I hadn’t even thought about the Strokes in quite awhile, never mind listened to them, before I spent about two weeks listening to nothing but the new solo album from Julian Casablancas while on the treadmill. It was probably a good thing, because I was really enjoying Phrazes for the Young. Then yesterday, I spent the entire day listening to the three albums from the Strokes and nothing else. Don’t get me wrong, I still think that Casablancas’ solo turn is an entertaining listen, but I just can’t stop thinking that it would be better with the rest of the Strokes. Phrazes makes me feel conflicted, and it kind of makes me mad. Why won’t they just make another fucking Strokes album already?
The Strokes were victims of what happens to bands when the perfect storm of hype carries them beyond their allotted 15 minutes of fame. I remember publications calling them the next Nirvana. It was a poignant prophecy in a way, if by being the next Nirvana meant making three really good albums that were raw yet polished at the same time, and then never being heard from again. It’s hard when people anoint you the savior of rock and roll before you’ve actually really done anything. The Strokes unfortunately bought into the idea that they had to change the world, when they should have just kept on making Strokes albums. Their music was better than good enough, and much better than any of the solo records their hiatus has produced. Phrazes for the Young is no exception, though it comes closer than the others. (more…)
A note to our readers: Former Popdose contributor John Hughes’ departure for bigger and better things has left a rather big hole where his “Lost in the ’70s/’80s/’90s” columns used to be. Fortunately, John gave his blessing for the rest of us to take up his fallen standard, and we’ve pledged to do our best to live up to the brilliance of his work. So without further ado…
When is a rave review also a kiss of death? Perhaps when it’s 1987, and the “critic” is Margaret Thatcher.
It’s pretty well established by now that politics and pop music are uncomfortable bedfellows, at best. Particularly in the three decades since both Great Britain and the United States fell to their respective conservative parties, most attempts to link politicians with pop have been ham-fisted embarrassments – no matter the party or the pop star. As a columnist for the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper put it a few years ago, “Thinking about a politician listening to rock music is like imagining your parents having sex: you not only lose all respect for them, it puts you off the whole concept.”
In that same 2004 article the columnist, Alexis Petridus, bemoaned the attempts of leading Tory politicians to boost their hip factor by variously proclaiming their admiration for the Scissor Sisters, Dido, Jarvis Cocker and even Meat Loaf. Petridus suggested that if history were any guide, those acts might be doomed to suffer what he called “the Curse of the Thrashing Doves.” (more…)
My colleague John Hughes has graciously let me take the wheel today for this edition of Lost in the ’80s.
Fields of the Nephilim were the gothedelic deathrock cowboys of the apocalypse – dressed in cobwebby dusters, cowboy hats, and spurs – they delivered a string of singles and three solid albums before riding off into the sunset. (Sorry!)
To achieve their trail-worn appearance, the Nephs famously rolled around in piles of flour. To dust their dusters, as it were. According to legend, they were late for a gig when a local constable raised an eyebrow at their suspicious sack of King Arthur all-purpose. (more…)
“And they told us what they wanted was a sound that could kill someone from a distance …”
In 1986, after years of trying to break Kate Bush in the States with only the minor Top 40 hit “Running Up That Hill” to show for it, EMI decided to capitalize on Kate’s recent success with Hounds of Love in the UK by releasing a best-of, which could also serve as a catch-up primer for the US. The Whole Story collected various tracks from Bush’s first five albums, along with a newly recorded version of her first single, “Wuthering Heights,” and one new track which was issued as a single to promote the disc.
“Experiment IV” (download) was a creepy tune that told the story of a top secret military operation where scientists were attempting to create a weapon using only sound. Unfortunately for them, they succeed. The single was accompanied by an equally spooky video that was banned from Top of the Pops, but got plenty of MTV play Stateside. It also featured Dawn French of French & Saunders and a relative unknown by the name of Hugh Laurie: (more…)
If you’ve been reading this column for the past four years or so, you may remember me calling out certain songs as one of “the top blahblah new-wave songs ever.” I’ve done it a few times, as I recall — most recently last Tuesday, in fact — and good commenter Pete stated:
“John, I’d be curious to know what your other top 5 new wave songs are …”
Well, Pete my friend, because you asked for it, here are not only my top 5, but my top 15! Who says it’s a waste of time to comment on Popdose?
First off, some ground rules:
While acts such as Roxy Music, Sparks and David Bowie certainly laid the groundwork, if not the entire friggin’ blueprints for what we call new wave, this list is limited to artists who came of age and were active during the classic new-wave period from 1979 through 1984, give or take as I feel like.
