It’s so sad to learn of the death of Blondie’s drummer Clem Burke, another of the Class of ’77 who has left us far too soon. Is this his finest moment?

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After a gap of 45 years and a long career in fashion, original Siouxsie & The Banshees guitarist John McKay releases his first solo album of archive material.

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The Spinners – aka The Detroit Spinners – enjoyed their only UK number one in 1980, a quarter of a century after they first formed.

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Roberta Flack sang two or three of the greatest and most ubiquitous songs in what you might call the Easy Listening Soul genre. But there was much more to her than that. A fantastic afro, for one thing; and the middle name Cleopatra for another… and this tune.

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I loved this song when it came out in 1980. I suppose synth-pop was a novelty at the time; it was certainly not something I associated with Robert Palmer, famed for his blue-eyed soul singing, sharp suits and model girlfriends.

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Who would have thought a pasty-faced weirdo and his Manchester mates could create something as funky as Sly Stone’s original? Yet that’s exactly what Magazine manage to do.

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When Tony Wilson signed A Certain Ratio to Factory Records in 1979 he told the world they were “the new Sex Pistols.” They weren’t, but they did leave their mark on Manchester music as one of the first bands to incorporate funk into an industrial take on postpunk.

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This refreshingly primitive punk nugget by The Innocent Vicars is one of those lost gems that you unearth by chance. Or in this case because I’m reading the singer’s newly published memoir, Strange Things Are Happening (Adventures In Music).

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Three hundred million YouTube viewers can’t be wrong – when it’s time to celebrate, this is the song. And what better time to celebrate than the turning of a new year.

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I’ve just discovered that my 12-inch copy of Cristina’s scandalous take on an old classic is a collector’s item. Apparently her new lyrics for a tune about the mundanity of life, and the need to “break out the booze and have a ball – if that’s all there is”, so offended the songwriters, Leiber and Stoller, that they successfully sued to get it withdrawn – at least for a time.

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