Soul Jazz Records’ new Secret Superstar Sounds brings together a wealth of punk/power pop tunes from late-70s/early-80s British group’s that you have probably never heard of!
Power pop mixed together a love of lyrical and melodically beautiful 60s pop and garage sounds together with the energy and attitude of 70s punk. Almost completely out of kilter with the fashions of the day (punk, new wave and post-punk) these bands managed to fall between the musical cracks at almost every step of the way - leaving them practically unknown to all but a few.
Inspired by the D-I-Y messaging of bands like The Desperate Bicycles, Sniffing Glue fanzine and early UK punk labels like Stiff, Chiswick and Rough Trade, these bands chose mainly to go into a studio and make their own private press/D-I-Y records themselves - then try to work out everything else (promotion, marketing, etc) afterwards. As mainly outsiders to the mainstream music industry, and usually unable to make any inroads into it, save for sending their own record to John Peel, most of these bands fell at the first hurdle.
These records remain both beautifully crafted 3-minute musical gems, and long-lost micro-histories of an essentially hidden genre.
Featured bands here include The Squares, The Meanies, The Monitors, Plummet Airline, Tours, Gobblinz, Krypton Tunes and more. Most of these records were self-published D-I-Y releases made in very limited-editions and were often the only tracks ever released by these groups
1 Gobblinz - London
2 Plummet Airlines - It's Hard
3 Xdreamysts - Right Way Home
4 Tours - Language School
5 The Squares - No Fear
6 The Monitors - Compulsory Fun
7 The Meanies - It's True
8 Jeff Hill Band - Something's Wrong With My Baby
9 The Squad - 24 Hours
10 Krypton Tunes - Limited Vision
11 The Zeros - Hungry
12 The Wardens - Do So Well
13 The Letters - Nobody Loves Me
14 The Tunnelrunners - Forever Crying At Love Songs
15 Comic Romance - Cry Myself To Sleep
