The great Gary Crowley was sitting in for Robert Elms on BBC Radio London this morning. Up for your listening pleasure was a four-fer made up of Stiff Records classics. It’s quite a back catalogue to dive into there.
The occasion was 50 years of Stiff. It’s not quite a continuous timeline, but 50 years is 50 years. I still love the Stiff Records mantra from back in the day: If It Ain’t Stiff, It Ain’t Worth a Fuck.
Best not saying that live on BBC Radio London.
Fittingly, the four-fer opened with the very first release on Stiff Records: Nick Lowe’s So It Goes. It’s a perfect power pop song and set the agenda for what was to follow.
Ian Dury’s is My Old Man followed. This is another great London song, as were the next two choices, Kirsty’s New England and Baggy Trousers. What a back catalogue.
A brief online shifty of the Stiff Records Discog, and it’s a case of being spoilt for choice here. Woh! Where to start?
You could have chosen The Damned’s New Rose, the very first punk single, or the Banshee’s Hong Kong Garden, although I doubt that will get any airplay any time soon with some very questionable lyrics.
There’s the whole early Elvis Costello back catalogue including the peerless Allison. And then we have Wreckless Eric with Whole Wide World, Jona Lewie and his Kitchen Song, plus some early Devo.
The label developed a little over the years with Madness always propping it up with their strong singles back catalogue. Every release from One Step Beyond right through to One Better Day came out on Stiff.
The later years as Stiff entered into the mid-80s, included the Belle Stars, Temple Tudor and even John Otway, with a ropey cover of Green Green Grass.
The Freshies also featured as an early incarnation of what would later become Frank Sidebottom. You can see what a diverse label it is when Stiff was also putting out side by side early singles by the Pogues.
Along came Tracy Ullman, Graham Parker and King Kurt. Yello somehow slipped in there, along with an unlikely release by Motorhead.
The very final releases included Furniture’s Brilliant Mind, as well as one of my favourites, the Every Kind of People cover by Mint Juleps.
That would all make for a bloody impressive compilation. There’s various Spotify playlists out there, but nothing covering the entire back catalogue.
Stiff is my new fave old label.