Another Girl, Another Planet

"Another Girl, Another Planet"
Single by The Only Ones
from the album The Only Ones
Released	1978
Format	Vinyl
Recorded	April 1978
Genre	Punk rock new wave
Length	3:02
Label	Columbia
Writer(s)	Peter Perrett
Producer(s)	The Only Ones Robert Ash
The Only Ones singles chronology
"Lovers of Today" (1977) "Another Girl, Another Planet" (1978) "The Whole of the Law" (1978)
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"Another Girl, Another Planet" is a song by the English rock band The Only Ones, the second track on their first album, The Only Ones, released in 1978. The song has since been covered by several other performers.

Background and content

"Another Girl, Another Planet" is by far The Only Ones' best remembered song and has become something of a standard, covered by several notable artists. Although the Only Ones are often considered a one-hit wonder, the track was not a chart hit upon its initial release in 1978. The track's first chart appearance was in July 1981, when it appeared at No. 44 for one week on the New Zealand chart. More than a decade later, it was re-released in the UK in January 1992, backed with "Pretty in Pink" by The Psychedelic Furs to promote the compilation album, Sound of the Suburbs. It appeared in the UK Singles Chart for two weeks, peaking at No. 57.^[1][2]

The record is distinguished by soaring guitars, wounded vocals and Peter Perrett's elliptical lyrics. AllMusic describes it as "Arguably, the greatest rock single ever recorded".^[3] The track was recorded on a 16-track analogue Studer tape machine and an ex Steve Marriot Helios mixing console at Escape Studios, a residential facility in Egerton, Kent, UK, by engineer/producer John Burns, assisted by Ian (later aka Jennifer) Maidman, and later worked on and mixed at Basing Street studios by Robert Ash. ^[4]

Recognition

The song was placed at number 18 in John Peel's all-time Festive Fifty millennium edition and when playing it in 1980's Festive Fifty, he introduced it as an "artful little caprice".^[5]

In March 2005, Q magazine placed the song at number 83 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.

In popular culture

The song's title was used as the name of a 1992 American independent movie directed by Michael Almereyda,^[6] though the song does not appear in the film. It does appear, though, in two British films and the commercially released soundtracks - That Summer! (1979) Me Without You (2001). It also appears in Different for Girls (1996),^[7] and the song was also on the soundtrack of D.E.B.S. (2004). The Only Ones' version was used in the opening of the 2011 film Paul.

The Only Ones' original was in use for a Vodafone commercial in the UK in 2006, but was later replaced with a cover version by Bell X1. It is also the "on hold" music when Vodafone customers call in to discuss their accounts.

The lines: "You get under my skin but I don't find it irr-i-tating, you always play to win but I won't need reha-bil-itating, oh no, I think I'm on a-nother world with you... with you, I'm on another planet with you... with you-oo. another girl, another planet, another girls another planet": of the song's chorus were used in the novel Junk by Melvin Burgess. The book was set roughly around the early and late 1980s. It was used to explain the mindset of the punk and anarchist characters care-free and criminalistic lifestyles.

Cover versions

Possibly the first album cover of the song was recorded in 1986 by Greg Kihn. The Replacements played the song live in concert at least as far back as 1981; it finally appeared on the B-side of one of their final singles, "Achin' to Be", in 1989. The song also appeared as a B-side on the Lightning Seeds' single "Ready or Not". Another cover was recorded by the Mighty Lemon Drops. The Mushuganas had a cover on their self-titled album in 1998. More recent covers include those by Blink-182, Belle and Sebastian, Ex-Hefner member Jack Hayter and Babyshambles, though the last has not been commercially released. The Perrett family was invited on stage at a Libertines gig at The Rhythm Factory in 2004 to play the song which explains that link. The London Punkharmonic Orchestra released Symphony Of Destruction: Punk Goes Classical, an album of late 1970s punk/new wave songs redone in classical arrangements, including "Another Girl, Another Planet". The Nutley Brass have also recorded an easy-listening, brass-band synthesiser version. The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain have covered it in their pseudo-twenties, seven-ukulele-and-voice style, as featured on their compilation album Top Notch.

Blink-182 cover

"Another Girl Another Planet"
"Another Girl Another Planet" cover
Promotional single by Blink-182 from the album Greatest Hits
Released	2005
Format	CD single
Recorded	Late 2004 Larrabee Sound Studios (Los Angeles, California)
Genre	Pop punk
Length	2:42
Label	Universal
Writer	Peter Perrett
Producer	Blink-182

Blink-182 recorded a cover of this song for the opening track of Travis Barker's MTV reality show Meet the Barkers. It was later released in 2005 on their Greatest Hits album. The Blink-182 version features an alteration to Perrett's original lyric by way of "I could kill...." rather than "I look ill...", which is speculated to be because Blink-182 has used the Replacements' cover for their reference point, and not the original. This was also the last song Blink-182 recorded until their 2011 album Neighborhoods. Although not an official single, it peaked at No. 99 on the U.S. Billboard Pop 100.

References

External links

• Allmusic Track Review for The Only Ones original
• Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics