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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

Johnny Yesno

#1200
Quote from: jamiefairlie on March 25, 2021, 11:24:46 PM
Dead Can Dance - Severance

https://youtu.be/h0xQs52eDOE



Taken from their fourth album, The Serpent's Egg, where they continue to profitably mine the medieval sounds that have so far been their trademark.

It's not a bad track but I can't get past Brendan's club crooner vocal fry. On the other hand, The Serpent's Egg has this spectacular piece of music on it:

Dead Can Dance - Mother Tongue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUihAQ0E0As

Johnny Yesno

My Bloody Valentine - drive it all over me



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

From the You Made Me Realise ep. If you don't have it, I strongly recommend the EP's 1988–1991 collection, which has a lot of their best work on it including this track.

Johnny Yesno

Skinny Puppy - Human Disease (S.K.U.M.M.)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUHOMIwf12A

A particularly abrasive and odd track from their fourth studio album VIVIsectVI.

Johnny Yesno

I know I said I wasn't going to post any more Cabs stuff but I forgot about this amazing track:

Cabaret Voltaire - Invocation



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK4_BXlle68

Eight Crepuscule Tracks is a compilation of singles, compilation album tracks and previously unreleased tracks. Invocation originally appeared on the 1981 Christmas compilation album Chantons Noël - Ghosts Of Christmas Past from Les Disques Du Crépuscule. I only found this out very recently and though it's obvious to me now I know, it had never previously occurred to me what that sound is. It's a hackneyed thing to say but this track truly was way ahead of its time.

Johnny Yesno

Head of David - Bugged



https://youtu.be/r6UYDff0yUI?t=462

From the album Dustbowl, produced by Steve Albini and released on Blast First. Head of David were an early project of Justin Broadrick of Godflesh, Final, Jesu and more.

jamiefairlie

The Sun and The Moon - Adam's Song (Pour Fenella)

https://youtu.be/QpMibwVFmok



After the demise of The Chameleons, singer/bass player Mark Burgess and drummer John Lever formed this short lived band. They released just one self-titled album, from which this track is taken.

Oz Oz Alice

Bam Bam - Where's Your Child

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDyxyRcZWBA&t=93s

Quote"Atop the slowest, sparest throb, gongs clank, babies scream, and this deep, electronically slowed vocal – half satyr, half Satan – groans 'No one likes to be left alone/Especailly when they don't know right from wrong.' He starts laughing and cackling, but nothing's funny."

QuoteChris Westbrook's Bam Bam released Where's Your Child on Desire Records in 1988; echoing the positivity of the 'Summer of Love' with a soupçon of terror. Also this year Bam Bam released Give Me It which entered the UK singles chart in March, stayed in for two weeks and reached #65. Where's Your Child was later covered by Coil in 2004.

Oz Oz Alice

Momus - A Complete History of Sexual Jealousy Parts 17-24

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVpR15PfjFI

QuoteThis sounded like a Leonard Cohen song when I demoed it, but Pet Shop Boys samples and an electro bassline really brought it alive. It's yet another song of bitter and twisted sexual insecurity. This is probably where I got the reputation as "Britain's premier psychoanalyst of song"; I had a tendency to see normal things as deeply pathological. In fact, I used to sit in on lectures at the LSE by one Christopher Badcock -- his whole thing was that society itself was sick and needed a shrink. The personal was political, and sexual possessiveness was about a society which valued possessions and property above all else. But my narrator falls in love with his own jealousy and tells his partner to "love the others".

How I rate this now: This is yet more sharp self-parodic psychoanalysis. I like the way the syntax works: "The man the man you broke the heart of broke the heart of" is a nice trick -- one I found myself repeating the other day when I found myself deriding, on some blog, "the tendency to see the decline of things once seen as a sure sign of the decline of things as a sure sign of the decline of things". This album leaves no snub unsquibbed!

