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Post by Prole Hole on Aug 17, 2020 4:26:11 GMT -5
1980 – “Antmusic”, Adam And The Ants Yes please
More people should talk about Marco Pirroni. He’s awesome. Quite apart from the fact that he appears to be a fantastically chilled, intelligent and knowledgeable individual he’s also a spankingly good guitarist and an incredibly important figure in the punk scene. He’s also one half of the powerhouse behind practically all of Adam And The Ants / Adam Ant’s 80’s success (co-songwriter and musician), he’s all over Sinead O’Connor’s best work, and of course there’s the whole Siouxsie And The Banshees time. He’s just one of those musicians who adds to absolutely everything he appears on but never seems to get all that much in the way of recognition. That’s not to take away from Adam Ant’s contributions to this song – and we’ll get to that momentarily – but Pirroni is such an important part of this song it would be an injustice not to mention him straight off the bat. Because in truth we have a bit of a cheat this week. “Antmusic” was released in November 1980 (thus technically qualifying, the best kind of qualifying *) but didn’t ascend all the way to the hallowed Number 2 slot until January 11th 1981. 1981 is, however, very much spoken for. Little else of consequence got stuck at Number 2 in 1980 though and, without wishing to pre-empt What Else Happened In 1980?, it’s a bit of a strange year on the singles charts. The biggest song of the year was released by a band who don’t do singles – that would be Pink Floyd with “Another Brick In The Wall Pt 2”. The second is “Woman In Love” by Barbara Streisand. The third is the exceedingly saccharine “(Just Like) Starting Over” by John Lennon and the fourth is original-choice-for-this-article “Funkytown” by Lipps Inc. That is, by anyone’s standards, a mixed bag stylistically. And that’s fairly representative of the year in general. It’s a mixed bag. Disco is still very much a presence, and the fifth-biggest selling song of the year is Diana Ross’s “Upside Down”, but it’s also clear from that list where its place is now – and that’s in fourth and fifth position. So if disco is losing its grip, the obvious question is “what’s coming in to take its place”? Step forward one Mr Ant, or Adam to his friends. Adam Ant is a strange figure in some ways, someone who despite massive mainstream success tends somewhat towards the margins. He’s bound up in New Romantic imagery, what with the make-up, flashy none-more-80’s videos, pirate and highwayman characters and whatnot, but his sound – heavy on the glammed up guitars and double drummers – eschews the more typical synth-and-remoteness approach embraced by much of the New Romantic movement. Bands that went big on chunky guitars as part of the New Romantic movement aren’t really a significant feature of the early 80’s charts, where the synth reigned supreme. Ant is also a product of the punk scene who committed the one sin one must never, ever commit. He left it. It means that he is, at best, a peripheral figure in that scene, even though he’s got two songs on Derek Jarman’s Jubilee – if one needs to check credentials – and there’s not much that’s more punk than that. But at a certain point, and frustrated with the lack of career momentum, fate, in the guise of Malcolm McLaren, intervened. He was brought on board as a manager to give Adam And The Ants the career push they needed. However “intervened”, in this case, meant after being appointed manager McLaren promptly stole the “… And The Ants” part of Adam And The Ants and hived them off into a project of his own, Bow Wow Wow. And, you know, Bow Wow Wow aren’t the worst band the 80’s produced, not by a long chalk. They were mildly controversial. “I Like Candy”’s a solid tune. But it’s hard to escape the idea they left at exactly the wrong point. The … And The Ants That Became Bow Wow Wow, were replaced by … And The Ants which brought the Right Honourable Mr Pirroni into the picture and, well, things were never the same again. Adam And The Ants first album is Dirk Wears White Sox. It’s a good album. Their second is Kings Of The Wild Frontier. It’s an absolutely terrific album and criminally underrated. It’s an album full of swagger and attitude and it’s very easy to love because it’s just so goddamned confident. And it spawned three hit singles, “Kings Of The Wild Frontier” (fantastic), “Dog Eat Dog” (slightly less fantastic), and “Antmusic”. “Antmusic” is the key. It’s a manifesto, basically. It’s not his only manifesto – the biggest of which, “Stand And Deliver”, is the peak of his career – but it’s an effective one nonetheless. It is, in its own way, an anti-disco song, though it’s not anti-disco in the “disco sucks” mould, but rather in a way that argues for progress rather than staleness. Now if you want to call that self-serving you’re not wrong – what is being argued for as a replacement is the vague, nebulous concept of “ant music”, whatever that is – but it’s an absolute rarity in its time for finding a third way between “disco” and “disco sucks”. The thing about the agenda the song has, and this is such a crucial testament to the time in which it was released, is that you really need to see the video to get it. The lyrics have a degree of pointedness about them. “It’s so sad when you’re young / to be told you’re having fun” sings Ant on the first verse, and the chorus is “so unplug the jukebox and do us all a favour / that music’s lost its taste so try another flavour”. “That music” in the song isn’t specified. But watching the video it’s explicitly disco that’s being talked about. And it’s not an entirely unfair point. Disco is a good six year old now, and there’s a sense that it’s done all it can do. Whether “ant music” is a viable alternative is another matter, but in arguing for progress rather than stagnation Adam Ant is at least offering an alternative rather than just another slanging match. This philosophy, if that’s not too grand a word for it, will go on to reach its zenith in “Stand And Deliver” when punk’s squalid on-brand commercialisation, too, becomes his target with the dandy highwayman “so sick of easy fashion”. This will be expanded, later, on “Ant Rap” where we’re informed that Adam Ant is, “so tired of anarchists looking at me / don’t need their credibility / destroy, they say, defy, condemn! / as long as you don’t destroy them”. It’s an evolving process. And that process begins, here, with “Antmusic”. And it begins with those big-ass chunky Pirroni guitars. “Antmusic” is ridiculously simple in terms of its construction, but that’s also what makes it so appealing. The verse is just D, E and A. The chorus has the temerity to throw in a B flat, G and *gasp* F sharp. That’s it. And yet just listen to the way Pirroni powers his way through those handful of chords. They sound practically alive the way he drags them out of his guitar, like they’re almost playing themselves. Pirroni’s a master of producing that kind of guitar sound and nobody can quite do it like him. The lyric, shrieked, yelped and bludgeoned out by Ant, is a perfect fit for Pirroni’s style, hand in glove. Underneath that hammer the double-drummers, using the Burundi beat not much in evidence in popular music up to this point (well, unless you include Adam And The Ants’ previous two singles) but powering the song along on an unstoppable wave of percussion. And there’s the break, where the whole song comes to a staggering halt, propelled simply by the drums as Ant moves into a slightly more threatening mode, before a huge Pirroni guitar slash and a launch back into the chorus. It’s a fabulously ostentatious moment, but that’s Adam Ant – ostentation is pretty much the price of entry. And “Antmusic” is, indeed, an excellent entry point to a commercially successful act that never quite get the recognition they deserve. It’s not hard to understand why – the sheer, screaming 80’s-ness of everything occludes something rather smarter lying beneath the surface and the success-for-a-few-years-only fits neatly into corny I-Love-The-[DECADE/YEAR] nostalgia pieces. But that’s very unfortunate. Adam Ant’s chart success is a near-perfect collection of singles, he bothers to write lyrics miles away from standard 80’s vapidity, and “Antmusic” is a great part of that run. Vive le rock. * Basically this is my series and I’m not being puritanical about it so my attitude is “ah, fuck it”. What Else Happened In 1980? Well the biggest headline of the year is, of course, John Lennon’s murder in New York. That happens at the end of the year though – at the beginning, in January, Lennon’s former bandmate Paul McCartney is arrested for drug possession in Japan. Ian Curtis of Joy Division hangs himself and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin is found dead. Cheery stuff, 1980. The Sony Walkman launches in the US and Jah Wobble acrimoniously departs Public Image Ltd. The Psychedelic Furs release their debut album, and Young Marble Giants release their only album, the hugely influential Colossal Youth. Judas Priest release their landmark, British Steel, and McCartney releases his first post-Wings solo album, McCartney II. It’s remarkably good. AC/DC are Back In Black and Olivia Newton-John is, sadly, in Xanadu. Rap arrives in the form of Kurtis Blow’s debut album, and both The Teardrop Explodes and INXS release their first albums as well. We’ve covered the best-selling singles already but attention must also be drawn to The Jam, who top the charts for three weeks with the immaculate “Going Underground” and Dexy’s Midnight Runners with the straightforwardly brilliant “Geno”. And, to round us off, David Bowie releases the album all his other albums will get measured by, giving us the career-highlight that is Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps). What Did We Nearly End Up Discussing?
The original song slated for this article was “Funkytown” by Lipps Inc but due to a combination of not being able to think of anything to say about it and “nefarious outside influences” from the not-we (hello, Andrew) it – quite rightly – got trashed in favour of “Antmusic”. There’s something to be said about one-hit wonders, of course, and “Funkytown” is certainly one of those, but this will be coming up later in the series. In the 90’s, in fact, if you want to play guess-the-song. “Funkytown” itself is… fine. Nothing special. Decent riff. Vocorder-a-go-go. You know the drill. Rankings: 1. The Beatles - "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane" 2. Stevie Wonder - "Sir Duke" 3. The Kinks - "Lola" 4. Jean Knight - "Mr Big Stuff" 5. Elvis Costello - "Oliver's Army" 6. The Animals - "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" 7. Sly And The Family Stone - "Everyday People" 8. Adam And The Ants - "Antmusic" 9. The Sweet, "Ballroom Blitz" 10. Petula Clark - "Downtown" 11. Queen, "Killer Queen" 12. Blondie, "Denis" 13. Elton John - "Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time)" 14. Tom Jones - "Delilah" 15. Gloria Gaynor - "Never Can Say Goodbye" 16. Eddie Cochrane – "Three Steps To Heaven" 17. Wings - "Let 'Em In" 18. The Troggs - "Wild Thing" 19. Jimmy Dean - "Big Bad John" 20. Chubby Checker - "Let's Twist Again" 21. Billy J Kramer And The Dakotas - "Do You Want To Know A Secret" Next Week On We’re Number Two… Dellarigg ’s Lament, or, Cold War Gothic For Beginners.
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Dellarigg
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Post by Dellarigg on Aug 17, 2020 5:52:44 GMT -5
These were the first big music craze I was old enough to spend some of my parents' money on, though that didn't happen till the Prince Charming stuff, at which point I dug back into someone's discography - the first time I did that, too. It was an exciting thing, I suppose, colourful, what with all the dressing up and the face painting. Outward things to latch onto to show your allegiance (not that it ever went as far as face painting or dressing up for us). I remember the daughter of someone me mam worked with went to see him live, claiming that he'd looked right at her, and I felt the second hand thrill of it all.
