Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Apr 15, 2024 1:06:17 GMT -5
#3 - Reckoning by R.E.M. Reckoning was R.E.M.'s second album and comes from the period when they were college rock darlings and signed to the independent record label IRS, long before their early '90s commercial breakthrough and ensuing world domination. Produced by Mitch Easter and Don Dixon at a tiny studio in Charlotte, North Carolina, Reckoning was recorded fast (committed to tape and mixed in just 14 days, apparently). As a result, it has a much more direct, live feel to it than the band's more produced, atmospheric debut Murmur. That said, the basic sound of the band – jangly arpeggiated guitars, driving bass lines, and powerful drumming, topped with Michael Stipe's enigmatic drawl and mysterious, impressionistic lyrics – remains essentially unchanged from their debut. A number of the songs, such as "Camera", "Time After Time (Annelise)" and "Letter Never Sent", feature darker subject matter than most of the band's songs up to that point, but there is still plenty of up-tempo jangle pop to be found here. Stipe seems preoccupied with water-related imagery on much of the album (the LP's spine even bears the alternate title "File Under Water"). Much of Reckoning also have a yearning melancholy to it, along with recurring themes of separation and being away from home in its lyrics – something no doubt resulting from the band having been on tour throughout most of 1983. I love so many of the songs on this album that it's really hard to pick just one. But I'm gonna offer up "So. Central Rain", which was the first single from the album and a song that went on to become a staple of R.E.M.'s live repertoire for the remainder of their career. The promo video features a live Stipe vocal as an elegant "f*ck you!" to record industry expectations that singers would all happily lip-synch their hits in the '80s.
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Post by Confessor on Apr 14, 2024 23:54:00 GMT -5
More catching up... #4 - Welcome to the Pleasuredome by Frankie Goes to Hollywood Liverpudlian band Frankie Goes to Hollywood were THE pop music and tabloid newspaper sensations of 1984 here in the UK. Their first three singles all went to number 1 in the charts (a feat that had not been achieved by a band since the early '60s); their debut single "Relax" was banned by British TV and radio due to lyrics explicitly advocating sex and masturbation; the videos for their first two singles were banned from TV for offending taste and decency; and their two front men were out and proud gay men in an era when such things were far from common. On top of all that, their records were absolutely brilliant! Myself, I loved FGTH at the time. I bought the "Relax" single in late '83, thrilled by the controversy surrounding it and fascinated to learn a new verb: "to cum".  The band's second single "Two Tribes", an anti-war song dealing with Cold War fears of nuclear Armageddon, was even better and I spent my pocket money on multiple 12" singles of it to get the various mixes of the song ("Two Tribes" was at number 1 in the UK charts for a staggering 9 weeks!). So, it was a no-brainer that I would eagerly pick up the band's debut album when it appeared in October '84. Released as a double-album on vinyl, Welcome to the Pleasuredome is a gloriously and outrageously over-the-top slice of debauched synth-rock. Singer Holly Johnson's literary and romantic lyrics have a delightfully perverted and deviant venom to them and are all delivered in a leering croon, with just a touch of a punk sneer. Musically, it's a bold, cocksure album and a brilliant marriage between the band's subversive songwriting and producer Trevor Horn's genius-like skills for engineering and arranging. A slight criticism might be that the album is padded with a few too many covers, perhaps speaking to the fact that what we have here is a single album that has been stretched out over two LPs. But, then again, the band's renditions of Edwin Starr's "War", Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run", and Dionne Warwick's "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" are actually pretty good and certainly don't weaken the album at all. Of the self-penned material, the three smash hit singles, "Relax", "Two Tribes" and "The Power of Love", along with "Wish (The Lads Were Here)", "The Only Star in Heaven", and the epic "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" are real standouts. For us '80s children who were just slightly too young to have experienced punk, Welcome to the Pleasuredome was kind of like our generation's Never Mind the Bollocks. This was a subversive, day-glo explosion of scandalous sex, Cold War politics, and infectious dance grooves. I mean, it's not every album that mixes provocative and insidiously catchy pop-rock hooks with U.S. President Ronald Reagan quoting Hitler, Prince Charles discussing orgasms, and a song about anal fisting ("Krisco Kisses", which is apparently a gay slang term for that particular act). If you have the time, the album's title track – a 16-minute Samuel Taylor Coleridge-inspired ode to hedonism and debauchery which takes up all of side 1 (including the fragments "The World is My Oyster", "Well", and "Snatch of Fury") – is the best illustration of the album's sweeping, high-octane dance pop majesty. I really do urge you to check it out, if you're interested. If, however, you are a little shorter on time, here's the banned video for Frankie's first smash hit, "Relax". Set in an S&M-themed gay nightclub, populated by leathermen, scantily-clad women, and glamorous drag queens, this was like nothing else that was being presented as a pop video at the time (needless to say, it's NSFW)… |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Apr 14, 2024 13:07:59 GMT -5
