Over the next few weeks, to mark the release of our volumes in Continuum’s 33 1/3 series, we will feature a series of guest playlists from friends, critics, and fellow music lovers. Given that both our books focus on New York in the 70s, we’ve asked contributors to curate lists along the lines of a loose theme: “favorite NYC records.” What constitutes a “NYC record” is left to their discretion.
Our first list comes from Marvin Taylor, Director of Fales Library and Special Collections at NYU, which hosts an extraordinary collection of material related to New York’s Downtown Scene in the 70s and 80s. Taylor also edited The Downtown Book, which we highly recommend. Marvin’s list, he writes, comes “off the top of my head”:
Klaus Nomi, “Lightning Strikes”
Dean and the Weenies, “Fuck You”
Blondie, “Heart of Glass”
B-52s, “Rock Lobster”
Glenn Branca, “Hallucination City: Symphony for 100 Guitars”
David van Tieghem, “Ear to the Ground”
Talking Heads, “Psycho Killer”
Richard Hell and the Voidoids, “Blank Generation”
Afrika Bambaataa, “Planet Rock”
John Sex, “Hustle with My Muscle”
What’s on your NYC playlist?
I’ve been looking for “Ear to the Ground” ever since I saw it at the Downtown Show at Grey Gallery several years ago. So glad to have that clip.
And I’ve never seen/heard the Klaus Nomi “Lightning Strikes.” The Lou Christie original is one of my favorite guilty pleasures.
Klaus has always been one of my favorite performers. I, too, love Lou Christie, and, well all that early 60s American music. Leslie Gore is divine.