SotD82 - Part 7

Inspired by our series of articles looking back at music released 30 years ago, Jimmy Hunter takes a step further back in time to give us some more Songs of the Day from 40 years back, SotD82...

Find Jimmy's other SotD82 articles here

By now you may or may not know [or care – Ed] that Life In Tokyo is my favourite track from Japan and I gushed about it at length three years ago. Yes, although Quiet Life may now be the record the band is most remembered for, the fact is that it’s the band’s biggest commercial hit single. This goes to show that the great British record buying public were not entirely daft, sending this almost art-house experimental synth-pop record to no. 5 in the charts. Ghosts is a strange single yet a mesmerising one and a prime example of how musical tastes change over time – I wasn’t interested in this record 40 years ago, but I really enjoy it now.

Here's the 2003 digital remaster: 

And Live on the Old Grey Whistle Test featuring the wonderful Ryuichi Sakamoto: 

Talk Talk is one of those bands that I never think of as being around/prominent so far back – for some reason I always seem to associate them with the late ‘80s. I’ve no idea why, but possible because I bought their first “greatest hits” album in *checks notes* 1990 [you’re weird – Ed]. Yet their hit singles pepper the singles chart of the 1980s and I remember them all. This single was written and first recorded during a previous post-punk incarnation of the band in the late ‘70s, but this version very quickly had the “new wave” label thrown at it. Fair enough, it’s a great example of new wave was actually about.

When a memory stirs, do you ever get a feeling of what it felt like at that point in time? A fleeting feeling of being back there [No… are you not well? – Ed]? I got exactly that feeling when the first bars of Promised You A Miracle rang out on listening to it several years ago for the first time in a very long time. I really do think this period was the band’s peak output and creativity. Don’t @ me [ *cough @JimJamGin on Twitter *cough* - Ed], we all have different views on this, and I know many who think this was (just) the start for the band. And in many ways it was, commercially speaking. This record did well as a kick off single for the summer ahead of an album tour (which was fantastic).

Here's a high quality audio only version:

and a live appearance on TV:

I know the next choice in this weeks’ batch has superb [musical] credentials and it’s also (been) praised by the “cool crowd” – you know, the folk who talk knowledgably on “authentic” music. Yeah, I just don’t like it. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that the music/melody have just never appealed to me. Papa’s Got a Brand New Pigbag is and always will be a James Brown track but that doesn’t mean you have to like it (to appear cool). (To prove this point, try telling the cool crowd that you never liked The Beatles that much and really couldn’t care less about The White Album).

Here are Pigbag on Top of the Pops:

And the 12" remix just because:

It's quite unforgiveable [yes, it is - Ed] that I omitted Easier Said Than Done from last year’s selection because I remember it clearly. Shakatak (the band name) comes from The Record Shack – an amazing record shop (now, no more) in Berwick Street in London’s Soho (my all-time favourite record shop) that showed interest in the band’s initial (white label) single release Steppin. Oddly, when you look at the history of jazz-funk Shakatak is rarely, if ever, mentioned and I think that’s a great shame because it’s one of the only original bands/outfits from the early-ish period to still be touring today, over 40 years later.

You can find the live version here [no, we can't share that video here because it's blocked. So, to make up for that, here's the full album version too: - Ed]