Episode 6: Music for Evenings: Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth

EPISODE 6 LINK

Colossal Youth was released in early 1980, making it one of the first records of the decade to achieve icon status. While never on the tip of the tongue at the time this unassuming record yet haunted everyone who heard it. With no Australian release if you had a copy you really had to want it as it was an import and priced as such. Let's just say it launched a thousand cassette players.

At a time when post-punquers like The Cure or The Banshees were refining and learning the power of their quieter sides (both bands released records that year than turned the volume down and the atmosphere up) they were simply no match from this trio from Cardiff who played to taped drum machines and sang like they were waiting for the jug to boil.

I traded my cassette in for a UK vinyl import when I moved to Melbourne and it became the soundtrack to the first few months of my life there as I gradually pecked at a social life to come. The sadness, whimsy and deceptive naivete of this record made good company. It was smart, funny, heartrending and literate and if you couldn't dance to it (I wonder if anyone ever tried) you could sing along (mentally, of course, don't want to alert the neighbours).

Glenn came to the record much later which is, fittingly, why we begin with his recollection.