I’m going to come clean on my relationship with CN , having dabbled in buying a few records in my youth and then going off them big time. Yes, they appeared on my listening radar around 1982 with me the buying of “La Verité.” It was a weird one sitting alongside “Rage In Eden” and Zaine Griff’s “Figures”, all quite grandiose and very cool for a dewy eyed 13 year old!
I like most of the album but I think peer pressure made me dislike them. Friends at that tender age needed impressing and a bald, slightly operatic Sal Solo (in a skirt) was not really a role model for a load of working class lads from Barrow-in-Furness, home of the nuclear submarine. So I lost it/got rid of it and tried not to listen to CN again. If only had I been older and not worried about what others listened to.
Reacquainting myself with them in the last few decades and on this compilation of early stuff (Thanks Fred) they had a load of good songs. They certainly had a enough synth and technology in the arrangements that my immature ears loved but would not admit. I still have problems with the vocals, they can grate. Still can’t listen to “Night People” without laughing.
On researching I’m guilty of not knowing that the band were in fact X-Ray Spex with Solo fronting (well 2 from the original Punk Band)!! Bake Paul Hurding on drums, percussion and saxophone, Gary Steadman on Guitars and Guitar synth, Mik Sweeney on backing vocals, Bass, Guitar, Synthesizer, Keyboards (and also the producer) and Sal Solo on lead Vocals, Guitar, Synthesizer and Keyboards. Guitarist, the late Jake Stafford, (Jak Airport) who was in X-Ray Spex soon left, retiring from music altogether.
It is Glam Rock meets New Romantics. They had a large following in Europe through constant touring.
This is a good introduction to the band, with all the singles (not in order) up to but not including, “The End… Or The Beginning?” – so basically all the good stuff. Like the drama of “Old World For Sale” and the anthemic “Inside Outside”
https://www.sendspace.com/file/05atm9
Liberty – K28P 300
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| A1 | The Robot’s Dance | 3:55 |
| A2 | 623 | 2:34 |
| A3 | Nasty Little Green Men | 3:16 |
| A4 | Test Tube Babies | 2:45 |
| A5 | Guilty | 3:10 |
| A6 | Night People | 3:52 |
| A7 | Tokyo | 2:38 |
| A8 | Old World For Sale | 2:36 |
| B1 | Inside Outside | 3:17 |
| B2 | Every Home Should Have One | 3:16 |
| B3 | Never Again | 3:51 |
| B4 | 627 | 2:30 |
| B5 | Is It A Dream? | 3:57 |
| B6 | Where To Go | 3:13 |
| B7 | Because You’re Young | 3:22 |
| B8 | It’s Not Too Late | 3:34 |
Funny. I’ve been aware of this band since 1981. I’ve seen the vid clip for “Guilty” all over MTV, back in the day. But I’ve not heard another note. AND [the most damning thing of all] I have owned a US LP of “Classix Noveau” [mostly “Night People”] and TWO COPIES [?] of “La Verité ” for at least the last 25-30 years… but have not played them. I just looked into the CDs, and the two Cherry Red discs I vaguely remember happening were a generation ago with no other reissues ever, and they are ramping up in cost beyond my mild curiosity. Even I only found out that the band were basically X-Ray Spex in the last decade! That little tibdit of info didn’t cross the Atlantic press.