Song of the Day 2/6: The Damned, “I Just Can’t Be Happy Today”
This one’s pretty self-explanatory. It should hold true for, oh, the next 1,430 days or so. Not that I’m counting or anything.
The Damned were overshadowed by their more obnoxiously promoted contemporaries, the Sex Pistols, who headlined the first show The Damned played. They beat the Pistols to market as the first British punk band to release a single back in 1976, and an LP the next year. The Damned were considered the most accomplished musicians on the early punk scene while the Sex Pistols were purposely sloppy, but guess which band sold more records?
Their debut LP, the Nick Lowe-produced “Damned Damned Damned,” made it to No. 34 on the UK charts, but their second album stiffed, leading them to break up. After everybody’s solo projects went nowhere they reunited for 1979’s “Machine Gun Etiquette,” which included today’s tune.
After 1980 the band turned toward goth, with more commercial success. You could see that coming from the way frontman Dave Vanian dressed for the video of the single, “Neat Neat Neat,” from their first album.