QuoteCome into my arms my lover, let me be your sanctuary
Come into my arms my lover, where you no longer have to look at me
You've been stupid enough to love someone who's hurt you a lot

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Mudhoney - Touch Me I'm Sick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm3UwFTBNys



Roll over Bon Jovi and tell Def Leppard the news, grunge is here!

This is Mudhoney's epochal debut single.

QuoteMudhoney are an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington in 1988. Their early releases on the Sub Pop label were massively influential on the Seattle music scene. More than almost any other band of the era, they inspired the dirty, high-distortion sound that would become grunge. Later on, Mudhoney also mixed heavy blues rock and punk rock into their sound at various stages.

When it was first released, Touch Me I'm Sick was a hit on college radio. Its heavily distorted and fuzzy guitars, snarling vocals, blunt bass line and energetic drumming contributed to a dirty sound that influenced many local musicians, and helped develop the nascent Seattle grunge scene. A staple of Mudhoney's live shows, it remains their most recognisable song.

Lead vocalist and guitarist Mark Arm says the band has never tired of performing it: "The beauty of it is that it's two minutes long. It's not like it's Free Bird where you have to suffer through ten minutes of playing it every night." He considers the track to be Mudhoney's highwater mark,

"There's something special about that first single, we were never quite able to recapture that sound. I don't know if it was the guitars or the recording. It was just a really gnarly, gnarly guitar sound. I think it had more to do with the actual electromagnetic chemistry of what was going through our amps that day. It was just a cool, fried-out sound."

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Oz Oz Alice on April 02, 2021, 07:58:37 AM
Momus - A Complete History of Sexual Jealousy Parts 17-24

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVpR15PfjFI

Great call. Astonishingly, Manfred Mann's Earth Band recorded a proggy cover version of it in 1996.

Brundle-Fly

Shut That Door- The Wolfgang Press. Released on 4AD in 1988.





Steady daf, this is not a cover version of Larry Grayson's 1972 novelty single. I discovered this lot with the great Queer album released a few years later. Good back catalogue delving ensued.

The Wolfgang Press were a British band, formed in 1983. Members Michael Allen and Mark Cox had previously played together in the bands Rema-Rema and Mass whilst Andrew Gray was initially a member of In Camera. Lauded as one of 4AD's longest-tenured acts, the band would go on to record consistently until the mid-nineties, culminating with the release of Funky Little Demons in 1995 and the retrospective Everything Is Beautiful (A Retrospective 1983-1995) in 2001.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itWcOH86aGc&t=59s

jamiefairlie

The Blue Aeroplanes - Action Painting

https://youtu.be/Ro8Od3SiKwY



The Blue Aeroplanes first performed under that name at the King Street Art Gallery in Bristol in 1981. They consisted mainly of former members of the band Art Objects. This is taken from compilation album, Friendloverplane, although it was originally released a few years earlier as a single.

jamiefairlie

The Field Mice - Emma's House

https://youtu.be/b0_mlWA-la8



The Field Mice initially formed as a duo from South London suburb of Mitcham comprising Robert Wratten (for vocals and guitar) and Michael Hiscock (on bass guitar). This is their debut single, released in November, and it reached number 20 in the UK Independent Chart.

The band split up in 1991 after a fractious tour to promote the For Keeps album Later, Field Mice members Wratten, Anne Mari Davies (Wratten's ex-girlfriend), and Mark Dobson briefly formed Yesterday Sky before becoming the more synth-oriented outfit Northern Picture Library, and then Wratten went on to form Trembling Blue Stars in 1995.

daf

Brian Wilson – Rio Grande



Featured on the album 'Brian Wilson' released in July 1988

QuoteIn July 1988, Brian Wilson released his first solo album. Wilson's material on the album was gathered from the previous five years of songwriting, which amounted to about a hundred songs. The recording sessions were said to be contentious - Wilson's collaborators reportedly clashed with Wilson's controversial therapist Eugene Landy and his medical staff.

