THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE: Another Girl, Another Planet

Based on an earlier piece, this was prepped for inclusion in my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), but is not part of that project's current plan. In fact, this chapter's hook of the unique ways in which we discover new records was intended to lead into a piece about a song introduced to me by a girl who wanted to become a Playboy Playmate. That chapter will probably be in the book, if it does become a book.

An infinite number of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!

THE ONLY ONES: Another Girl, Another Planet
Written by Peter Perrett
Produced by The Only Ones and Robert Ash
Single from the album The Only Ones, Columbia Records [UK], 1978

I've been thinking of the unique ways in which we can discover favorite songs. I came to the Only Ones' wonderful 1978 record "Another Girl, Another Planet" via a various-artists soundtrack LP I borrowed from a friend. I don't think I'd heard the Only Ones prior to hearing my friend's copy of That Summer!, the companion album for a movie I knew nothing about, but which earned points for assembling a cooler collection of tunes than you'd expect from a major label in 1979.

How cool was the That Summer! soundtrack album? Man, it had the Undertones, Elvis Costello and the Attractions, the Boomtown Rats, Mink DeVille, Patti Smith Group, Nick Lowe, Wreckless Eric, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Richard Hell and the VoidOids, Eddie and  the Hot Rods, the Ramones, a fantastic song called "New Life" by the Zones, and "Another Girl, Another Planet." Duly hooked by my friend's copy, I bought one for myself at my earliest opportunity.

"Another Girl, Another Planet" is not exactly obscure in our shared circle of new wave rock and pop. But I have no idea when in my timeline I would have gotten to the song if not for That Summer!  How many songs do we miss entirely, potential Greatest Records Ever Made that fail to move us only because they failed to reach our ears in the first place? There's so much out there. Old and new, past and present. We need to hear it all. We need to have friends to hip us to the sounds we need. And we need the radio to do its job.

Radio's job is to sell records. I don't mean that in just the literal sense of compelling a listener to part with cash or credit to assume ownership of an irresistible treat he or she just heard on the wireless (though I do also mean the literal part, too). Radio has to sell you the sound. It has to. It has to make you aware of the music you didn't know existed, and to make you its fan. 

Another girl, another planet. Another show, another song. Another job to do. Let's get to it. There are some songs we need to hear. Listen my children, all you girls and boys: let the sound fill every planet. One after another.

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Carl's new book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is now available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. Gabba Gabba YAY!! https://rarebirdlit.com/gabba-gabba-hey-a-conversation-with-the-ramones-by-carl-cafarelli/

If it's true that one book leads to another, my next book will be The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Stay tuned. Your turn is coming.

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl