An Alternative History of "Pop" Music

[Phil_A]

Cardiacs - Nurses Whispering Verses



Dropout-tastic early recording of a staple of Cardiacs live sets for many years, from the cassette only Toy World album. Re-recorded twice for subsequent releases but this one is still my favourite version.

[jamiefairlie]

Public Image Ltd.- Hymies Him

https://youtu.be/Fb6rAfeg1Vs



Taken from their third album, Flowers of Romance.

[Astronaut Omens]

Billy Bang-Rainbow Gladiator (live)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zQqm0aMRQew

I was going to post something off jazz violinist Billy Bang's 1981 Rainbow Gladiator album, which is nice but a tiny bit cluttered-sounding, when I found this beautiful, undated,  live version of the title cut on youtube, so have that instead even if the date isn't quite right. Billy Bang's wikipedia entry has lots of novelistic details in it:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Bang

[Brundle-Fly]

Voodoo Rhythm - The Meteors.  Released on Ace in 1981.



One of the most violent gigs I ever attended. A good night out though.

The Meteors are an English psychobilly band formed in 1980. Originally from London, England, they are often credited with giving the psychobilly subgenre—which fuses punk rock with rockabilly—its distinctive sound and style.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fx2tqOrv3k&feature=emb_logo

[Astronaut Omens]

Alan Vega- Ghost Rider
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a7uBOuCjymE

Speaking of psychobilly, Alan Vega, formerly of confrontational electronic band Suicide, was exploring the style at this time- on his second album he rerecorded one of Suicide's key songs in a grinding rockabilly style.

[jamiefairlie]

Sad Lovers And Giants - Things We Never Did

https://youtu.be/Zg5tBerJEfM



B-side of their second single, Colourless Dream.

[Astronaut Omens]

Eloise Whitaker- Don't Turn Your Back On Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJD0v2VcowE


A fairly low key, melancholy disco number, livened up some strange key changes towards the end. I couldn't find much about Eloise herself online who seems to have just made the 1 LP, but discogs says this was produced by Rinder and Lewis, who were behind Le Pamplemousse, who've already cropped up on these pages.

[Astronaut Omens]

Dinosaur L- #5 Go Bang! (Francois K Mix)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hEUTIjQuTo

Another epic jam masterminded by Arthur Russell, from an album whose conceit is that on every track the rhythm changes every 24 bars, remixed in a dub-disco style by François Kevorkian.

[jamiefairlie]

The Raincoats - Shouting Out Loud

https://youtu.be/o0bmKKK6Ji0



taken from from their second album, Odyshape, and another that was included on the C81 tape.

[jamiefairlie]

The Cure - Charlotte Sometimes

https://youtu.be/uqVhQbiYFFo




Released as their seventh single on 5 October 1981 by Polydor Records, following the band's third studio album Faith. The titles and lyrics to both sides were based on the book Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer.

The single reached No. 44 in the UK

[Jockice]

Tribes - Soul

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5UqGAftDek&t=45s


Dream - Sinking Ships

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnAXQZUdNpg

I've put these two together because they're connected in my mind. Correct me if I'm wrong but I suspect both acts might have listened to a smidgen of Joy Division. I had both singles in a bid to out-obscure my mates (I think I bought the latter purely because I liked the band's name) but know practically nowt about the artists. I think Sinking Ships were from Lincoln but that's it.

[Johnny Yesno]

The Cure - Charlotte Sometimes

https://youtu.be/uqVhQbiYFFo




Released as their seventh single on 5 October 1981 by Polydor Records, following the band's third studio album Faith. The titles and lyrics to both sides were based on the book Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer.

The single reached No. 44 in the UK

Heh, I never liked it but I sure am glad you posted it because it drew my attention to the fact that I was wrong to wait until we got to 1984 before I posted what is probably my favourite Cure song, the b-side...

The Cure - Splintered in Her Head



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-NVVcVlIrU

I fucking love the tribal tom-toms in this so much and the production goes weirdly light-headed near the end. I think I thought it was released in 1984 because it foreshadows where they would be musically around the time of The Top.

