Wired For Sound is a stone cold classic

[Dewt]

Sorry but it is. It sounds like a magic spell.

[DrGreggles]

As fond as I am of speaker height preference equilibrium, WFS does nowt for me.
The video is fucking hilarious though.

[Dewt]

You just don't understand it. It's about speaker variety

[Dewt]

Sick of you speaker equilibrium goons

[Cuellar]

Yeah can't argue with this to be fair to him (Dewt AND Cliff)

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Yes, it's great. The best thing BA Cunterson ever did (a low bar, admittedly, but it's a top record).

[dr beat]

WFS or...We Don't Talk Any More?

Which is best? There's only one way to find out

[Bennett Brauer]

Prefer Carrie myself, another B A Robertson co-write.

[Pauline Walnuts]

Surprised Mistletoe and Wine didn't make it back into the chart, over Christmas in the same way all those other bloomin' old xmas songs did, what with it being on the repeats of Top of the Pops and all.

And before anyone says that's because it's terrible, well yes it is, but so where all the other songs, and what's that going around in your head now? You can't stop it can you?

[pigamus]

It's absolutely glorious. Carrie and Devil Woman are both surprisingly good but Wired for Sound is the one.

[the science eel]

WFS or...We Don't Talk Any More?

Which is best? There's only one way to find out

Clearly the latter.

It's better than every RHCP song

http://preludin.proboards.com/thread/2098/

[BlodwynPig]

I just managed to find a digital version of the album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wYsZ2Kg548

[TheMonk]

I like short people,
I like small people,
I love midgets
I'm wild for dwarves

[gilbertharding]

I can't remember if it was here, or another forum, where there was a massive discussion about what car he was driving in the video. You can only see the windscreen wipers and the seats.

I think the consensus was 'Aston Martin'.

Yeah - the period 76-82 was like Elvis '68 for Cliff. Looking good too:

[madhair60]

Wired For Sound is the greatest pop song of all time.

[Better Midlands]

I like Wired For Sound, the cod new wave production sounds a bit weedy though. Would have been ace if someone like Gary Numan had produced it. I can imagine a Girls Aloud/Xenomania or Sugarbabes/Richard X cover version from the early 2000s sounding poptastic too.

Cliff goes Balearic/Yacht Rock from 1978
https://youtu.be/9_BcYNROy3s

[studpuppet]

It's absolutely glorious. Carrie and Devil Woman are both surprisingly good but Wired for Sound is the one.

Devil Woman was the one my friend and I used to misguidedly sing to the girl in our class that didn't go to RE lessons (she was a Jehovah's Witness..).

Anyway - any Cliff post is an excuse to revisit Cliff's house!

[Cuellar]

I used to think I was wrong for liking Wired for Sound, I've never admitted it to anyone. Finally, I can live freely as myself.

I am crying rn

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Woah woah woah woh hoh hoh
Woah
Woah
Woah

[Satchmo Distel]

I think a lot of credit should go to Alan Tarney

http://www.chartwatch.co.uk/TopTen/writers/wri2988.htm

Elvis 1968-72 would be a stretch, if were comparing quality (although I can see that you may have adjusted for that already, and are just drawing a career parallel not quality one). Wired For Sound is not In The Ghetto or Suspicious Minds, neither of which Cliff would have touched with a bargepole.

[daf]

We Don't Talk Any More?

and he ain't counting sheep
(Shee-ee-ee-eep)

[Dusty Substance]

TV Cream did an updated version of their Top 100 Singles list a couple of years ago and Wired For Sound came in first place, beating the likes of ABBA, Human League and David Bowie.

And so your number one Cream-era pop song is a song purely about the love of music, co-written by BA Robertson and given Alan Tarmey's sharp, gleaming production that gives a good name to the concept of adult contemporary. A song with lyrics about the connection to pop radio that sounds absolutely made for it, and as its position her proves that's all that's needed sometimes. Among its supporters, many thanks to Claire Whitfield for a beautifully evocative nomination as "it really reminds me of getting ready to go to school when I was about six and hearing it on the radio... and eating Readybrek on dark winter mornings with steamed up windows in the kitchen. I recall having Rise and Shine (the vile powdered orange juice) but I think this must be false memory as it was only for special occasions in our house. In a similar vein, Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty reminds me of being a similar age and being driven through the outskirts of Coventry in the back of my granddad's car in the rain, probably to the bakery to get an apple pie for tea." And isn't that correlation to place and time what memorable pop is ultimately about?

It's a great pop single - But it's not as good as Devil Woman.

[boki]

WFS or...We Don't Talk Any More?

Which is best? There's only one way to find out

Never understood the love for WDTA.  It commits the cardinal pop sin of having a chorus that sounds dreary in comparison to its verses, and I'd be tempted to applaud the boldness of such a move if it didn't sound like such utter ASS.  Wired For Sound's okay, especially as it was easily adapted into an anti-teacher diatribe in the playground, but  could've done a bit more with its 'whoa's.  Go on, 'Arry, give it some.  Imagine you've had half an altar wine.

Carrie is so obviously the one for this period (no pun intended) of the Clioeuvre.

[gilbertharding]

Carrie Doesn't Live Here... Is an odd song, isn't it? A brilliant tune, but:

All the Americanisms in it: "...Carrie used to room on the second floor...".

The awkward syntax demanded by making it fit the music: "... Sorry that she left no forwarding address that was known to me."

"Just another missing person... One of many, we presume." Ugh.

Which brings me to the ick-factor of young Bongo's 'acting' in the video. All his usual slow-motion dance moves, and 'doesn't he look young' close ups (he was only 40 for crying out loud!). The subject matter, given what we are now hearing about the circles in which he was mixing.

"The young wear their freedom..." *makes halfhearted peace-sign* "...like cheap purfume." *mimes applying purfume behind ear... closes eyes*

Wired for Sound passed by in the same thread almost without comment.

[wosl]

I'm in the Carrie camp.  As good as Cliff gets, maybe; corking chorus, and Cliff puts in a very good shift, vox-wise.  Wired For Sound seems a bit whipped-up-until-it's-light-and-frothy in comparison - the beginning of the chorus naturally recalls the chorus of Power To All Our Friends, which I like.  Dreamin' is another decent Richard effort from the '70s-into-'80s period (co-written by Leo Sayer, I now find out all these years later).

[Dewt]

Carrie is like a song written by an AI designed to sound contemporary.

Back to Wired For Sound, the best of songs, I like the 80s primary school grammar of "If they've music". That's straight from Words and Pictures.

[Dewt]

There's something a little heartbreaking about the futuristic optimism of Milton Keynes in the video. People really did believe they were building a sophisticated new world. Imagine anybody believing in anything today. Nuts.

[Dewt]

There is no way he wrote this with a clean botty.

[shiftwork2]

It's serviceable.

From memory, Chart Music podcast described the video as 'a cheaper Clockwork Orange' - early eighties Milton Keynes that somehow looks quite attractive, the promise of a future that was never to be fulfilled.  On skates.

The chorus lyrics were never really known, I think in part because they're crackers.  'Power from the needle to the plastic' elicits a wot mate and was misheard as 'verbastic'.

fake edit: just read ^^ about MK

[Nice Relaxing Poo]

A very decent tune, probably kept BA Cunterson in neeps, tatties and Irn Bru for a good many years.