Andy Paley : "The guy was saying something like, 'Brian, don't you think the lyrics would be better if Alexandra fixed them?' And Brian said, 'No, I like them the way they are.' Then the guy's like, 'Well, what did you tell me last night when I said you could have that milkshake if you switched the lyrics?' And then Brian said, 'Oh, okay. The new lyrics are better than the old ones.' Anything good we got out of those sessions was done totally on stolen time... Landy was always checking in, phoning in directions, basically never wanting to give Brian any breathing room. It was a hassle and many times heartbreaking because we'd do something good, finally, and then Landy would swoop in and dive-bomb it."

   

Russ Titelman, who had previously collaborated with Wilson in the 1960s on the songs "Guess I'm Dumb" and "Sherry She Needs Me", was brought on board after Wilson reportedly expressed desire to make the record more modern : "My job was to egg him on, make him do stuff that maybe he wouldn't have done, hope we shared the same taste. In that way, I was helpful, a catalyst. ... I was sensitive to Brian's quirkiness and to his feelings about certain things, but after a point, he knows what's good and he knows what to do. And I know what to do. We're both professionals. So if he was going off track, I would say 'This is no good.' I was very tough about what I thought, made no bones."

At the behest of Titelman, the album's eight-minute-long closing suite, "Rio Grande" was purposely developed as a continuation to the modular recording experiments Wilson used on the aborted 'SMiLE' project.

Lenny Waronker : "Russ did a real good job of helping Brian realize the beauty of his music, helped it stand up. Brian hasn't done this in a long time, and he needed help with the technology. And where it needed some small fixing, Russ was able to show Brian how to do it in a simple way. ... The idea that Brian was able to do this after so much time away was really shocking, beyond what anybody could expect."

 

Sun-Sentinel (review) : "Wilson's clever, mostly upbeat ideas flow magnificently throughout the record, easily transcending his emotional madness. His introspective poems and barbershop harmonies are framed in a series of bouncy melodies that never take a trite or simple path. ... Just when you think you know where one of his songs may lead, he dips into another spacey progression, and the tune is launched again on a separate plane. In particular, the closing six-part piece, 'Rio Grande', is the kind of immensely fulfilling progressive pop with which art-rock bands such as Yes and Genesis formerly toyed, but rarely brought to satisfying completion."

jamiefairlie

The Flatmates - Shimmer 

https://youtu.be/OJgM33dFQ5I



Their fourth single, it reached number 2 in the Indie charts and number 42 in the Festive Fifty, exactly the same as debut single  "I Could Be In Heaven" two years earlier.

Brundle-Fly

Archie Stephen's Birthday Party - Shrug   Released on Our Man's Records in 1988.





You can't get a more obscure Northern parochial, sardonic band than Shrug  Their low maintenance approach makes Half Man Half Biscuit seem like ELO.

Shrug was formed by Oli Heffernan and Richie O'Brien in Middlesbrough in 1985. Only two albums recorded, Septober Octember No'Wonder in 1988, the second album, Island Complex thirty years later in 2018. Sophomore-tastic!

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

P.S. For the benefit of people who live outside Teeside and who aren't aging TV nerds.  R.I.P. Neville Wanless who we lost in December last year age 89.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x6w905h0AM

Jockice

But...but...surely that's Mike Neville. My mum used to fancy him. As well as Mike Baldwin. Maybe she only fancied men called Mike. My dad was called Jack.

Johnny Yesno

Cocteau Twins - Suckling the Mender



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SEkcY1SVGw

From their fifth and, to my mind, their best album Blue Bell Knoll. I wasn't able to choose my favourite track because they're all great, so this is an arbitrary choice. Elizabeth Fraser named the album after a peak in southern Utah, apparently.

Phil_A

Microdisney - Singer's Hampstead Home



The opening track of what would be the final Microdisney album, "39 Minutes" , the conclusion of an unhappy period when the band had moved from Rough Trade to Virgin, who seemingly didn't know what to do with them. The song is apparently not about Boy George.

