It's a fact of life that you have to wait for most good things. Perhaps it is also true that good things always seem to come in threes. To prove the point, The Only Ones have, at long last, had their three original studio albums re-mastered, re-released, and sent out into the world with sparkly new packaging.
Okay, it may have taken about thirty years to really do them justice but believe me, in this case, it was well worth all that patience. Those in the know, that can still remember, will be aware that the opening statement in the album notes for this re-released self-titled debut album is spot on. It says simply, ‘The Only Ones were the best British rock band of the 1970’s and maybe since’.
As statements go, this one is 'in your face' huge. Everyone has opinions of course and many will disagree. However, many more of us who were actually there and experienced the near frenzy caused by an Only Ones gig might well be knowingly nodding in partial middle aged agreement.
Sadly their sales and subsequent reputation both paled next to many of the other bands that emerged during that time. Having said that, the albums they left us are a different matter and a quick blast through this particular time warp shows that they really could rock. By that I mean timeless rock, and not only that, their albums most definitely stand the test of time.
It was 1976 in south London when The Only Ones began to get together. This was, of course, the year of the punk explosion a movement that literally kicked the pompous overblown butt of many a major band and changed the rock world for just about ever.
Despite this, The Only Ones weren’t really punks. The album notes tell us that, ‘they were too clever, too musically literate to be punks – although that is how they were sold at first.’ They add, ‘they were too acidic to be hippies, and too disillusioned with what rock had become to be the conventional Brit hard rock band’.
I like to think of The Only Ones as a sort of Brit cousin of Television. Yet they were horribly overlooked and sadly almost forgotten. Until 2006, that is. That was the year that the band rose from its grave when one of their best known tracks, “Another Girl, Another Planet” was resurrected by an ageing adman and appeared on a television mobile phone advert.
Suddenly, we all woke up from our slumbers and remembered one of the ‘best British rock bands of the 1970’s’. What followed was a reunion, a brief tour of the UK, a couple of festival appearances, and some substantiated rumours of a new album.
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