- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- How could I resist an album with a name like Troublemakers? The recording artists are typically punk rock and new wave bands, and most have two songs.
Troublemakers (Various Artists) (1980): How could I resist an album with a name like Troublemakers? I only recently realized that Troublemakers is yet another Warner Bros. Records double-album loss leader like Hot Platters and an additional half dozen or so albums in my collection. The artists are typically punk rock and new wave bands, and most recording artists have two songs, though not together on the album. Troublemakers opens, naturally, with a Sex Pistols song, “Anarchy in the U.S.A.” – a different song from “Anarchy in the U.K.”, their debut single – and closes with portions of their live performance of a song by the Stooges, “No Fun”. After Sex Pistols broke up, Johnny Rotten reverted to his real name, John Lydon and started a post-punk band called Public Image Ltd. (PiL); two of their songs are on the album, “Public Image” and “Swan Lake”, as taken from their albums, Public Image: First Edition (1978) and Metal Box (1979), respectively. The world-famous #1 song “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles – the first music video played on MTV, on August 1, 1981 – is included, along with another of their hit singles in the U.K., “Clean, Clean”; both songs appear on their 1980 album The Age of Plastic. There is also a song by Nico, “My Only Child”, from her third album Desertshore (1970); Nico contributed to the first album by the Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967) at the insistence of Andy Warhol. Two songs from Marianne Faithfull’s comeback album Broken English (1979) are included, the title song “Broken English” and a cover of the John Lennon song “Working Class Hero”; I gave you that album earlier. Two songs are also provided by the original proto-punk–rock band the Modern Lovers that was formed by Jonathan Richman in 1970 (though no recordings were released until after the band broke up in December 1973), “I’m Straight” and “Government Center”, both produced by Kim Fowley. Urban Verbs is a new wave band from Washington, D.C. that was formed by vocalist Roddy Frantz (the brother of Chris Frantz of Talking Heads) and guitarist Robert Goldstein, who also are the band’s songwriters. “Subways”, which was also released on a 12” single, and “The Only One of You” are taken from their first of two albums, Urban Verbs (1980). Robert Goldstein was later the music librarian for National Public Radio (NPR) for 20 years and a manager in their research and archives division. Robin Lane provided backing guitar and vocals on “Round & Round (It Won’t be Long)”, a song on Neil Young’s second album, Everybody Knows this is Nowhere (1969). She later connected with a Boston rock band, and Robin Lane & the Chartbusters recorded a popular EP that led to a minor hit song, “When Things Go Wrong”. The group landed a record deal, but their debut album Robin Lane & the Chartbusters (1980) suffers from uncaring production values; “Don’t Wait till Tomorrow” and “Kathy Lee” come from that album. Wire is an important English rock band that started as a punk rock band and are known for their atmospheric sound and experimental song arrangements. The strangely titled “Map Ref. 41°N 93°W” and “I Should Have Known Better” are taken from their third album that has a post-punk sound, 154 (1979); that is the number of gigs that Wire had played up to that point in time. John Cale is a Welsh musician who is a founding member of the Velvet Underground; since he left the band in 1968, Cale has released 16 solo albums with a wide variety of musical forms that include classical, avant garde, and electronic as well as rock. John Cale has produced the debut albums of the Stooges and Patti Smith, as well as several tracks by the proto-punk–rock band the Modern Lovers. The song on Troublemakers, “Temper” is previously unreleased. Gang of Four is a leading English post-punk band that, despite a few lulls, is still active. David Fricke of Rolling Stone magazine described Gang of Four as “probably the best politically motivated band in rock & roll”. “Damaged Goods” and “Anthrax” both come from their debut album, Entertainment! (1979) that was ranked by Rolling Stone as the fifth greatest punk rock album of all time. The Akron, OH new wave band Devo has such a mannered musical vision and bizarre appearance that they seem to have been designed as a cult band, though they did attract a large following in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s that peaked with their #14 Gold hit “Whip It” (1980). “Social Fools” is a 1978 single by Devo that was released only in England. Pearl Harbor and the Explosions (sometimes spelled Pearl Harbour) are one of the first American bands identified as new wave, having formed in 1978 in San Francisco. “You Got It (Release It)” is a standout track and the second single from their debut album, Pearl Harbor and the Explosions (1979); while “Busy Little B Side” is on the flip side of that single but not on the album. Most songs are identified as to the album they are taken from, in keeping with the function of Troublemakers as a loss leader, although a sizable number are marked as being “previously unreleased in the U.S.”