Eat to the Beat
Artist: Blondie
Community Score: 8.62

Just as Blondie's second album, Plastic Letters, was a pale imitation of their self-titled debut, Eat to the Beat, their fourth album, was a secondhand version of their breakthrough third album, Parallel Lines: one step forward, half a step back. There was an attempt, on such songs as "The Hardest Part" and "Atomic," to recreate the rock/disco... Read More

Tourists
Artist: The Tourists

The Tourists were a typical British post-punk power-pop group by the evidence of their U.K.-only debut album, The Tourists. Chiming guitars, quickstep martial beats (sometimes borrowing from Bo Diddley or the Ronettes), and the odd rude or belligerent remark ("Nothing means nothing to me," snarled in the first single, "Blind Among the Flowers")... Read More

Singles 45's and Under
Artist: Squeeze
Community Score: 8.00

Above all, Squeeze were a great singles act -- among the finest of the era -- and Singles 45's and Under offers proof of that fact, giving a chronological survey of their biggest hits from their early, pre-breakup period. Most of the songs can be found on the actual albums, aside from the slightly different single version of "Goodbye Girl" and... Read More

Talking Heads: 77
Artist: Talking Heads
Community Score: 7.89

Though they were the most highly touted new wave band to emerge from the CBGB's scene in New York, it was not clear at first whether Talking Heads' Lower East Side art rock approach could make the subway ride to the midtown pop mainstream successfully. The leadoff track of the debut album, Talking Heads: 77, "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town," was a... Read More

Cool for Cats
Artist: Squeeze
Community Score: 9.00

After the false start of their debut, Squeeze recast themselves as a quintessentially British band, packing the songs with exaggerated accents, British slang, and incorporating a nearly cinematic narrative style to make incisive observations on British working-class life with a sly, skewed wit and a sex-obsessed thematic undercurrent. Musically,... Read More

Indiscreet
Artist: Sparks

In the '70s and '80s, Sparks' American fans couldn't understand why the Mael Brothers weren't as big in the United States as they were in England. "Why don't more of our fellow Americans realize just how great these guys are?" was the question that Sparks addicts in the U.S. often found themselves asking. Whatever the reason, British audiences... Read More

Big Beat
Artist: Sparks

Most of this album finds Sparks doing what they do best: spewing out clever, mile-a-minute lyrics over solid-rocking accompaniment (this time, provided by a superior group of studio musicians). Drummer Hilly Michaels and guitarist Jeffrey Salen lend the Mael brothers' songs considerable rock & roll authority. Standouts include the opening blast,... Read More

Raspberries' Best
Artist: The Raspberries
Look Sharp!
Artist: Joe Jackson
Community Score: 9.00

A brilliant, accomplished debut, Look Sharp! established Joe Jackson as part of that camp of angry, intelligent young new wavers (i.e., Elvis Costello, Graham Parker) who approached pop music with the sardonic attitude and tense, aggressive energy of punk. Not as indebted to pub rock as Parker and Costello, and much more lyrically... Read More

The Cars
Artist: The Cars
Community Score: 8.26

The Cars' 1978 self-titled debut, issued on the Elektra label, is a genuine rock masterpiece. The band jokingly referred to the album as their "true greatest-hits album," but it's no exaggeration -- all nine tracks are new wave/rock classics, still in rotation on rock radio. Whereas most bands of the late '70s embraced either punk/new wave or... Read More

BBC Radio 1 Live in Concert
Artist: Ultravox
Community Score: 10.00