But - I was still too young. I had a lot of his stuff, liked a small amount of it, tried to convince myself I liked all of it (though I couldn't get anywhere near liking Ant Rap), and probably gave up on the whole endeavour after a few months. Music wouldn't take hold of me properly till a couple of years later. More on the first ripples of that next week, it looks like.
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Post by Prole Hole on Aug 17, 2020 8:23:38 GMT -5
These were the first big music craze I was old enough to spend some of my parents' money on, though that didn't happen till the Prince Charming stuff, at which point I dug back into someone's discography - the first time I did that, too. It was an exciting thing, I suppose, colourful, what with all the dressing up and the face painting. Outward things to latch onto to show your allegiance (not that it ever went as far as face painting or dressing up for us). I remember the daughter of someone me mam worked with went to see him live, claiming that he'd looked right at her, and I felt the second hand thrill of it all. But - I was still too young. I had a lot of his stuff, liked a small amount of it, tried to convince myself I liked all of it (though I couldn't get anywhere near liking Ant Rap), and probably gave up on the whole endeavour after a few months. Music wouldn't take hold of me properly till a couple of years later. More on the first ripples of that next week, it looks like. Yeah this was pretty much the start of music fandom for me as well. I had liked other bands previously but I loved Adam And The Ants. I vividly remember Stand and Deliver and Prince Charming being released and, as I've mentioned elsewhere on the forum, Adam Ant was my very first crush. The other boys could have Debbie Harry, there was only one Ant for me. I was nine when the beyond-brilliant Goody Two Shoes and I still remember the visceral thrill of it being announced as Number One on Top Of The Pops. When I mentioned a "near-perfect" run of singles, Ant Rap was one of the two demerits which stop it being actually perfect. It has, to put it mildly, not aged well. All together now: "Marco, Merrick, Terry Lee, Garry Tibbs and yours truly!" The other is Puss'n'Boots, which isn't great, and Apollo 9 could have done with a polish as well. Supplementary material - if anyone is interested you should check out the documentary The Madness Of Prince Charming. It's on YouTube and it's just a really great music doc, you don't need to be an Ant fan to enjoy it, and there's scads of Marco Pirroni on it. Highly recommended.
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Post by Prole Hole on Aug 24, 2020 5:16:23 GMT -5
1981 – “Vienna”, UltravoxA grave concernIn the same way that “Bohemian Rhapsody” did not invent the music video, MTV did not invent the idea of music television. That’s not to suggest that either of those two events aren’t significant features in the development of their respective fields, but neither are the originators. The idea of “videos”, in the modern sense, had been around since at least 1966 with The Beatles recording specific promo clips for “Paperback Writer” and “Rain”, and arguably could be tied all the way back to A Hard Day’s Night. And certainly the song portions of Magical Mystery Tour, free of any other contextual connection to the movie they’re in, are straightforwardly music videos. Similarly, the idea that music, and specifically that music videos, could be something that people would sit down to watch rather than simply listen to, had been around in the UK mainstream for far longer than it had in the US. Top Of The Pops regularly played music videos for more than half a decade before MTV arrived on the scene – this is where “Bohemian Rhapsody” comes in – and British acts were, generally speaking, much more attuned to the power of the music video than their American colleagues at the turn of the decade. Take for example last entry Adam Ant, and more specifically the video for “Prince Charming”. It’s a Cinderella riff, with Ant playing Cinders, the Ugly Sisters portrayed by two men in drag as per the usual panto approach, with Ant/Cinders liberated from a life of drudgery by the frankly astonishing sight of Diana Dors as the Fairy Godmother in a gravity-defying black dress leading us to a masque ball where everyone dances the “prince charming”. It’s an excellent promotional tool by 1981 standards. It has some wit (Pironni’s “harp” playing) and panache, a simple storyline, an easy-to-replicate dance, and Ant looking his best as he imitates other pop-culture legends at the end of the clip (a confounding selection that consists of Alice Cooper, Clint Eastwood, Rudolph Valentino (!) and Ant’s own Dandy Highwayman). What’s interesting about the video is that Ant isn’t remotely unusual in doing this – quite the reverse, in fact, it’s an established part of what a pop band does in the late 70’s and early 80’s. The launch of MTV in 1981 saw America catch up with this “video aesthetic”, and in doing so paved the way for the Second British Invasion (since dozens of British groups had good-to-go content ready at their fingertips for the emergent station looking to fill air time) that gave synth-pop groups and the New Romantics, especially, a way into a marketplace that they would otherwise struggle to get a footing in. The video itself was an evolutionary process, as one might expect – if we take 1976 and “Bohemian Rhapsody” as our relatively arbitrary starting point it is, even by 1981 standards, pretty simple. The famous four-heads pose, a series of video effects and some live footage, all blended together to create a whole. But by 1981 that approach was not simply dated but laughably inadequate. Videos moved into a whole new register, becoming little mini epics that gave an artist or band the scope to really indulge themselves as technology improved and everything became that much more achievable and, significantly, affordable. Videos could be aspirational (Duran Duran’s entire oeuvre, though let’s take “Rio” as the most obvious example), operatically over-the-top (Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse Of The Heart”), surreal abstractions (Eurythmics’s “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)”), or, well, just about anything really. No longer simply a tool to shift singles, they became an art form in and of themselves. The age of the video had arrived. Ultravox’s “Vienna” is an absolute classic of the genre. It’s a mini Cold War epic, a fog-bound video that finds the band striking moody poses in among waves of dry ice on the cobblestones of Vienna (or bits of London that could convincingly pass for Vienna – both are used). Visually it’s clearly a riff on any number of mid-century black-and-white epics like The Third Man which capture the mood and feel of a location as much as plot or characters. There’s lots of billowing dry ice with vast, outsized shadows thrown on to the plumes and the surrounding architecture. Characters slip in and out of frame. Cold breath wreathes into the air. The black and white parts are presented in widescreen, stretching to a standard 4:3 ratio when we move to colour as the video shifts through time and relative dimensions. There’s not really a “plot” as such, more a sequence of loosely-connected events, while Midge Ure stands austerely off to one side lip-synching as the action unfolds, as if commenting on it. The instrumental break is illustrated by a ballet dancer giving a performance in an opera house in front of a grand piano. This is intercut with a faintly debauched party the band are attending at a mansion, populated by hoorah Henry’s in 80’s make-up. Near the end a woman shoots a man on a vast, sweeping flight of stars. Midge Ure again impassively watches the event unfold from the side-lines, as remote and distant as ever. The body of the man collapses and the shutterbug jackals from the press rush in to photograph the corpse. Finally, the band walk off into the rising dawn of Vienna as the song crashes to its conclusion and comes to rest on waves of synthesizer. It’s breathtaking. This vast, staged epic takes just a little under five minutes to run. And it would all be unbearably, unspeakably pretentious if “Vienna” itself wasn’t such a fucking great song. Because the truth is “Vienna” is good enough a song to carry the weight of all that pretention. It’s swooningly romantic in the way it’s assembled and the lyric – about the end of an affair in the titular city – is absurdly extravagant and overwrought but in a way the music absolutely supports. The percussion – all artificial – bears the weight of the verses, distinctive in its construction and overlaid with a single haunting keyboard line, carried on the synthesizer. It’s all deeply remote and imposing in a very studied manner, yet it’s not cold – because Midge Ure’s voice is more than enough to infuse this combination with plaintive regret that puts a real emotional heart in the middle of all this grandiose isolation. And that’s before we get to the chorus, a powerhouse performance that’s preposterous in its melodramatic surge and yet… it isn’t. Again, Midge Ure’s voice – and he’s giving a career-best performance here – carries the weight of the melodrama, and can bear it. And all that is going on before we reach the bloody viola solo in the middle of the song. “Vienna” is produced by Conny Plank, one of the finest producers of his age and a veteran of the krautrock scene who had worked with Kraftwerk and Neu! in his time. You couldn’t ask for a better producer for this kind of material, effortlessly shifting from the synthetic to the classic and capturing the essence of both. New Romantic has never been quite so, well, romantic as it is in “Vienna” but the romance here is the aching sense of its passing – it is the romance of loss. It’s almost bewilderingly over-the-top but it all just works, because it’s carried off with confidence and flair and, more importantly, because the music, the voice, the lyric and the performance are all good enough to truly capture the style of the piece. The fact that the video is a knock-out too is, in the final analysis, simply the cherry on the cake. There’s almost no song in the 1980’s quite as genuinely classy as “Vienna”. It’s genius. “Vienna” was held off the top spot in the UK by Joe Dolce’s “Shaddap You Face” for three of the four weeks it was at Number 2. To call that an injustice is a bit like describing the atomic bomb as “a bit of a firecracker”. I mean, it is, but that’s not really getting the point across. Not that novelty songs don’t have their place, obviously, but come on. The other week – well, actually its first week – "Vienna" was held off Number 1 by John Lennon’s “Woman” which, while not a particularly great song, was experiencing a return to the charts because of the death of its writer and is at least forgivable in light of Lennon’s murder. And because of that Ultravox never had a Number 1 hit. Indeed, “Vienna” is their highest-charting single – “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes”, a far more traditional slice of New Romantic synth-pop, got to Number 3 in 1984 but that was the height of their post-“Vienna” career. It must be endlessly frustrating to have been stopped by a trivial throwaway like “Shaddap You Face” but there is at least some solace for the band. The Official Chart Company in the UK gave “Vienna” an honorary Number 1 in 2012 after being voted the nation’s favourite Number 2 single, holding off competition from the likes of “Hound Dog”, “My Generation”, and previous-article runner-up “Strawberry Fields Forever” / “Penny Lane”. Hopefully that provides Midge and the boys with some kind of consolation because, despite what we’ve discussed before about songs “deserving” their place, few songs quite deserve to ascend to the top of the charts as much as “Vienna”. It might have taken thirty-one years to get there, but better late than never. What Else Happened In 1981?
