|
Post by raliverpool on Oct 22, 2012 23:33:23 GMT 1
raliverpool missed out glam altogether like it didn't exist What!!! Are you seriously saying that David Bowie's Starman is not a Glam Rock record? The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust is the definitive Glam Rock album, and I picked Bowie from then because he was the one act who well and truly transcended the era onc he killed off his Ziggy persona towards the end of 1973 and hence was a great representation of Glam Rock. Anyway my next group of 10 tracks in 6 years were by and large fairly obvious targets for selection. However I've only agreed with 3 of Vas' selections: 1977 Donna Summer - I Feel Love1978 Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1pMMIe4hb4 (Before Kate Bush there was no one like Kate Bush, since Kate Bush there are far too many artists to mention who have been influenced and inspired by her highly literate, articulate, ethereal, innovative, original music and equally inventive visual imagery) 1978 Blondie - Heart Of Glass www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiBEFr20hE4 (Out of New York New Wave CBGB scene, this act transcended it's era by the way it evolved from Punk, to New Wave via Disco & even Rap. Whilst Debbie Harry was arguably the pioneer for another female New Yorker half a decade later....) 1979 The Sugarhill Gang - Rapper's Delight www.youtube.com/watch?v=diiL9bqvalo (Before sampling this New York rap outfit "rerecorded" the Bernard Edwards & Nile Rodgers musical bed to their monster US#1 Good Times, and rapped all over the top of it. Truly, ahead of its time). 1979 The Clash - London's Calling www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfK-WX2pa8c (I selected this as the UK new wave/Post punk representation just ahead of Teenage Kicks, Going Underground & Olivers Army. Not least because 1. The Clash were in transition to a Stadium Rock band supporting the Police prior to their split. 2. It's the title track to IMHO the best Post Punk/New Wave album of all time. 3. Green Day and more awful US bands of their ilk have based their entire musical template on this Joe Strummer anthem.) 1980 Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHYOXyy1ToI (Truly a transitional record between Goth music and mid 1980s indie music) 1981 The Specials - Ghost Town1981 Human League - Don't You Want Me www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPudE8nDog0 (A brilliant, timeless pop record culled from the album Dare made 100 times better by producer Martin Rushent's (RIP) then groundbreaking adept sequencing and programming skills. And it topped the US charts in 1982 to begin the 2nd wave of the British invasion) 1982 Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - The Message1982 Duran Duran - Rio www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3W6yf6c-FA (The first act to well and truly capitalize on the emergence of MTV. These New Romantics found the TV sound and for an 18 month period were the biggest (pop) band in the world. Yet strangely strip away the visual imagery and the Smash Hits posters and twattish and frequently obnoxious behaviour by band members and you are left with a dozen great self-penned pop songs which stand the test of time far better then many of the far more credible acts championed by the NME circa 1982-5.) PS. His Royal Purpleness will arrive before 1999, and has Vas excluded Wacko Jacko?
