Number 1: Blue Peter - Water Off The Moon

Canadian band Blue Peter formed in 1978 and released three full-length albums and one EP over the next six years. Those records contained great songs such as "Radio Silence" (#116 on this list), "Falling" (#56) and "Don't Walk Past" (#21). By early 1984, however, things had changed. New wave had faded in popularity; the clean, sparse synthesizer sound being replaced by a new pop sensibility. Blue Peter recognized this and set out to make a different kind of album. Vertigo, as the record was to be titled, would attempt to wed new wave, pop, and rock. A brave, original idea - something never tried before (and maybe since). Alas, it wasn't to be. The band disagreed on many aspects of the new LP. Compromises failed, and Blue Peter split up before Vertigo could be finished. The band was done, but one song survived in its complete form. "Water Off The Moon" was to have been the lead-off single from Vertigo.

Would "Water Off The Moon" have been a hit? Would Vertigo have saved new wave? We'll never know. Some demo versions, half-finished, have been released from the Vertigo sessions in the years since, on various greatest hits compilations and such. They're intriguing glimpses of what could have been, although no one can say for certain how those songs would have turned out had they been completed by the band.

We only have one finished song from Vertigo: "Water Off The Moon".

For its fantastic bassline, its driving drums, its subtle, almost-hidden-at-times synthesizers, its amazing, cryptic lyrics, its haunting vocals by Paul Humphrey, and for all the lost potential it carries with it to this day, "Water Off The Moon" gets the ultimate spot on my Top 200. In some alternate universe, Blue Peter stayed together and released Vertigo at the absolute height of their creative powers. In the real world, we can only listen to this song and imagine what that record might have sounded like.


Live performance from 2008 (Blue Peter reunited in 2006):

I hope everyone enjoyed listening to the 200 songs I picked, and reading my little write-ups. It was fun for me, and I hope it was fun for you. I would encourage anyone who might want to give it a go to do so! I'd love to read *your* top 200 (or 100, or 300, or whatever).

This blog is now finished, but great new wave and synthpop from that era will always be with us, a reminder of what I consider a better and more interesting time in the history of pop music. I'm out, cheers!  -Marc