Another Kind of Blues

Another Kind of Blues

Onetime hairdresser Charlie Harper cut his teeth in London-based R&B groups before channeling his working-class ire through the English punk band U.K. Subs. And it worked in the frontman’s favor that he was older than his fellow Stooges-adoring blokes, because he could deliver a tune as if he were Eric Burdon’s kid bro: any lack of color in his powerful blues-weaned vocal charge was made up for in guts. And by the time this late punk entry dropped in early 1979, the four-piece was a ready, well-oiled machine. It showed, from the album-opening gate-crasher ("C.I.D.") to a chart-hit sing-along (“Tomorrows Girls,” a satire of some male-defined future) to an ever-ready anthem (“I Live in a Car”) to some early oi!/street punk (“Disease”) to fine examples of the era’s fist-pump punk-pop (“Stranglehold,” “TV Blues”).

You Might Also Like

Select a country or region

Africa, Middle East, and India

Asia Pacific

Europe

Latin America and the Caribbean

The United States and Canada