[Brundle-Fly]

Little Girls - Oingo Boingo. Released on A&M in 1981.





Oingo Boingo (/ˈɔɪŋɡoʊ ˈbɔɪŋɡoʊ/) was an American new wave band, formed by songwriter Danny Elfman in 1979. The band emerged from a surrealist musical theatre troupe, The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, that Elfman had led and written material for in the years previous.

Well, a lot to unpack here as they say these days. Elfman claimed that many of the songs were inspired by newspaper articles he had read at the time and were "written as in-your-face facetious jabs". 'Little Girls' courted controversy for its theme of underage relationships. The video for the song, directed by his brother Richard Elfman, was purportedly banned in Canada.

At the time of release, Elfman described the song as being "about a character who has certain unacceptable inclinations" and later commented, "Out here in Hollywood, you see so much of that; the older guy's in the car with some young girl who essentially asks no questions"

You can see how much he was influenced by XTC back then, right down to Andy Partridge's manic performance in the 'Making Plans For Nigel' promo.

Tune though

NSFW 21st C

Little Girls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9r_j4Fp9KU&feature=emb_logo

[jamiefairlie]

Heh, I never liked it but I sure am glad you posted it because it drew my attention to the fact that I was wrong to wait until we got to 1984 before I posted what is probably my favourite Cure song, the b-side...

The Cure - Splintered in Her Head



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-NVVcVlIrU

I fucking love the tribal tom-toms in this so much and the production goes weirdly light-headed near the end. I think I thought it was released in 1984 because it foreshadows where they would be musically around the time of The Top.

Good call, it is very Top like, that kind of fractured psychedelia. Wasn't my favourite Cure era though.

[jamiefairlie]

The Undertones - Julie Ocean

https://youtu.be/9-QzQ9sw8fo



Released in July, it reached number 41 in the UK charts. It also featured on their third album, Positive Touch.

[Johnny Yesno]

Good call, it is very Top like, that kind of fractured psychedelia. Wasn't my favourite Cure era though.

Initially, I wrote The Top off and was heavily into the golden gloom trilogy but years later, I really got into it. I do like my fractured psychedelia.

[jamiefairlie]

New Order - Doubts Even Here

https://youtu.be/-cRALur57P4



From their neglected debut Movement. It made its live debut in April but, curiously, was discarded in May after only eight airings. The second of two tracks on Movement to feature Peter Hook on vocals.

Bonus: Instrumental demo recorded in December 1980. Love this.

https://youtu.be/0UMVKC00xiA

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Dick Gaughan - Erin-Go-Bragh

From the album Handful of Earth, a folk tale of a Highlander mistaken for an Irishman when accosted by a 'saucy big polis' in Edinburgh. Featuring the trademark intricate folk guitar picking of a Glasgow-born, Leith-raised Dick Gaughan.

https://youtu.be/wxK8KRIluBU

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

John Carpenter - Escape from New York: Main Title



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgsQ2bSCuLY

The sparse electronic score from John Carpenter's cult sci-fi action thriller was, like the scores for so many of his films, composed by the man himself.

Sound designer Alan Howarth was introduced to John Carpenter by the picture editor of the film, Todd Ramsay, who had worked with Howarth on Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Howarth used equipment including ARP and Prophet-5 synthesizers and a Linn LM-1 drum machine, as well as an acoustic piano and Fender guitars, to create the palette of sounds used in the score, while Carpenter composed the melodies on the synthesizer keyboards. As the MIDI standard had yet to be invented, Howarth manually synchronized the equipment to picture while listening to a copy of the film's dialogue. Initial inspirational directions which Carpenter shared with Howarth included albums by Tangerine Dream and The Police.

[jamiefairlie]

Aztec Camera - We Could Send Letters

https://youtu.be/wO_6Y4oT7UQ



Formed in East Kilbride in 1980 as a vehicle for singer/songwriter Roddy Frame, then aged just 16. Their first few singles were released on Postcard and this track was originally the b-side to debut  "Just Like Gold".