And what the heck is new wave, anyway? While we can argue it was just an umbrella term coined by Seymour Stein to cover any of his acts that weren’t overtly commercial, let’s agree for our purposes that we know it when we hear it.
It would be easy to rattle off ten or twenty songs that really should be on this list, like for example, New Order’s “Blue Monday.” But this is Popdose: we assume you’ve seen obvious lists like that a million times and the average Popdose reader is more knowledgeable and likes to be challenged. So, while we’re not gonna go all Pitchfork-y on you and rattle off names like Pylon or the Plastics, you may seem some less obvious choices.
This list will be from a very American point of view, since I sort of grew up in America and stuff. Don’t worry though – it’s probably the most Anglo-centric Americanized list you’ll ever read.
And last, but not least, this is my list, my opinions, my decisions. It is by no ways meant to be comprehensive, complete or the final word on anything. That’s why you’re going to leave comments after you read it, so I can either praise you for bringing up an act I forgot, or ridicule you for suggesting I left out the Bongos and how dare I.
I have a soft spot in my heart for Ms. Wilde. After all, she was the very first artist to be featured on Lost in the ’80s back in … what was it — more than four years ago? Yikes. I maintain that “Kids in America” is one of the top-five new-wave songs of all time, and while Kim never really reached the heights of her 1981 self-titled debut again (artistically, at least — she did top the charts here in the U.S. in ‘87 with the limp Stock/Aiken/Waterman-lite remake of the Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”), it wasn’t for lack of trying.
Kim’s second album, Select (1982), was pretty much in the same vein as her debut, with her brother Ricky and father, Marty, handling all of the songwriting and production (both had had brief success as singers in the UK in earlier decades). In the liner notes for the album’s recent rerelease (thank you once again, Cherry Pop Records!), Ricky recalls being inspired enough by Ultravox’s success to move away from the more guitar-oriented sound of Kim’s debut to the colder, programmable-synth soundscapes of Select.
The Ultravox influence was readily apparent on Select’s first single, “Cambodia” (download),a downbeat, atmospheric song about an air force pilot who goes missing during a top-secret mission. Not exactly the stuff number-one singles are made of, but it topped the charts in several European countries, including France and Sweden. And my my, a lot of Kim’s videos tended to feature her rolling around in bed, fully clothed …
It was feast and famine in 1986 for former New Romantics turned MOR balladeers Spandau Ballet. While the previous two years saw the group score more chart hits in the UK with their Parade album, plus a triumphant performance at Live Aid, the quintet’s fortunes in the States were less impressive. Their last US hit, “Only When You Leave,” peaked at a paltry #34 and none of the follow-ups even charted. It was another example of a group huge in Europe, but ignored in the States.
The band tried to change their luck by leaving longtime label Chrysalis and moving over to Epic Records (although both were distributed by CBS Records). Spandau also began talk of refining their sound a bit, moving away from the smooth-jazz crooning to a more rock direction — at least as rock as Spandau Ballet could muster. The results of this shift were hardly evident in Through the Barricades‘ first UK single, “Fight for Ourselves,” a limp attempt at a fist-raising anthem hampered by rinky-dink production from Art of Noise co-conspirator Gary Langan. Don’t believe me? See and hear for yourself: (more…)
It must have sucked to be a non-Boy George member of Culture Club. Well, except for Jon Moss, who was actually sucking a member of Culture Club. Okay, cheap shot. But seriously, here you are, finally realizing your dreams of being in a hugely popular rock band and, to paraphrase Roy Hay in the group’s Behind the Music special, you’re stuck in the middle of a gay soap opera.
Besides the lead singer and drummer having screaming fits in hotel hallways, you’d also have to deal with the pressure of your label demanding a third album of original material in as many years. And to top it all off, your singer and visual focal point of the band has become a raging coke head. Is it any wonder your third album was a comparative failure to the first two?
Culture Club’s Waking up with the House on Fire was aptly named, since the band was in a shambling mess of an emergency. After their first two multi-platinum smashes and several hit singles, expectations were extremely high for the third and the only place to go was down. The album’s first single really set the tone, as “The War Song” was a simplistic, jingoistic, embarrassing attempt by Boy to be political. “War, war is stupid” – shock! Thanks to the chart momentum from the last two years, it still made the Top 20.
