No Wave - ANOTHER Blatant Attempt To Influence Your Musical Taste

When Koen first shared his Propaganda project with us, I noticed that the second one was titled Propaganda (No Wave II). That parenthetical subtitle triggered a memory of the first A&M No Wave compilation album (with the  surfer on an ironing board). The title, of course, had nothing to do with Mars, DNA, Teenage Jesus, or James Chance. 

There's a picture disc version called No Wave To Go with the surfer on side one and a picture of a pizza on the flipside.  It was also released on "blue water" translucent vinyl.

Like its Propaganda sequels, there were other version of No Wave with different tracklists.  The Canadian version of No Wave drops the Stranglers' tracks and substitutes two songs by David Kubinec from his 1978 A&M LP Some Things Never Change. Kubinec's album was produced by John Cale, and it featured Chris Spedding and Ollie Halsall on guitar.  (The Stranglers were signed to A&M in the US, but not in Canada or the UK.)

There's yet another A&M compilation titled No Wave, which came out in 1979.  This one includes Kubinec as well as other artists featured on Propaganda -- Bobby Henry, The Secret, and Shrink.  In the UK, these artists were signed to Oval Records (which also released a version of Propaganda II). A&M had a deal with Oval Records, and promoted their artists through these compilations.  

Similarly, it was a deal between A&M and Miles Copeland which led to both No Wave and Propaganda featuring Squeeze, The Police, and Klark Kent. 

According to this interview with Dickies guitarist Stan Lee, A&M "had just kicked the Sex Pistols off the label and were wanting a punk band that wasn't so notorious."  The Dickies scored two hit singles for A&M in the UK. 

More trivia: Dave Murray from The Secret played guitar in Iron Maiden!  Bobby Henry was a member of a band called Bim, which included Stephen Street (who became a producer) and Cameron McVey (who cowrote "Buffalo Stance").

There's some overlap between the compilations, but now you have all the songs from the various versions of Propaganda, Propaganda II and the three versions of No Wave.  ELSEWHERE ON THE BLOG:  Stinky's Homemade Live Joe Jackson Albums.