|
|
vastar iner
Member
I am the poster on your wall
Posts: 17,465
|
Post by vastar iner on Oct 23, 2012 18:57:29 GMT 1
PS. His Royal Purpleness will arrive before 1999, and has Vas excluded Wacko Jacko? I was bloody, bloody tempted...but... Michael Jackson - ThrillerYes, obviously there had always been hype in music. Marginal talents like Johnnie Ray and total non-talents like Adam Faith had got across with their looks; even Elvis was helped by having the kind of face over which teens could swoon. The music industry had often been about control and whom they wanted to become successful. But this is the record that pretty much killed off talent in music, took the power to make stars away from the consumer and put it in the hands of the record moguls. The big names in the immediate preceding years were outsiders. Boy George, Adam Ant, even Shaky. People who had been on the fringes and working at their act before they caught on. After, who would it be? Manufactured acts in their near entirety. Industry puppets. For 20 years before 1983 in any given year around half the number ones, minimum, were the sort of record you'd be proud to own. After 1983...oh dear. Nothing sums up hype better than "Thriller". MTV and VH1 both named it the greatest music video ever made. A Channel 4 poll did likewise. An MTV poll of industry figures put it second, behind another entry in this list. And Rolling Stone also put it at number 1. Yet if one gets down to it, what is the video? It's basically a line-dancing routine. In zombie make-up. There's a story around it, with a twist that Stevie Wonder could see coming. From Neptune. We were spoilt for choice in the UK though. Madness had made fantastic videos on a tiny budget; Adam Ant relied on more money but made far more astonishing vignettes. Godley & Creme were also expanding the video genre and even one-hit wonders such as Mobiles came up with better concepts. But the maxim "if you tell a big enough lie often enough, people will believe it" applies... Yes, Jackson was talented. Not much of that talent had shown in recent years, thanks in part to the rise of disco and also to some fist-gnawingly awful duets with McCartney. "Billie Jean" was a genuine return to form, which kicked off the set of releases from Thriller. But that in itself shows just how much hype had taken over. British albums culled a couple of singles from them; three at a push. Duran Duran even released an extra-album track aimed at the number 1 spot. Thriller saw seven singles released - out of nine tracks... It could be argued that that shows how much of an album full of singles it was. But the album sold in the tens of millions. Surely that meant buying singles was redundant? Yet people did. Had they forgotten they had the album? Or did they get caught up in the relentless video-led hype? Epic just threw money at making video after video, saturating the nascent MTV, embedding it into the American conscience - at the time the UK did not buy into it the same way, it was more like Mick Hucknallesque success rather than bigger than Jesus - but as a result the massively American dominated media insisted time and time again that this was the biggest event ever to happen in music. And, eventually, Britain bought into it. And yet. Britain only bought into it in a Diana fashion. When Jackson died, which were the tracks people downloaded? "Billie Jean", obviously - but easily the most bought was "Man In The Mirror", an appalling, abysmal, embarrassing sub-Charlene ballad that was about as groundbreaking as a feather dropped onto Purbeck marble from a height of three inches and about as interesting as watching dry paint dry. The immediate aftermath of Thriller saw the Next Big Thing from Frankie Goes To Hollywood - an act that were built on pure hype. Then there was Madonna, pretty much ditto, and then the SAWmill, tritto. "Thriller" was indeed a watershed moment - but not for the better. Musically, I think three lines from The Jam - an act that misses out - are relevant here... And the public wants what the public gets But I don't get what this society wants I'm going underground...In sum: it ain't what you do it's the way that you do it
|
|
|
Post by Earl Purple on Oct 23, 2012 20:18:00 GMT 1
I will dispute "nobody was influenced by new romantics" or whatever. Maybe my age and the era I grew up in, but it was the time when what was in the chart was pop music, and a lot of it was good, and most of it was self-written. It wasn't just about one style, unless I misunderstand to some extent what "new romantics" meant, it felt more like a pop culture. And unlike Britpop or anything that came later, the Americans liked it too. Yes, they liked our music and much of the 1980s, British acts did well over there.
I would also say that quite a few britpop artists were probably more influenced by new romantics than they were by indie. Of course Oasis seem primarily influenced by music that pre-dated this era, but I do notice some remnants of it in Blur and Pulp.
Oh, and of course Paul Weller was still around for Britpop but yes, you missed out The Jam...
|
|
vastar iner
Member
I am the poster on your wall
Posts: 17,465
|
Post by vastar iner on Oct 24, 2012 19:30:27 GMT 1
1984
Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas?
There had been charity singles before, of course. The All-Star Hit Parade that topped out at 2 in 1956 was in aid of the National Playing Fields Association and was perhaps the first of its kind to make an impact. But there had been nothing like this.
Bit of an unpromising start as well. As the new wave wave waved goodbye, Bob Geldof had been cast off on a lonely shore; more reggae-sounding than romantic, it had been three years since he had had a sniff of a hit, and when "Dave" was being touted around Radio 1 he had a better idea instead. Invited on for an interview, instead of pushing his record, he pushed an idea. Michael Buerk's reports of the Ethiopian devastation had staggered the nation, and Geldof had an idea what to do.
