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

[Oz Oz Alice]

The Cure - This Twilight Garden

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQp3oWdS7cw

The B side to 1992's High, and to my mind a far superior song to the A side: one of the Cure's most sighingly lovely and emotive songs and obviously there's plenty of competition on that front. Don't understand why it didn't make it onto Wish when it is clearly better than a lot of songs on the album (I'm looking at you Wendy Time and Cut in particular). I guess the same perverse editorial judgement that consigned Snow In Summer to a B side and made Hot Hot Hot an A side and, in this same period, threw away The Big Hand and Halo as B sides

[Oz Oz Alice]

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - Straight To You

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

Henry's Dream was the first album Cave had worked on with an outside producer since The Birthday Party in this case David Briggs, who has worked regularly with Neil Young. Briggs preferred the "live-in-the-studio" method he had used with Neil which led to Cave and Mick Harvey re-mixing the album, and ultimately to the Live Seeds recordings, as Cave wanted the songs "done justice". The title is a reference to John Berryman's poem The Dream Songs: Cave would later explicitly reference Berryman in We Call Upon The Author from Dig Lazarus Dig.

Nick Cave: Not my idea. The record company insisted, and some of our worst fears were realised. When it came to the mixing, he never understood how the band should sound, so we had to take that way from him and remix the whole thing in Australia. It is a lot more narrative than The Good Son. There's a lot of stories and characters which is what I do best. I think that the violence that bubbles under The Good Son has eaten through to the surface of this record.

Mick Harvey, speaking at the time of 1998's Best Of: We agreed on a large majority of songs, but in my basic tracklisting, I had voluntarily put aside the songs from Henry's Dream. Not that those are bad songs, but they have been ill-treated by the production and I didn't feel like seeing them among the other ones. However, Nick insisted about including Straight to You.

Nick: The idea for Henry's Dream for me came from being in Brazil and seeing these guys in the streets playing acoustic guitars that were really fucked up and hammering out these songs on them; a style of street singing that was in your face, but acoustic.

Mick: Nick wanted there to be a lot of harsh acoustic guitar, and a lot of that is still there. But we recorded it in the wrong studio. We recorded it in a rock studio, Sound City in Van Nuys, California – perfectly decent, but not right for the Bad Seeds.

Nick: Those great Neil Young records sound like it's some guys standing there, playing their music, and that's the fucking end of it – so David Briggs seemed like the right kind of guy. But as it turned out... he was hugely... He... I mean, he was a fucking nightmare, that guy. Each day he took it from being a violent fucked-up acoustic record to being a fucked-up electric record. But fucked-up in the wrong way. I put a lot of energy into the writing of that record, and then for each day to see it drift away... it was a horrible, horrible experience.

Straight To You, another of Nick's insane devotionals, reached 68 in the UK Singles Chart and 96 in the Australian Singles Chart; another example of him getting slightly more recognition here than in his homeland before becoming the Old Testament agony uncle who keeps making films about himself he is now.

[Brundle-Fly]

Pink Flower - Daisy Chainsaw Released on Deva in 1992.





This lot made a good unholy racket. Fun while it lasted.

Daisy Chainsaw were an early 90's UK punk/alternative band originally fronted by Katie Jane Garside (who later re-emerged in Queenadreena). Garside left the group in 1992 or 1993 and the remaining three members recruited vocalist Belinda Leith for the second album. Today, Katie now makes atmospheric folk noir and looks pretty much exactly the same as she did in 1992. She is not mortal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mXoAkiBTx8&t=4s

[Oz Oz Alice]

Disco Inferno - Summer's Last Sound

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkoB6tPygv0

Ian Crause to Neil Kulkarni in a Quietus retrospective: "While we've sometimes been read as having made a very cold, elitist kind of arthouse music, I think it's a misreading. Our sound was bent to human words and emotions: song, for all its shortcomings. From 92 I had become hell-bent on innovating cos things like Public Enemy and Young Gods blew my mind, but it's when it's allied to a human perspective that technical innovation holds its artistic power otherwise it's just a technical exercise. That's what a lot of that post rock is, as I understand it. So while I tried consciously to innovate, as I'd absorbed the influence of doing so partly from the likes of you and your old colleagues like David Stubbs, my instincts led me to value the other side of things and that's the essence of the band's appeal, I think. We had both sides. I like the fact there seems to be no consensus about what our best recordings are. Some people like DI Go Pop most, some the EPs and some Technicolor. All will say they have proof of why X is the best as opposed to the others. I like that and I have no favourite.

