All I really remember about Téléphone is that they were French and that I have a single made of red vinyl in the shape of (you guessed) a telephone.

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Here’s some more French punk: Stinky Toys may have been the first, Métal Urbain were the crème de la crème.

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French punk… who knew?! Well, anyone who went to that seminal Punk Festival at the 100 Club back in 1976, where Stinky Toys played alongside the Pistols, Clash, Damned and Buzzcocks – and were attacked onstage by Sid Vicious.

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This came out in 1977 when I was pogoing in a seedy cellar somewhere to a snotty young band that sounded nothing like this. But if you love soppy soul ballads, with a sweet singer emoting at the top of his range and backing vocalists echoing his heartfelt words back at him, then this is for you.

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Considering rule one of punk was to adopt a convincingly anti-social working-class persona, Rikki And The Last Days Of Earth made a rookie error. They had the look – all leather and spiky hair – and they were certainly early adopters, releasing their first single in May 1977.

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I went to see Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers for the first time at Hammersmith Odeon in the summer of ’77 and he sang Ice Cream Man – six times in a row.

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Has there ever been a more perfect match of a song to the opening scene of a movie? It’s impossible to think of Saturday Night Fever without the bouncy rhythm of Stayin’ Alive coming into your head.

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There are few stranger bands than The Residents, as much a performance art project as a pop group, rom their experimental avant-garde image to their experimental avant-garde sound.

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John Otway is one of those great English eccentrics this country occasionally produces, like Vivian Stanshall and Syd Barrett. In a career spanning half a century he’s had just two hit singles, 25 years apart. This is the first of them, with his musical partner Wild Willy Barrett.

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