the axis is in terms of gender-preponderence: as you move from glam to glitter, the proportion of teengirl fans increases (and i'm talking UK only: i don't have any kind of a sense of how this varied in the US): boys (roughly) prefer music in albums-worth

i think (the) slade and (the) sweet started at opposite ends -- not actually AT the ends -- of the continuum, moved towards each other, passed, and continued away from one another: the glam end of the continuum is rooted in mod; the glitter end in songwriting teams putting pop groups together

(so yes, i'm using bubblegum VERY roughly -- i suspect it has a more rigorous meaning in the US)

alvin = glitter
mott = glam essex = hmmm, glam, but yes, he is a bit outside the field in a way (a concept-driven singer-songwriter with theatrical leanings and a teenybopper following -- marcello always good on essex)
gilder = neoglitter (not that i know much about him)?

Re: the hard distinction is mine (afaik)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i see clicking on that link and rereading it myself that i lumped sweet and slade together then myself

Re: the hard distinction is mine (afaik)

[koganbot]

Yeah, I was already to start cutting and pasting.

Out on Glam's bubblegum wing, Glitter, half-despised but hugely popular, The Sweet and Slade (once a Wolverhampton skinhead band) combined fag-drag look with consistently brutal lyrical content.

Re: the hard distinction is mine (afaik)

[koganbot]

already = all ready

Re: the hard distinction is mine (afaik)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

in fact i think it is you that made me minded me to re-categorise them

or possibly seeing "slade in flame"

while making my supper i was thinking about the sweet -- and desolation boulevard -- as precursors to poison etc: so maybe i shall re-categorise THEM as well (everyone is glam)