Review: Fish From Space (State of Decay)

From TARDIS Eruditorum

Peter Murphy had to tone it down a bit before Bauhaus really took off.

It’s November 22nd, 1980. Blondie remains at number one with “The Tide is High.” A week later ABBA take over the spot with “Super Trouper,” their last number one hit on the UK charts. It remains at number one for the remainder of the story. The Police, The Boomtown Rats, Kool and the Gang, UB40, and John Lennon also chart. Meanwhile, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Clash, and Devo lurk about in the lower portions of the charts, the latter with “Whip It,” which peaks in the 50s, which is probably considerably lower than people would guess if pressed.

In real news, we should probably start with the murder of John Lennon, which, a week later, causes his then declining single “(Just Like) Starting Over” to suddenly jump from 22nd to number one and prompting a hurried rerelease of “Imagine.” Because for an anti-capitalist pacifist legend John Lennon and Yoko Ono were nothing if not shrewd businesspeople. A massive earthquake kills nearly 5000 in southern Italy. And Jean Donovan, and American missionary, is murdered in El Salvador along with three Catholic nuns. Her singles, of which there are none, do not chart as a result.

While on television, it’s 1977. Those who enjoy the ways in which the musical charts and Doctor Who oddly parallel will be bemused that 1977 was by most standards the peak of ABBA’s popularity, and that the last time ABBA was at number one was during The Invasion of Time, the last story of the season that was meant to begin with The Vampire Mutations by Terrance Dicks. Unfortunately the BBC was busy doing a high-profile adaptation of Dracula at the time and Head of Drama Graeme MacDonald commenced the first of a long series of butting heads with Graham Williams and ordered the script spiked for fear that Doctor Who would be seen as “sending up” the BBC’s more serious adaptation. It was replaced by Horror of Fang Rock.
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