THE DAMNED’S TAKE ON THE LOVIN’ SPOONFUL CLASSIC “SUMMER IN THE CITY” AVAILABLE TODAY
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With the final single from their forthcoming covers album, punk legends The Damned deliver a gritty and soulful reinterpretation of The Lovin’ Spoonful’s classic “Summer in the City”. With driving guitars and raw, energetic delivery, the cover heightens the song’s urban edge and captures the heat and restless pulse of city life through a distinctly damned lens.
The Damned’s new covers album, NOT LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE, is dedicated to the memory of Brian James, the band’s founding guitarist, who passed away in 2025. The album is out next week on January 23, via earMUSIC, distributed by BFD/The Orchard in North America. Every song on the album has been carefully curated by the band and is a tribute to their late guitarist and his influences. The offering was recorded in a blistering five days of emotion and creative fire at Revolver Studio in Los Angeles.
NOT LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE finds The Damned (Dave Vanian on vocals, Captain Sensible on guitar, Rat Scabies on drums, Paul Gray on bass, and joined by longtime keyboardist Monty Oxymoron) reconnecting with the raw energy that started it all. The album marks the first time in 40 years that Rat Scabies has returned to the studio with the band. To pre-order/pre-save NOT LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE, please click here. To access album art, please click here. Please see below for the full track listing.
In other news, 2026 marks 50 years of The Damned. 50 years of The Damned also means 50 years of punk, with the 1976 explosion hitting a half-century ago. The band jump-started the revolution, releasing the first UK punk single, “New Rose,” and album, DAMNED DAMNED DAMNED. Brian James wrote that debut single and was the lead songwriter on the album. He left the group after the release of their second album, MUSIC FOR PLEASURE, in 1977.
Ground-breaking rock band The Damned exploded onto the British music scene more than forty-five years ago. Following their formation in 1976, The Damned became the first UK band in the punk rock genre to release a single (“New Rose”) and then an album (DAMNED, DAMNED, DAMNED). Initially associated with the British punk rock movement and then gothic rock, the band went on to release ten studio albums and several UK-charting singles, which ran the gamut from punk rock to gothic to even the pop genre. They have legions of hardcore fans worldwide and have firmly established themselves as one of the most powerful and theatrical live bands in the world.
The Damned
[Single]
(earMUSIC)
Release Date: January 16, 2026
Pre-Order Not Like Everybody Else HERE
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Background Photo Credit: Sasha Lecca
