The 1981 Listening Post - Angelic Upstarts - 2,000,000 Voices

 Angelic Upstarts - 2,000,000 Voices

#244

June 1981 LISTENING POST DISCOVERY

Angelic Upstarts

2,000,000 Voices

Genre: Oi Punk

4.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Ghost Town

Mensi’s Marauders

Last Night Another Soldier

This is a fascinating album. It’s more like an OI manifesto. The songs are loud and scabrous and sometimes delicious. But I am more attracted to the spoken word “Heath’s Lament” and how it leads into “Guns for the Afghan Rebels”. I know that punk dies a swift death in the 80s, it wasn’t a movement designed to be long lasting because it’s reactionary. Which also means that, depending on what artists are reacting to, “punk” will change. It could be spoken word, it could be aggressive, it could be funky, it’s an attitude. 

Thing is, this album is more appealing to the ear than the punks of the day, it’s almost Clash-like. Even going so far as to dive into Reggae in “I Understand”. And…fiddle on “Mensi’s Marauders”!

Each track is a bit of a surprise and it really doesn’t have a down spot on it. I swear I’ve heard “Last Night Another Soldier” before. It’s excellent in a way that Jones and Strummer used to be. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/2-000-000-voices/691543291

The 1980 Listening Post - Angelic Upstarts - We Gotta Get Out of This Place

Angelic Upstarts - We Gotta Get Out of This Place

#135

April 3 1980

Angelic Upstarts

We Gotta Get Out of This Place

Genre: Punk

2.5 out of 5

Requisite 80s cover: “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”.  At least they didn’t open the album with it but…naming your record after a cover of a very famous Animals song? That only works if, like The Replacements “Let It Be”, that song isn’t on the actual album. 

It’s a fail. 

We really only need one Ramones. When you add “Oi!” to it, it ends up sounding like Rancid. But, Rancid is better. 

Musically and lyrically this could be a high school band that loved the Ramones (and didn’t Joey and the boys hit it bigger in the UK?) so it makes sense that bands like this and Cockney Rejects would exist. But I liked the latter a lot more than this, which I found derivative and pedestrian. 

Points off for “Capital Cities” obvious attempt to be The Clash. It does not succeed. 

https://www.allmusic.com/album/we-gotta-get-out-of-this-place-mw0000032302