In April 1978 my favourite group of that time, The Only Ones, released their eponymous* debut album. Everyone’s favourite track was Another Girl, Another Planet. Except me.

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I was never too sure about The Depressions. Unconvincing in both look and sound, they were described cruelly but accurately by the NME as being one of the last bands to jump on the punk bandwagon – “just as the wheels were coming off.”

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Elvis Costello’s initial run of singles was as strong as anything in pop history. This is arguably the best of them – the opening single from his third album Armed Forces.

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Sparks are a phenomenon. One of a kind. Or, to be precise, two of a kind. Russell and Ron, the Mael brothers, are still going strong with a combined age of 151.

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One of the great underappreciated bands of the postpunk era, The Sound not only erm, sounded like Joy Division but met a similar fate, with their singer taking his own life.

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Here’s another oddity from the depths of my singles collection. It’s either by Chris Sievey or by The Freshies, depending on how you look at it.

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Ruefrex (originally Roofwrecks) were the most musically interesting of the Belfast punk bands. And the most uncompromising, fearlessly ignoring the sectarian divide to take their music to both sides of the divide at the height of the Troubles.

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Xdreamysts were signed up by Polydor at the same gig as Protex. Their single, Right Way Home, was one of the first releases on the Bad Vibrations but unlike most of their labelmates they didn’t even pretend to be punks.

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The Outcasts, a kind of rootsier Undertones also featuring three brothers, were another of the first wave of Ulster bands, but bad luck blighted their career. One of them was killed and another badly injured in two separate car crashes.

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On a sunny day in 1976 I joined 150,000 other people in Knebworth Park to see The Rolling Stones. The line-up that day included Todd Rundgren’s Utopia, 10CC, Hot Tuna and, immediately before the headliners, Lynyrd Skynyrd.

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