More playing catch up.... #5 - Ocean Rain by Echo and the Bunnymen The first Echo and the Bunnymen song that I really remember liking was the lead single from Ocean Rain (their fourth album), the now classic '80s alternative anthem "The Killing Moon". I'd heard of the band prior to this – mostly due to their weird name, which intrigued me – but I hadn't knowingly heard their music. I loved "The Killing Moon" though; it sounded mysterious and a bit creepy, but strangely uplifting too. I didn't buy the single, though I did tape it off the radio (hey, funds were scarce when I was 11). In fact, I didn't manage to get my hands on a copy of the album until about 1987 or 88, but upon hearing it in its entirety it became, and remains, a firm favourite. Ocean Rain is a brooding, but whimsically eccentric masterclass, full of percussively strummed acoustic guitars, weirdly metaphysical lyrics, and sweeping orchestral arrangements – all crowned by singer Ian McCulloch's sullen, but expressive baritone. It is, without doubt, the Bunnymen's best and most melodic album. There's a breathless romantic sweetness to a lot of McCulloch's lyrics, but couched in a soundscape that is at turns exhilarating, emotional, and decidedly unconventional, with a strange, haunted ambience to it all. The track I've picked to showcase was the third single taken from the album, "Seven Seas". This has always been a big favourite of mine (it's probably my all-time favourite Bunnymen song, in all honesty), but I also think it demonstrates a lot of the album's appeal. It's a weird, off-kilter song, mostly acoustic guitar-based, with a melodic, but simple bass part and gently propulsive "brush on snare" drumming. Great chiming guitars and bells in the chorus too! I have no idea what the song is about, and yet it has always spoken to me in a way that I find hard to articulate. It also has a great opening line: "Stab a sorry heart with your favourite finger." Damn, I wish I'd written that! |
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Post by Confessor on Apr 14, 2024 11:29:03 GMT -5
That really stinks. As a friend, (sort of) co-worker, and avid fan of The Kynd, I'm angry for you on all three levels. The good news is your music isn't going anywhere, and people who need to hear it will continue to make their way to it regardless of these setbacks. I firmly believe that. If anything, this just buys us more time before you make it too big to be able to hang out here with us anymore. , I heard a rumor that you guys were going to break put the CCF In Dept theme song... The crowd wouldn't have been able to handle it!  |
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Post by Confessor on Apr 13, 2024 23:18:20 GMT -5
I've heard Andor is incredible... Incredibly slow and drawn out, yeah.  For me, it's not even in the same league as Rogue One. Not by a long shot. Plus, I tend to agree with you that I'm not sure it was even a story that required telling. I guess you could legitimately say the same about Rogue one, but the proof of that was in the pudding and for my money the pudding was fantastic cinema. That said, Diego Luna was great reprising his title role in Andor and the production values are predictably high...and I also enjoyed the fact that, like Rogue One, it showed us the morally grubbier underside of the early Rebellion. But by far its biggest sin for me is that the story is unnecessarily stretched out, almost to breaking point, just to get 10 episodes (or whatever it was) out of it. It needed a good editor with the balls to say, "there's really not enough story here for a full series. Let's turn it into a feature-length TV movie." |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Apr 13, 2024 22:38:27 GMT -5
Hey all, sorry I've been away for a while. We had family in town for nearly two weeks including a trip to see the eclipse in the path of totality, and then the post-company resent and crash. Suffice to say I've been various levels of busy and beat, but things are getting close to as normal as they get around here now. I'm sorry for the recent struggles, all. Confessor I can't even imagine how frustrating that must be for all of the reasons stated. As others have said, nothing to be done about it now but rest up and be ready for the next one. Welcome back. Was wondering where you'd got to. |
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Post by Confessor on Apr 13, 2024 21:51:33 GMT -5