Lennon’s murder means that “Woman” became the fourth-biggest selling single of the year, though the best-seller is the solid-but-improbable “Betty Davis Eyes” by Kim Carnes (Number 2 is the considerably-more-worthy “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell and Number 3 is “In The Air Tonight” by Phil Collins). Diana Ross leaves Motown after twenty years to sign with RCA/EMI, very much the end of an era. The very first issue of venerable guitar magazine Kerrang! is published, while Iron Maiden play their first show with Bruce Dickinson. Simon & Garfunkel play a reunion concert to half a million people in Central Park, and The Specials top the UK charts with “Ghost Town”, one of the best singles of the era. One of the finest-named album in all of popular music is released with Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark’s Architecture And Morality (it’s a good album too), and Kraftwerk complete a trilogy of genuinely perfect albums with Computerweldt. Grace Jones is Nightclubbing and the Rolling Stones want to Tattoo You. Abba release their final, and best, album – and one of the best albums of the 80’s – with The Visitors and Billy Idol leaves Generation X and goes solo. Mötley Crüe and The Throwing Muses are formed and Wings, The Bay City Rollers and Steely Dan all reach the end of the road. Justin Timberlake enters the world and one of the great pioneers of rock and roll, Bill Haley, leaves it, dying from a heart attack. What Did We Nearly End Up Discussing?
Nothing. “Vienna”, unsurprisingly, is the other song this whole series was conceived around, so there was no possibility of anything else taking the 1981 slot. Rankings: 1. The Beatles - "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane" 2. Stevie Wonder - "Sir Duke" 3. The Kinks - "Lola" 4. Jean Knight - "Mr Big Stuff" 5. Ultravox - "Vienna" 6. Elvis Costello - "Oliver's Army" 7. The Animals - "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" 8. Sly And The Family Stone - "Everyday People" 9. Adam And The Ants - "Antmusic" 10. The Sweet, "Ballroom Blitz" 11. Petula Clark - "Downtown" 12. Queen, "Killer Queen" 13. Blondie, "Denis" 14. Elton John - "Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time)" 15. Tom Jones - "Delilah" 16. Gloria Gaynor - "Never Can Say Goodbye" 17. Eddie Cochrane – "Three Steps To Heaven" 18. Wings - "Let 'Em In" 19. The Troggs - "Wild Thing" 20. Jimmy Dean - "Big Bad John" 21. Chubby Checker - "Let's Twist Again" 22. Billy J Kramer And The Dakotas - "Do You Want To Know A Secret" Next Time On We’re Number Two…
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Dellarigg
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Post by Dellarigg on Aug 24, 2020 10:17:20 GMT -5
Following on from last week's brief but ultimately doomed infatuation with Adam & the Ants, we now jump forward 18 months to the autumn of 1984, and 12/13 year old me starting to get into music afgain - and properly this time.
The first album I got and played to death was The Collection by Ultravox, a greatest hits package released in November. I'd been favourably aware of Vienna and Dancing With Tears In My Eyes, but hadn't bought them; strangely, it was the single to coincide with this album, Love's Great Adventure (and its Indiana Jones style video, where the song and the action actually stopped for a breather at one point), that got my ears pricking up. It's not one of their better efforts, but never mind. Anyway, Vienna was obviously the highlight, and still is. I have no problem at all with the solo, especially when the music slows back down and takes us into the final chorus - a reliable goose-pimple moment. As you say, totally absurd, yet it never fails to work.
I then got all their albums to date, at least all of the Midge Ure albums. I would still go to bat for Vienna and Rage In Eden - as pointed out, they have an impeccable krautrock thumbprint on them. The Thin Wall, The Voice, Passing Strangers - all highly decent songs.
However, at the same time as I got into them, I also got into U2, whose Unforgettable Fire was out around then. U2 led the way to Big Country, Simple Minds, and Bruce Springsteen; Ultravox led to ... nothing much (I wasn't really aware of Kraftwerk then, never mind Neu!). Synths took a back seat to guitars (though Ure is not a bad guitarist), and they slowly drifted out of rotation.
Happily, I've come back to them in the last few years, and not purely out of nostalgia. I'll probably go and play my vinyl copy of The Collection when I finish typing this.
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Post by MyNameIsNoneOfYourGoddamnBusin on Aug 24, 2020 13:35:26 GMT -5
Nothing to add since I never liked Ultravox, but Midge Ure's pre-Ultravox band with former Sex Pistol Glen Matlock Rich Kids was pretty good.
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Aug 24, 2020 18:05:23 GMT -5
Prole Hole, excellent, thoughtful analyses of the 80s singles. Like both you and Dellarigg, my ears perked to "Prince Charming" and "Goody Two Shoes" when I first heard them on pop radio, and later saw their videos on early-era MTV. Will we be getting any Tracy Ullman in this decade?
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Post by Prole Hole on Aug 25, 2020 7:33:03 GMT -5
Following on from last week's brief but ultimately doomed infatuation with Adam & the Ants, we now jump forward 18 months to the autumn of 1984, and 12/13 year old me starting to get into music afgain - and properly this time.
The first album I got and played to death was The Collection by Ultravox, a greatest hits package released in November. I'd been favourably aware of Vienna and Dancing With Tears In My Eyes, but hadn't bought them; strangely, it was the single to coincide with this album, Love's Great Adventure (and its Indiana Jones style video, where the song and the action actually stopped for a breather at one point), that got my ears pricking up. It's not one of their better efforts, but never mind. Anyway, Vienna was obviously the highlight, and still is. I have no problem at all with the solo, especially when the music slows back down and takes us into the final chorus - a reliable goose-pimple moment. As you say, totally absurd, yet it never fails to work.
I then got all their albums to date, at least all of the Midge Ure albums. I would still go to bat for Vienna and Rage In Eden - as pointed out, they have an impeccable krautrock thumbprint on them. The Thin Wall, The Voice, Passing Strangers - all highly decent songs.
However, at the same time as I got into them, I also got into U2, whose Unforgettable Fire was out around then. U2 led the way to Big Country, Simple Minds, and Bruce Springsteen; Ultravox led to ... nothing much (I wasn't really aware of Kraftwerk then, never mind Neu!). Synths took a back seat to guitars (though Ure is not a bad guitarist), and they slowly drifted out of rotation.
Happily, I've come back to them in the last few years, and not purely out of nostalgia. I'll probably go and play my vinyl copy of The Collection when I finish typing this.
I hope I didn't come across as having a problem with the viola solo, because I think it's fantastic. It's just a completely nuts thing to get thrown into a song which is already scoring Nine Cashews on the Nuts Scale. The slowdown into the final chorus is bloody brilliant. repulsionist - spoilers!
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Rainbow Rosa
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Aug 26, 2020 8:58:40 GMT -5
Full disclosure: up until you mentioned the viola solo I thought that the Ultravox song "Vienna" was, in fact, the Billy Joel song "Vienna"
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Post by Prole Hole on Aug 26, 2020 10:08:22 GMT -5
Full disclosure: up until you mentioned the viola solo I thought that the Ultravox song "Vienna" was, in fact, the Billy Joel song "Vienna" The Billy Joel song "Vienna" is not the Ultravox song "Vienna" but the Billy Joel song "Vienna" is also a good song called "Vienna". In short, Vienna.
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Post by Prole Hole on Aug 31, 2020 5:20:21 GMT -5
1982 – “Private Investigations”, Dire StraitsSmokin'
Credibility has never been much of a barrier when it comes to reaching the upper echelons of the charts. Lots of point-and-laugh bands have made it. Scraping into the Top Ten, or indeed any position on the charts, does not require cool, or sophistication, or talent, or anything else. It requires, as we know, popularity alone. The place of the “credible” as opposed to the “popular” reaches its zenith in the 90’s, when the Authenticity Wars would leave many a causality in its wake but it’s a process that exists here, too, in the 80’s. There are dozens, hundreds probably, of cool, fashionable and hip bands in the early 80’s, where the dominant styles of the decade battle it out for dominance in the charts. Most of those bands and acts are all-in on the prevailing trends, and they’re the ones that always come to mind whenever anyone mentions the early 80’s. But, while most bands may be happy to embrace those styles, it’s not quite all of them. And few bands quite manage to encapsulate the difference between “credibility” and “popularly” like Dire Straits. Because, let’s be honest, nobody thinks Dire Straits are cool. Popular? Yes. Talented? Well, even detractors will admit Mark Knopfler is a gifted guitarist. Decent songwriters? Well, OK, there’s a case that can be made there for sure. But cool? Na. Even at the height of their cultural relevancy – that would be Brothers In Arms, “Money For Nothing”, and associated MTV paraphernalia – “cool” just wasn’t a word that would stick to Dire Straits. In among a sea of New Romantics like Culture Club, new wave successes like Elvis Costello and faux-sophisticated 80’s pop like Spandau Ballet, Dire Straits look… well, ordinary. There’s no fancy make-up or dance moves, there’s no glamourous girls and exotic foreign video shoots that look like travel documentaries, there’s no trendy gender-bending or outrageous fashions. What there is, though, is a few blokes who look suspiciously like a pub snooker team just getting on and writing music that a lot of people seem to like. They may not ooze credibility but Dire Straits stand out in the early 80’s charts precisely because they look ordinary. This is in no way a demerit – in fact, quite the reserve. Managing quite such a degree of commercial success in the face of the dominant forms of the era is quite the achievement, and that’s where “Private Investigations” comes in. Dire Straits had some commercial success prior to the release of this single – both “Sultans Of Swing” and “Romeo And Juliet” had climbed to Number 8 in the UK charts and a few other singles had puttered about somewhat further down (and “Sultans Of Swing” actually performed better in the US, where it reached Number 4). But the success of “Private Investigations” was something a bit different. Both “Sultans Of Swing” and “Romeo And Juliet” are fairly standard songs – the former shows off some impressive guitar flashiness, the latter is a typically-constructed romantic ballad – and neither obviously pave the way for a rambling, nearly-six-minute long slice of neo-noir containing barely any verse structure, no chorus, and where half the song is a lyric-free extended instrumental. To describe that as “unusual” in 1982 is ridiculously underselling it. To cast an eye over the competition, “Private Investigations” was held off the top spot in the UK by Survivor’s “Eye Of The Tiger”. The Number One prior to that was Irene Cara’s “Fame” and the Number One after it was, erm, Musical Youth’s “Pass The Dutchy”. So in other words, a song from a movie soundtrack, another song from a movie soundtrack and, with the best will in the world, something of a novelty hit. The peaked-at-Number-2 slot itself is bookended by two none-more-era-appropriate songs, Duran Duran’s “Save A Prayer” (preceding, not great) and The Jam’s “The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To Swallow)” (succeeding, one of the best singles ever). Take a look at that list of songs. One of these things is not like the other. That Dire Straits were able to have a hit with a song so clearly and markedly out of step with everything else is a genuine accomplishment. It would be a mistake to think of them as being completely unique and isolated in the