Summing Up The Decade - The 80s

[castlikeaghille]

The 1980’s

There was more to the eighties than you might think, ok maybe there wasnae that much So here goes with the sound track that eventually brought down the Berlin Wall

1. The Blue Nile – Downtown Lights

To counter the imbalance of musical quality provided by Motley Crue, here’s an offering from Scotland’s most enigmatic band – it sums them up rather well


2. Dire Straits – Money For Nothing

If you were a yuppie with a Golf GTI in the eighties you probably also had music by this band in your collection. You may even have owned it on CD, if, unlike the band, you were in the in-crowd. Interesting note, Money for Nothing (featuring the warblings of overrated crooner St[r]ing ) was the first video ever played on MTV. Which is about all there is interesting to say about Dire Straits post Sultans of Swing

3. Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Relax

Never really saw the point of Mike Read. He had the haircut and personality of someone who should have played tambourine for Black Lace. However, his pomposity ensured this record was banned thereby achieving immortality. So it just shows every cloud has a silver lining. If one record sums up the 80s, this is it


4. Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart

“You cry out in your sleep - all my failings expose
There's a taste in my mouth, as desperation takes hold
Just that something so good just can't function no more”

Follow that.

5. The Jam – Going Underground

The Mod Father in his golden angry period – the musical voice of 1980 (well other than Cliff's Wired for Sound)? All crimes against musical humanity perpetrated by the Style Council can be forgiven for providing the soundtrack to the early Thatcher Years.

6. Madonna – Material Girl

You can’t fault Madge for keeping with the zeitgeist of the age. A Loads of Money era song, from the woman who took it all

7. Motley Crue – Girls, Girls, Girls

What, I hear you wail, is this glam metal rubbish doing here representing the 80s? Well, this sort of ‘music’ and barnet was a major part of the 80s. Do you really want to admit to liking Europe or John Bon Jobby? More to the point Nikki Sixx has, quite rightly, been voted the baddest man in rock and roll history. In a decade characterised by excess nobody, but nobody before or since has lived live to excess like this band or its insane front man

8. The Smiths – Panic

Worth the entry just thinking about all those Smashie and Nicey type Radio 1 and Radio Local DJ’s squirming at having to play a song proclaiming how crap they all were…. altogether now….# Hang the DJ, hang the DJ…# ;D

9. Bruce Springsteen – Born In the USA

The Boss was probably the first artist to make stadium gigs musically credible, and this was the theme tune of many colossal events. Also, love the irony that lots of Americans didn’t realise this song wasn’t actually paying homage to Rambo

10. U2 – Bad

“We come from a city called Dublin, and like all cities it has good and bad. This is a song called Bad”. U2 followed that understated Bono intro with arguably the performance of Live Aid (?), and certainly the one that propelled them into the stellar orbit where they have remained ever since.

[elwyman]

The performance of Live Aid?

Must be a toss up between U2 and Queen, but it was a U2 album I rushed out to buy afterwards.

[dunbar]

What the Blue Nile lacked in quantity was made up by quality - 4 albums in 26 years or summat like that. Talking about Scottish bands, the maverick genius of Billy Mackenzie and the Associates has never been matched.

Was something of an obsessive Factory-phile for most of the 80's - unhealthy I know, and breeded a certain snobbishness. It was justifed though, if only for classics such as'Ceremony' and 'Temptation', quite possibly some of the finest songs ever committed to 12" vinyl.

[sinkingtip]

The 1980's has been described as "a decade of greed and guilt" - Loadsamoney one week and Live Aid the next. It was the decade that spawned MTV and the meteoric rise of the promo video. Synth Pop was born with 'turns' like Depeche Mode, Blancmange and Ultravox to name but 3. Jacko came into his own and the Madge's (Thatcher and Ciccone-Ritchie) started their quests for global domination. By the end of the 80's 'metal' had reinvented itself once more with monsters such as Megadeth, Metallica and Van Hallen plastering on the barry loads of 'slap' left over from Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's Antmusic legacy with even Vince Furnier (?) giving the old 18 holes a miss in order to start 'gigging' again. Pete Waterman, having screwed the likes of Rick Astley and Kylie, decided to get 'smiley' and the "Aceeeeeeeeeeeeed !" culture was with us almost overnight. A mixed pigbag indeed. Some truly fabulous music was created during this period on both sides of the pond - Stevie Miller for 'them' and Elvis Costello for 'us'. Europe had a bit of a bash at it also with Nena blawin up and releasing almost 100 red balloons and Kraftwerk extolling the virtues of driving on dual carriageways..........Mmmmm.
Anyhow - the rest of the world aside here is a list of "UK centric" platters that IMO are worthy of mention, have stood the test of time and are as fresh today as they were then.

