Review:

on 2012-03-17 CharlesMartel Said:

The Only Ones were an odd band. Right from the start they were odd. They were lumped in with the punks, though they had been formed some time before punk took off in the UK, and had a decidedly un-punk sound, not to mention the fact that they were talented musicians. And they didn't even look like punks. OK, vocalist Peter Perrett could pass as one - just - but the portly, follically-challenged guitarist John Perry and the well-worn (let's be polite) rhythm section of Alan Mair and ex-Spooky Tooth drummer Mike Kellie could not have been further from the punk mold of snot nosed teenagers with spiky hair. Yet the band were clever enough to know that being associated with the punks in 1978 was no bad thing - it got your music heard and that was the priority.

Yet it all ended in tears. Within a few years the band broke up under the effects of massive drug taking and Perrett being charged in the US with attempted murder. Yet their debut album remains one of the finest albums of its time and whether you are into punk or not, it is worth checking out for the quality of the music and the variety of styles that it contains. Perhaps it was the diversity of the bands members, but the Only Ones were able to switch effortlessly from pure and inspired pop, to jazz-inspired melodies ("Breaking Down") and up-tempo rockers ("City of Fun"). It was, at the same time, their most impressive quality, but also their most frustrating as they conveyed the impression that they really hadn't settled on what sort of band they wanted to be.

The band's persona was dominated by Perrett - the other three being too self-effacing to project themselves. Perrett was a gifted songwriter with a unique voice, mimicking that of his hero, Bob Dylan, and possessed of the sartorial style of the hippies despised and derided by the punks. The band's persona was therefore linked inextricably with the sort of anti-style that Perrett developed, something which definitely did suit the punks, but pissed off the record company no end. What also pissed off the record company was the fact that three of the band were self-confessed drug addicts. The lyrics of the tracks on "The Only Ones" are littered with drug references and this posed serious problems for CBS when it came to marketing the band.

In addition to having a majority of its songs related to drugs, if there is a common theme running throughout the album it is a sense in which Perrett is a part of or an observer to a kind of idealised yet world-weary fatalism. The tone is set with the opening track, "All of the Law", whose title is a reference to a quote from another drug addled aesthete, Aleister Crowley. From then on, the tracks on the album take the listener on a journey through the darker side of love. "Breaking Down" is about the mental anguish of ending a relationship while "Creature of Doom" links the love which people feel to a disease akin to vampirism. But drugs are never far from top the agenda. In "It's the Truth" we are treated to the fascinating banality of a conversation between two heroin addicts while "Language Problem" is one of the few tracks to reference drugs openly in the lyrics, where no-one can mistake the meaning. Finally, on "No Peace for the Wicked", Perrett's world-weariness finally takes complete control of him and for the first time it is as if he begins to struggle to justify, rather than to observe, the existence which he has created on the album. This extended CD has three additional tracks of varying degrees of interest. "Lovers of Today" was the first single put out by the band while Peter and the Pets was the name of one of Perrett's earlier musical forays as well as being the b-side to "Lovers of Today". Neither has much to recommend it other than curiosity value. The third bonus track is another b-side, "As My Wife Says".

Despite the obvious musical quality of The Only Ones it pretty much bombed in the UK. It made no impact on the album charts and was soon regarded as a musical curiosity on the edge of punk rock. The fate of the band themselves perhaps stands as a warning to those who feel that drugged out life is a valid awareness raising method for producing music. Years later, the album has finally begun to get some of the recognition due it. But the Only Ones are long gone. They may have reformed in 2007, but their obvious musical achievements lie in the past.

You will note that I have not made reference to one particular track on the album. That omission is deliberate for I wanted to leave mention of it right until the end. "Another Girl Another Planet" is the stand out track, not just of this album, but of the whole of the Only Ones musical output. Although it never made it as a single, it is, without doubt in my opinion, the finest piece of three-minute pop music ever recorded. From the moment I first heard it in 1978 as a filler on TV, I fell in love with it. It has continued to be among my favourite songs of all time ever since. And though it is yet another song about drugs, it remains the one piece of music from the Only Ones which everyone should hear before they die. In the normal ten-star rating system, this rates a full ten stars and, if for no other reason, the presence on this album of "Another Girl Another Planet" makes it well worth the album's rating.
Rating: 8/10