charts – the success of bands like Status Quo, who had three top-forty hits in 1982, demonstrated that there was still space left in the charts for bands who were perfectly fine with denim being the dress choice du jour and just standing up and playing guitar more than sufficient as a musical statement. But Status Quo write songs which one might charitably describe as “traditional” – you know, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle-eight, chorus and close. They never released anything remotely like “Private Investigations”. Because if there is one adjective to describe “Private Investigations” that adjective would be “cinematic”. It’s an incredibly evocative piece of music, relying on the creation and sustaining of a mood to drive the piece. And that mood is clearly derived from Raymond Chandler novels and movies like The Maltese Falcon. But there’s no allure to the lifestyle here – this is the dirty underbelly that’s being exposed. The lyric – snatched, curt phrases rather than any kind of narrative – is a million miles away from dames and Bogart glamour. This is a weary, burned-out man sick of his profession but apparently unable to do anything else. We hear that protagonist is “scarred for life” because of what he does. He’s embroiled in a life of “treachery and treason” for which there’s always a reason, and the only thing he’s left with is whisky, deceit and pain. Mark Knopfler’s affectless voice is a perfect match for this kind of material – by default he sounds neutral, and leaning into this rather than fighting against it produces one of his strongest performances. In truth Knopfler can struggle a bit trying to bring across the passions of a Romeo and Juliet romance or the excitement of an all-out rocker (take “Solid Rock” as an example) but faced with evoking the late-night, neon-drenched pain of this protagonist he finds his place and it fits the song perfectly. It’s a carefully constructed song too – for all that Dire Straits are primarily a guitar band, the keyboard lines – again so excellently evoking noir – are just as important in generating the mood as Knopfler’s acoustic guitar flourishes during the instrumental section of the song. This isn’t to take away from what Knopfler does – his acoustic work here is absolutely outstanding and he also produced the song, a real achievement – but Alan Clark’s keyboard lines really add colour and dimension to the piece. John Illsley’s bass, too, provides much atmosphere, especially the bass line that stalks and haunts the song immediately after the vocal section. It’s a whole presence on its own, a pulsing, sinister note that leads us into the atmospherics that follow. And that instrumental section is intense – the video has this portion illustrated by a couple in a compromising situation being voyeuristically watched but it doesn’t need that illustration. The music is more than capable of wordlessly evoking what’s going on without the need to resort to a scantily-clad woman or a dangerous-seeming boyfriend. That’s the power of the piece – it may be cinematic in its sweep but it doesn’t require a visual representation to be successful. “Private Investigations” was the lead single from Love Over Gold, arguably Dire Straits’ best album, and certainly their most ambitious. The album opens with “Telegraph Road”, which sits at over fourteen minutes in length and is a song which, like “Private Investigations”, is not a natural fit for a word like “commercial”. Nor, indeed, “credibility”. But it worked – Love Over Gold went to Number 1 in the UK, Australia, The Netherlands, New Zealand and Norway. It got to Number 19 in the US. That’s pretty impressive, given how relentlessly uncommercial most of the material is and how out of step with the times it was. Of course, successful though the song and album were, it’s not remotely going to be their peak. Brothers In Arms is, to this day, the eighth-biggest selling album in UK chart history, it was the first CD to sell a million copies and, with “Money For Nothing”, the band were at what was then the bleeding edge of video sophistication with its jaw-dropping computer-generated imagery. Dire Straits may never have been cool, or credible. But that’s OK. Turns out they didn’t need to be anyway. (N.B. This is the single edit, as you would expect. The album version runs to 6:45 in length.) What Else Happened In 1982?
One of the only good songs with rock ‘n roll in the title ascends to the top of the singles charts with the mighty “I Love Rock ‘n Roll” by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, the third biggest selling single of the year. It’s fucking great. Perennial misery peddlers The Smiths are formed and both Abba and Blondie call it quits. Iron Maiden release arguably their best album, The Number Of The Beast, and Prince wants to party like it’s 1999. The Jam release their final album and split up, while R.E.M. give us Chronic Town, their first release, as do Sonic Youth with their eponymous debut. Billy Joel releases his best album, The Nylon Curtain, and New Romantic mainstays Culture Club release their first album, Kissing To Be Clever. Queen torpedo an otherwise-going-well career with the dismal Hot Space (it will take Live Aid to revive their fortunes), and, speaking of dismal, Cats premiers. Of course, this is the year of Thriller, which comes out in November and decimates everything in its path, though more on this next time. Kraftwerk score a hugely unlikely Number 1 with “The Model” (recorded back in the heady days of 1978, as reality finally catches up with the German four-piece) though the biggest selling single of the year was “Eye Of The Tiger”, perhaps inevitably. The UK win the Eurovision Song Contest with Bucks Fizz and “Making Your Mind Up”, and one of the worst songs in the history of recorded music, Toto’s “Africa”, is inflicted on a frankly undeserving-of-this-pain world. Blues legend Lightning’ Hopkins dies in January and, not far behind, jazz genius Thelonius Monk plays his last chord in February. What Did We Nearly End Up Discussing?
“The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To Swallow)” by The Jam made it to Number Two in September of 1982 and, apart from being quite, quite magnificent in its own right, shows off everything that’s so great about The Jam. But I’m holding back on The Jam because, should We’re Number One happen, that’s where I want to talk about them. Elsewhere, though, it’s a strong year in the UK – Yazoo’s “Only You” was certainly in contention, as was The Strangler’s “Golden Brown”, because there’s just not enough harpsichord in the charts. Toni Basil’s squeaky-voice classic “Mickey” is in there too, and Dionne Warwick’s “Heartbreaker” sneaks up towards the end of the year as well. In the US Noted Prole Nemesis Toto show unseemly interest in “Rosanna” and John Cougar “Hurts So Good”, apparently. So what did we nearly end up discussing? Plenty. Rankings:
1. The Beatles - "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane" 2. Stevie Wonder - "Sir Duke" 3. The Kinks - "Lola" 4. Jean Knight - "Mr Big Stuff" 5. Ultravox - "Vienna" 6. Elvis Costello - "Oliver's Army" 7. The Animals - "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" 8. Sly And The Family Stone - "Everyday People" 9. Adam And The Ants - "Antmusic" 10. The Sweet, "Ballroom Blitz" 11. Petula Clark - "Downtown" 12. Queen, "Killer Queen" 13. Blondie, "Denis" 14. Dire Straits - "Private Investigations" 15. Elton John - "Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time)" 16. Tom Jones - "Delilah" 17. Gloria Gaynor - "Never Can Say Goodbye" 18. Eddie Cochrane – "Three Steps To Heaven" 19. Wings - "Let 'Em In" 20. The Troggs - "Wild Thing" 21. Jimmy Dean - "Big Bad John" 22. Chubby Checker - "Let's Twist Again" 23. Billy J Kramer And The Dakotas - "Do You Want To Know A Secret" Next Time On We’re Number Two…
Sleep tight. They’ve been constructed. As if I could argue.
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Dellarigg
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Post by Dellarigg on Aug 31, 2020 6:31:35 GMT -5
Nice - I hadn't realised this did so well in the charts. I expect the radio man faded it after the singing stopped, so those who bought the single were bamboozled by there being another 3 minutes of instrumental to go.
Dire Straits were one of those bands I got into in the wake of U2, helped along, of course, by them being local boys (not that that counts for anything when it comes to Sting or Jimmy Nail) and having an uncle who was a fan. I got Brothers In Arms first and then backtracked. Back then I wasn't used to long songs, or an album with only five tracks on it, but it goes down quite easily. I've always liked them a lot, even if nowadays I probably listen to Knopfler's solo work more than anything else.
I would agree that Love Over Gold is their strongest album (Making Movies being let down by a hideous final track), and I would also heartly concur on the cinematic aspect of this song, especially if you listen on headphones - there's breaking glass buried in there, as well as out of breath panting and what could be a cat screeching or a car tire squealing. Sterling work all round, and a credit to the British record-buying public.
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Dellarigg
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Post by Dellarigg on Aug 31, 2020 6:36:11 GMT -5
(I'll quickly add that 1982 is notable for seeing the first single from Big Country, the underperforming Harvest Home. Also the final Clash album worthy of the name, Combat Rock.)
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Post by Prole Hole on Aug 31, 2020 9:16:26 GMT -5
Nice - I hadn't realised this did so well in the charts. I expect the radio man faded it after the singing stopped, so those who bought the single were bamboozled by there being another 3 minutes of instrumental to go. Dire Straits were one of those bands I got into in the wake of U2, helped along, of course, by them being local boys (not that that counts for anything when it comes to Sting or Jimmy Nail) and having an uncle who was a fan. I got Brothers In Arms first and then backtracked. Back then I wasn't used to long songs, or an album with only five tracks on it, but it goes down quite easily. I've always liked them a lot, even if nowadays I probably listen to Knopfler's solo work more than anything else. I would agree that Love Over Gold is their strongest album ( Making Movies being let down by a hideous final track), and I would also heartly concur on the cinematic aspect of this song, especially if you listen on headphones - there's breaking glass buried in there, as well as out of breath panting and what could be a cat screeching or a car tire squealing. Sterling work all round, and a credit to the British record-buying public. I, too, was surprised to discover that it had done so well, because I have exactly zero memory of it charting at the time. Yes I was 9 but I remember plenty of other stuff charting (including everything What Did We Nearly End Up Discussing) and this... nope. I can't say I was ever a proper fan of Dire Straits per se, but like everyone I had Brothers In Arms and I do definitely appreciate and rate Knopfler as a guitarist. I saw them live in about 1991-ish maybe? They were... fine. Technically competent and entertaining enough but "fine" is as strong an adjective as I can summon for the experience. I didn't really have the space to get into the production but 100% with you on headphones, it's really, really well put together. Fuck me, Les Boys is bad. That is all.
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ayatollahcm
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Post by ayatollahcm on Aug 31, 2020 16:24:15 GMT -5
Best Dire Straits is their ExtendeDancEPlay featuring "Twisting By The Pool" and I'll fight anyone on that
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Dellarigg
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Post by Dellarigg on Aug 31, 2020 17:03:44 GMT -5
Best Dire Straits is their ExtendeDancEPlay featuring "Twisting By The Pool" and I'll fight anyone on that *puts up dukes*
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Post by Prole Hole on Sept 1, 2020 3:29:52 GMT -5
Best Dire Straits is their ExtendeDancEPlay featuring "Twisting By The Pool" and I'll fight anyone on that Well you would say that, you're a twistin' fool!
