In 1977, English punk rock band The Stranglers released their debut studio album Rattus Norvegicus. The album's ambituous reggae-influenced song Peaches was the bands second official single, and despite being censored by the BBC the song managed to hit Number 8 on the UK singles chart. The song's strong sexual language and theme was somewhat uncommon at the time. Peaches was later re-recorded with toned-down lyrics suitable for radio play - "oh shit" was replaced with "oh no", and "clitoris" was replaced with "bikini". Nonetheless, the song's title is a slang term for cunnilingus - a slang popularized in 1972 by The Allman Brothers Eat a Peach album. Rattus Norvegicus got it's title from the scientific name for a brown rat, and the album release party was held at Water Rat Pub in Chelsea. The album was produced in one week, and it was one of the top selling albums from the UK punk rock era. The video below is from a 1978 performance at Battersea Park - the show was eventually shut down by the police after semi-nude strippers accompanied the band for the song Nice 'n' Sleazy.

.In 1983, English singer and songwriter Elvis Costello had his first US top 40 hit single with Everyday I Write The Book. The song was featured on Punch the Clock - Costello's eighth studio album. He wrote the song in about 10 minutes as a challenge to himself to write a simple and typical "formula" song. The music video for the song became a MTV classic - it features domesticated look-alikes of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in a suburban setting. In 1977 Costello released his first album My Aim is True on Stiff Records. The label was only distributed in the UK at the time, and out of frustration with the lack of attention from US labels he staged a impromptu street performance outside a convention of CBS Records executives in London. His performance was shut down and he was arrested for busking - the act of performing in public for gratuities. The protest stunt managed to get the attention of label executives, and he was soon signed to Columbia/CBS. At the end of the year, on December 17, 1977, Costello had a big break in America when he was booked to perform on Saturday Night Live to replace the cancelled Sex Pistols. In the intro to the agreed upon song - Less Than Zero - Costello began yelling "Stop! Stop!" to his band, then he played Radio Radio - a song producer Lorne Michaels had specifically forbidden him to play (the song is an attack on the commercialism of the airwaves). NBC and Michaels banned him from the show for this (which was lifted in 1989), Meanwhile his antics garnished a lot of attention and helped to boost his popularity and record sales in the US.