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An Alternative History of "Pop" Music: Part 2, 1982 -

Started by jamiefairlie, January 20, 2021, 05:43:47 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Brundle-Fly

Spring Has Sprung - The Saucers Released on BBC in 1982.



Cheggers, Mags Philbin are back but sans skin basher, Edmonds. Written by The Cunterson. Again.

Nuff said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L163hKqf-6g

daf

Rich Little ‎– President's Rap



Released in 1982 - did not chart

QuoteRichard Caruthers Little was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. In his early teens, he formed a partnership with Geoff Scott, another budding impressionist, concentrating on reproducing the voices of Canadian politicians such as Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and Ottawa mayor Charlotte Whitton. Little became a relief announcer on Ottawa radio station CFRA, before being hired as a disc jockey on CJET in Smiths Falls, Ontario.

In 1963, Little issued two LPs : "My Fellow Canadians", which he performed with Les Lye and which concentrated on Canadian political satire and featured Little and two other actors impersonating figures well-known to a Canadian audience; and "Scrooge and the Stars", which featured Little acting out Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol entirely on his own, playing all the roles as 22 different Hollywood stars, ranging from Jack Benny to Jack Webb. The album was released in early November but it had to be withdrawn a few weeks later due to the assassination of John F. Kennedy as Little had imitated JFK in the role of the Spirit of Christmas Present and had Kennedy say the line "Scrooge, my life upon the globe is brief; it ends tonight. In fact, it ends as fast as you can say your name."

   

One of his best-known impressions is of US President, and blue-chinned ghoul, Richard Nixon. During the 1970s, Little made many television appearances portraying Nixon and once performed his impersonation in front of Nixon himself, who Little says did not realize he was imitating him at all and "wondered why I was talking to him in such a funny voice."

Oz Oz Alice

Denial - California Dreaming

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_tP6LPLjJY

An utterly gorgeous sparse electronic gothed up version of California Dreaming here by Denial from Australia, one of many acts retrospectively lumped into the whole minimal wave movement to have made one single then split.

#123
Quote from: daf on January 24, 2021, 02:08:54 PM
Rich Little ‎– President's Rap



Released in 1982 - did not chart

Weirdly, that track is mentioned in the comments for this video:
Tom Tom Club and Mister Yellow- Yella
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oBY0WlUQjGs

It's a remix of the Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love" single with Tina Weymouth's vocal replaced with this comedy Mc-ing thing which sounds like it's supposed to be a parody of something (or is it supposed to be a 'funny foreigner)'. Was Mister Yellow, no relation to Jamaican dancehall MC Yellowman, Rich Little doing a thing?

Phil_A

The Better Beatles - Penny Lane



QuoteThe Better Beatles were a short-lived post-punk band formed in Omaha, Nebraska in 1981. The group consisted of Kurt Magnuson on bass, Dave Nordin on synthesizer, Jean pSmith on vocals, and Jay Rosen on drums and vocals.[1] Their repertoire consisted entirely of cold, minimalist covers of the songs of The Beatles in an irreverent manner comparable to covers performed by The Residents.[2]

Nordin has stated that he considered the Beatles "an oppressive influence," and pSmith has said their goal was to "[strip] the songs of their sacred status."[3] After a handful of shows, they recorded an album's worth of material in late 1981. They broke up shortly before their debut single "Penny Lane"/"I'm Down" was released on Woodgrain Records, leaving the bulk of their music unreleased.

The single received some play from John Peel in the UK and the band was mentioned in The Village Voice by critic Robert Christgau as a candidate for the Best Name Award in the annual Pazz & Jop Critics Poll.[4] There was some interest from labels, but the members had already moved on, with pSmith and Magnuson having relocated to Seattle. Attention died down and the band was largely forgotten for over two decades. Rosen went on to perform as a guitarist with the Altamont Boys, the backing band for The Legendary Stardust Cowboy.[5] Due to a growing cult interest online, pSmith tracked down Rosen and the two of them compiled the "Penny Lane" single and the remaining recorded material into an album, Mercy Beat, which was released in 2007.[6] The cultural organization Hear Nebraska has described the album as "some of the definitive Nebraska recordings of the punk-rock era."[


daf

The Qworymen ‎– Beatle Rap



Released in 1982 - despite coming out in a variety of novelty shaped vinyl, including 'Square' for Grandad, 'Star' for the teenagers, and the trad. arr. 'round' for mum and dad - it failed to chart.



Oz Oz Alice

Pushin' Too Hard - Paul Parker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K413r4kR9zU

The B side to his Patrick Cowley produced single Right On Target, this Seeds cover continues Patrick Cowley's fusions of the recent rock'n'roll past with none more gay Hi NRG. Makes perfect sense, the grinding repetition of The Seeds translates incredibly well to electronic rhythms. Sadly we never got a Sky Saxon version of (You Make Me Feel) Mighty Real.