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Post by Prole Hole on Sept 7, 2020 6:19:21 GMT -5
1983 – “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)”, Eurythmics Not Necessarily In That OrderOne of the consequences of the development of comparatively cheap synthesizers is the ability for more music to be produced by fewer people. Bands no longer need to consist of four, five or more members as per a traditional rock act. Instead they can consist of one or two people, a box of electronics and, as long as the song is halfway decent, away we go. Obviously two-pieces aren’t a unique development of the 80’s – hello Sparks! – but synths made it substantially easier for them to exist. There’s dozens of 80’s acts who fall into this category – to take a random selection let’s say Tears For Fears, Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, Yazoo and, of course, Eurythmics. No need for a bass player who can’t get out of bed in time, a drunk drummer flinging his sticks at a recalcitrant audience, a guitarist showboating and making a complete tit of himself. No, what you need is a strong melody, a good voice (something else all those acts have in common) and the ability to work the tech. The end results aren’t always perfect – and we’ll have a doozy of an example of how this works or doesn’t come 1988 – but with recording costs constrained by fewer instruments and fewer actual band members it’s also less of a disaster for a label if they sign someone and it doesn’t work out because there’s less of a financial investment. As we’re previously discussed, disco records were expensive – synth-pop, whose artificial nature clearly owes at least some debt to disco, was massively less costly to produce. This does, if not wholly then at least in part, help to explain the huge explosion in synth-pop artists in the early 80’s. The technology became more affordable, the recording costs came down and people who were not necessarily “musicians” in the traditional slap-on-a-guitar-and-strike-a-pose sense were able to start producing music of a standard that could be compared to their more standard-instrument brethren. Both Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart had been in a band together before Eurythmics, and indeed Dave Stewart had been their guitarist. That band – The Tourists – was however far more traditional, with a guitar-bass-keyboard-drummer set-up, and a sound that was, it would be fair to say, a lot less experimental than anything Eurythmics came up with. Eurythmics’ first album – produced by Ultravox saviour Conny Plank – is fine as far as it goes, and quite the contrast to anything The Tourists turned out. But it’s not a patch on what came next. And maybe that should have been “Love Is A Stranger”. That was the lead single off Eurythmics’ second album and, if we are being strictly honest here, it’s a better song than “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)”. Blasphemy, maybe, but it’s true. It’s a better showcase of Annie Lennox’s astoundingly good voice, it gives a better indication of Dave Stewart’s skill at writing and playing, it’s deeply atmospheric and engrossing, and it envelops the listener in a sustained mood (not entirely unlike our last entry) of late nights and powerful emotions. But it took a bit of effort to get “Love Is A Stranger” recognised. When it was originally release in 1982, “Love Is A Stranger” scraped its way into the charts at a measly 54 and even a re-release in the wake of the success of “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” only got it to Number 6. A third re-release in the early 90’s to promote a greatest hits package saw it just barely scrape into the Top 50. That’s quite a pity for such an excellent song, but “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” never had that problem. It became Eurythmics’ defining song, it’s had legs way, way past the 80’s synth-pop and gender-bending ghetto, and has become a bona-fide global phenomenon. It’s not just their best-known song it’s practically one of the best-known songs there is. It is, to be fair, hard to imagine “Love Is A Stranger” achieving quite that level of success. After all, nobody in their right mind would argue that “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” isn’t a great song, because it so demonstrably is. It’s built round two major hooks, the opening synth line, and the “strings” over the instrumental and “hold your head up” sections. Floating on top of all that are the various voices of Annie Lennox. And Annie Lennox has one of the most amazing voices in popular music, when all is said and done. If “Love Is A Stranger” shows it off better than “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” that is not to suggest that she isn’t still absolutely at the top of her game here. Her lead vocal – distant, cool and controlled, matching the synth line perfectly – is distinctive and powerful, but it’s on the backing vocals that we get to see the true power of her voice. She’s all over the song, wordlessly adding a third and fourth layer of hooks and melodies over the principal two, with power and real strength. It’s a blisteringly good performance and one of the key reasons “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” has such resonance. Her lead vocal, though, is also slightly counter-intuitive. The lyric she’s singing is full off innuendo and suggestion – “Some of them want to abuse you / some of them want to be abused” and so forth – but this angle isn’t played up. Lennox keeps it cool. Compare and contrast, then, with the Marilyn Manson cover of the song, where he goes full-tilt into the obvious sexual implication of those lines (though Lennox denies that’s what they were originally about) and indeed of the whole song. Manson’s version is good – potentially great even, if you’re in the right frame of mind – but it’s also a touch… obvious. The opening riff slithers out on guitar in his signature style, but the screaming and sexualisation of it undercuts rather than amplifies the power of the original. There’s no ambiguity in Manson’s version, and certainly no room for interpretation. It is exactly because Lennox is restrained with her lead vocal that it carries such power – the power comes from control. Help yourself to the implications of that. And then of course there’s the video. It will become increasingly hard – indeed it’s already hard – to talk about any 80’s singles without referring to their video because it’s just such an important part of what bands did, but we absolutely should not underestimate the importance of it to Eurythmics because one of the reasons they stand out so much is because of how Annie Lennox looks. And “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” is the defining statement on that. There is a full embracing of the gender-bending trends of the 80’s as Lennox appears with vivid orange hair and dressed in a business suit, wearing leather gloves and carrying a swagger stick. In fact she takes on a few different looks in the video but that’s the one that tends to stick in people’s mind, and with some reason. She looks stunning, like nothing else on planet Earth in 1983. Dave Stewart can wear a tux and “play” cello in a field all he likes, that’s not what’s pulling focus. And, importantly, it’s strikingly unusual for gender-bending to work this way round – traditionally gender-bending is men subverting traditional gender roles rather than women. Think of David Bowie in a dress on the cover of The Man Who Sold The World or any number of effeminate-looking glam stars (Marc Bolan, most obviously). Boy George is often the very first person to come to mind when mentioning gender-bending of any era, and the likes of Brian Molko and Brett Anderson will pick up and run with this in 90’s. But they’re all men. The only real exception, other than Lennox, is Grace Jones, but even with the kindest of heads and the most generous of hearts Grace Jones is no talent like Annie Lennox. Lennox fully embraces the freedom of gender-bending in the video – strutting around a boardroom, in complete control – and the success of the video helped, naturally, the success of the song. Lennox became a talking point. She appeared in print, and not just in the music press. Pictures of her were all over television, and all over bedroom walls. It would all be hollow imagery if the music wasn’t so amazing but the two come together perfectly on this single. By controlling, and by having complete control, over her image she was able to leverage it into helping Eurythmics become a sensation. And that’s ewhat “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” is. It is sensational, a genius slice of 80’s synth-pop that to this day still resonates and works, which never sounds dated or of its era, and which is arguably the crowning glory of the entire synth-pop movement, led by an astoundingly talented woman who few if any can come close to matching in terms of voice. And it’s not even their best song. That’s an astonishing achievement. Oh, also there are cows. It's really worth a watch. What Else Happened In 1983?
Just as when we began the series the 78 record was phased out to make way for the new-timey 33rpm LP’s, so their time has now come too – the CD goes on sale for the first time in America. Thriller gets to Number 1 in the States and begins a frankly staggering thirty-seven weeks there (not all at once though) and of course goes on to be the biggest selling album ever. R.E.M. release their first full-length album, Murmur, and Quiet Riot’s Metal Health becomes the first heavy-metal album to top the U.S. charts. Both Weird Al and Billy Bragg release their debuts – no connection there – while Wham! are Fantastic (it says here) and U2 are at War. The biggest song of the year is Culture Club’s inescapable “Karma Chameleon” which means it outsold Michael Jackson, who takes the Number 2 slot with “Billie Jean”. Nina has “99 Red Balloons” – quite the anti-war song, that – and David Bowie has his most successful album ever with Let’s Dance. Amy Winehouse is born, and Karen Carpenter dies from a heart attack brought on by anorexia. Bon Jovi, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, The Style Council and Bronski Beat are all formed, and Simon & Garfunkel call it quits (again). What Did We Nearly End Up Discussing?
After beings spoiled for choice last time out, 1983 proves to be at the other end of the scale with a very limited selection. Eddy Grant shuffles into one-hit-wonder territory with “Electric Avenue”, which is a genuinely terrific song, and Madness’s “Wings Of A Dove” is, similarly, really rather great despite it not exactly being their best-known number. Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson as a duo qualify twice – “The Girls Is Mine” peaked at Number 2 in the US and “Say Say Say” peaked at Number 2 in the UK, though the only really interesting thing about either song is how two titans of music can produce two such studiously unremarkable singles. Not bad, you know, just kinda… there. Culture Club’s “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me” got to Number 2 in America – held off the top spot by “Billy Jean” – but the sad truth is that, image and tabloid gossip aside, Culture Club just aren’t all that interesting a band. Rankings: 1. The Beatles - "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane" 2. Stevie Wonder - "Sir Duke" 3. The Kinks - "Lola" 4. Jean Knight - "Mr Big Stuff" 5. Eurythmics - "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)" 6. Ultravox - "Vienna" 7. Elvis Costello - "Oliver's Army" 8. The Animals - "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" 9. Sly And The Family Stone - "Everyday People" 10. Adam And The Ants - "Antmusic" 11. The Sweet, "Ballroom Blitz" 12. Petula Clark - "Downtown" 13. Queen, "Killer Queen" 14. Blondie, "Denis" 15. Dire Straits - "Private Investigations" 16. Elton John - "Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time)" 17. Tom Jones - "Delilah" 18. Gloria Gaynor - "Never Can Say Goodbye" 19. Eddie Cochrane – "Three Steps To Heaven" 20. Wings - "Let 'Em In" 21. The Troggs - "Wild Thing" 22. Jimmy Dean - "Big Bad John" 23. Chubby Checker - "Let's Twist Again" 24. Billy J Kramer And The Dakotas - "Do You Want To Know A Secret" Next Time On We’re Number Two…
Lady Womanesses Enjoy Themselves!
