Holly Beth Vincent combined a feisty punk attitude with a smouldering sexuality and pop tunes you would remember in her short-lived band Holly & The Italians. None more so than this.

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I fell in love with Ellen Foley’s album Night Out the moment I heard this bombastic and blissful opening track – We Belong To The Night. With its piano runs, crunchy guitars, loud drums and epic Wall of Sound production, it could have come from a female-fronted remake of Born To Run.

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Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark came up with their eco-anthem Electricity, the foundation stone of synthpop, in the summer of 1979.

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It’s funny, looking back now, to recall that The Motels were sold as a “New Wave” band. This is the only song I remember – and it’s an epic ballad.

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Culture’s debut album Two Sevens Clash was a landmark release back in 1977. Joe Gibbs and I-Roy teamed up on the 12-inch version.

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Words can’t express how much I have loved this song from the very first time I heard it, with its litany of cultural icons that we all admire.

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Doll By Doll were something of a cult band in the punk/New Wave era, thanks mainly to the larger than life personality of their Scottish front man. (more…)

When it comes to music, it doesn’t take a lot to make me cry. Marianne Faithfull does it every time with The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan.

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Before Brian Eno and David Byrne came up with the idea of sampling snatches of ‘found sound’ from obscure transmissions, Holger Czukay was already at it.

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Black Uhuru were everywhere in the late ’70s. It seemed they would step into Bob Marley’s shoes after his death in 1981 – only for their lead singer, Michael Rose, to leave the group.

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