#127
.

Quadrant Six-Body Mechanic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZMQKYtnCQo

Known for his work with producer Arthur Baker, this track, more electro-sleaze ,was the work of keyboard player John Robie.

Fantastic Freaks, Cold Crush Brothers, DJ Grand Wizard Theodore (Live at Club Dixie in South Bronx)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzBI2z0J9bs

A joyous bit of live hip-hop from the movie Wild Style is my last pick.

McChesney Duntz

Quote from: daf on January 24, 2021, 01:30:52 PM
The Fabulous Billygoons ‎– Billygoon Party Rap



Featured on the 12" mini album "Rhapsody In Flatulence" - released in 1982

From what I've been able to find out, these were a Comedy band who emerged out of the Boston Punk scene around 1980.

Wow. That takes me back to my just-pre-adolescence in the Boston area. Not necessarily in a pleasant way - there were a lot of acts in the comedy and music scenes in that era that combined a punkish audacity with a certain Massachusetts dunderheadedness that usually grated on me. Then again, both Steven Wright and Bobcat Goldthwait emerged from that busted-up chrysalis around that time too...

daf

Wayne Roberts ‎– Aussie Talk



Released in October 1982 - did not chart

Info Squib!!
QuoteWayne Roberts is arguably one of the legends of breakfast radio in Brisbane and Australia.

 

As Waynee 'Poo' Roberts he was well known for his famous gotcha calls, zany presentation and unpredictable style. He released an album and several singles in the early 80's.

Oz Oz Alice


Brundle-Fly

Silver Shamrock Commercial Theme. - Conal Cochran. Released on Siver Shamrock Novelties in 1982.





Don't forget to tune in at Halloween.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIHUv2ooG38

daf

Count Floyd ‎– Count Floyd Is Back



Released on a 4-track EP 12" Mini-Album in 1982

QuoteCount Floyd originated on the Canadian sketch show SCTV, and later appeared on The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley. Played by comic actor Joe Flaherty, he was was the alter-ego of another SCTV character: Floyd Robertson, co-anchor of the SCTV News [The name was a joke based on that of Canadian news anchor Lloyd Robertson]

The premise was that employees at this very low-budget TV station had to double up on jobs, so news anchor Floyd Robertson was also the host of SCTV's Monster Chiller Horror Theater, wearing a cheap Transylvanian vampire costume and speaking in a stereotypical Bela Lugosi type accent. Oddly, although Floyd was supposed to be a vampire, he would also open each show howling like a werewolf, presumably indicating that Floyd Robertson had only the vaguest of idea what a vampire was. Near the end of a howl, he would break off disarmingly into a weak chuckle.

 

Occasionally, Count Floyd would be joined by a vampire-caped sidekick known as The Pittsburgh Midget, played by Flaherty's brother Paul Flaherty. The main running gag of the sketch was that the station would usually provide truly awful films for the show that were not in the least bit scary, including such genres as biopics with very scant relation to horror,  softcore pornography with a horror theme, and Swedish arty films, forcing Floyd to struggle to hype them to his mostly juvenile audience. ("Alright, it wasn't that scary but did you get a good look at those chicks?").

Johnny Yesno

The Danse Society - Hide



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLeZOY80ibs

The b-side of the single Somewhere. From under the YouTube video:

QuoteThe Danse Society - Hide (Dec 1982) released on Society records - The last independent single before being signed to a major label. Reached No2 in the Independent charts. Produced by Richard O'Brien of Rock Horror and Crystal Maze fame.

I didn't know any of that.

Johnny Yesno

The Cure - A Short Term Effect



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n57TT0EJBm0

From their 1982 album Pornography. The Cure did turn out some really weird shit when they put their minds to it. It's a shame their music lost that quality in their later years.

daf

XTC - All of a Sudden (It's Too Late)



Closng track on disc 1 of the double-album 'English Settlement' - released in February 1982

QuoteEnglish Settlement was the fifth studio album and first double album by XTC. The textured album cover is based upon the Uffington White Horse chalk carving in southwest Oxfordshire, which is about 8 miles east of Swindon, Wiltshire, XTC's home town. The band chose the image since it was a strong, historic symbol of England.

Andy Partridge : "it's our most English record. It's kind of an ambiguous title. ... The horse isliterally a kind of Iron Age advertisement for an English settlement that was on top of the hill when the first settlers came to England. And it's us living here, settling here, and also the settling of viewpoints, when two people have a disagreement or a different view and they get something settled."

