Whether or not they were guilty of a music business sell-out, by the mid 1980s The Damned were the sole surviving remnant from 1976’s original UK punk rock scene.
Immensely important historically, but until this point scantly recognised commercially, the band must surely have felt it was time they got a break. Equally, however, they must have known that any commercial success they did get could damage their cred with longtime fans – such was the inverted snobbery of punk…
There were, indeed, some sell-out accusations in 1985, after The Damned essentially dumped the sonic attitude of punk (on record at least) to capitalise upon the then very much in-vogue goth trend. They’d aligned their collective image more centrally towards goth, and created a definitive goth album in the shape of Phantasmagoria.
Their new-for-’85 focus brought them chart placings, and Top of the Pops appearances, and they were now touring much bigger venues…
It was the first significant commercial success The Damned had had, and it came after a long period that had looked fairly directionless – some of it without a record deal. In 1983 and 1984, The Damned had only released one single, and no albums of new material. They’d remained together and played some amazing live shows in those years – and they did release a live album in ’83 – but they were barely writing, and they barely had any product to sell.
So was the goth “reinvention” of 1985 really a sell out? Was it even a reinvention? It was a strategy change, for sure. But the truth was that lead singer Dave Vanian, along with Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees, had been introducing the goth image, music and sensibilities to punk generation audiences since the 1970s.
Would it really have been right that Vanian’s historic, monstrously influential, trend-leading group should retain only a cursory link with what was now a red hot fashion, and miss out on the rewards, while a raft of latecomers jumped onto the goth bandwagon and cashed in? The Damned had released the seminal goth masterpiece Curtain Call in 1980 – years ahead of the goth craze. And it’s still one of the best goth records ever made.
Indeed, 1985’s Phantasmagoria was not significantly different in feel from Curtain Call, so it could be argued that there had been no real change in direction at all.
It was almost inevitable that as The Damned began to experience commercial success, a barrage of their old but previously unreleased recordings would storm the market.
And they did. The mid eighties brought punk albums like Damned But Not Forgotten, Not the Captain’s Birthday Party and Live at the Lyceum. Very predominantly well-known material, and catering for the band’s older fans, who preferred the group with a rougher edge and the character of unlikely part-time pop star Captain Sensible, who’d left the band in the second half of 1984.
But the king of Damned retrospectives released in the wake of the band’s newfound chart presence, was surely the one depicted at the head of this post: The Light at the End of the Tunnel.
It’s a whale of a compilation, with 27 defining Damned tracks, charting the life of the band. From the first UK punk single ever released – New Rose – through the aforementioned goth masterpiece Curtain Call and the brilliant 1982 production Stranger on the Town, to newer work from the goth albums Phantasmagoria and Anything – and of course the hit 1986 single Eloise. It’s a great overview of what, for most of its first decade, was an incredibly underrated band.
The double cassette, released in 1987 on the MCA label, has bright red leader sections and a high spec ferric formulation. And whilst most longtime fans of The Damned would already have all of the included tracks, there would doubtless have been many who discovered the band in its goth phase, and whose eyes would have been opened by this album, to the vibrant musical history of intelligent punk at its best.
Tape Tardis 