Lyn Todd – "Buy Your Love" (1980)

I don’t want to buy your love

With diamond rings

I wish I knew more about the late Lyn Todd, who recorded today’s featured song in 1980.

“Buy Your Love” was originally recorded by the Victims, a New York City punk band, in 1979.  It was written by the band’s frontman, Richard Reilly.

Lyn Todd covered the song the next year.  It was released on her only album, Lyn Todd, which was produced by Bobby Orlando:

Orlando – also known as “Bobby O” – produced and performed on hundreds of “Hi-NRG” records.  (Hi-NRG music is an uptempo disco/EDM genre – Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” is a good example.)

Most of the tracks on the Lyn Todd album – including her covers of the Who’s “Pinball Wizard” and David Bowie’s “Rebel, Rebel” – are pure hi-NRG in style.

But “Buy Your Love” is very different.  It’s classic New York City-style punk.

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It appears that Lyn Todd died in December 2010.

I’ve been unable to find anything about what she did in the thirty years between the release of the Lyn Todd LP and her death.

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Lyn Todd’s cover of “Buy Your Love” would have escaped my attention entirely if Steven Lorber hadn’t played it on his “Mystic Eyes” radio show in the summer of 1980.

Click here to listen to Lyn Todd's cover of “Buy Your Love.”

Click here to listen to the original recording of the song by the Victims.