ROB WHATLEY: When Ian bought a sampler and bastardized his guitar, his energy and ideas were really fresh and exciting. He jumped head first into this new idea because, with Ian, it's all or nothing.

IAN CRAUSE: I didn't see the sampler as having any technical limitations whatsoever. Once I put my guitar into it, I thought I'd never need to buy another effect pedal.

PAUL WILLMOTT: Ian invited me round to his house one day and played me the beginnings of "Summer's Last Sound" and "In Sharky Water". It was a bit of a shock at first-- I knew it was a major turning point.

Fruits get bricks in windows
And foreigners get hushed-up trials
And you're waiting for a knock at the door
Which would tell if you spent the next few years
Free from life attacked by petrol bombs
The price of bread went up five pence today
And an immigrant was kicked to death again

IAN CRAUSE: I can remember seeing footage of neo-Nazis firebombing immigrant hostels in the newly liberated East Germany, and the thing my parents told me about how being Jewish means you can never permanently call anywhere home hit me with a force I'd never felt. Seeing neo-Nazis on TV murdering Gypsies shook me profoundly. Now, I see how Muslims in the UK are being scapegoated in almost exactly the same way as Jews were in the 30s, so some level of chaos is by no means inconceivable in the coming years. Nothing appears to have been learned by the lessons of the last century, which is extremely ominous. So, the song is about flight. The coda at the end of "Summer's Last Sound" was my attempt to do what Ian Curtis started doing in 1979 with songs like "Atrocity Exhibition", "Komakino", and "She's Lost Control". I was trying to write the conclusion of the song out in widescreen and make it an explication of what had been touched on in the previous verses. I only heard "Summer's Last Sound" for the first time in maybe 12 years when we were mastering it, and it actually moved me when it got to the end, which surprised me hugely. I'd completely forgotten that ending. I'm proud of that coda, but it slightly saddens me that I wrote it when I was only 18. It sounds so world weary. So bereft.

ROB WHATLEY: On "Summer's Last Sound", Ian played water and birdsong on his guitar, I played birdsong and marching sound effects on the pads, and Paul's sliding bass lines were just immense.

[Oz Oz Alice]

K.D.A - Love Me, Love Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO9KDkIPvjo&t=3s

Can't find much info on this Janet Jackson sampling Italo house banger other than that it is the work of Kicco De Angeli and the production duo Tobo.

[jamiefairlie]

Disco Inferno - Summer's Last Sound

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkoB6tPygv0

Always loved this song 👍

[daf]

Sorry - just remembered another one I forgot from 1991!

Tŷ Gwydr ‎– Ffwnci



Featured on the 'Reu' 12" single - released in 1991

Gareth Potter and Mark Lugg, formerly of the bands Clustiau Cŵn [Dog's Ears], Traddodiad Ofnus [Frightening Tradition] and Pop Negatif Wastad [Always Negative Pop] formed Tŷ Gwydr [Greenhouse / literally 'Glass House'] in 1990 when the National Eisteddfod was being held in Cwm Rhymni - their local area.



Tŷ Gwydr vowed to infuse the Welsh language pop scene with the energy and squelchyness of the club scene they had become so totally immersed in and to get Wales dancing. They released a couple of singles, a joint album with Llwybr Llaethog [Milky Way] and the album 'Effeithiol' [Effective], before splitting up in 1994.

OK, I think that's it now!

[daf]

Sugar - Changes

https://youtu.be/iEzeOXjb2RE

That link's not working for me.