[Brundle-Fly]

Take It Off - Chic.  Released on Atlantic in 1981.





Filth.

Chic were formed in 1977 by Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers, Chic are widely considered to be one of the most creative and innovative bands of the 'Disco Era'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSCbIX-twf8&list=PLb72gFQdbjPkn227vEmlKTlYyiC70nSRQ&index=8

[Astronaut Omens]

JJ Cale- Carry On
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI78ZGdAhB0

The man Cale has a million of these little atmospheric whispery songs, all of them goodies.

[jamiefairlie]

Ok, time to finish off 1981, possibly the finest  year yet I'd say, and we'll move onto 1982 later on Monday. So get your last 1981s in soon.

[Brundle-Fly]

Faster Than Light - Duran Duran. Released on EMI in 1981.





It would be churlish not to include the Duranies in our eighties role call. I couldn't bear them at the time but have warmed considerably to their charms over the years.

Duran Duran are a UK pop, new wave, and synth-pop group founded in Birmingham, England in 1978. They have sold over 100 million records.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnFj7hO7JOs&feature=emb_logo

[Phil_A]

The Go-Betweens - People Know



Taken from the debut album, "Send Me A Lullaby" released in Australia in 1981 ('82 in the UK)

The Go-Betweens were an Australian indie rock band formed in Brisbane, Queensland, in 1977. The band was co-founded and led by singer-songwriters and guitarists Robert Forster and Grant McLennan, who were its only constant members throughout its existence. Drummer Lindy Morrison joined the band in 1980, and its lineup would later expand to include bass guitarist Robert Vickers and multi-instrumentalist Amanda Brown. Vickers was replaced by John Willsteed in 1987, and the quintet lineup remained in place until the band split two years later. Forster and McLennan reformed the band in 2000 with a new lineup that did not include any previous personnel aside from them. McLennan died on 6 May 2006 of a heart attack and The Go-Betweens disbanded again. In 2010, a toll bridge in their native Brisbane was renamed the Go Between Bridge after them.

The album was recorded at the Richmond Recorders studio in Melbourne in July 1981. The album was engineered and produced by Tony Cohen (The Birthday Party), together with The Go-Betweens. Forster said that Cohen, although having a signature sound, lacked a producer's instinct and the band had to "choose their own songs and arrange them themselves," resulting in many older songs being jettisoned from the album.[4]

McLennan later said, "Send Me A Lullaby is to me an inauspicious debut. It's a record that I think if I'd heard - well, it's hard for me to say that, but if I'd heard that and I wasn't in the band, I think my comment would have been 'What the fuck is going on here.' There's great melodies but then there's changes which to this day I can't work out. There's lyrics to this day which I don't understand and when I actually summon up enough courage to get to the microphone, I sound like a choirboy with a mouthful of fruitcake."[5] Forster agreed, saying, "So, no classic first album. But a band has to keep thinking they are writing their own story. This was our way."[4]

[Brundle-Fly]

End Of The World- Bad Manners.  Released on Magnet in 1981.

'Long, long ago in the not too distant future' ? Apt.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZrTtpLs-PM

[jobotic]

JJ Cale- Carry On
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI78ZGdAhB0

The man Cale has a million of these little atmospheric whispery songs, all of them goodies.

Christ I want a Gitanes

[Astronaut Omens]

Christ I want a Gitanes

On the current reissue this sleeve image has been replaced with a picture of a gangrenous toe.

[Brundle-Fly]

Flamin' First - Heavy Manners. Released on Disturbing in 1981.





One of the first U.S. ska revival bands influenced by 2Tone and the UK scene. Nice period video below.

Heavy Manners were a ska band from Chicago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b58rUqxWep0&feature=emb_logo

[jamiefairlie]

I never really got on with US ska, there always seemed something not quite right about it. there's always this lurking doubt that it's just a style they can take on or off depending on their whims, like No Doubt suddenly doing that awful 'Don't Speak' thing,