1983 in music. • Page 2

Rollin into 83 with 2 heavies I haven’t listened to in a while,

The Hurting seemed like a good choice. It’s right up there with Songs From The Big Chair. To call it one of the great synth pop albums is a disservice to how phenomenal the writing is. Totally stacked songs that speak far beyond their arrangements. The Beatles worship that’s loud and proud on Seeds Of Love is already here.

And the production is amazing.

High Land Hard Rain is the only Aztec Camera I’ve listened to a lot and I’m not sure why. It’s a great record, and totally insane that he was a teenager.

Oblivious, The Boy Wonders, Walk Out On Winter, Pillar To Post, Down The Dip…hits!

 

First 3 spins:

Lou Reed - Legendary Hearts
Richard Thompson - Hand of Kindness
Minor Threat - Out of Step

 

Underrated classic right here. I'm having a lot of fun listening to records from this year, you can really tell "alternative" starting to get defined. The obvious ones being R.E.M., U2, New Order, etc - but Echo & The Bunnymen were great as well. Another solid Depeche Mode record from this year too.

 

Love that song. Such a cool riff

 

1. Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones
2. REM - Murmur
3. Daniel Johnston - Hi How Are You

 

1. Billy Bragg - Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy
2. Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones
3. Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues

Billy Bragg's debut (EP or mini album, whatever it is), is fantastic, taking the ethos of punk and doing it as a solo folk musician of sorts, but with lyrics directly speaking to mid-80s Britain. A big influence on me, at least politically speaking.

Swordfishtrombones is Waits getting back onto the right track after a couple of so-so albums, and moving away from his blues-y jazzy music, into something much more experimental.

Speaking in Tongues is a fun Talking Heads record, and their last album that I regularly listen to. Has a great opening track and single in Burning Down the House

Honourable mentions;

New Order - Power, Corruption & Lies: Leaving the shadows of Joy Division behind fully with this record, moving them away from post-punk into something poppier and more electronic and danceable. Great album cover too.

Husker Du - Everything Falls Apart & Metal Circus: Husker Du's first EP and then album (though I think there's like two minutes difference between them in length?). They were still much more of a speedy hardcore band at this point, but still showed great songwriting at times, with "It's not Funny Anymore" and "Diane" from Metal Circus being two of my favourite Husker tracks.

Minutemen - Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat & What Makes a Man Start Fires: An EP and debut album from Minutemen this year, both showing their unique approach to punk songwriting, living up to their name, with most tracks at around the minute mark.

Sonic Youth - Confusion is Sex & Kill Yr Idols: Sonic Youth's debut album and second EP (that appears to be a reoccurring theme here...), and starting off with the sort of noisy, experimental stuff that they'd get more interesting at in later years. Some good moments though.

Circle Jerks - Golden Shower of Hits: Great album title and album cover that basically sums up the record. Dumb and fun hardcore.

Minor Threat - Out of Step: Nearly forgot about this, as I usually just dip into their Complete Discography comp, but this is a furious and hugely influential hardcore punk record, that even at it's raw-est, still shows little inklings of the directions that MacKaye and Fugazi would move into.

The Replacements - Hootenanny: A great Replacements record that showed them moving away from the generic punk / hardcore of their debut, and exploring more sounds and ideas.

Daniel Johnstone - Hi, How Are You: Lo-fi, really simple but a bit varied recordings from Johnstone, that would go on to influence a huge heap of lo-fi musicians. Charming and interesting, even if it's not one I listen too much ultimately.

Tappi Tíkarrass - Miranda: Bjork's punk band's first and only album. Interesting for Bjork fans, maybe less in here for everyone else!

 

I wanted to check out Bad Religion's Into the Unknown this week, where they decided to become a prog band for one record, only to completely ditch that almost straight after, and haven't been back since. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be on Apple Music, so might have to listen to that the old-school way.

Instead I went for Kill Em All, which within about 2 minutes was already my favourite Metallica album - fast, relentless and heavy, full of riffs and solos, absolutely the sort of thing I like hearing from them. You can really hear the influence they were taking from American hardcore punk around this time, which works really well. It might have been even better at a real short sharp shock at around 30 minutes, rather than 50, but I really enjoyed this as a first listen.

 

thoughts on minor threat?

 

borderline perfect song

 

I’m not a big hardcore guy tbh but they do it about as well as I’ve ever heard. Probably not one I need to buy on CD, but I can envision a scenario where I need some aggressive hardcore to vent and it will be my first call.

 

Listening to Script of the Bridge by The Chameleons. I dig it so far

 

In his autumn before the winter, comes man's last mad surge of youth…

 

"Second Skin" is a pretty incredible song. How did I sleep on them?

 

They tend to blend in

 

If you love the Springsteen sound enough to enjoy a calorie-free rip-off, the Eddie and the Cruisers soundtrack by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band is really enjoyable.

 

Really enjoyed Aretha and Luther Vandross' Jump To It from 82, so checked out Get It Right, which is basically the sequel from this year. This isn't quite as Luther sounding as the previous one, which I suppose could be both a good and bad thing! You can definitely still hear his influence here, particularly in the bass lines. This feels like more contemporary R'n'B, the production is sharp, and Aretha sounds great, albeit not quite the powerhouse she was ~15 years previously, which is of course, natural.

 

Motley Crue- Shout at the Devil
Def Leppard- Pyromania
Metallica- Kill Em All

 

Oh shit, I need to make my picks.

People in here will appreciate, though: picked up used copies of Exile on Main St, Purple Rain, Hard Promises, and 52nd Street at the record store for less than $50 out the door today.

 

oh hell yeah, that rules

 

Holy shit the band Bob got together for Infidels. What an incredible SOUNDING record

 

Great backing band.

it’s a really cool sounding record, too much reverb and (bad) compression for my taste, but the outtakes reveal a killer recording underneath…

For my money its one of his weaker 80’s records, but that says more about how mostly great his output was in this decade

 

Also shout out to the Letterman version of Jokerman backed by The Plugz

I wish the record was like this

 

desire is the better album but he was cooking in that period

 

Desire is the Dylan album I play the most, tbh

 

High Rain, Hard Land by Aztec Camera is incredibly catchy. What great acoustic guitar production across the board