I think this one's OK > > > Sugar - Changes

[Hooverbag Sherlocks]

Chumbawamba - Look! No Strings!
from the album Shhh released on Agit Prop records



Already mentioned in this thread so we'll dispense with the potted history. This is them in transition - moving away from established anarcho-punk roots, embracing more traditional pop sensibilities and putting themselves, unwittingly we assume, on a path that would eventually lead to ice bucket infamy and an unexpected worldwide hit. Originally the album was titled Jesus H. Christ and, by the sounds of it, relied on almost plunderphonic use of samples (one track composed entirely of loops lifted directly from Sgt Pepper) before the lawyers waded in. Luckily, having to re-record/de-sample everything didn't dampen their enthusiasm for writing appealing, articulate, angry and amusing songs that deserved a much wider audience (and eventually found one) (of sorts). Look! No Strings! is a breezy atheistic clarion call that manages to avoid sounding self-satisfied and annoying. Gervais take note.   

Have your fun whilst you're alive
You won't get nothing when you die
Have a good time all the time
Because you won't get nothing when you die

Other opinions are available.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rKCBkV99TY

[Hooverbag Sherlocks]

Mr Ray's Wig World - Faster Kittykat Play Play
Single released on United Altered States Records



Name yourself after an American hair stylist, do a Peel session, two singles, disappear. Perfect fodder for this thread. Not exactly what you'd call innovative ("all pedals no talent" according to guitarist/vocalist Colin Cooper) but the raucous, psychedelic squall in the second half is good value.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD_K7Xch8co

[Brundle-Fly]

I bought that in a charity shop last year purely on the strength of the name and sleeve.

[Brundle-Fly]

Sudden Death - Mr. Bungle  Released on WB in 1992.





Bollocks! I forgot to post something from their 1991 eponymous debut and I'm simply not prepared to backtrack. Those are my own rules.

Mr. Bungle is an American experimental rock band from Northern California. Having gone through many incarnations throughout their career, the band is best known for its experimental rock period. During this time, they featured a highly eclectic style, cycling through several musical genres within the course of a single song, including heavy metal, avant-garde jazz, ska, disco, and funk.[ This period also saw the band utilizing unconventional song structures and samples; playing a wide array of instruments; dressing up in masks, jumpsuits, and other costumes; and performing a diverse selection of cover songs during live performances.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3e8vqVM2ao

[Oz Oz Alice]

Die Haut with Anita Lane and Blixa Bargeld - How Long

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvjof5aUI7M

Christoph Dreher on Berlin in the '80s: While the other members of The Birthday Party got flats on their own or moved in with other people, Nick and – for as long as their relationship lasted – his girlfriend Anita Lane stayed in my flat in Dresdnerstraße for years to come. Everybody was on the road a lot, so there were always pauses to the collective living situation. I made music videos for Nick's next Band, The Bad Seeds. He sang on Die Haut records and occasionally went on tour with us. There were eventual incidents at the house, which were probably due to the widespread appetite for our "uptown" and "downtown" additions to (if not replacements of) nourishment at that time. One time the collateral damage of a small family controversy included all of the windows in the staircase. In another, my glass coffee table. But these kinds of trifles couldn't disrupt what I thought of this moment in Berlin. It was a time of friendship, intensity, exploration and adventure.

Head On features, as tends to be the case with Die Haut records, a star-studded lineup of guest vocalists: Ze records starlet Cristina, Alan Vega, Kid Congo Powers, Kim Gordon, Lydia Lunch and obviously as here Blixa Bargeld and Anita Lane. Anita also appears duetting with Kid Congo on Excited and Blixa sings the other highlight of the record for me: a homoerotic cover version of Johnny Guitar. These guest vocalists are all obviously Bad Seeds adjacent thanks to the aforementioned collective living situation and Die Haut drummer Thomas Wydler having played in the Bad Seeds since Your Funeral, My Trial. He remains a Bad Seed in 2021.

[daf]

Ringo Starr – Weight of the World



Released as a single in May 1992 - reached #74 in the UK charts.

