Pleasure

iTunes Editors’ Notes

British punk/new-wave darlings Girls At Our Best! were not an all-female band, as many assumed, but three guys plus the exuberant Judy Evans on vocals. They released little during their years together (1979 - 1982), just a handful of singles and one album. Originally released in 1981, Pleasure contained 10 songs (tracks 7 through 16 here), and this 2009 re-release on Cherry Red adds on the real jewels of the band’s work. The first five songs are the group’s earliest singles, all of which charted on the U.K. Indie charts (the flipside to track five was “I’m Beautiful Now,” track eight). The group’s legacy is embedded in two songs in particular, the emphatic and cutting “Getting Nowhere Fast” and the sprightly “Politics!,” representing the power and range of both the band and Evans’ delightful vocals. Their cover of the traditional “This Train” was the flipside to the “Fast Boyfriends” single, and though certain Cherry Red extras — namely four BBC tracks — are not included here, the collection as presented is a timeless, essential link in the evolution of rock music.