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Post by Prole Hole on Sept 14, 2020 5:47:30 GMT -5
1984 - “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”, Cyndi Lauper You Spin Me Right Round
Let us begin this week by getting something out of the way right off the bat. The problem with “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” is straightforward – it just isn’t a terribly good song. That’s a shame, because it clearly means well, Lauper is a fantastic performer (well, usually) and as 80’s feminist songs go its clearly coming from the same place as Aretha Franklin and Annie Lennox’s “Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves” or the we-can-have-fun-too vibe of Bananarama. “Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves” is rather more political, though, and “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” isn’t laying claim to any specific political agenda, just that girls... well. You know. Want to have fun. Its heart is so clearly in the right place, and Lauper herself is such an appealing individual, that it seems almost churlish to criticise the actual music, but when all is said and done this isn’t even in the same galaxy as her best work. “Time After Time” is genuinely brilliant. It heartfelt and emotional, it makes terrific use of Lauper’s incredibly expressive voice, and deserves to be remembered a lot more than this song. “Time After Time” does what she does best, and makes full use of Lauper’s skills. “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” doesn’t, not really. She’s a bit squeaky here, as if she’s singing at the top of her range, and occasionally slightly over it. And the instrumental break, which sounds like it’s been played on half a dozen sticks found in a nearby park, nearly fatally undermines the song. It’s dreadful. The whole thing kicks off with a squall of cheap synthesizer and it’s one of many, many 80’s songs which mistakes “too much treble” for “bright and cheery”. It’s not a total disaster, and bits of it remain compelling, especially the “wanna... wanna have fun” refrain, which provides some momentum, but the idea that this even comes close to Lauper’s best work just isn’t going to wash. But if it’s not her best work, then we need to look at why it is, unquestionably, her best known. 1984 was an amazing year for Lauper, arguably her best in fact. She became the first female artist in America to have four consecutive top-five hits from one album in America. That album, She’s So Unusual, sold 16 million copies worldwide and spent more than a year in the album charts. It’s one of the biggest selling albums of the 80’s even though it never actually got to Number 1 (Number 4 in the US, Number 16 in the UK). The other three singles – “She Bop”, “Time After Time” and “All Through The Night” – are all strong singles but none of them have the cultural impact of “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”. The song itself is a cover, originally little more than a demo by Robert Hazard (anyone?), with Lauper tweaking some of the lyrics from the original because she thought they were misogynistic. Certainly the revamped lyric fits in with the emergence of far more female artists in the 80’s. It’s not all completely successful – “oh daddy dear, you know you’re still number one” was a bit cringy then and hasn't gotten any better with age, and was one of the lines Lauper changed from the original – but there’s clearly a proper feminist drive there. “When the working day is done / girls just wanna have fun” Lauper sings in the run-up to the chorus and there’s a clear implication there – the “girls” are out working and earning their own way, they’re not chained to the kitchen sink or waiting for a man to come home. That’s nicely understated and it’s far more effective for being implied rather than stated and for not being a rather more ordinary rebel-again-daddy bit. It also chimed appropriately with an age where there was a real sense that the feminism of the 70’s – Women’s Lib – was developing into genuine progress in the 80’s. Evil incarnate though she may be, Thatcher was a visible symbol of the progress women could, and did, make. A female Prime Minister of the UK in the 60’s or 70’s was laughably implausible. In the 80’s it barely even seemed remarkable. Visibility, for any minority, is important. How much lasting impact any of this had is a debate for a whole separate article, but the increased visibility of women and what they could achieve was undoubtedly important for the time. And more female artists in the music charts, traditionally dominated by male acts, helped support that visibility. So that’s one reason – finding the right song at the right cultural moment. But that only gets you as far as nostalgia shows and old-timey radio. ”Girls Just Want To Have Fun” clearly has legs far beyond its moment of finding the cultural zeitgeist in the 80’s. Some of the success is clearly down to Lauper herself. She’s an incredibly appealing figure – daffy, likeable and absolutely and very clearly unable to give one single solitary fuck about what anyone else thinks. The cover of She’s So Unusual has her dancing away in the street, perfectly happy by herself, needing no other validation. Her complete disregard for the opinions of others is one of her most endearing elements. She will look like how she wants to look, she will sound the way she wants to sound and if you don’t like it then problem is absolutely and completely yours, not hers. It’s not hard to see how that attitude dovetails with this song, and it means that Lauper is able to infuse the song with her own personality until it’s clear there’s no separation between the artist and the art. The song, even if it is a cover, is completely what she wants to convey. She will freely adjust the lyric to fit with her own perspective. She’ll sing and play it any way she wants. Above and beyond the “have fun” element there’s a very strong sense of “fuck you” about the song as well which, again, dovetails into her attitude. There is, in the lyric, a rejection of the traditional set-up – “daddy dear” wants to know what she’ll do with her life, “mother” wants to know when she’s going to life her life right. The song, in other words, isn’t just about having fun, it’s about rejecting a whole approach to life itself. That’s not where the emphasis of the song lies, and the constantly repeated phrase “they just wanna, they just wanna have fun” makes its clear where that emphasis is, but the “fuck you” element is there right alongside it. It’s also interesting to note that Lauper never sings “we” when referring to the girls who want to enjoy themselves, it’s always “they”. She’ll be the one that rejects parental control, or who wants a walk in the sun, but the girls – that’s always “they”. There’s a slight remove about Lauper’s delivery, and the “they” isn’t a feature of Robert Hazard’s original – it’s something Lauper has imposed on the song. The question is, really, does any of this matter? And the answer is “no, not really”. In its call to solidarity “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” was in exactly the right place at exactly the right time and the song has legs precisely because it’s a genuine expression of something that still resonates today. Women still get treated badly. There are still unfair expectations. Feminism isn’t “solved”. So the song still matters. It still means something, and that’s why the song remains popular and remains relevant. And it will continue to be the case, which is why the song will remain her best known. Sure, there’s plenty of criticisms that can be levelled at it in terms of its recording, and it’s certainly not close to being Lauper’s best work, but it will always be the song which defines her. “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” may not be a great song, per se, but it’s a great statement. And, ultimately, that’s more important. What Else Happened In 1984? Among other things, it’s the year (actually, basically the only year) of Frankie Goes To Hollywood. The BBC banned “Relax" which promptly sends it to the top of the charts, “Two Tribes” goes on to spend nine weeks at Number 1, and they become the first act since Gerry And The Pacemakers to have their first three singles reach Number 1 when “The Power Of Love” gets there too. So well done all round, censors! Bruce Springsteen releases what is still his best-known album, Born In The USA, and Talking Heads release arguably the best concert film of all time, Stop Making Sense. George Michael has a good year – the best-selling single is “Careless Whisper” and the third-best is “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go". Sandwiched in-between them is Stevie Wonder with “I Just Called To Say I Love You”. Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds release their debut, From Her To Eternity, and so do The Smiths with The Smiths. Prince releases Purple Rain in the middle of the year (that’s going to shift 20 million units) and at the end of the year Band Aid release “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, a charity single recorded with all the great musicians of the day (and Paul Young). This Is Spinal Tap rocks its way to infamy, Sade is a “Smooth Operator”, and Marvin Gaye is shot dead by his father. What Did We Nearly End Up Discussing?
It’s another year of distinctly average material getting to Number 2, unfortunately. Tempting though it is to write about Shakin’ Stevens or point out how incredibly shit Phil Collins is (“A Love Worth Waiting For” and “Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)” respectively) neither provide a great deal to excite. Queen made it to Number 2 with the incredibly terrible “Radio Gaga”, and Duran Duran proclaim themselves to be “Wild Boys”. Mmm. Ray Parker Jr’s perky earworm “Ghostbusters” made it to Number 2 in the UK but while this column ain’t afraid of no ghost it shows considerably more reticence in approaching mid-80's novelty movie soundtrack hits. Rankings: 1. The Beatles - "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane" 2. Stevie Wonder - "Sir Duke" 3. The Kinks - "Lola" 4. Jean Knight - "Mr Big Stuff" 5. Eurythmics - "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)" 6. Ultravox - "Vienna" 7. Elvis Costello - "Oliver's Army" 8. The Animals - "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" 9. Sly And The Family Stone - "Everyday People" 10. Adam And The Ants - "Antmusic" 11. The Sweet, "Ballroom Blitz" 12. Petula Clark - "Downtown" 13. Queen, "Killer Queen" 14. Blondie, "Denis" 15. Dire Straits - "Private Investigations" 16. Elton John - "Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time)" 17. Tom Jones - "Delilah" 18. Gloria Gaynor - "Never Can Say Goodbye" 19. Cyndi Lauper - "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" 19. Eddie Cochrane – "Three Steps To Heaven" 20. Wings - "Let 'Em In" 21. The Troggs - "Wild Thing" 22. Jimmy Dean - "Big Bad John" 23. Chubby Checker - "Let's Twist Again" 24. Billy J Kramer And The Dakotas - "Do You Want To Know A Secret" Next Time On We’re Number Two...
More nefarious influences on this series are revealed – hey Gamblin' Telly – as we grab the super-powered!
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Rainbow Rosa
TI Forumite
not gay, just colorful
Posts: 3,604
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Sept 14, 2020 13:33:07 GMT -5
Oh no, dude, I'm not letting you get away with this - I absolutely love the inane synth solo of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." It reminds me a lot of like, how Ramones songs would occasionally have "solos" but the "solos" were just Johnny Ramone playing one note over and over again, mocking (deliberately or otherwise) the then-calcified tropes of rock'n'roll. This feels like the synth-pop version of that.
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ayatollahcm
TI Pariah
The Bringer of Peacatollah
Posts: 1,689
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Post by ayatollahcm on Sept 14, 2020 17:12:59 GMT -5
I have to admit, I tend towards the proto-punk new wave sound of the original, on a pure sonic basis.
All that said, I do often wonder whether Lauper *chose* this song or if it was record label "encouragement" that she decided to transform into a feminist anthem (I always envision the label trying to mold her into another Madonna dance-chanteuse)
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Post by Prole Hole on Sept 15, 2020 5:31:31 GMT -5
I have to admit, I tend towards the proto-punk new wave sound of the original, on a pure sonic basis. All that said, I do often wonder whether Lauper *chose* this song or if it was record label "encouragement" that she decided to transform into a feminist anthem (I always envision the label trying to mold her into another Madonna dance-chanteuse)
Here's the not-much-more-than-a-demo version that's on Spotify. Wiki is not forthcoming about whether Lauper chose the track or not but if anyone else has any idea I'd love to know. I'd assume if she was freely adapting the lyric it would be her choice but that really is just an assumption. Rainbow Rosa - You know, I hadn't really thought of that as an interpretation of the instrumental break. I'm not immune to "mocking" solos - I love the one-note solo on "Let's Stick Together", for example, it's very funny. I think that this is probably a... generous interpretation but I shall try to consider that the next time I hear it (I still think the overall recording of the song is cheap-sounding and tacky though).