'Time Takes Time' was the 10th studio album by old grumpy-boots Ringo Starr. His first studio album since 1983's 'Old Wave', it followed a successful 1989–90 world tour with his All-Starr Band. Starr had initially intended to try out four producers : Don Was, Peter Asher, Phil Ramone and the inevitable Jeff Lynne to select the best to record the whole album with: "...because it's been so long for me that I didn't really know any producers I wanted to go with for the whole record. So I figured I'd try a few people.".



The album was recorded sporadically between March and September 1991, and finished in February 1992. The material was written predominantly by outside writers, with Starr co-writing three songs. "Weight of the World" was written by Brian O'Doherty and Fred Velez, who seem to have written nothing else of note, and produced by Don Was.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Tom Waits - Goin' Out West



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T8ksKASZYw

"I've got hair on my chest, I look good without a shirt... my friends think I'm ugly, I've got a masculine face."

A heavy rust bucket roar of hilarious mayhem in which Waits casts himself in the role of a wannabe film idol with an attractive resume.

Bone Machine is the eleventh studio album by American singer and musician Tom Waits. It won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album and marked Waits' return to studio albums, coming five years after his previous effort Frank's Wild Years. Recorded in a room in the cellar area of Prairie Sun Recording studios, described by Waits as "just a cement floor and a hot water heater", the album is often noted for its rough, stripped-down, percussion-heavy style, as well as its dark lyrical themes revolving around death and chaos.

Bone Machine was the first Waits album on which he played drums and percussion extensively. In 1992, he stated: "I like to play drums when I'm angry. At home I have a metal instrument called a conundrum with a lot of things hanging off it that I've found - metal objects - and I like playing it with a hammer. I love it. Drumming is therapeutic. I wish I'd found it when I was younger."

[Brundle-Fly]

Token Drug Song - Pop Will Eat Itself  Released on RCA in 1992.





Yes, they were a bunch of dance bandwagoning quasi-crusties who'd be cancelled today for being sexist, dreadlock appropriating meatheads, but they had some good tunes and the chutzpah required for a pop band, which is what they unashamedly were. It still mildly astonishes me how Clint Mansell became a leading film score composer. Who saw that coming?

Pop Will Eat Itsel are an English alternative rock band formed in Stourbridge in 1986 with members from Birmingham, Coventry and the Black Country. Initially known as a grebo act, they changed style to incorporate sample-driven indie and industrial rock. Their highest-charting single was the 1993 top-ten hit "Get The Girl! Kill The Baddies!". After initially disbanding in 1996, and having a brief reformation in 2005, they issued their first release in more than five years in 2010

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8Lwo4GFQY0&t

[Norton Canes]

It still mildly astonishes me how Clint Mansell became a leading film score composer. Who saw that coming?

Anyone who clocked how well their later albums were produced, especially their most electronic effort, 1990's ...Cure for Sanity, perhaps wouldn't be quite as astonished.

who'd be cancelled today for being sexist

It's only Beaver Patrol which transgresses in this respect, isn't it? And it's not even theirs!

[Brundle-Fly]

Anyone who clocked how well their later albums were produced, especially their most electronic effort, 1990's ...Cure for Sanity, perhaps wouldn't be quite as astonished.

It's only Beaver Patrol which transgresses in this respect, isn't it? And it's not even theirs!

I really liked Cure For Sanity. Flood produced that I see. The music press generally reviled PWEI and had them down as this sexist blokey band for unwashed grebos. I was just picking up on that lazy received opinion and placing them in the context of today's finger-wagging world.  'My bad', as the kids used to say.

I still stand by my astonishment that this bloke composed 'Lux Aeterna' from Requiem For A Dream (2000)

[gilbertharding]

It's the hip sound of young Bury St Edmonds: Jacob's Mouse



Jacob's Mouse consisted of identical twins Hugo and Jebb (this is East Anglia, don't forget) on guitar and bass, and singing drummer Sam. The band members first got together when they were aged 11 (well - Hugo and Jebb got together before that, obnov.)

