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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

DrGreggles

Death In Vegas - Death Threat
[Fearless/Holmes]
(taken from The Contino Sessions album)



Taken from Death In Vegas' 2nd album, The Contino Sessions.
This track samples Throbbing Gristle's Death Threats from their 1978 album D.o.A: The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle.

Brundle-Fly

Below The Sliding Doors - Blinker The Star. Released on Dreamworks in 1999.





If you're a fan of Tears For Fears and XTC when they get all Beatle-y, then look no further than this glorious power-pop album of '99. Highly recommended. And yes, no prizes for anybody who spotted this is Storm Thorgerson's album art.

Blinker the Star is just Jordon Zadorozny now. Past members were Colin Wylie and Peder Jakobsen. A Canadian indie rock band, originally from Pembroke, Ontario, Canada. Band leader Jordon Zadorozny is known for having co-written songs with Courtney Love. Other notable musicians that have appeared on Blinker the Star albums include one of Jordon's childhood heroes Lindsey Buckingham, Leland Sklar, Ken Andrews, and many others.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcOzXtOwPH8

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on July 20, 2021, 03:13:42 PM
Adore that song. Once, coming home pissed on a late night tube about twelve years ago, I got gassing with this rather dapper-looking fellow who was similarly inebriated. The conversation led to our personal lives and he told me he used to be in a band that wouldn't have heard of. Try me?, I said. 'Cousteau'?, he replied.  I immediately burst into a slurred rendition of The Last Good Day Of The Year. His dewy-eyed, grinning expression was a sight to behold. I had made his night, apparently.

Aww, that's a lovely story, Brundle.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

A Camp - The Bluest Eyes in Texas



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41xicGTEWzg

Taken from the soundtrack of the 1999 film Boys Don't Cry, this beautiful cover of a late '80s country hit by Restless Heart is performed by Nina Persson from The Cardigans. A Camp is the solo side project she formed during an extended sabbatical from that band.

DrGreggles

The Dismemberment Plan - A Life of Possibilities
[Morrison/Caddell/Axelson/Easley]
(taken from the Emergency & I album)



Opening track on Emergency & I, the third album by The Dismemberment Plan.
I think I bought this album because I liked the cover, which says a lot about my state of mind in the late 90s...
Just say "NO", kids!

DrGreggles

The Divine Comedy - I Am
[Eno/Hannon]
(taken from the Gin Soaked Boy CD1 single)



Extra track on the Gin Soaked Boy CD single (which reached #38 in the UK chart), I Am is one of Neil Hannon's more experimental songs, with lyrics taken from a Brian Eno poem (hence the unique writing credit).
With the compilation A Secret History due for release, Hannon recorded a handful of new songs for inclusion, with Gin Soaked Boy and Too Young to Die making the cut and I Am being relegated to a bonus track.
I do enjoy it when he branches out in this manner though, with many other b-sides and notably 2019's Office Politics album showcasing his obvious love of synth pop.
CD2 also contained a collaborative piece, specifically this, which was written with Arthur Mathews and cunt gone bananas.
Spoiler alert
Coming soon: Pope Ted!
[close]

Brundle-Fly

Super Sound - Pepe Deluxé  Released on Catskills in 1999.





This was a real floor filler in my distant DJ-ing days. It manages to blend a Big Beat phat riff with Northern Soul/ R'n'B with The Association lush harmonies and a sunsplash of Jamican ska samples.  It somehow works. Reminiscent of Lionrock.

Pepe Deluxé is a Finnish band formed in 1996 by DJ Slow (Vellu Maurola) JA-Jazz (Tomi Castrén, formerly Paajanen) and James Spectrum (Jari Salo) in Helsinki, Finland. DJ Slow departed the band in 2001 to pursue solo projects. JA-Jazz has been off-duty since 2008. Multi-instrumentalist Paul Malmström became official member of the band in 2008.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o634rfdLEOs

jamiefairlie

Invincible - Only You Can Save Me

https://youtu.be/X-Yl-g-YEhM



Another one of ex-Chameleons singer mark Burgess's many guises. This is from their only album, "Venus".

Brundle-Fly

German - Position Normal. Released on Mind Horizon in 1999.





One of my favourite ever albums. Like I'Monster, these guys were also doing 'hauntology' when Ghostbox artists were still in short trousers and playing frisbee near electric pylons.

