Birthday Number 1s: 1980 - Use It Up and Wear It Out

 Use it Up and Wear it Out - Odyssey

1980 was a more uneven year in general for Number 1s than 78 and 79. Quite a few classics, but a lot more filler. It was a big year for The Jam and Blondie, but I've written enough about them, so probably for the best that Number 1 on 1st August is some of that filler, this solid disco banger by Odyssey.

I've always been quite intrigued by Odyssey, in that they left very little cultural footprint but had five pretty memorable massive hits in the UK,

I also remember seeing them on TOTP2 and they were pretty atypical, a mixture of races, styles and ages which suggested more of a novelty troupe than a chart-topping machine.

Their hits were Native New Yorker, Use it Up and Wear it Out, If You're Looking for a Way Out, Going Back to My Roots, Inside Out. They all stayed on the charts for months and went Top 6. The songs had different writers (not the group) including Sandy Linzer and Lamont Dozier. 

The main vocalists of Odyssey were the Lopez Sisters who, according to wikipedia, were all born in the early 1930s and died in the 2010s.

There have been many other acts called Odyssey, it seems, but this is the most successful.

Of those hits, all of which are pretty enjoyable, If You're Looking for a Way Out is the one that stands out to me. It's a very sad song. I remember hearing it when I was younger and thinking, that's an incongruously sad song. It seemed very grown up, in both lyric and melody. It's actually such a sad song that it was covered by Tindersticks. There can be no greater badge of honour.

Use it Up and Wear it Out is by no means such a sad song. It was covered by Pat (Sharp) and Mick (Brown). There can be no lesser badge of honour. That version was one of several singles released by the Capital DJs in aid of Help a London Child, and reached Number 22 in the charts.

Bearing in mind I heard it before the Odyssey version, it is hard to take the song seriously, but I've been listening to it this week, and the original is, needless to say, a lot better. I can understand why the young folks of the UK were dancing to it in the summer of 1980, just before they gave themselves over to The Winner Takes It All, Ashes to Ashes and Start!

Needless to say, being two, I am not yet following the charts, but that time is not that far off.