The Normal-T.V.O.D/Warm Leatherette

Artist: The Normal
Album: T.V.O.D. / Warm Leatherette 7"
Release: 1978
Label: Mute

Tracklist:

1. T.V.O.D.
2. Warm Leatherette

In the UK in the late 70's, a rash of young upstart bands jump-started the DIY movement by releasing their records themselves instead of waiting for a record label to support them. The Buzzcocks, the Desperate Bicycles, and Scritti Politti, among other groups, self-released scrappy singles, creating buzz for their bands because their message was intertwined with their medium. With lists of itemized costs on inserts, DIY groups confronted their audience with a simple message: if we released a record, why haven't you yet? Daniel Miller, at the time a film editor who DJed on the side, took the DIY challenge to heart, kicking off his nascent label Mute Records with a double A-side single, "T.V.O.D./Warm Leatherette", under the name The Normal. Unlike most of his peers, who made their punk and post-punk sounds using traditional rock instruments, Miller used the rudimentary synthesizers and sequencers of the day to make ultra-minimalist, ultra-modern music. Shunning the progressive excesses of groups like Tangerine Dream and Pink Floyd, The Normal was closer in spirit to Suicide - like Alan Vega and Martin Rev, Miller used the limitations of his equipment as inspiration.

Personally, I think "T.V.O.D." is the stronger track on this single. Miller's repetitive, detached lyrics have an intriguing television-as-narcotic metaphor: "I don't need a TV screen / I just stick the aerial into my skin / and let the signal run through my veins". "T.V.O.D." has a peppy scending keyboard melody that runs throughout, which possibly influenced monophonic cell phone ringtones from 1998. It ends with a piercing high-pitched tone that on first listen could be mistaken for a locked groove.

"Warm Leatherette" is the more well-known of the two tracks, thanks largely to covers by Grace Jones and Trent Reznor, among others. Inspired by JG Ballard's classic novel Crash, "Warm Leatherette" features Miller sternly intoning the song's title over a hissing/squelching synth loop and primitive drum machine beat, probably set to "Foxtrot" or some other normally useless pattern. Like Crash, the lyrics juxtapose violent car crashes with sexuality, as the "warm leatherette / melts on your burning flesh," and "the hand brake / penetrates your thigh".

This 7" was Miller's only release as The Normal. A collaboration with fellow Mute artist Robert Rental, Live at West Runton Pavilion, was released on Rough Trade as a one-sided 12" collaboration. In addition to running Mute, Miller also engineered some of the hottest post-punk and synthpop acts of their day, including Mute signees Depeche Mode and Erasure, and released a conceptual new wave record as the Silicon Teens, featuring 50's rock and roll songs done in a synthpop style.

This is my personal rip of this record - another rip that's floating around has some nasty surface noise, and this one is pretty clean considering the record's over 30 years old. Thousands of copies of this record were pressed and are floating around, and you should be able to score one for less than the cost of a t-shirt made out of a trash bag if you keep your eyes out. At the very least, this record is worth a listen, as a wide swath of the spectrum of "electronic music" owes a debt to The Normal.

http://www.mute.com/index.jsp

http://www.mediafire.com/?it1zzzqw21m