Position Normal AKA Chris Bailiff and John Cushway. Recording since 1986. Named after the Ferric tapes they used and still use for recording and gigs. A borrowed college 4 track and a Marantz field tape recorder. A borrowed Amiga computer sampler and that was Position Normal. They then bought their own Yamaha MTY120 4 track a Mini Disc a cheap small microphone and an Emu EmaxII keyboard sampler. They played gigs around Shoreditch, Holborn, The Garage Islington, Angel...in the early 90's. Stop Your Nonsense. 1998. Goodly Time 2000. Position Normal (self-titled) planned for August 2009.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dqm0aHOzey8&list=OLAK5uy_nPtDN93iGKVS5Rz88FYLsQAr0YFI9TEZs&index=5

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

The Make-Up - Born on the Floor



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

Stand up and be groovy, comrades.

QuoteThe Make-Up are an American post-punk band from Washington, D.C. They combined garage rock, soul, and a self-styled liberation theology to make a new genre they called "Gospel Yeh-Yeh". This style led to an emphasis on live performances and interaction between the band and their audience, incorporating the audience into the performances as a "fifth member", creating what one reviewer described as ""highly energetic and participatory live shows".

Parallel to the band's gospel musical stylings, the Make-Up produced music under a communism-influenced political philosophy that they saw as counter to the capitalist form of modern rock and roll and pop music.

DrGreggles


Super Furry Animals - Citizen's Band

[Super Furry Animals]
('Hidden' track on the Guerrilla album)



Taken from Guerrilla, the Super Furry Animals' 3rd album, Citizen's Band only appeared on the CD version - stored in the pre-gap and can only be heard by rewinding back from the start of the first song. The only clue to its existence could be found printed on the inside of the cardboard sleeve the CD came in.
According to Gruff Rhys the band decided to hide Citizen's Band as it didn't fit with the rest of the Guerrilla and they wanted to make the album like a computer game which can be played for several months before a new level is discovered. Guitarist Huw Bunford has stated that the band originally intended to hide the track in the album cover itself, by way of a special vinyl sleeve design, but the group's record label, Creation, refused to allow this due to the cost.
The song finally appeared as a listed track on 2016's compilation Zoom! The Best of 1995–2016.

Annie -The Greatest Hit



QuoteIn the late 1990s, Annie ran a club night called Pop Till You Drop in her hometown of Bergen, Norway. There she met producer Tore "Erot" Kroknes, and the two began dating. "The Greatest Hit" was conceived while they were staying in a house belonging to Annie's mother. Kroknes was working on a track, but did not know what to do with it, so he asked Annie for help.

Annie was listening to the song "Everybody" at the time, so she decided to play Madonna's self-titled debut album for Kroknes. He started to construct a song from a sample of "Everybody", and Annie came up with a melody to sing over the track. The two borrowed a small studio from downtempo duo Röyksopp to record the song.

In 1999, Mikal Tellé, Annie's friend and neighbour, issued a limited edition 7-inch single of "The Greatest Hit" under his label Tellé Records. The release sold out in two days, and the track became an underground hit in nightclubs in Norway and Britain, resulting in offers for record deals. After seeing the interest that "The Greatest Hit" generated, Annie decided to turn her project into a studio album.

British producer Richard X heard "The Greatest Hit" as part of a techno set and described the song as "otherworldly and beautiful". He cited the song's "idea of pop music coming from another place, another way of thinking" as an influence on his early work. As a result, Richard X asked Annie to record vocals for his debut album Richard X Presents His X-Factor Vol. 1 (2003). In exchange, he contributed "Me Plus One" and Annie's third single "Chewing Gum" to her debut album Anniemal. Annie originally aimed to make Anniemal a pop album that would not become quickly dated, one "that you could listen to in five years and it wouldn't sound terrible." She considered excluding "The Greatest Hit" from the album to achieve this, but ultimately included it because she felt it did not sound as if it were five years old.

daf

Scritti Politti ‎– Mystic Handyman



Featured on the album 'Anomie & Bonhomie' - released in July 1999

QuoteScritti Politti were formed at Leeds Polytechnic by Welsh singer-songwriter Green Gartside, his childhood friend Nial Jinks, and fellow student Tom Morley. Upon finishing their studies, the group relocated to London's Camden Town around 1977, where they lived in a squat. They released a DIY record titled "Skank Bloc Bologna" on their own St. Pancras label in 1978, and picked up airplay on John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show, and the band were signed to Rough Trade in 1979.



They began planning their debut album in 1979, but the recording had to be delayed when Green collapsed after a gig supporting Gang of Four in Brighton in early 1980. Originally believed to be a heart attack, the cause of his collapse was eventually diagnosed as being a big girl's blouse, brought on by his chronic stage fright and his unhealthy lifestyle. Returning home to south Wales at his parents' insistence for a nine-month convalescence period, Green had plenty of time to think about the direction the band and their music were going in.