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Post by Prole Hole on Sept 21, 2020 5:46:42 GMT -5
1985 – “Holding Out For A Hero”, Bonnie Tyler How much more 80's could it be? None. None more 80's.Whatever artist Jim Steinman is writing for you pretty much always know when it’s one of his songs. Whether it’s Meat Loaf, Celine Dion, Air Supply or this week’s entry Bonnie Tyler, Jim Steinman songs always sound like Jim Steinman songs and nothing else really does. He’s practically a genre unto himself. You can expect big, operatically over-the-top production. Whatever the song is it will be bombastic in the extreme. There will be a sense of things moving very quickly, even in slow-moving power ballads (which is quite the trick). As often as not the song will incorporate a catchy, easy-to-remember phrase that’s either lifted from somewhere else (“bat of out hell” perhaps being the most obvious) or put together to make it sound like it might have been but you just haven’t come across it yet. Like, for example, holding out for a hero. I mean, it’s kind of an expression but it’s not exactly in everyday use. But it is unambiguously the sort of phrase that ends up as the title of a Jim Steinman song. He has a knack of putting together a song which follows a basic pattern – and if you want to call that formulaic then sure, that’s not exactly unfair – and running with it all the way up the charts. Or, in this case, almost all the way up the charts. “Holding Out For A Hero” got to Number 2 in the UK, though only 34 in the US, and was written for the film Footloose. It may not be the best-known song from that movie but that didn’t prove a barrier to how well it did and it’s singer, Bonnie Tyler, already had near-unprecedented success two years earlier with the indelible “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” under her belt. That single, a power ballad that is pretty much the peak of the power ballad genre, shifted six million units and drove the accompanying album to the top of the charts. So why mess with something that working? Operating in exactly the same register as “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” – bombastic, tick, over-the-top, tick, none-more-80’s production, tick – but obviously a different sort of song, “Holding Out For A Hero” pulls absolutely every trick there is to try and sound energetic, full of life and passionate. And no trick is quite as effectively pulled as Bonnie Tyler herself. Tyler is an easy figure to mock, not least because there are few people who manage to embody the 80’s – or at least the particular strand of the 80’s that is regularly featured in nostalgia fests and tired memes – more than she does. There’s the massive hair. The diaphanous dresses. Lots and lots of backlighting. Wind ruffling flaxen locks in even the most remote of locations or the most airtight of rooms. Music videos that make absolutely fuck all sense at the best of times. And yet the mocking is really not remotely fair. It’s true, of course, that Tyler embodies that particular stand of the 80’s, that’s absolutely an inescapable fact. And yet… and yet. The truth is no matter how naff the video, no matter how silly the song, no matter how cheesy the lyrics she has to sing, Tyler gives it her all and in the process somehow overcomes all the worst instincts of her era. There’s simply something irreducible about how she performs that manages to overcome all the fashion horrors of the age. And a huge part of that is her voice. Bonnie Tyler has the sort of leatherlungs voice that could break glass – not, as with a trained soprano, because of a long, sustained high note but simply because Tyler has enough power in her voice to fuel about half of Wales. Given a song like this she can belt it out harder than Meat Loaf, she can out-camp Cher, she can out-warble just about anyone. But there’s something incredibly sincere about the way Bonnie Tyler performs. The excesses of this song – indeed of all of her big hits – ought really to drown the song in irredeemable cheese, and while there’s no denying just how cheesy this is there’s something about the way Tyler delivers it that means it doesn’t just descend into unreconstructed camp. The sincerity she brings to everything she does rescues the material in a way that really ought not to work yet absolutely does. Sincerity in the face of knowingly tacky, poor-taste material is one of the defining elements of camp. And look, nobody’s going to argue that there’s nothing camp about this song, because of course there is. It’s Bonnie Tyler belting out a Jim Steinman song. Obviously it’s going to be camp. But “Holding Out For A Hero” exists in a sort of quantum state, simultaneously as camp as tits and yet also overcoming its own innate campiness to push through to something else. Not “good”, exactly. But… something. And it does keep coming back to that voice. No matter how much make-up gets smeared across her face, no matter how many candle-lit cathedrals she visits, nothing will define Bonnie Tyler more than her voice. Even in 1985 she sounds like she’s smoking about 60 Silk Cut cigarettes a day, a rasping yet powerful voice that just doesn’t sound like anyone else. And that’s the thing about Bonnie Tyler. She really doesn’t sound like anyone else. Cher can belt out torch songs. Meat Loaf can, as is his wont, rock away in the background. Big-hits female singers can smash their way through the glass ceiling. Whatever. Tyler has not only a better voice than any of them, she has a better voice than all of them combined. Which is just as well as far as this song goes, because there’s very little of quality elsewhere. There’s cheap but over-excited percussion, hammering away relentlessly to try and convince us that any of this is thrilling (with limited success – it even pans across the stereo picture numerous times to try and get its point across but it doesn’t work). The backing vocals are tremendously uninspired, of the do-do-do- doooo variety, and hilariously brought to life in the video by a few models in “choir” outfits (seriously. I challenge you to watch the video and not laugh. It’s even funnier than “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” and that’s saying something). The whole thing sounds rushed and is, naturally, extremely over-produced as if cramming one more effect, instrument or vocal in there might be the final thing that convinces us of how much energy there is. Nope. And yet despite that over-production, it still sounds like the music was knocked off during a busy afternoon then just left as-is, with little effort to polish it or improve it. It feels factory-manufactured. Steinman produced the song, so it’s not hard to find where the blame lies, but the entertaining, knowingly-tacky over-the-top production of “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” has been replaced with something that sound very nearly like desperation. If it wasn’t for Tyler’s all-consuming lead vocal one could be fairly easily convinced that this was thrown together on a couple of Casio keyboards and then just walked away from. Job’s a good ‘un. The other thing that’s worth noting about Our Bonnie is that when “Holding Out For A Hero” hit the Number 2 spot she was thirty-four years of age. Thirty-four! In an industry that prioritises youth almost over everything, which values appearance and glamour over age and respect, Tyler was able to knock it out of the park while being practically Jurassic in chart terms. By comparison Annie Lennox was 29 when “Sweet Dream (Are Made Of This)” was released, Suggs was 25 when Madness ended and Paul Weller was 24 when The Jam split up. That means there’s a decade between Weller and Bonnie Tyler. In pop chart terms that’s practically a century, and watching Tyler in the video – in fact, in any of her videos – there’s no denying she looks more like she’d be dropping the kids off at the disco rather than going there herself. There’s always been a touch of the mom about her, and no amount of dry ice or rouge can quite get away from that. And yet that’s exactly why her success should be celebrated. She isn’t a bog-standard rent-a-model. She’s not one of the whippersnappers. She is, at least by 80’s chart standards, an older lady with a belter of a voice who just keeps having hits, and the improbability of that is what makes it so endearing. The fact that she looks like a hot mom while doing it is a mark in her favour, not a demerit, and the way she comes across as sincere, genuine and likeable are all just more ticks in box. Clearly the outrageous camp and silliness of “Holding Out For A Hero” isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea, and the song itself isn’t close to being her strongest, but her career, and the unlikely success it gave Tyler, deserve to be celebrated, not mocked. She deserves real credit for her achievements in the face of the most facile and image-obsessed decade where someone like her simply shouldn’t have hits, yet does. We salute you, Ms Tyler. Good on you. What Else Happened in 1985?
Previous entry runners-up Dire Straits hit the top of their career with the unstoppable force that is Brothers In Arms and, with MTV firmly on-side, “Money For Nothing” will go to become their defining hit. Speaking of MTV it’s big brother, VH-1, debuts and aims itself at a slightly more mature audience. Madness release their final, and best, album Mad Not Mad, bringing to an end one of the best single-runs of all time. Of course what 1985 is largely remembered for now is Live Aid,. That means big-ticket headliners (Paul McCartney, David Bowie, The Who, Led Zeppelin) and the career revival of some otherwise has-beens (hey, Queen). It spanned the globe, or at the very least America and the United Kingdom, with the need to raise money for famine relief in Africa or at the very least gain unprecedented global exposure for their songs. No African musicians featured at all. Along similar lines the second-biggest song of the year is “We Are The World”, beaten to the top spot with Tears For Fears’ rather brilliant “Shout”. Madonna informs the world that she’s a “Material Girl” (it’s the fifth biggest seller of 1985) and Michael Jackson buys the Beatles back catalogue, stopping Paul McCartney getting it. Kate Bush gives us her mesiterwerk, The Hounds Of Love, Whitney Houston releases her debut and so do Dinosaur Jr. Both Guns’n’Roses and Radiohead are founded and Mick Jagger releases his first solo album. Better late than never… What Did We Nearly End Up Discussing?
In the UK, lots of electronic bands, actually. Tears For Fears got to Number 2 with "Everybody Wants To Rule The World", Duran Duran had "A View To A Kill", Frankie Goes To Hollywood had their last significant hit with "Welcome To The Pleasure Dome" and last but not least A-ha's simply dreadful "Take On Me" peaked at Number 2 in the UK at the end of the year, held off Number 1 by the equally appalling "The Power Of Love" by Jennifer Rush. Duran Duran also qualify on the US chart with "Wild Boys" but the Duran boys shall not be detaining us further (or ever), and Madonna qualifies three times, with "Material Girl" in the US, "Crazy For You" in the UK and a re-release of "Holiday", also in the UK. But the only serious other contender was Prince, with "1999" getting to Number 2 in January of 1985. And what kept Prince off the top spot? "I Want To Know What Love Is" by Foreigner. Shudder. Rankings: 1. The Beatles - "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane" 2. Stevie Wonder - "Sir Duke" 3. The Kinks - "Lola" 4. Jean Knight - "Mr Big Stuff" 5. Eurythmics - "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)" 6. Ultravox - "Vienna" 7. Elvis Costello - "Oliver's Army" 8. The Animals - "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" 9. Sly And The Family Stone - "Everyday People" 10. Adam And The Ants - "Antmusic" 11. The Sweet, "Ballroom Blitz" 12. Petula Clark - "Downtown" 13. Queen, "Killer Queen" 14. Blondie, "Denis" 15. Dire Straits - "Private Investigations" 16. Elton John - "Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time)" 17. Tom Jones - "Delilah" 18. Gloria Gaynor - "Never Can Say Goodbye" 19. Cyndi Lauper - "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" 19. Eddie Cochrane – "Three Steps To Heaven" 20. Bonnie Tyler - "Holding Out For A Hero" 21. Wings - "Let 'Em In" 22. The Troggs - "Wild Thing" 23. Jimmy Dean - "Big Bad John" 24. Chubby Checker - "Let's Twist Again" 25. Billy J Kramer And The Dakotas - "Do You Want To Know A Secret" Next Week On We’re Number Two…
A chaotic start to the week.
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Post by Prole Hole on Sept 21, 2020 5:48:38 GMT -5
Tagging Gamblin' Telly , who was this week's nefarious influencer. Thanks Telly! I did not go into this project expecting to come out batting for Bonnie Tyler, of all people, so this was a great choice for which I cannot take credit.