They initially played covers, but progressed to original material inspired by bands they heard on John Peel's radio show, such as Dog Faced Hermans. They adopted the name Jacob's Mouse, a reference to a cousin's pet. At one time the lineup included a viola player but I can't remember her name - and the internet doesn't seem to acknowledge her existence at all.

Their first release, The Dot EP, was named 'single of the week' by Sounds, and they went on to play support slots with bands such as Nirvana, Carter USM, and Senseless Things.They released their first album, No Fish Shop Parking, on their own Blithering Idiot label, and they received airplay on Peel and Mark Goodier's BBC Radio 1 shows, and they went on to record two sessions for Peel's show in 1992.

The band signed to Wiiija and toured with Babes in Toyland. In September 1992, they released their Ton Up EP



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BIYtizl2r4

Let me tell you they were SPECTACULAR live. Saw them many, many times in Huntingdon, Peterborough and Cambridge. The last half a minute of Motorspare, especially, is perfect.

[jobotic]

I saw them supporting (I think) Captain America at the Joiners Arms in Southampton. As is often the case when recalling things from that time I can't remember much about it as I was having a boozy wallow, but I had a friend who was a big fan and she enjoyed it very much.

[Greg Torso]

I liked Jacob's Mouse, but I never got to see them because my mate's bastard older brother wouldn't drive us from the shit wickets of Lincolnshire out to whichever sprawling metropolis they were playing, probably Leicester.

[daf]

Suzanne Vega – Blood Makes Noise



Reached #60 in the UK charts in December 1992

99.9F° (Ninety-Nine Point Nine Fahrenheit Degrees) was the fourth album by American singer and songwriter Suzanne Vega. Released in 1992, the album marked a departure for Vega, as she embraced a more electronic, experimental sound. It peaked at No. 86 on Billboard magazine's album chart and was Vega's fourth Top 20 album in the U.K. It was the first of two of Vega's albums to be produced by Mitchell Froom, whom she later married - the jammy sod!

Suzanne Vega : "I was always happy to experiment with sounds and production. That's if I liked it myself. I really liked what DNA had done with TOM'S DINER. It made me feel that an audience would probably accept more from me. I was already straining to do more, on the DAYS OF OPEN HAND album... But BLOOD MAKES NOISE was the first thing producer Mitchell Froom and I did together, and we surprised even ourselves on that day. I felt we were really onto something."

 

Singles released from the album included, "In Liverpool" (UK #52), "99.9 F°" (UK #46), "When Heroes Go Down" (UK #58) and "Blood Makes Noise".

Suzanne Vega : "You'd be surprised how many people insist, to my face, that it's about AIDS. I'm like, "Okay, whatever." It's actually a song about fear. It's a song about looking a doctor in the face and... It could be about child abuse. What I like to do, and what is interesting to me, is to take a moment out of its context. It makes you identify with it, without knowing why. In a way, it's kind of eerie, because it means you can hear the song, identify with it, and not really know what the circumstances are. And in some ways, that's more satisfying to me. A lot of people won't listen to a song if they think it's about child abuse. In fact, some people didn't want to hear "Luka." They're eating breakfast, or they just don't want to be disturbed. That's the other thing: You can kind of get under someone's skin that way, if it's not obvious."



The album was certified gold (500,000 copies sold) by the RIAA in October 1997. It was certified silver in the UK (60,000 copies sold) by the BPI in March 1993.

The New York Times wrote : "By far Vega's most rewarding record, 99.9 F degrees ... is the first album in which she breaks almost completely away from the conventions of the New York folk milieu that nurtured her."

Trouser Press wrote : "many of the songs display a new interest in space and sound, using both in an almost sculptural fashion, creating a compelling amalgam that industrializes folk music."

Top Bassline!

[The Culture Bunker]

Top Bassline!

Ex-Attraction Bruce Thomas, there. I was just listening today to another Mitchell Froom production that he appeared on, 'Six Pack of Love' by Peter Case (formerly of the Nerves and the Plimsouls).

99.9F° is the Vega album I find myself returning to most.