Green : "In simple terms, we were sick to death of the ghetto of the independent scene. The Garageland sections of the music papers became more and more closeted with more and more people sitting in their bedrooms making cassettes and swapping them with other people making cassettes. There were more and more silly names and it began to smack more and more of 'hippy-ness'. It had become an ageing alternative that was never going to present a route for people who wanted to make their music on a wide scale. We never particularly wanted to become a cult group, but the music was very marginal and we were—perhaps rightly—stereotyped as intellectuals."



Before his collapse Green had already broached the concept of taking the group in a more commercial pop direction with his bandmates. His ideas did not go down well with them.

Green : "In 1980 I spent nine months in Wales, and the reason I went away was not just because I was sick, but also because there was a bit of dissension in the group about me. I wanted to go very poppy, but Tom and Nial weren't very keen on the idea, so in coordinance with the old bookwormish Scritti Politti I decided to make some notes – which in retrospect is a ridiculous thing to do – about the theory and politics of it, and why it was a good thing to do, as opposed to keep slogging away at St. Pancras Records. So I went away and wrote an enormous amount of stuff for them as well. I ended up saying, 'Right, from now on when I've got a number of songs I want to do, then if you want to play on them, that's great; if you don't, lets forget the whole thing'. That was the basic shift of footing, that I wasn't prepared to go to the lengths of all that intellectualising to justify the songs – it was crazy."

Gartside recorded a demo of one of his new songs, "The 'Sweetest Girl'", in January 1981. The song — which features Robert Wyatt on keyboards  — prompted many major labels to offer Gartside record contracts, but he decided to stay with Rough Trade Records. The debut album, Songs to Remember, was released on Rough Trade in August 1982. Displaying Gartside's previously hidden reggae influence.


famethrowa

Quote from: daf on July 22, 2021, 03:06:40 PM
Scritti Politti ‎– Mystic Handyman


If I may quote Mr Miles Davis: "Man, that Scritti Politti is a motherfucker"

(I think he said that about everyone though, good or bad)

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: famethrowa on July 22, 2021, 04:29:23 PM
If I may quote Mr Miles Davis: "Man, that Scritti Politti is a motherfucker"

(I think he said that about everyone though, good or bad)
Well, he did a cover of Scritti's 'The Perfect Way' and played trumpet on their 'Oh Patti', so I presume he liked them at least a little bit.


Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Looper - Burning Flies



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r963KmJJWE

Looper are the band that Stuart David formed with his wife, Karn, after he left Belle & Sebastian (the band he co-founded with de facto leader Stuart Murdoch). This is taken from their debut album, Up a Tree.


Brundle-Fly

Miss Parker - M.Organ. Released on Source in 1999.





Cracking digital ska single that only got to 75 in the UK charts. I believe it's his young son or nephew mucking about with a dictaphone during a school lesson that inspired this tune. It evokes 2Tone's The Bodysnatchers in a lighter mood. Superb promo.

Morgan Daniel Nicholls (born 18 March 1971) is an English musician, member of Senseless Things and best known for performing with Muse, Gorillaz, The Streets and Lily Allen. Your man is also the son of sixties psychedelic hero, Billy 'London Social Degree' Nicholls.  He released one solo album under the mononym Morgan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cAS_dAnyZU

jamiefairlie

Surely that's Sting operating under a pseudonym

Brundle-Fly


Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Tom Waits - Take It With Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dixxse4dpQ4



In a land there's a town, and in that town there's a house
And in that house there's a woman
And in that woman there's a heart I love
I'm gonna take it with me when I go


Please excuse me, I have something in my eye...

This song is the haunting, creaking heart and soul of Mule Variations, one of Waits' greatest albums.

jamiefairlie

Mogwai - Stanley Kubrick

https://youtu.be/x8J98ZeS-ME



Lead track from the descriptively titled EP, "EP". It reached number 25 in the Festive Fifty.

Brundle-Fly

Sweet Charity - Mr. Bungle  Released on Warner Brothers in 1999.





Lovey opener on the final album from Mike Patton & Co giving the madcap dilettantism of Ween a run for its money.

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 their experimental rock period. During this time, they developed a highly eclectic style, cycling through several musical genres, often 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.
Although Mr. Bungle went through several line-up changes, the longest-serving members were Patton, guitarist Trey Spruance, bassist Trevor Dunn, saxophonists Clinton "Bär" McKinnon and Theo Lengyel, and drummer Danny Heifetz, with Patton, Spruance, and Dunn performing in every version of the band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwO8mFNIbNk

daf

Blur – Tender (Cornelius Remix)



Released in March 1999 as a B-side on the single "No Distance Left To Run" - reached #2 in the chart

QuoteBlur's sixth studio album '13' saw them drift still further away from their Britpop-era attitude and sound. William Orbit's production style allowed for more jamming, and incorporated a "variety of emotions, atmospheres, words and sounds" into the mix. The band decided that they wanted Orbit to produce the album after being impressed by his remix of their track, "Movin' On", included on the 1998 remix compilation, Bustin' + Dronin'.