While the U.K. and other territories got “The Medal Song” as the album’s second single, Epic made the wise choice of picking “Mistake No. 3″ (download) to be the follow-up single in the States. I’ve read that the song was about Boy George warning young couples against marriage, that being the titular mistake number three. I’m not quite sure what the first two mistakes are supposed to be. Shagging your drummer and snorting coke, perhaps? (more…)
The late ’80s and early ’90s saw a strange trend of UK power-pop bands fronted by blond bombshells: Transvision Vamp, the Primitives, and one of the more criminally ignored, the Darling Buds. Fronted by drop-dead knockout Andrea Lewis, the Darling Buds drew upon influences from Blondie to the Smiths and packed them all into manic, three-minutes-or-under, hook-filled gems. It was dangerous to drive to their debut Pop Said – you were sure to get ticketed for speeding.
MTV and Modern Rock radio made a minor sensation of their debut single, “Let’s Go Round There,” (download) with its vague similarity to the Manchester sound recently made popular by the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays. The Buds were much more accessible, however, and if they had held out a few more years, they would have definitely been swept up by the alternative nation movement ushered in by Nirvana. (more…)
The most rock-radio acceptable of the new-wave acts (with the possible exception of the Cars and the Police), the Fixx were always unfairly slammed as a producer’s band, the mere playthings of Rupert Hine, who buffed their angular, jagged sound to an airwaves-friendly sheen. I never quite understood how this was considered an insult — why should the Fixx feel slighted because they found a great producer who knew what to do with them? Isn’t that the point of a producer?
By 1984 the partnership had borne two gold albums, one platinum album, three Top 40 hits, and a few AOR staples. In fact the Fixx and Hine were producing material at such a quick clip that one of their better songs ended up as a cut on the Streets of Fire soundtrack (which was discussed here) as well as the B-side on Phantoms’s first single, “Are We Ourselves?”
“Deeper and Deeper” was an oddity on that 1984 film’s soundtrack alongside overwrought Jim Steinman productions and Dan Hartman’s schlocky “I Can Dream About You.” A sinister mix of snakelike synths, discordant guitar, and less-goofy-than-usual lyrics from vocalist Cy Curnin, the original version (download) was too long to be a hit, but it still garnered plenty of AOR and club airplay. It also became a staple of the band’s live show.
“Deeper and Deeper” got enough love to be included in a few of the Fixx’s greatest-hits compilations over the years, including my favorite, the nearly complete Ultimate Collection. They continue to tour, and the song is still part of every set. I’m sort of bummed that I won’t get to see them during my trip to Hawaii in late July — they hit our 50th state for three shows in August, according to their website.
“Deeper and Deeper” peaked at #3 on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart and at #47 on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in 1984.
![51kxMZN3uOL._SCLZZZZZZZ_[1]](http://popdose.com/wp-content/uploads/51kxMZN3uOL._SCLZZZZZZZ_1.jpg "51kxMZN3uOL._SCLZZZZZZZ_[1]")
I hadn’t even thought about the Strokes in quite awhile, never mind listened to them, before I spent about two weeks listening to nothing but the new solo album from Julian Casablancas while on the treadmill. It was probably a good thing, because I was really enjoying Phrazes for the Young. Then yesterday, I spent the entire day listening to the three albums from the Strokes and nothing else. Don’t get me wrong, I still think that Casablancas’ solo turn is an entertaining listen, but I just can’t stop thinking that it would be better with the rest of the Strokes. Phrazes makes me feel conflicted, and it kind of makes me mad. Why won’t they just make another fucking Strokes album already?
It’s pretty well established by now that politics and pop music are uncomfortable bedfellows, at best. Particularly in the three decades since both Great Britain and the United States fell to their respective conservative parties, most attempts to link politicians with pop have been ham-fisted embarrassments – no matter the party or the pop star. As a columnist for the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper put it 
The late ’80s and early ’90s saw a strange trend of UK power-pop bands fronted by blond bombshells: Transvision Vamp, the Primitives, and one of the more criminally ignored, the Darling Buds. Fronted by drop-dead knockout Andrea Lewis, the Darling Buds drew upon influences from Blondie to the Smiths and packed them all into manic, three-minutes-or-under, hook-filled gems. It was dangerous to drive to their debut Pop Said – you were sure to get ticketed for speeding.
The most rock-radio acceptable of the new-wave acts (with the possible exception of the Cars and the Police), the Fixx were always unfairly slammed as a producer’s band, the mere playthings of Rupert Hine, who buffed their angular, jagged sound to an airwaves-friendly sheen. I never quite understood how this was considered an insult — why should the Fixx feel slighted because they found a great producer who knew what to do with them? Isn’t that the point of a producer?
or on 
