Singles

Rip It Up, Issue 22, 1 May 1979, Page 22

Singles

GEORGE KAY

White man’s disco and the Mael boys, Sparks, make something of a comeback bid with "The Number One Song In Heaven”. Produced by Giorgio Moroder, Donna Summer’s mentor, the song bulges with fast calculated synthesiser. Blatantly opportunistic, and the same could be said for Paul McCartney’s "Goodnight Tonight" but it boasts a great bass line easily outdoing the funk-by-numbers formula of Foxy’s “Hot Number”, Dan Hartman’s "This Is It" and Parliament’s "Aqua Boogie”. The Average White Band are still going but they sound tired on "Atlantic Avenue” unlike Amli Stewart’s hyper-active gutsy version of "Knock On Wood", buy it. Three out of three ain’t bad as Village People chalk up their third dumb irresistible hit, "In the Navy”... It’s marking time this month. Elton Motello looks dangerous on his album Victim of Time but sounds pretty safe on his up-dating of the instrumental "Pipeline”. Auckland’s new hopes Russia make a very promising start with the tentative but tastefully arranged/written "Lissa", and Ensign's new signing, Robert Johnson, has guitars flying all ,over the place at

breakneck speed on I TH Be Waiting". He’could * be worth watching. New on the scene Jules and the Polar Bears supply tuneful heavy metal on "You Just Don’t Wanna Know”, similar in content to Toto’s heavily airplayed “I’ll Supply the Love”. Stiff are still plugging away even though they lost Lowe and Costello. Out front they have two red hot females, aloof Lene Lovich who makes the mistake of putting her best song "Home" on the flip but A-side “Lucky Number” is catchy enough, and schoolgirl prodigy Rachel Sweet who proves on "B-A-B-Y" that she has the best country rock voice to emerge from anywhere in sometime. The great rock and roll swindle has been going on for years and now the Sex Pistols are onto it with a cartoon pic-sleeved 45 “Something Else", "Friggin’in the Riggin’ ’’ taken from their double album The Great Rock'n ’Roll Swindle. Eddie Cochran’s standard "Somethin’ Else” features a surprisingly reasonable vocal from the late Sid Vicious and a slightly laidback performance from the band. They almost sound American. “Friggin’ ” is a drunken baawdy novelty. You’ll only play it once. I hope the double album is a helluva lot better than this.