#6 - Native Sons by The Long Ryders Enter the Paisley Underground!  I stumbled upon a used vinyl copy of this album at a car boot sale in about 1993 or 94, I guess. I had never heard of the Long Ryders, but I was fascinated by the realisation that here was an 80s band who looked like the Byrds, spelt their band name a bit like the Byrds, played Rickenbacker guitars like the Byrds (shown on the back cover), and who even had ex-Byrd Gene Clark singing guest vocals on one song. I was already a total Byrds-nut by this point, so I knew this had to be worth a punt! Turns out, I was right! Native Sons is easily one of the best "blind" purchases I've ever made. The album brilliantly blends jangly '60s folk-rock, roots rock swagger, Chuck Berry-esque rock 'n' roll licks, and Gram Parsons-style country-rock -- delivering it all with an irreverent and exciting post-punk energy. Little wonder that this album is seen as an essential signpost on the musical road towards the Alt. Country scene of the '90s and 21st century. I love all three of the Long Ryders original '80s albums, but Native Sons is perhaps their purest. There's an innocent, small label indie aesthetic to this record that was inevitably lost on their follow-up and major label debut State of Our Union (great though that album is). In terms of picking a track to showcase, I'm gonna pick two this time, just because I can't decide. First, the album's opening track "Final Wild Son", a song about Jerry Lee Lewis which sounds like something off Gram Parsons' final album, but played by Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers or the Buzzcocks… And the second track is "Run Dusty Run", which is a cracking Chuck Berry-flavoured thing about a desperate, drunken gambler hopefully watching a horse race, with his money and hopes of wedded bliss to his sweetheart riding on the eponymous horse Dusty …
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Post by Confessor on Apr 13, 2024 21:45:44 GMT -5
I was about to type that my favourite song of theirs was Head Over Heels but luckily I looked it up to check and was reminded that that was Tears for Fears, not Thompson Twins! Yes, it was TFF. "Head Over Heels" is a fantastic song though! |
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Post by Confessor on Apr 13, 2024 20:47:03 GMT -5
Playing catch up now... #7 - Into the Gap by Thompson Twins The Thompson Twins were one of my favourite bands of the 1980s and I don't care who knows it! Yeah, yeah…I know that they're viewed as a bit of a joke nowadays, but I maintain that they were a far more interesting, artsy, and musically adventurous band than most people give them credit for. I first discovered them in 1983 and received their then-current album Quick Step & Side Kick for my birthday that year. Their follow-up album, Into the Gap, appeared in February 1984 and I remember being frustrated that Christmas had gone by and my birthday wasn't for months yet – how was I gonna get my hands on this new Thompson Twins record?! As luck would have it, an old friend of my Dad's named Edgar came visiting that spring and he gifted my brother and I a five pound note each (which was a lot of money for a kid back then), telling us to treat ourselves to something nice. I knew immediately that Into the Gap would be mine! Musically, the album is very much a consolidation of the catchy dance pop/New Wave/synth-pop blend that the band had debuted on their previous album. It's a melting pot of brilliantly arranged New Wave pop hooks, intelligent lyrical content, and occasional quasi-Middle Eastern musical textures. Great production from Alex Sadkin too! This is the album that took the TTs into the musical stratosphere, spawning a series of hit singles. The whole album is very strong though, with standout album tracks like "Day After Day", "The Gap", and the moody "Storm on the Sea" easily holding their own against the much better-known hits like "Hold Me Now" and "Doctor, Doctor". The really nice thing though is that every single time I listen to the album, I still think of my Dad's old mate Edgar, who is now long dead, and smile a little. In terms of selecting a track for this post, I've gone with the obvious colossal hit, "Hold Me Now", just because I think it has a beautiful, wistful yearning quality to it and a killer anthemic chorus. Oh, and I love that percussion track (best heard in the intro), all malleted bass drum, castanets, and guiros. Great bass sound on this track too! |
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Post by Confessor on Apr 13, 2024 19:33:56 GMT -5
Oh Lordy, this really isn't my kind of thing at all, I'm afraid Slam. I absolutely detest The Scorpions' music, but, as I think I mentioned a few pages back to driver1980 , I was friends with a lot of "Metallers" or "Metalheads" when I was a teenager in the mid-to-late '80s, so I got to hear lots of this kind of stuff. Looking up the cover of Love at First Sting online (and that's a terrible album title BTW!), yep...I definitely remember some of my mates having that album. I remember hearing that track "Rock You Like a Hurricane" back in the day too, and I think it was a reasonable sized hit here in the UK. Actually, their album covers were often pretty raunchy for the times, and often very misogynistic too! Which, of course, was par for the course with this kind of "cock-rock" ( see also Mötley Crüe, W.A.S.P., Ratt etc). What's that album they did with the business guy in the back of a limo pulling strands of bubblegum off a woman's exposed breast? That one sure sticks in my memory! And wasn't there another album by The Scorpions with a woman kneeling next to a dog in front of a man who was standing dominantly over them both? I mean, I can definitely laugh at the cartoonish misogyny of it all, but that would definitely not fly today!  Musically, like a lot of those heavy metal bands from that era, I bet they were all great musicians though. But yeah...this isn't my thing at all, I'm afraid. Of course it's impossible to look at or listen to this kind of thing today without thinking of Spinal Tap. Your memories of the questionable content and design choices for some of those album covers immediately made me think of the line from the band's manager in the movie, "You should have seen what they wanted to put there - it wasn't a glove, I'll tell you that!"