2 Much 2 Young - Special AKA : Its Different for Girls - Joe Jackson : Romeo and Juliet - Dire Straits (BTW - what do you get when you cross Dire Straits with Chris Rea ? A - Diarrohea) : Once In A Lifetime - Talking Heads : Wordy Rappinghood - Tom Tom Club : No Woman No Cry - Bob Marley : Tainted Love - Soft Cell : Prince Charming - Adam + The Ants : Start Me Up - Stones : 1 in 10 - UB40 : Invisible Sun - Polis : Good Year For The Roses - Elvis C : Golden Brown - Stranglers : Senses Working Overtime - XTC : Wild In The Country - Bow Wow Wow : Party Fears 2 - Associates : Layla - Derek + The Dominoes : The Look Of Love - ABC : The Bitterest Pill - Jam : Living On The Ceiling - Blancmange : The Story Of The Blues - Wah : Rip It Up - Orange Juice : Lets Dance - Bowie : Fields Of Fire - Big Country : The Safety Dance - Men Without Hats : Love Cats - The Cure : Feels Like Heaven - Fiction Factory (anybody ever had an apre fish bevvy in the Taybank, Dunkeld have probably been served by the guy that wrote this !!) : Your Love Is King - Sade : Glad Its All Over - Captain Sensible : Sweetest Girl - Scritti Politti : Shout - Tears For Fears : 1999 - Prince : Close To The Edit - Art Of Noise : Don't You Forget About Me - Simple Minds : Road To Nowhere - Talking Heads : West End Girls - Pet Shop Boys (possibly one of the earliest 'rap' numbers) : Rise - Public Image : Digging Your Scene - Blowmonkeys : E=Mc2 - Big Audio Dynamite : Shoplifters Of the World Unite - Smiths : Pump Up the Volume - MAARS : The King Of Rock And Roll - Prefab Sprout : Orinoco Flow - Enya : She Drives Me Crazy - Fine Young Cannibals : Need You Tonight - INXS.

Tried to pick an eclectic and varied selection which reflects both my personal tastes from a truly classic decade.

[sinkingtip]

.............having said that - the 80's also spewed out its fair share of the broon stuff. Can we ever repair the sensory damage done by the likes of The London Boys 'Requiem' or Roger Whittaker (apparently he used to take a fair bit of fishing at Murthly on the Tay - true !!) and Des O'Connor conspiring to murder, via duet, The Skye Boat Song.

Get a basin and some medium grain sawdust ready for the "also ran's" - best warn you - its not pretty !

David Essex - A Winters Tale : Rene and Renato - Save Your Love : Keith Harris and Or-vile - Or-vile's Song : Incantation - Cachapaya : Joe cocker (shame) + Jennifer Warnes - Love Lifts Us Up : Tiny Boiler - Total Eclipse Of The Heart : FR David - Words : Paul McCartney - Pipes Of Peace : Alvin Stardust - I Feel Like Buddy Holly : Black Lace - Anything : Giorgio Moroder + Phil Oakey - Together In Electric Dreams (a severe error of judgment) : Status Quo - Your In The Army Now : Air Supply - All Out Of Love : Michael Bolton - Dock Of The Bay (why?) : Chris De Burgh - Anything : Rupert Holmes - Him : Keith Michel - Captain Beaky (pointless) : Fred Wedlock - Oldest Swinger In Town : Spandau Ballet - Musclebound : Duran's - Anything : Aneka (May Sandeman fae Inversneckie) - Japanese Boy : Gidea Park - Beachboys Gold (hideous) : Ottowan - Hands Up Give Me Your Heart : T'Pau - China In Your Hand (big sound - no substance) : Bros - When Will I Be Famous : Sabrina - Boys : Roxette - The Look : The Tweets - Birdie Song : Olivia NJ - Physical : Dollar - Mirror Mirror : Foreigner - Waiting For A Girl Like You : J Geils Band - Centrefold (sorry guys) : Scotland World Cup 'shower' - We Had A Dream : Charlene - I've Never Been To Me : Russ Abbot - Atmosphere (without any merit) : USA For Africa - We Are The World (well intentioned but ill advised) : Marillion - Lavender Blue (C'mon DD - FF's sake!) : Jennifer Rush - The Power of Love : John Parr - St Elmo's Fire : Sam Fox - Touch Me : Sinitta - So Macho : Nick Berry - Every Loser Wins : Europe - The Final Countdown ...... last and probably least, the most common cause of terminal 'dry boke' in the working classes during the middle 80's....... Claire + Friends with It's 'Orrible Being In Love (When Your 8 1/2).