[Greg Torso]

3Ds - Sunken Treasure



More catchy guitar stuff from New Zealand. 3Ds were a sort of Flying Nun 'supergroup', featuring past members of Look Blue Go Purple, Goblin Mix, Bird Nest Roys, and so on. Named because everyone in the band had a first name beginning with 'D', David Mitchell (No... not him), Denise Roughan, David Saunders and Dominic Stones were signed to Flying Nun (obvs) and went on to release plenty of spidery, catchy little songs on bits of records and tapes.  David Mitchell (not that one, either) is not only a genius on the guitar, his wonderful art also features on the covers of lots of New Zealand's finest fuckers.

It was very disappointing when David Mitchell (the comedy one) went on Richard Herring's podcast and Herring did the whole 'have you ever been mistaken for..." referencing other David Mitchells and didn't mention one of Dunedid, NZ's finest songwriters!

[Greg Torso]

Palace Brothers - Ohio River Boat Song



Described by my wife as sounding variously like "a cartoon horse", "a paedophile from the 1980s" and "an old man who has lost his dog", Will Oldham has had a long and successful career - from jumping into a flooded quarry with the Slint crew in Lousiville, to hanging with Harmony Korrine and appearing in an episode of Wonder Showzen. He's gone bald, he out-paeded himself with a truly horrible moustache which later became a beard to greater success, he's probably got his own line of soy sauce and he doesn't tend to whinny so much in his songs these days (shame). Jeffrey Lewis also wrote an extremely funny song about him. Whatever you think of him, most of his releases under the Palace name are well worth getting called a nonce for, particularly the early singles (collected on 'Lost Blues And Other Songs' - an essential ingredient to any record collection as far as i am concerned), and particularly this beautiful, melancholic lament from the middle of a lake from a poor rowing lad who's heart is sunk, such poetry, such prettiness.

[daf]

Ex-Attraction Bruce Thomas, there.

Ah, of course - I think I knew that (back in 1992) but had forgotten all about it. What a class act!

[jamiefairlie]

Ok, time to draw a close to 1992, we'll start 1993 later on Tuesday. get those late entries in now!

[Greg Torso]

Wingtip Sloat - I Wish I'd Been There To Make It A Cliche



From Virginia, Wingtip Sloat provided some of the finest basement lo-pop flat beer skuzz of tha era in this triple 7 inch set called 'Half Past I've Got' that came in a paper bag and if you enjoy GBV, Swell Maps, pretty much anything home-made, sloppydrunk and up personal, they were one of the finest. ETA: they are still releasing records to this day! Their finest moment was this, though (all their early singles are on a compilation called 'Add This To Rhetoric' which comes highly recommended as always by yrs trly). Beer smoke and cig dregs. Incomprehensibility embraced.

[Greg Torso]

Gaunt - Jim Motherfucker



Quick shitty bit of fuzzpunk before I crawl off into the flowerbeds for the night. Gaunt were from Colombus, Ohio (a consistently great breeding ground for garage rock bands over the years) and released a lot of records, some of which sounded like they'd been recorded on a wire comb. makes Guided By Voices sound like Hall and Oates. A classic single of the type, if that is your bean bag. B-side is great, too.

Guitarist and singer Jerry Wick was sadly killed in a hit-and-run accident in 2001.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Vanessa Paradis - Sunday Mondays



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egf1aRSxYZg

A charming little bauble of Monkees-flavoured pop, co-written and produced by Lenny Kravitz (but don't hold that against it).

Vanessa Paradis is a French singer, model and actress. She became a child star at the age of 14 with the success of her single Joe le taxi.

In 1992, Paradis moved to the United States to work with Lenny Kravitz, whom she was dating at the time. Paradis started working on a new album in English, a language she was now fluent in. Written and produced by Kravitz, the album, titled Vanessa Paradis, topped the French chart and briefly made the UK listings (number 45). One of the singles from it was Be My Baby - not the Ronettes song - which made number 5 in France and gave her another Top 10 hit in the UK, peaking at number six.

The album is noted for being the first time Paradis took creative control over her music. It is also noted for being innovative in its use of instruments, and for its replication of the 1960s soundscape on virtually every song.