Stephen Street : "I just think they wanted to stretch out a bit more and, having made five albums with me, the best way to do that was to work with someone different who would approach the project in a different way. I understand that perfectly and certainly wasn't offended. I did five albums with the band and I must admit I thought each one would be the last because they were bound to want to try something new."



Albarn's lyrics—more heart-felt, personal and intimate than on previous occasions—were reflective of his break-up with Elastica frontwoman Justine Frischmann, his partner of eight years.

After his breakup, Albarn started sharing a flat with artist Jamie Hewlett whom he had met through Coxon. Around this time, Albarn had started to broaden his musical output. Whilst he was working on 13, there were various reports that he and Hewlett were working on a secret project, which turned out to be Gorillaz, a virtual band.



13 was creatively dominated by Coxon, who "was simply allowed to do whatever he chose, unedited", by Orbit.

William Orbit : "There was a battle between Damon's more experimental direction, and Graham's punk one, and Graham prevailed. If that tension had been growing on previous LPs, it came to a head here."



Tension in the studio ran high during the recording sessions.

Graham Coxon : "I was really out there around 13, which made for some pretty great noise but I was probably a bit of a crap to be around."

Dave Rowntree : "Things were starting to fall apart between the four of us. It was quite a sad process making it. People were not turning up to the sessions, or turning up drunk, being abusive and storming off."

Alex James : "I had songs, I played them to William. He liked them. But I was sulking. I didn't play them to the others... Now I know how George Harrison felt."



The album received generally favourable reviews from the press. 13 debuted at the top of the UK charts, staying at that position for two weeks. The album's lead single, the gospel-based "Tender" peaked at #2 on the charts.

DrGreggles

Ah, I was going to post something from California!

DrGreggles


La Rumeur - Champs De Canne A Paname

[Le Bavar/Kool M/Soul G]
(taken from the Troisième Volet: Le Bavar & Le Paria EP)



Probably the first non-English Hip-Hop thing I ever got into.
Samples the 1963 song Royal Blue by Henry Mancini.

DrGreggles


Madness - The Communicator

[McPherson/Smyth]
(taken from the Wonderful album)



7 years after they first reformed, Madness finally pulled their fingers out and released Wonderful - their first album with the full line-up since Keep Moving in 1984. And it was pretty bloody good too!
The lead-off single Lovestruck was their first new top ten hit since 1983's The Sun and the Rain and there was a joyous union with Ian Dury on Drip Fed Fred - arguably the album's highlight.
The Communicator is very much a return to the ska-influenced days of early Madness, with a high energy, upbeat feel, and Chas Smash on top shouty form.
Madness have now been reformed for 4 times as long as they were originally together, which makes us all feel old.

Brundle-Fly

You've got your own back, Dr. Greggles. I was going to post The Communicator too!

Brundle-Fly

The Model.... He Took Her To A Movie - Ladytron   Released on Invicta HiFi in 1999.





If there was one thing more nettlesome than being called a 'Sleeperbloke' then it must've been being called a 'Ladytronbloke'. 

Ladytron are a British electronic band formed in Liverpool in 1999. The group consists of Helen Marnie (lead vocals, synthesizers), Mira Aroyo (vocals, synthesizers), Daniel Hunt (synthesizers, guitar, vocals) and Reuben Wu (synthesizers). Their name was taken from the song "Ladytron" by Roxy Music. Their sound blends electropop with new wave and shoegazing elements. Ladytron described their sound as "electronic pop". Some of the group's songs performed by Aroyo contain lyrics written in her native Bulgarian.

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

jamiefairlie

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on July 24, 2021, 05:03:31 PM
The Model.... He Took Her To A Movie - Ladytron   Released on Invicta HiFi in 1999.


If there was one thing more nettlesome than being called a 'Sleeperbloke' then it must've been being called a 'Ladytronbloke'. 

Ladytron are a British electronic band formed in Liverpool in 1999. The group consists of Helen Marnie (lead vocals, synthesizers), Mira Aroyo (vocals, synthesizers), Daniel Hunt (synthesizers, guitar, vocals) and Reuben Wu (synthesizers). Their name was taken from the song "Ladytron" by Roxy Music. Their sound blends electropop with new wave and shoegazing elements. Ladytron described their sound as "electronic pop". Some of the group's songs performed by Aroyo contain lyrics written in her native Bulgarian.

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

Is that a knowing use of The Model's baseline or are they just chancing it?