 

Andy Partridge : "I actually don't remember much about the writing of it, other than I found this chord change - I'm playing sort of a D chord, and adding in a G-flat, which is fine as a root, but then also adding in a D-flat as a root, which makes it sound sort of hopeless. As in a no-hope kind of mood, rather than not very well thought-out! The song fell out quite quickly from that. I think it could have been better-structured. Like, there's no reason for all that kind of jungle-drums rhythm stuff before the song starts. If I was producing a band now, and they came up with that song, I'd say, "Look, after you've done your guitar intro, straight in with the song! Why do you need to have so many bars of just paddling around this rhythm?"

The album marked a turn towards the more pastoral pop songs that would dominate later XTC releases, with an emphasis on acoustic guitar, 12-string electric guitar and fretless bass.

Andy Partridge : ""All of a Sudden" wasn't played live, it was really brought up, and just "became" in the studio, if you see what I mean. I think I'd decided that I didn't want to tour. And that took off some sort of mental padlock. It was like, "No, you haven't got to reproduce any of this stuff, don't worry if it's acoustic instruments, or keyboards, or whatever."

   

Andy Partridge : "Dave's playing 12-string, rather precisely, which is very good. I love Dave's little intermediate bits between the vocal lines. He's very good at that kind of answering with the guitar. That was his new instrument, so it had to be on everything, you know? You get like that. In fact, on that album, we all bought new instruments. I think Terry got a big, deep military snare. Looks like a tom-tom, you know, but it's a snare. That was his new toy for a while. I got a new acoustic guitar, Dave got a 12-string, and Colin got the fretless bass. We treated ourselves to the Prophet-5 synthesizer, which was a polyphonic five-note synth. So yeah, we had a new arsenal, so it was a case of, "Our new toys have got to go on these tracks!"

Johnny Yesno

Bauhaus - In the Night



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4NDEKmdSvE

From The Sky's Gone Out, which is another very strange album. It opens with a cover of Third Uncle by Eno and then wanders off all over the place.

We did a cover of this track in my first (covers) band. It went really well with the other songs we covered, like Bugged by Head of David and Bone Machine by the Pixies.

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: daf on January 24, 2021, 06:03:35 PM
XTC - All of a Sudden (It's Too Late)



Closng track on disc 1 of the double-album 'English Settlement' - released in February 1982

Also...

XTC - Melt The Guns



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

I like the message but that's not the reason. It really is an unusual composition.

Oz Oz Alice

Neil Young - Transformer Man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqdx6dCQLug

On this, from Graham Linehan's favourite Neil Young album, he somehow uses a Vocoder in a way that turns his voice into the sound of a weeping pedal steel.

Trans is an incredibly moving record in his attempt to relate to and communicate with his son with cerebral palsy and deserves to be more than a punchline about how he went off the rails and pissed off Geffen in the 80s.

jamiefairlie

Quote from: Johnny Yesno on January 24, 2021, 05:40:53 PM
The Danse Society - Hide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLeZOY80ibs

The b-side of the single Somewhere. From under the YouTube video:

I didn't know any of that.

I was keeping the a-side for 83 as I thought that's when it came out but may as well throw it in here...

The Danse Society - Somewhere

https://youtu.be/VEsy_pgDc_4

This is their fourth single and it reached  number 42 in the Festive Fifty.

Johnny Yesno

Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band - The Thousandth and Tenth Day of the Human Totem Pole



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQUke-HSjQ4

Years ago, Robert Smith from the Cure cited Beefheart as an influence but for years I just couldn't see the connection. However, I have since come to realise that tracks like the one I posted above do have this music in their DNA.

Oz Oz Alice

Christian Death - Romeo's Distress

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCqaXfFJD9c

Another that due to its relentless drive and infectiousness would be a huge hit in a just word, albeit hampered from doing so in the same way with the same rhetoric used in the opening lyrics as in The Classical by The Fall as earlier listed. Rozz Williams vocal presence is lecherous, solicitous and dangerous: Christian Death would become a shadow of their former selves when Rozz left.

Johnny Yesno

The Birthday Party - Big Jesus Trash Can



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpL6Tnn8-Jw

Nick Cave now moans about cancel culture from his comfortable old man nest in Hove.

Oz Oz Alice

Anything off Junkyard fits the bill here, what an utterly wonderful album.

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: Oz Oz Alice on January 23, 2021, 06:54:12 PM
Dax ... will be represented by me again in future in this thread.

Not if I get there first, bucko! ;-p

Brundle-Fly

Hilly Fields (1892) - Nick Nicely  Released on EMI in 1982.





Talking of XTC, Nick pipped Dukes Of Stratosphear to the post in making 1980s neo-psychedelia Beatley homage, much to Andy Partridge's chagrin.

Nick Nicely AKA Nickolas Laurien is a British musician, born 1959, making psychedelic rock and experimental electronic music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv5XnTz4KeM&feature=emb_logo

daf

Aaah, Mate!

How could I have forgotten that one - That is the business!

Johnny Yesno

D'Oh! Yes. Was that the only record he released in 1982?

Think I like 49 Cigars more.