"And that concludes the vote of the Fast Streamy Neck's jury. Over to you in purgatory Terry".

[greenbanks]

Michael Jackson started to turn rather...................erm odd

[hornet]

Sinktip,

Too many too mention, i have over 22 cds made up from the eighties. The list would be too long.

The first track i would play be Dreaming from Blondie. Superb band.

Elect side would be from the Human League, OMD, Gary Numan, Japan, Thomson Twins, A Flock Of Seagulls, Depeche Mode, Kaja, Duran, Kraftwerk etc.

Cheers

[shrimpman]

hornet said:

Sinktip,

Too many too mention, i have over 22 cds made up from the eighties. The list would be too long.

The first track i would play be Dreaming from Blondie. Superb band.

Elect side would be from the Human League, OMD, Gary Numan, Japan, Thomson Twins, A Flock Of Seagulls, Depeche Mode, Kaja, Duran, Kraftwerk etc.

Cheers

At the time I really hated this stuff as I was a led zeppelin left over from the 70's. Don't mind it so much now though.

[severnfisher]

Joy Division.

also Dire Straits for crimes against music.

[duncanm]

Best album ever was released may 4th - 1984

Ocean Rain - Echo and the Bunnymen.

[pertempledog]

CLaG I'm coming into this one quite late having been away thrashing what until last night was the dried up puddle formerly called the Dee (I'm feeling neither bitter nor twisted about the rod I gave up today following your kind text saying they had three landed and two lost by lunch) so I'll just add a few thoughts.

For a meaningful part of the decade I seem to remember smooching around various living rooms clinging to the female halves of dinner parties while Lionel sung "Hallo" and "Penny Lover". Horrible I know but the girlies loved it (and the music).

Then there was that phase of African music (not heard since Bert Kaempfert, remember him?) when Paul Simon got all caring and gave us Graceland.

And no mention of Phil (Miami Vice) Collins - tut tut, he ruled the airwaves.

Earlier in the decade we had Streisand singing that she was a woman in love and that was pretty powerful stuff, and although I always hated it, Stevie W calling to say he loved you just went on and on and on... and on.

CLaG you are probably correct with Relax although the Pet Shop Boys with West End Girls must surely compete..

Singingtip, Layla reveals the old romantic in you - good on you; I bet you could sing "Beautiful Tonight" after 16 pints of lager and still sound convincing!

I am surprised that our own Eurythmics doesn't get a mention from anyone - took up much of my drivetime listening, but on the dance floor there was one hit above the others, one that got the whole room up and allowed you to flirt like the blazes and that was by the Bangles......"Walk Like an Egyptian" - quality!

P.A.T.

PS Sinkingtip yer broon stuff list was hilarious but you missed a few - what about Bobby Mcferry "Don't Worry, be Happy" as has been sung by many a wide mouthed bass , or the Weather Girls, or anything by Prince (or Sheena for that matter), and of course the fabulous Bananrama! good grief..... By the way I liked T'Pau China in Your Hands, sometimes a good bit of noise is enough! And as for Lets get physical.....physical...

[sinkingtip]

PAT - would be more than happy to sing WONDERFUL Tonight by EC but.......its late in the evening and I'm wondering what breeks to wear. As for the Bangles - I much prefer Big Vern and the Shootahs version "Walk Like A Glaswegian".
Regards as always.
STip

[pertempledog]

STip I stand corrected - a while since i have listened to it but clearly not long since you last sung it!

Big Vern eh.... cracking band.

P.A.T.

[pertempledog]

Even I omitted to place on that pedestal of all that was great in the 1980's music scene in Scotland or indeed the world, that funky country duo that was The Proclaimers. How could we forget them - CLaG they gave us the best Karaoke song of all time.

P.A.T.

[hornet]

Some more crackers,

The Cult, The Cure, Siouxie and the Banshees, Spear of Destiny, Jesus and Mary Chain, The Ramones, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Cranberries, Then Jericho, INXS, The Smiths, The Mission.

Others including one hit wonders,

Blancmange, H2o, cock Robin, Man 2 Man Parish, Nena, Animation, The Lotus Eaters, Tracey, Darts, Tempole Tudor, The Tourists, Fiction Factory, Sheila E, Taffy, The Fun Boy Three and so on and so on.

Personally my favourite time as i was happy to look like an extra out of Miami Vice, Ah those were the day's.

Hornet

[parchman]

Sinktip. Layla (1970). Kraftwerk's Autobahn & No woman no cry (both 1974).

You must have been on the early shift of that decade.