243. surfin’ dead

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“Wherein I apologize for not including any other Cramps offerings on this list. I guess, for me, they were first and foremost a live phenomenon, an ongoing mayhem of so-called Psychobilly and whatever atrocities Lux Interior, Poison Ivy and company felt compelled to commit on any given night. So I never got around to owning any of their albums. In fact, I only have Surfin Dead because it shows up on the soundtrack for Return of the Living Dead the best damned zombie movie of all time. Equal parts scary and hilarious. Rather like the Cramps.” (Philip Random)

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244. Giant

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“Don’t let the tricky name fool you. The The (mostly the work of just one man, Matt Johnson) are one of the pivotal outfits of 1980s, particularly Soul Mining, their first proper album, of which Giant is the final track, and yes, it’s at least as big as its name. And forever dedicated by me to everyone who’s ever chased their passions, pushed envelopes, stayed awake way too long, and gotten torn apart for their troubles. Because Giant seems to be about all of this — scared of God, scared of hell, caving in on upon itself.” (Philip Random)

(photo: Nicola Tyson)

245. sidewalking

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The Jesus + Mary Chain were never going to top their first album Psycho Candy in terms of zeitgeist grinding superlative noise. And yet they’ve managed to stick around for a good while anyway, always good for some dark, menacing pop thrills, like Sidewalking, a single from 1988 (the same basic pop historical moment that Public Enemy unleashed Bring The Noise — it was a damned fine year for disturbing the peace).

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246. warm leatherette

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“The Normal must have released more music than just 1978’s Warm Leatherette (and its b-side) but I’ve never heard any of it. Which makes them pretty much the perfect bit player in this ongoing pop apocalypse, working a one hundred percent batting average, because Warm Leatherette (a catchy hit of machine driven coolness about the car crash set, sado-masochism, the work of JG Ballard, other hip transgressions) remains entirely on the money and way ahead of its time.” (Philip Random)

247. remake-remodel

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“The first song from the first Roxy Music album makes it abundantly clear. This band is not concerned with the past. This is not a rock ‘n’ roll soaked in blues and authenticity. This is dissonance, angularity and cool high fashion, which no doubt must have felt like a hostile alien invasion if you were a certain kind of hippie in 1972. Hell, I didn’t even hear Remake/Remodel until at least 1979 and I just assumed it was some up and coming New Wave outfit, except they were way better than most. And I suspect the same would be true today. Still more about what’s to come than what has been.” (Philip Random)

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248. America is waiting

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“The gods must have had me in mind with America is Waiting, side one track one of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, Brian Eno and David Byrne messing with African beats and rhythms, disembodied voices, all manner of weird noises, everything coming together to call down the venal soullessness of Ronald Reagan’s America, like the atmosphere itself was speaking to my concerns. How could all this not go well with the copious quantities of LSD that were bubbling around at the time? But the drugs wore off eventually. My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts didn’t, never has. Others may have used samples before, merged noise and rhythm and all manner of exotic tangents and textures. But once Misters Eno and Byrne had done their bit, this sort of stuff was emphatically here to stay, part of the firmament.” (Philip Random)

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