There was a thread that appeared on the 'Punk's Not Dead, But I'm Not Far Off' FaceBook page today, the 41st anniversary of the release of 'Phantasmagoria' that was discussing whether or not it was a shit album! I was a little surprised by this. As a fan of pretty much everything that the band have done over the past 50 years, I have to say that I rate 'Phantasmagoria' pretty highly in the ranking of their studio albums.
It wasn't far into the '80s that punk was particularly out of vogue. With all of the frills of New Romanticism and an all pervading attitude of 'We Just Wanna Have Fun!' infecting the charts, there was little room for anger and chaos anymore. The same music writers who were extolling the virtues of punk a few years before now dismissed the music and the musicians as old hat and irrelevant. If you happened to be one of those old and down punk bands, there were just two options available... adapt or die. In the case of The Damned, other circumstances were coming into play. Sensible, the clown prince of punk, had stumbled into a solo career and was now the property of Saturday morning kid's TV programming. Moreover, the band were for a time without any record company backing. The future was not looking good.
Then 'Phantasmagoria' happened and the band's fortunes were very much reversed. Fortunately, the band were old enough not to be recognised by a new cohort of the record buying public, but not too old to get airplay and TV time when the hits came. Thus is was that this album saved the band's life and for a time (admittedly a pretty short time) The Damned were once again the flavour of the month.
The Damned heeded the warnings and did indeed adapt. Not everyone followed that example.... think about The Clash!
It was a very different album from what came before it. But, there is no denying that it is one of the most consistent and complete albums that the band ever recorded.
I think that I read somewhere once that the album was very much admired by JJ at the time and was his Walkman (I'm sure he would have had one!) companion. Well, you've gotta keep an eye on the competition!
So here is a recording from one of the dates from the so-called 'Big Tour' of 1985.
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-XoHACc64kEfZ6NGy
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