“Weekend” / “Cool” (Safari Records SAFE 31) October 1980
The Boys | “Weekend” | (Safari) 1980 | Kicking off my new feature ‘Transistor Pop’ on ‘The Monocled Alchemist’ are The Boys with their fabulous power pop gem from the back end of 1980.
“Weekend” is one of those anthemic coming-of-age teenarama’s when the whole of the weekend revolves around going out and having a good time with your mates.
I don’t know how or why The Boys never became as popular as other bands of their ilk back in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Not a lot of action in the music press at the time probably didn’t help matters to raise their profile.
The Boys | “Weekend” | (Safari) 1980
The often smug Mark Ellen at least mentioned them in his review column of Smash Hits.
The Boys revive some pretty mainstream pop cliches; girls, romance, telephone calls, money and things going wrong. They mine the same seam as Joe Jackson but sound about twenty years behind. (Smash Hits, October 1980)
Chart action: None
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About ‘Transistor Pop’
I was a kid in the 1970s and just like every boy back then I spent my days playing footy, Subbuteo, buying football stickers and tuning into Radio 1 on a cheap transistor radio.
“Transistor Pop” is a place within my ‘Junk Box Jury’ blog where I’ll highlight 45rpm highly regarded singles I heard being played during the ’70s and early ’80s.
Transmissions
These are singles that rarely and perhaps will never find their way on death row in charity and junk shops. They will be mostly punk and new wave records from my archives.
My intention is to find and reproduce vintage music press reviews and articles associated with the disc under the spotlight.
Stand proud and accept my applause John Peel, Dave Lee Travis, Mike Read, Richard Skinner and David ‘Kid’ Jensen.
During my adolescence they were the disc-jockeys who’s radio shows I tuned into on my turquoise plastic transistor radio.
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