Jon Savage loathed the 1976 singles chart so he’s made an album of should-have-been hits

Jon Savage detested the UK’s mid-‘70s hits with a vengeance, “records so bad they made you want to strangle every deejay on Radio One, especially Dave Lee Travis”. Which is why he’s compiled ‘Jon Savage’s 1976: Something Was Going To Happen’, 24 ground-breaking tracks released the same year that paved the way to the future. He looks back here from his home in Anglesey at the thrill of hearing them the first time aged 22, the many highlights including …

… hilarious memories of the nauseating Jeans On, Fernando, No Charge, Combine Harvester and Save Your Kisses For Me

… and his undying love for Eddie and the Hot Rods, Pere Ubu, Candi Station, Burning Spear, Miami and the Flamin’ Groovies

… cheap Ronco and K-Tel compilations and Radio One’s stranglehold on popular taste

… what happened at parties when you took off Steely Dan and played the Ramones

… “reggae records never seem to date”

… seeing the Runaways at the Roundhouse and the Clash at Fulham Town Hall with the future Poly Styrene

… the first review he ever had published

… the early ‘70s ‘underground’ - psychedelia, prog, metal, glam, reggae and disco

… and hunting for records at One Stop, Dobells and Harlequin.

Order copies of Jon Savage’s 1976 album here: https://www.acerecords.co.uk/jon-savages-1976-something-was-going-to-happen

And look out for Jon’s brilliant books, among them

England’s Dreaming (about to be republished with a new Derek Jarman cover), Teenage and 1966.

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