My Top 1000 Songs #349: Everybody's Happy Nowadays

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

Damn, talk about a killer 7" single! I've already shared my deep love for the b-side, the extended bass-driven groove of "Why Can't I Touch It," so now let's flip that wondrous 1979 platter over.  (Ok, I don't buy singles; I'm just scrolling around one of the greatest singles collections ever released.) "Everybody's Happy Nowadays" was my introduction to the Buzzcocks, courtesy of a mixtape back in my early teen years. I'd been told they were a punk band, but this was not what I imagined punk sounded like. It's just an almost absurdly catchy pop song. Sure, the tempo and the energy are all ratcheted way the hell up, far exceeding anything else passing for pop music at the time. And, ok, Pete Shelley's vocals weren't gonna get him on Chicago's mainstream radio stations. But still, this was what I assumed was playing nonstop on every radio station in the cooler cities outside my suburban enclave.

Lip-syncing on Top of the Pops:

Live in 1981: