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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

daf

The England World Cup Squad ‎– England, We'll Fly The Flag



The 'Second Half' of the single 'This Time (We'll Get It Right)' - reached #2 in April 1982

Quote'England, We'll Fly The Flag' was adapted by 'Gotta write a Classic, Gotta write it in an Attic' hit-maker Adrian Gurvitz from a song written for the 'We'll Take More Care Of You' British Airways advertising campaign by Jake Holmes - a prolific American jingle writer behind other smash hits such as the U.S. Army's "Be All That You Can Be" and Pan Am's "We Fly the World The Way the World Wants to Fly".

     

'Fly The Flag' was released as a promotional flexi-disc in 1975, and given out to members of the British Airways Junior Jet Club. Incorrectly rumoured to be the singer on the record, the cover featured stewardess Rosalind Anne Rosemary "Roz" Hanby. After modelling work, she joined BOAC in 1970 as a flight attendant on VC10 aircraft. At the time, Hanby was signed to a 10-year contract with the airline and was not prepared for the fame that would ensue. Because she was constantly being asked for her autograph, BA moved her to Concorde flights, which she recalled as a relief : "it was great because everyone was more famous than me."


Brundle-Fly

Klacto Vee Sedstein - Blue Rondo À La Turk Released on Diable Noir in 1982.





This was a regular floor filler that year at my local teenage disco, The End Of The Universe. I can't fathom why it wasn't a bigger hit, as it barely scraped the top 50.

Blue Rondo À La Turk were an early 1980s British latin/jazz/pop group, disbanded in 1984. Chris Sullivan formed Matt Bianco out of the ashes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pKJlrRx3XM&feature=emb_logo

daf

The Scottish World Cup Squad ‎– Wrap Up the Cup



B-side of the single We Have A Dream - reached #5 in May 1982

Quote"We Have A Dream" was a special single released as the official song of the Scotland national football team for their 1982 World Cup Campaign. When first released, it reached number 5 in the UK Singles Chart.

 

The single was re-released in 2008 to raise money for BBC Children In Need, featuring a host of celebrities and produced by original writer BA Cuntertson. The celebrities included Samuel L. Jackson, Ashley Jensen, Dougray Scott, Billy Boyd, Chris Hoy, Ally McCoist, Spud from The Brumbeats, Fred MacAulay, Karen Dunbar and Elaine C. Smith, along with Gregory's Girl actor John Gordon Sinclair who sang the original. Scotland's 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification match against Norway also saw the "Tartan Army" play their part, as the fans were recorded roaring along to the track at half-time, helped by a karaoke-style follow-the-bouncing-haggis prompt on the big screens at Hampden Park.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

I suspect we won't be seeing much of BA Cunterson after 1982, as that was pretty much his peak as a chart-bothering act. Oh well!

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Marshall Crenshaw - Cynical Girl



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZt1g09yvNg

The American Elvis Costello? Sort of. This is a crafty piece of jangling power pop.

QuoteMarshall Crenshaw performed in the musical Beatlemania before releasing his self-titled album in 1982. Though he never replicated the commercial success of Marshall Crenshaw and follow-up Field Day, his work remains critically acclaimed.

Cynical Girl was written as a satire of the "mass culture" that Crenshaw disliked, but the song was not based on a specific girl. Crenshaw first came up with the lyrical concept after being forced to watch an overhead TV while waiting to pay for a traffic ticket. He later reflected that the lyrics had a "humour" and "oddness" to them.

"The part about the girl is just kind of off-the-shelf, rock 'n' roll language. It's really about 'I hate TV.' I'm saying I hate lowest-common-denominator mass-culture bullshit, and that I don't wanna hang around with people who don't. People ask me, 'Did you find the cynical girl yet?' It's not about the girl. It's about the other stuff."

daf

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on January 23, 2021, 05:35:19 PM
I suspect we won't be seeing much of BA Cunterson after 1982, as that was pretty much his peak as a chart-bothering act. Oh well!

Pang! Pang!

Oz Oz Alice

The Lemon Kittens - The Hospital Hurts The Girl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbxSBf4eoQY

If you've not listened to The Big Dentist by The Lemon Kittens then my recommendation is that you do so right away, basically. Composed of two multi-instrumentalists Danielle Dax and Karl Blake, the group ended with their romantic relationship in 82 leaving behind this their final album. Both Dax and Blake will be represented by me again in future in this thread.

The Big Dentist is one of my favourite albums and I've gone with this twitchy but incredibly infectious neurotic avant funk rather than any of the more downbeat material on it to hook you, but I could also have picked Oath which sounds like New Orleans funeral music and that will one day be played at my funeral. This is funk yes but it is the funk of a wet nightmare, as opposed to a wet dream. In another world this would have been a huge hit and it's a world I'd rather live in.

daf

The Albanian World Cup Squad ‎– Albania! Albania!



Released in 1982 (probably in May) - did not chart

QuoteAlexei Sayle : "I was incredibly ambitious I really wanted to go as far as I possibly could in terms of mass entertainment but I couldn't not do the sort of stuff I did. The first time I was on this show OTT, which was a late-night primetime on ITV. I sang this song about Albania and then ended with a joke about Stalin.  I was like "You are on primetime. Why are you singing a song about Albania?" People liked it because it was so mad but it didn't really land with the mass ITV audience. People didn't go:  "I really liked that guy with his song about Albania the Marxist-Leninist country I've barely heard of!"

I was beset by doubt because I had this ravening ambition to get on,  but at the same time I couldn't be anything other than there was so there was a tremendous conflict there. Ultimately, although I did really well – I had my own TV series and all that – I was eventually surpassed by other people: Rik, obviously, and then French and Saunders who surpassed us all and became megastars."

The Culture Bunker

Unlucky for Dave Watson, Cyrille Regis and Tony Morley getting on the cover of the World Cup single, but didn't make the squad, replaced by Terry Butcher, Paul Mariner and Graham Rix.

daf

Fran And Anna ‎– It's Scotland Forever



Released in May 1982 - did not chart

QuoteFrances Watt and Anna Watt were two Scottish sisters from Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, who formed a singing duo. They came from a show-biz family, and were child performers touring Lanarkshire clubs from an early age.

Their father was I wish I could be like David Watt, a ventriloquist and children's entertainer who went by the stage name "Valentine Prince". They initially joined their father and sister Lily, a pianist, on stage as puppeteers, and went on to perform as "The Prince Sisters" internationally and on cruise ships in the 1950s and 1960s. In the early 1970s they changed their name to "Fran and Anna", and started to appear regularly on the Scottish Television programme Thingummyjig.

     

Fran and Anna were known for their tartan miniskirts, rouged cheeks and fishnet stockings with matching tartan hats, each decorated with a large feather. Their style is often referred to as "tartan kitsch", and are reported to have worn their trademark style daily.

   

daf

The Krankies ‎– We're Going To Spain



Released in April 1982 - did not chart

Quote from: Football And Music blogFandabi... Please Kill Me Now
Your eyes do not deceive. What you are seeing there according to this eil.com page is the "Official 1982 UK 7″ for the Scottish World Cup team". There is the addition of the official 1982 Scotland World Cup Mascot called Sandy on the cover to back this up. Plus the SFA copyright below his boot.

Still not a dream.. nightmare more like. It happened. It really happened.

Tried to search for any more info on this offence to... well basically everything... but couldn't find anything. Searched for information about Sandy, the badly drawn mascot, but again results came up as nought. There was obviously a scorched earth campaign by the Scottish FA to wipe all records, to remove any evidence that it ever existed. But somehow it survived... like Jason in those Halloween movies, it just will not die.

 

Martin : Just to let you know that it was real!! My sister was in the 'backing group' which was the primary 7 class from Pencaitland Primary School. It was made in the recording studio in the village so they used the school for the backing signers!!! They appeared on STV news as well......... then vanished from the face of the earth! A good claim to fame though!

Carey Moss : hi in reply to the krankies recording with pencaitland school singing were going to spain yes this really happened im one of those singers , we had a fantastic day at the recording studios in pencaitland , we had a lovely time with the krankies they were lovely , we were on the news too

Pete John Marsall : i was in the final to be the actual real life Sandy mascot and have a life size version still up loft, lol. i also can't find newspaper archive photos of the centre page competition with my picture to be voted on

Sadly, as can be seen from the press ad for the single, this muck was actually the 'Unofficial' Scottish World Cup song . . . ah well, it was a good story while it lasted!

jamiefairlie

Ok, we'll move on to 1983 later on Sunday so get your last 82's in.

daf

No Laughing ‎– Wor Shu Opp



Released in June 1982 - did not chart

QuoteWor-Shu Chun Op (Almond Pressed Duck, or Mandarin Pressed Duck) was a popular Cantonese dish in Chinese and Polynesian-themed restaurants in the United States in the middle of the 20th century. Crispy and boneless, it is deep-fried and served in either medium-sized pieces of uniform shape or as an entire duck. It is generally served with a sauce poured over it, either brown or sweet and sour. Crushed or powdered almonds are frequently sprinkled over it just before eating, hence one of its names. Its preparation can be a lengthy process involving a number of steps over a period of several days, making this relatively simple-appearing dish a labor-intensive process. This may explain its virtual disappearance from present-day restaurants: today only a handful of restaurants feature it on their regular menus.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

The Undertones - The Love Parade



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

This Northern Soul-powered banger barely scraped into the top 100. What gives, 1982? The 'tones split up the following year.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

The Plimsouls - A Million Miles Away



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ31oz0DECw

Some more skinny tie* Power Pop for your listening and dancing pleasure. The Plimsouls almost had a hit with this, but they never quite managed to break through.

* They're not wearing skinny ties in that photograph, admittedly. But they have a skinny tie state of mind.

daf

Uncle Vic ‎– E.T. Phone Home



Released in 1982 - did not chart

QuoteE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was a 1982 American science fiction film produced and directed by Steven Spielberg. It tells the story of Elliott, a boy who befriends an extraterrestrial, dubbed E.T., who is stranded on Earth. The concept was based on an imaginary friend Spielberg created after his parents' divorce in 1960, Spielberg filled the void with an imaginary alien companion. He said that the imaginary alien was "a friend who could be the brother I never had and a father that I didn't feel I had anymore".

In 1978, he announced he would shoot a film entitled Growing Up, which he would film in four weeks. The project was set aside because of delays on the production of his film '1941', but the concept of making a small autobiographical film about childhood would stay with him. He also thought about a follow-up to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and began to develop a darker project he had planned with John Sayles called Night Skies in which malevolent aliens terrorize a family.

   

John Landis suggested Spielberg talk to Rick Baker, who was then working on An American Werewolf In London. When the two met to discuss the project Spielberg described a script along the lines of Peckinpah's Straw Dogs with creatures that needed distinct personalities. Baker was eventually given character descriptions. A few were Scar (a badass), Squirt (a cute little guy) and Buddy (a creature like the eventual E.T.).

King Sunny Ade-The Message
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6FVC1iS-oI


Nigerian bandleader Sunday Adeniyi Adegeye had been making records since the sixties, but this was his first record to crossover to Euro/U.S. audiences. Some superb trebly slide guitar on this.

daf

Dickie Goodman ‎– Hey, E.T.



Released in 1982 - did not chart

QuoteIn 1980, While on the set of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Steven Spielberg met Melissa Mathison and developed a new story from the failed project Night Skies.

Steven Spielberg : "I might have taken leave of my senses. Throughout Raiders, I was in between killing Nazis and blowing up flying wings and having Harrison Ford in all this high serialized adventure, I was sitting there in the middle of Tunisia, scratching my head and saying, 'I've got to get back to the tranquillity, or at least the spirituality, of Close Encounters.'"

Spielberg drew the story of the film from his parents' divorce. References to his childhood occur throughout: Elliott fakes illness by holding a thermometer to the bulb in his lamp while covering his face with a heating pad, a trick frequently employed by the young Spielberg. Michael picking on Elliott echoes Spielberg's teasing of his younger sisters, and Michael's evolution from tormentor to protector reflects how Spielberg had to take care of his sisters after their father left.

Melissa Mathison : "the idea of an alien creature who was benevolent, tender, emotional and sweet... and the idea of the creature's striking up a relationship with a child who came from a broken home was very affecting".

     

At the film's heart is the theme of growing up. Critic Henry Sheehan described the film as a retelling of Peter Pan from the perspective of a Lost Boy (Elliott): E.T. cannot survive physically on Earth, as Pan could not survive emotionally in Neverland. Other critics found religious parallels between E.T. and Jesus. Universal Pictures appealed directly to the Christian market, with a poster reminiscent of Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam (more specifically the "fingers touching" detail) and a logo reading "Peace." Spielberg answered that he did not intend the film to be a religious parable, joking, "If I ever went to my mother and said, 'Mom, I've made this movie that's a Christian parable,' what do you think she'd say? She has a Kosher restaurant on Pico and Doheny in Los Angeles."

daf

Donna Rhodes ‎– Extra Terrestrial



Released in the Netherlands in December 1982 - did not chart

QuoteFilming took place from September to December 1981 on a budget of $10.5 million. Unlike most films, it was shot in rough chronological order, to facilitate convincing emotional performances from the young cast. The animatronics of E.T. were designed by Carlo Rambaldi.

Released on June 11, 1982, by Universal Pictures, E.T. was an immediate blockbuster, surpassing Star Wars to become the highest-grossing film of all time—a record it held for 11 years until Jurassic Park,

     

In July 1982, during the film's first theatrical run, Spielberg and Mathison wrote a treatment for a sequel to be titled E.T. II: Nocturnal Fears. It would have shown Elliott and his friends getting kidnapped by evil aliens, and attempting to contact E.T. for help. Spielberg decided against pursuing it, feeling it "would do nothing but rob the original of its virginity. E.T. is not about going back to the planet".

Oz Oz Alice

A.P.O - O Superman

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

This Italo track perversely remodels Laurie Anderson's O Superman into a sparse, weird proto-house banger. The metal crashes and the harshness of some of the synth textures verge on the industrial, but this somehow also manages to be as emotive as the original. This is the work of mega Italo producer Salvatore Annunziata also responsible for Klein and MBO and Pink Project stuff.

Sister Nancy- Chalice a Fe Burn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YexL5pxVgV0


Light years away from the masterful dub wizardry of some of reggae productions we've had in the thread so far, or even from her own 1982 hit Bam Bam is a rough dictaphone-quality tune by dancehall MC Sister Nancy, from an ultra low-budget LP, "recorded 1982 at Skateland Roller Disco, Half Way Tree,Kingston"

Oz Oz Alice

Oppenheimer Analysis - The Devil's Dancers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caP3tAmMEbc

Another that'd be a hit in a saner fairer world, Oppenheimer Analysis are the project of Andie Oppenheimer and Martin Lloyd. Their album New Mexico was a hyper obscure one off cassette release at the time that became a bit of a cult hit; an expanded issue on Minimal Wave came following Martin Lloyd's death. As I'm a bit of a sucker for synth arpeggios, squelchy synth bass and mechanised drums behind Bowie / Foxx worship posting it in this thread. "There's room at the top / Doo wop, doo wop".


daf

Marty Merchant ‎– E.T.s Helping Santa



Released in 1982 on festive red space-vinyl - did not chart

QuoteAtari, Inc. produced a video game based on the film for the Atari 2600 and hired Howard Scott Warshaw to program the game. The game was rushed in five weeks to release within the 1982 holiday season. Released in Christmas 1982, the game was critically panned, with nearly every aspect of the game facing heavy criticism. It has since been considered to be one of the worst video games ever made. It was also a commercial failure. It has been cited as a major contributing factor to the video game industry crash of 1983, and has been frequently referenced and mocked in popular culture as a cautionary tale about the dangers of rushed game development and studio interference.



In September 1983, the Alamogordo Daily News of Alamogordo, New Mexico, reported in a series of articles that between ten and twenty truckloads of Atari boxes, cartridges, and systems from an Atari storehouse in El Paso, Texas, were crushed and buried at the landfill within the city, which was covered with concrete. Atari officials and others gave differing reports of what was buried, but it has been speculated that most unsold copies of E.T. are buried in this landfill, crushed and encased in cement.

 

The story of the buried cartridges was erroneously regarded by some as an urban legend, with skeptics—including Warshaw—disregarding the official accounts. On May 28, 2013, the Alamogordo City Commission approved Fuel Industries, an Ottawa-based entertainment company, for six months of landfill access. On April 26, 2014, remnants of E.T. and other Atari games were discovered in the early hours of the excavation. In December 2014, the Smithsonian Institution added an excavated cartridge of E.T. to their collection.

Howard Scott Warshaw : "People worry I might be sensitive about the E.T. debacle, but the fact is I'm always happy to discuss it. After all, it was the fastest game ever done, it was a million seller, and of the thousands of 2600 games, how many others are still a topic? Another thing I like to think about is having done E.T. (consistently rated among the worst games of all time) and Yars' Revenge (consistently rated as one of the best) I figure I have the unique distinction of having the greatest range of any game designer in history."

Gregory Torso

Mickey Bliss - Cocktails For Two

Pistoning rhythm machines, low battery tape warp, synth chord bliss pop. Sex dungeon music like a neon dildo in the waltzing fog. The walls are melting.


daf

The Chipmunks ‎– E.T. & Me



Featured on the album 'The Chipmunks Go Hollywood' - released in 1982

QuoteAlvin and the Chipmunks were created and originally voiced by Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. The group consisted of three singing animated chipmunks: Alvin, the mischievous troublemaker; Simon, the tall, bespectacled intellectual; and Theodore, the chubby, impressionable sweetheart.

In 1958, Bagdasarian released 'Witch Doctor' a novelty song (as David Seville) about being unsuccessful at love until he found a witch doctor who told him how to woo his woman. The song was done by Bagdasarian in his normal voice, except for the "magic" words, done first in Bagdasarian's pitched-up, pre-Chipmunk voice, then in a duet between his pitched-up voice and his normal voice. The words themselves are nonsense: "Oo-ee, oo-ah-ah, ting-tang, walla-walla, bing-bang".

The follow-up song, "The Bird on My Head", singing a duet with his own sped-up voice as the bird, and reached the Top 40 - peaking at No. 34. While driving in Sequoia National Park, Bagdasarian saw a chipmunk dash in front of him. That moment inspired him to create his chipmunk characters. Bagdasarian planned to have a singing group of reindeer, alligators, hippopotami, grasshoppers, birds, rabbits, pigs, hedgehogs, dogs, mustelid carnivores, worms, and elephants, but everyone who heard the demo called them chipmunks due to being familiar with Disney's chipmunk duo, so Ross relented and changed them to chipmunks.

     

The final album of the original incarnation of The Chipmunks was released in 1969. After Bagdasarian passed away in 1972, the group was given a reprise in 1980 by Ross Bagdasarian, Sr.'s son, Ross Bagdasarian Jr., beginning with the album Chipmunk Punk using new voices and animated characters.

Gregory Torso

Thick Pigeon - Tracy & Pansy

A dubby, clattering reworking of Fats Domino's 'I Wanna Walk You Home', lovely stuff and such a good band name.

Released another single in the same year, Subway, which is another favourite.




QuoteOne of the more mysterious artists to record for the stylish Crépuscule/Factory axis, Thick Pigeon was essentially a vehicle for songwriter Stanton Miranda and arranger Carter Burwell. Based in New York, the pop-art duo recorded a brace of oblique, minimalist singles for Les Disques du Crépuscule before moving sideways to Factory Records for their first album.

daf

Barnes And Barnes - I Had Sex With E.T.

 

Released on a four track EP in 1982 - did not chart

Quote"I Had Sex with E.T." is distinguished in Steven Spielberg's biography as "perhaps the most egregious unauthorized product" related to the sci-fi blockbuster. Adding insult to injury, one half of the group that wrote and recorded the song was Billy Mumy, who had played Will Robinson on Lost in Space as a child actor.

   

Barnes & Barnes' erotic outer-space adventure in intellectual property rights was over almost as soon as it began. It is alleged that, when the duo had sold just 73 copies of the EP's limited run of 200, they received a stern warning from Spielberg's or Universal's lawyers that compelled them to delete the release. Each cover was hand-painted.

Jockice

I Think I Need Help - The Farmer's Boys

Debut single by the either the first, second or third best band in Norwich (it was a close thing with them, The Higsons and Serious Drinking around at the same time.)

Later described as the 'greatest band on earth,' by Julie Burchill, who added 'nobody sounds stood-up better. Not even The Smiths.'' And people say she's crazy, eh?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4D1HhQUrlco


daf

The Fabulous Billygoons ‎– Billygoon Party Rap



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

QuoteJan Crocker [Felix Kruell] : "I was doing a sports talk show at WMBR, so I was in contact with some of the Spit regulars who spun records there, people like Thom Lane and Tony V. They challenged the Sports Palace crew to come up with something creative for a benefit that was going to be held at Spit. We decided to quickly put together a spasm band to perform. So we wrote a few catchy tunes like "Hot Sauce" and "Hemorrhoids" and came up with the name for the band, the Fabulous Billygoons. We were godawful, but we brought the house down with the stage act. John Lyons was so amused he gave me my own Spit card that night with my Billygoon alias on it, Dr. Felix Kruell. And he provided a strip of free-drink tickets for the band that stretched from my head to my toes. Pat and John were always very generous guys."

 

Felix Kruell [Jan Crocker] : "This sort of shit is unacceptable even for the somewhat a-political Goons. We never took ourselves seriously, but we are plenty serious about suing Trump's sorry arse for using the "Party Rap" as an anthem for his moronic lemmings. We stopped short of suing the Beastie Boys when they ripped off the "Party Rap" for their own use, but we will be happy to engage Trump in a legal steel cage match with the last righteous man left standing!"

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