Ha! Yes!!! It's absolutely Spinal Tap-worthy! You know, one of those old "metalhead" buddies of mine from back then always says (with tongue a little in cheek), "I don't know what everyone found so funny about Spinal Tap. They seemed like a really great band." |
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Post by Confessor on Apr 13, 2024 13:21:21 GMT -5
Playing catch up, as I've spent most of the last three days in bed with a cold and raging temperature, so not really felt up to contributing to this thread in any meaningful way...
Favorite albums of 1984 #7 – James Cotton – High Compression
Again, like the George Strait tracks you posted earlier, this is a bit of a revelation insofar as I wasn't really aware that there was such authentic down-home blues being recorded in the mid-80s. I tend to view '80s blues as being like Robert Cray or Eric Clapton, both of whose music from that era is soulless to the point of being almost obsolete as blues, in my view. That track "Diggin' My Potatoes" is really gritty and rootsie Chicago-style blues though – great harp playing too! It sounds very much in the tradition of Little Walter. The track "Superharp" is a little more identifiably an 80s recording, but it's still pretty great. Nice stuff. Favorite albums of 1984 #6 - Scorpions – Love at First Sting
Oh Lordy, this really isn't my kind of thing at all, I'm afraid Slam. I absolutely detest The Scorpions' music, but, as I think I mentioned a few pages back to driver1980 , I was friends with a lot of "Metallers" or "Metalheads" when I was a teenager in the mid-to-late '80s, so I got to hear lots of this kind of stuff. Looking up the cover of Love at First Sting online (and that's a terrible album title BTW!), yep...I definitely remember some of my mates having that album. I remember hearing that track "Rock You Like a Hurricane" back in the day too, and I think it was a reasonable sized hit here in the UK. Actually, their album covers were often pretty raunchy for the times, and often very misogynistic too! Which, of course, was par for the course with this kind of "cock-rock" ( see also Mötley Crüe, W.A.S.P., Ratt etc). What's that album they did with the business guy in the back of a limo pulling strands of bubblegum off a woman's exposed breast? That one sure sticks in my memory! And wasn't there another album by The Scorpions with a woman kneeling next to a dog in front of a man who was standing dominantly over them both? I mean, I can definitely laugh at the cartoonish misogyny of it all, but that would definitely not fly today! Musically, like a lot of those heavy metal bands from that era, I bet they were all great musicians though. But yeah...this isn't my thing at all, I'm afraid. Favorite albums of 1984 #5 – Tom Russell – Heart on a Sleeve
Tom Russell is somebody I've only vaguely heard of. Those two tracks you posted are pretty nice though. I'm not sure I'd feel the need to investigate further, but they're pleasant enough to listen to. Favorite albums of 1984 #4 – Robert Earl Keen – No Kinda Dancer
Again, this does not sound like mid-80s country music. I love its simplicity...it has an "indie" aesthetic to it, so I can quite see how the No Kinda Dancer album would've contributed and fed into the Alt. Country movement of the '90s and 2000s. Yeah, really nice stuff this. |
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Post by Confessor on Apr 13, 2024 11:21:02 GMT -5
I grew up with a lot of those shows too and, like you, I have tremendous nostalgic affection for them. But I cannot agree that they are objectively better than today's TV. The likes of "The A-Team", "Knight Rider", "Airwolf" and "Cheers" etc are just unwatchable dreck from today's standpoint. I honestly believe we are in a golden Age of television right now; production values have never been higher, scripts have never been better, top-tier Hollywood talent has never been more drawn to TV, and the wealth of choice in today's streaming TV market is simply unparalleled. I do dislike the so-called "Balkanization" of TV, with all the shows a viewer might want to watch requiring multiple subscriptions (that just amounts to a really bad deal for the consumer), but in terms of sheer quality and choice, TV has never been better. You and I will have to remain on opposite sides of the table, because in my eyes, the vast majority of modern TV is complete and utter garbage. The behavior shown is completely reprehensible - various characters (young and old) repeatedly swearing, drinking too much, having sex with God-only-knows how many, and routinely trashing anyone who tries in the slightest way to point out the errors of their ways. That's just not cool at all in my book, and as a result I can't watch it. Ha ha!! Yes, it certainly looks like we will remain on opposite sides of this discussion because, frankly, "swearing, drinking too much, and having sex with God-only-knows how many" sounds like a great Saturday night to me!  