Gang Of Four - Damaged Goods & The Undertones - Get Over You

Still here, lurking on the downlow since originally posted three planetary revolutions ago. Re-presented again because both singles are brilliant in their own way and should be listened to frequently over and over again.

Gang Of Four - Damaged Goods 7''EP MP3

A.     Damaged Goods

B1.  Love Like Anthrax

B2.  Armalite Rifle

                             

The Undertones - Get Over You 7'' MP3

A.     Get Over You

B1.  Really Really

B2.  She Can Only Say No

 

The Undertones – Hypnotised

It's hard to follow up a classic, as the Undertones themselves well knew, starting their second album with the endearingly self-effacing "More Songs About Chocolate and Girls," a song that acknowledges the difficulty of writing and recording a second album after the unexpected popularity of your first. Surprisingly, the lads make a good job of it; Hypnotised is only barely less perfect than the debut, and even the primary flaw, a pointless and rushed cover of "Under the Boardwalk," has its charms. Other than that misstep, the album contains 14 punky pop classics, with a slightly tougher edge than the unfailingly sweet-natured debut. The giddy love rush of the title track is matched by some of Feargal Sharkey's most exuberant vocals, and the snotty "What's with Terry?" and "My Perfect Cousin" are yet more perfect slices of adolescent frustration.

Jimmy Jimmy

What is a perfect album? One could make an argument that a perfect album is one that sets out a specific set of artistic criteria and then fulfils them flawlessly. In that respect, and many others, the Undertones' 1979 debut is a perfect album. The Northern Ireland quintet's brief story is no different than that of literally dozens of other bands to form in the wake of the Clash and, more importantly, the Buzzcocks, but the group infuses so much unabashed joy in their two-minute three-chord pop songs, and there's so little pretension in their unapologetically teenage worldview, that even the darker hints of life in songs like the suicide-themed "Jimmy Jimmy" are delivered with a sense of optimism at odds with so many of their contemporaries. There's no fewer than three all-time punk-pop classics here; besides that song, the singles "Teenage Kicks" and "Get Over You" are simple declarations of teenage hormonal lust that somehow manage to be cute instead of Neanderthal; perhaps it's Feargal Sharkey's endearingly adenoidal whine, or the chipper way the O'Neill brothers pitch in on schoolboy harmonies, like a teenage Irish Kinks. All of the other 13 songs, even the 47-second blip "Casbah Rock," are nearly to that level of brilliance, with the frenetic "Girls Don't Like It" a particular standout.