It also the last song from the what was at the time the band's last gig, as they would implode following a particularly tense and seething Amnesty benefit performance the same year, which was filmed as part of a live broadcast at the time(introduced by Billy Connolly!)

https://youtu.be/C0i_tJgRXlw?t=445

daf

Great one!

For some reason I thought this was about Bob Geldof (had he made back his pile of money by this point?), but the lyrics do seem to point to someone a bit more like Boy George / Tony Hadley / Le Bon - that lot.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Jockice on April 03, 2021, 10:20:30 AM
But...but...surely that's Mike Neville. My mum used to fancy him. As well as Mike Baldwin. Maybe she only fancied men called Mike. My dad was called Jack.

You're right! It's Mike Neville's mush on the TV set but Neville Wanless peaking behind it. They've spelled his name wrong too so maybe it's deliberate.

Now, you said your mum possibly only fancied men called Mike. I think her penchant is even more specific. The actor who played Mike Baldwin is the late Johnny Briggs.

What is Mike Neville's real name?

James Briggs.


Jockice

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on April 03, 2021, 01:28:05 PM
You're right! It's Mike Neville's mush on the TV set but Neville Wanless peaking behind it. They've spelled his name wrong too so maybe it's deliberate.

Now, you said your mum possibly only fancied men called Mike. I think her penchant is even more specific. The actor who played Mike Baldwin is the late Johnny Briggs.

What is Mike Neville's real name?

James Briggs.


God, you've really freaked me out now. Thanks!

jamiefairlie

The Nivens - Yesterday

https://youtu.be/qWebI4j14AY



From Cramlington, Northumberland, they released just three singles, of which this is the second.

jamiefairlie

Quote from: Johnny Yesno on April 03, 2021, 11:11:58 AM
Cocteau Twins - Suckling the Mender


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SEkcY1SVGw

From their fifth and, to my mind, their best album Blue Bell Knoll. I wasn't able to choose my favourite track because they're all great, so this is an arbitrary choice. Elizabeth Fraser named the album after a peak in southern Utah, apparently.

Let's through the title track in as well

https://youtu.be/m_YT36TvpkE

Jockice

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on April 03, 2021, 01:28:05 PM
You're right! It's Mike Neville's mush on the TV set but Neville Wanless peaking behind it. They've spelled his name wrong too so maybe it's deliberate.

Now, you said your mum possibly only fancied men called Mike. I think her penchant is even more specific. The actor who played Mike Baldwin is the late Johnny Briggs.

What is Mike Neville's real name?

James Briggs.


Mike Neville was apparently the inspiration for Roger Mellie in Viz, of course.

jamiefairlie

My Bloody Valentine - Lose My Breath

https://youtu.be/rC-Vsp-rFqM



Another track from debut album, Isn't Anything.

jamiefairlie

Pixies - River Euphrates

https://youtu.be/7g4njSLgbUs



B-side to debut single "Gigantic", it's a different version to the one on the "Surfer Rosa" album.

Johnny Yesno

Godflesh - Avalanche Master Song



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oW-d71G78M

The first track from their eponymously titled first ep.

Brundle-Fly

Subliminal Fascism - Fishbone. Released on Columbia in 1988.





We've covered Fishbone before in AAHO"P"M 1985. This was their crossover album in the UK and the band were exploring their heavier/ metal side rather than the usual mutant ska, New Wave, and Zappesque stylings.

The lyrics resonate more than ever.

People got problems that they can't work out
So there sense cracks
I read the paper and I watch the news it don't give me the blues
It just gives me the blacks
Starvation on the radio
They don't play the facts
They play the crackerjacks
Subliminal Fascism gettin' under your skin so you better wake up US
Well the bad gets worse
Too fucked up
And the hate grows more each day
So when the infected try to affect you
Don't listen to them when they say
Follow the rules and forget the bomb
Communistical patriotic
The plan is subtle but it's in the open
Kingpins Nazi scheme getting under your skin
So you better wake up US
Subliminal Fascism
Subliminal Fascism, fascism, fascism, fascist


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W90jR6NU9P8