I'm teasing you really, of course.  But yeah, I understand that if you have a strong aversion to that kind of conduct then such depictions on TV are not gonna find favour with you. But not every modern TV show is like that; that's a far too sweeping generalisation. I'm sure you could find some great TV shows that more closely aligns with you particular viewing tastes. I mean, my very religious Mother-in-Law loves Downton Abbey and The Crown (actually, I love The Crown too...especially the early seasons set in the '50s and '60s). Not sure if they're at all your cup of tea, but my point is that there would surely be plenty of good stuff you'd enjoy if you have a look for it. |
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Post by Confessor on Apr 13, 2024 11:04:14 GMT -5
I know its old news now, but I was truly saddened when Stan Lee passed away.I never met him, but I know he was a legend, not just for Marvel but also the comics industry as a whole. I felt the dedication at the beginning of "Captain Marvel" was a very respectable touch. Yeah, it was sad...as was the passing of Steve Ditko just a few months before. But for me though, the death that hit me harder was John Romita's in 2023 because that really represented the passing of an era into history...that was really it: Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and John Romita were all dead now. The four chief architects of the Marvel Silver Age were no longer with us. It was a final closing of the book type of moment for me. |
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Post by Confessor on Apr 13, 2024 10:44:48 GMT -5
I was born in 1980, so I grew up on now-classic shows like "Knight Rider", "The A-Team", "Airwolf", "Family Matters", "Full House", "Growing Pains", "Cheers", "Family Ties", "Highway to Heaven", "Star Trek: TNG", and the original versions of "Quantum Leap", "Magnum, P.I.", and "Night Court". All told, these shows are a thousand times better than all the crap being offered today...which is why I don't watch much current TV. I grew up with a lot of those shows too and, like you, I have tremendous nostalgic affection for them. But I cannot agree that they are objectively better than today's TV. The likes of "The A-Team", "Knight Rider", "Airwolf" and "Cheers" etc are just unwatchable dreck from today's standpoint. I honestly believe we are in a golden Age of television right now; production values have never been higher, scripts have never been better, top-tier Hollywood talent has never been more drawn to TV, and the wealth of choice in today's streaming TV market is simply unparalleled. I do dislike the so-called "Balkanization" of TV, with all the shows a viewer might want to watch requiring multiple subscriptions (that just amounts to a really bad deal for the consumer), but in terms of sheer quality and choice, TV has never been better. |
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Post by Confessor on Apr 13, 2024 9:21:18 GMT -5
I like the first six Episodes, that George Lucas either oversaw or was directly involved with. But after he sold to Disney, the franchise quickly went down the drain...mainly starting with "The Last Jedi". That movie is one huge mess, and seeing it in 2017 completely sickened me so much, that I abandoned "Star Wars" afterward. Yeah, The Last Jedi was a threshold moment for me too in which I decided I was basically done with Star Wars. I still haven't bothered to watch The Rise of Skywalker. Though I have enjoyed The Mandalorian series, pretty much all the other Disney+ TV shows have left me cold. I adored the Rogue One movie (I consider it the best SW movie since ROTJ), but the Andor TV show was a horrible, bloated mess...over-long and ill focused; that story could've been much better told in a 3 hour movie. That said, I also consider George Lucas's prequel trilogy to be pretty badly flawed. There are good moments in each film, of course, but too much of it is embarrassingly childish, badly acted, or crammed with as many offensive racial caricatures as possible. |
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The band's second single "Two Tribes", an anti-war song dealing with Cold War fears of nuclear Armageddon, was even better and I spent my pocket money on multiple 12" singles of it to get the various mixes of the song ("Two Tribes" was at number 1 in the UK charts for a staggering 9 weeks!). So, it was a no-brainer that I would eagerly pick up the band's debut album when it appeared in October '84.
But yeah, I understand that if you have a strong aversion to that kind of conduct then such depictions on TV are not gonna find favour with you. But not every modern TV show is like that; that's a far too sweeping generalisation. I'm sure you could find some great TV shows that more closely aligns with you particular viewing tastes.