Sparks - The Number One Song In Heaven

Here's the comeback single from the Mael brothers which got them back into the UK charts after several years out of the charts and back home in America. They were influenced by the electronic sounds that Giorgio Moroder was coming up with producing Donna Summer and they wanted to try other areas of music and so they teamed up with Moroder to produce the album Number One In Heaven for Virgin Records.

The single was released in the UK in April 1979 and reached number 14, which was their biggest hit since 1974. To help the single along, it was released in limited edition green vinyl 7'' and red vinyl 12'' which are highly collectable. The band found a new audience but the bands original fans accused them of selling out to the more commercial disco sound that was in the charts, they just wanted to try a different sound.

Here's the single sleeve and the green vinyl single. The first time I heard the single on Top Of The Pops I just had to buy it and if I remember rightly, it cost me the sum of 90p, a bargin in those days!

Squeeze - Cool For Cats

The second single from the album of the same name, Cool For Cats hit the charts in March 1979. Helped by the single being released in pink vinyl, the song complete with Cockney rhyming slang and the Cockney vocals of Chris Difford became the band's biggest hit at that point reaching number 2. The video with dancing, singing girls to the chorus was shown a lot on TV at the time as it was still a rare thing to have a video to a single in those days. When I bought the single it was one of the first few singles I managed to buy in coloured vinyl, it was also released in a rarer deep pink vinyl too!

The Police - Roxanne

Fresh from their record contract with Illigal Records, the band were signed to A&M Records after the label heard this track. Roxanne was first released in the UK in 1978 but never achieved much success and had to wait until the next single, Can't Stand Losing You had been a hit and then Roxanne got a reissue and the rest is history. The song was based around a guy falling for a prostitute and falling in love with her. The single originally was banned by the BBC because of the subject matter but I think the reissue recieved airplay and got to number 12 in 1979.

Here is the single in blue vinyl and complete with the picture cover, it was reissued again in 1980 as part of the Six Pack in a different sleeve and a different shade of blue!