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Dellarigg
AV Clubber
This is a public service announcement - with guitars
Posts: 7,499
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Post by Dellarigg on Sept 21, 2020 6:43:50 GMT -5
Jeez, things have taken a dip since Dire Straits.
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Post by Prole Hole on Sept 21, 2020 7:29:38 GMT -5
Jeez, things have taken a dip since Dire Straits. Sweet Dreams isn't a dip! Mind you, just wait till we get to 1988....
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Post by Prole Hole on Sept 24, 2020 3:11:07 GMT -5
Additional! I should have embedded the video in the article because I think there is literally nothing more 80's than this. It's a masterclass.
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Post by Prole Hole on Sept 28, 2020 9:41:25 GMT -5
1986 – “Manic Monday”, The Bangles
Moody
Prince is, it will come as no surprise to anyone to discover, an astoundingly talented individual. He’s one of the icons of the 80’s, a gifted multi-instrumentalist and, during his Imperial phase, apparently incapable of touching anything musically that didn’t immediately turn out to be insanely successful. This gets mentioned because “Manic Monday” – a song written by Prince – was held off the Number 1 in America spot by “Kiss”. A song written by Prince. Sometimes it just seems like showing off, y’know? He’s playing synth and piano on this version too. There was just no stopping him. Anyway. “Manic Monday” is basically the polar opposite of our last entry, yet still feels absolutely of the decade it was released in. It’s a song that makes its mileage in the details of the everyday, and in doing so aligns itself as much with the likes of The Jam and Madness, who catalogue and celebrate the ordinary, as it does with the big-hitters of the decade. It’s a simple tale of someone grudgingly dragging themselves to work while they wish it was yesterday so they didn’t have to be arsed with it all. And who enjoys having dreams of a sexy movie star in a romantic location interrupted by their damned alarm? I mean, sure, Valentino is a quirky choice for the 1980’s, but nothing wrong with the classics. But there’s no big hair, wind machines, overly hilarious videos or pompous camp here. Just… you know. Normality. If there’s a word to describe “Manic Monday” that word would be “relatable”. And that’s one of the key charms of it – it something that basically anyone can identify with. But if “relatable” is the best descriptor then we shouldn’t neglect the other one that applies almost equally, and that’s “charm”. “Manic Monday” is an absolutely charming song, beguiling in its simplicity but arranged with enough complexity to be thoroughly engaging. So where does this charm come from? Well, the most obvious place to start is with the band members themselves. Susanna Hoffs simply has a great voice for this kind of song. The Bangles – previously The Bangs until they discovered someone else had that name and stuck an l, e and s on the end to avoid a clash – emerged from the Paisley Underground scene in LA, which favoured complex, layered harmonies, lots of guitars playing with each other (if you will excuse the expression) and a somewhat old-fashioned sound compared to much of the electronic music around at the time. Not that synths were barred or anything – as mentioned, Prince is doing the duties there on this recording – but listen to The Bangles and, say, Eurythmics side by side and the difference is pretty stark. This has a more… well, old-fashioned sound probably isn’t quite right but it’s certainly more traditional, and that certainly has its charms in charts awash with colder synths and endless movie soundtrack songs. Susanna Hoffs has a very warm, appealing voice that draws out natural sympathy and suits the slightly old-fashioned Paisley Underground sound very well. It’s also an ideal match for this particular song – listen to Prince’s demo alongside The Bangles version and it’s immediately apparent why the song ended up being sung by someone else. That’s not a slight on Prince, but his version is a bit… well, aggressive isn’t exactly the right word but the charm that Hoffs brings to the material is wholly lacking, and the song suffers for it not being there. Prince has many attributes but “lightly charming” isn’t one of his go-to movies. Hoffs’ voice elicits natural sympathy, so it’s easy to warm to a version of the song where she’s wistful and at least a little self-aware. That warmth helps the universality of the song – who hasn’t disconsolately wished it was still the weekend while realising there’s a less than zero percent chance of getting to your job on time? Prince’s lyrics are excellent at capturing a sense of slightly mordant ennui that doesn’t quite dwarf the protagonist, but it’s Hoffs’ voice that really brings the whole thing to life. “Blame it on the train / but the boss is already there,” she sighs. Yeah. Been there, done that. But let’s not undersell the contributions of the rest of the band, nor indeed the production. The song was produced by *checks notes* oh wow, it wasn’t Prince! No, it’s produced by David Kahne, who seems to have worked with just about all of music in its entirety, and has produced records by everyone from Paul McCartney to Lana Del Ray, from New Order to Fishbone. A varied CV, let’s say, but certainly a steady hand on the tiller because “Manic Monday” really is an extremely well-produced song. All those tinkling pianos and keyboards could sound insufferably twee, and they are fairly bright and treble-heavy, but they never tip over into typical 80’s over-produced instrumentation. Vicki Peterson, too, deserves some credit for some really great supporting work on guitar, understated enough not to dominate the keyboard line where the principal melody is being carried but distinctive enough to really add something to the material. Again the production gets the placement of the guitar just right, and it sits perfectly in the mix. These sound like easy things to get right but, as 1988 will prove, you can’t make that assumption by default. It can (and will) go horribly wrong. But here it is, in fact, perfect – “Manic Monday” is a perfectly produced song. So all respect to David Kahae, who knows what he’s got and knows how to pull it all together. It’s another reason the song is charming – it’s produced to be that way and it’s just done extremely well. Sometimes that’s all it takes, and “Manic Monday” absolutely lands it. And, great though it is, it wasn’t even their most successful song. “Walk Like An Egyptian”, also released in 1986, would blow it out of the water – solidly good song, bit of a novelty hit – and things would get even bigger in 1989 with “Eternal Flame” – fucking great, shows off what an amazing voice everyone in the band has. There’s other good songs in their back catalogue as well – “Hazy Shade Of Winter” is worth anyone’s time – but 1989 and “Eternal Flame” was both their biggest hit and pretty much the end of the line for The Bangles. They fell apart with various degrees of acrimony not long after and so in many ways “Manic Monday” has remained their best song, despite “Eternal Flame”’s great success. It’s one that synchs up nicely with the times, it feels honest and heartfelt in a way neither of their other two biggest hits, and there’s… well, look, there’s just something nice about it. Maybe that’s not the most devastatingly powerful characterisation an act or song has ever had but it’s still accurate. The truth is, “Manic Monday” is just a great song, written and sung to perfection by a band doing their absolute career best, and if we’re being strictly honest here there’s just not a vast amount more to say about it than that. Sometimes, just being a really, really good example of what you can do is enough. And that’s exactly what “Manic Monday” is. What Else Happened In 1986?The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame is founded, meaning every year from 1986 until the end of time people can argue about how unfair it is that X hasn’t been included while it’s a travesty that Y got in. So that’s fun. 1986 is also Peak Madonna – True Blue becomes the biggest selling album of the year, she becomes a bona fide icon, and she has the second-biggest single of the year with “Papa Don’t Preach” (outsold by “Rock Me Amadeus”, a better song). One of the most successful UK chart acts of all time, Pet Shop Boys, reach Number 1 on both sides of the Atlantic with “West End Girls” – it’s the fourth biggest-selling single of the year – while the shine finally comes off Kraftwerk with their mediocre Electric Café. Paul Simon embraces World Music/exploits World Music (delete as appropriate) with Graceland. The Smiths play their last live gig, and music magazine Q is founded (it lasts until 2020, when Covid finally forces its closure). Both The Pixies and The Goo Goo Dolls are founded, and Wham! go their own way. The Beastie Boys release their first album, Licenced To Ill, and both They Might Be Giants and The Housemartins release their debuts. Lionel Richie is Dancing On The Ceiling, Slayer Reign In Blood, Prince is on Parade, Robert Palmer is “Addicted To Love” and, horrifically, New Kids On The Block arrive. Yikes. What Did We Nearly End Up Discussing?
In the UK David Bowie’s “Absolute Beginners” got to Number 2 at the start of the year and was definitely a contender, but elsewhere there’s a lot of chaff in our hallowed position this year. Five Star. Sinitta. Nu Shooz. Su Pollard! It’s not a catalogue of quality I’m afraid. Simply Red’s defining hit “Holding Back The Years” dripped its way up to Number 2 in the summer, and Status Quo were “In The Army Now” near the end of the year but… yeah. Over the pond, Eddie Murphy got to Number 2 with “Party All The Time” which would have been different I guess, and Billy Ocean delivers another none-more-80’s Number 2 with “When The Going Gets Tough The Tough Get Going”. Rankings: 1. The Beatles - "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane" 2. Stevie Wonder - "Sir Duke" 3. The Kinks - "Lola" 4. Jean Knight - "Mr Big Stuff" 5. Eurythmics - "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)" 6. Ultravox - "Vienna" 7. Elvis Costello - "Oliver's Army" 8. The Animals - "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" 9. Sly And The Family Stone - "Everyday People" 10. Adam And The Ants - "Antmusic" 11. The Sweet, "Ballroom Blitz" 12. The Bangles - "Manic Monday" 13. Petula Clark - "Downtown" 14. Queen, "Killer Queen" 15. Blondie, "Denis" 16. Dire Straits - "Private Investigations" 17. Elton John - "Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time)" 18. Tom Jones - "Delilah" 19. Gloria Gaynor - "Never Can Say Goodbye" 20. Cyndi Lauper - "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" 21. Eddie Cochrane – "Three Steps To Heaven" 22. Bonnie Tyler - "Holding Out For A Hero" 23. Wings - "Let 'Em In" 24. The Troggs - "Wild Thing" 25. Jimmy Dean - "Big Bad John" 26. Chubby Checker - "Let's Twist Again" 27. Billy J Kramer And The Dakotas - "Do You Want To Know A Secret" Next Week On We’re Number Two…
For why is this being done to me?
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Post by MyNameIsNoneOfYourGoddamnBusin on Sept 30, 2020 19:34:19 GMT -5
Prole Hole , thoughts on the Bangles' near universally hated version of "September Gurls"? (Additional fun fact: on the subject of other people writing songs for the Bangles: Roby Hitchcock originally conceived his earworm single "Balloon Man" as a Bangles song and only recorded it himself when they turned it down.)
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Rainbow Rosa
TI Forumite
not gay, just colorful
Posts: 3,604
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Sept 30, 2020 22:29:53 GMT -5
Boooooooo, "I Can't Wait" is a cool single.
Not that the Bangles are bad - I wonder if now that the 80s are over we can admit they were a pretty good band?
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