He sold it like a pro; he got together with Midge Ure to knock up a tune, got some recording studios, David Bowie to present a piece to camera and the rushingest of rush-releases. The end result was the biggest-selling single ever.
Unlike most charity singles (which include the two sequels, ruined respectively by the SAWmill and the oh-so-trendies who are not really that listenable, and the anal-scrapingly insulting atrocity that was the USA For Africa thematic follow-up), this one is very, very good indeed; not surprising, given that it's the bloke who wrote "I Don't Like Mondays" meeting the bloke who wrote "Vienna". But that's not why it's here, of course.
It's here because it signified that pop music could be so much bigger, that it could move mountains. Live Aid and so on followed, hundreds of millions raised for charity and, for once, a positive global outcome. It may seem to be a drop in the ocean compared to the real problems, but every life saved is saving someone very special.
In sum: beyond music
|
|
vastar iner
Member
I am the poster on your wall
Posts: 17,465
|
Post by vastar iner on Oct 25, 2012 19:30:47 GMT 1
Evelyn Thomas - High Energy
Following the disco demolition night, the disco sound was erased from existence. Michael Jackson had gone a more rockist route, including Eddie van Halen on Thriller, whereas the less moneyed scene went electronic; taking the cue from Donna Summer and synthpop, the little funk that was present was removed and replaced by the monotonous electronic beat of programming. But speeded up. Lots of BPMs.
It was a transatlantic thing; the likes of Patrick Crowley promoting it in the States, and Ian Levine in the UK. Levine had been a leading light in the Northern Soul movement, which promoted obscurities like The Elgins, Sylvia Robinson and The Velvelettes belatedly into the charts with wrongly overlooked classics long after their creative peaks, as well as some records that should have remained obscure (hello Tams). And as part of the attempt to find new talent Levine had even taken the trouble of going to the States to record them himself. One of his talents was Evelyn Thomas.
Cometh the hour. As music became more commodified, using a computerized backing track became cheaper and cheaper; effectively you could knock off wallpaper music with a suitable beat to fill many a dancefloor. This new highly energetic style broke through into the mainstream thanks to Levine's song and Thomas' voice; the song "High Energy" took its name from the nascent movement, and was soon enough shortened to Hi-NRG, on the basis that typing out high energy was too much wasted effort. This is the EIGHTIES. Everything is the future. Woo.
Anyhoo, Thomas ended up with a top five hit, and a chart-topper in Germany. But more to the point it set a pattern. Stock Aitken Waterman basically nicked the formula and ran it into the ground - and with it the mainstream British music scene - into the late eighties. (Try and tell the difference in the backing between "High Energy" and "You Spin Me Round".) More positively, it created the environment in which other movements could emerge - house and rave music, for example, as the electronic barrier was now broken and dance music far more democratized. No need for a recording studio and talented singers, you could blast out any old programmed stuff. You could even nick the vocals from someone else (hello Black Box). Seems to me nobody was really bothered about the music; it was all about the beat.
In sum: does what it says on the tin
|
|
|
Post by Shireblogger on Oct 25, 2012 22:02:03 GMT 1
Now you've got the over-emphasis of punk / new wave out of your system, you're back on a faultless run of selections. The most recent six choices perfectly summarise the important shifts in music from 1982-84.
The next few years will be interesting, given how stagnant music became for a few years, before the emergence of rave, madchester, grunge and brit pop.
I'm assuming you'll pick a house track, so I'm intrigued to see which one. I'm also wondering whether the Pet Shop Boys will get a look in. Of course, the biggest British act by miles in the mid-80s was Dire Straits. Can the inclusion of one of the singles from "Brothers In Arms" be justified, or do they miss out for being (i) unoriginal, and (ii) primarily an albums act ?
|
|
TheThorne
Member
*Hillside, slip and slide, feel the pain, it's no surprise!*
Posts: 27,592
ONLINE
|
Post by TheThorne on Oct 25, 2012 22:02:06 GMT 1
Happy that you included hi-nrg probably my favourite dance genre of the 80s although I would probably count Sylvester as the most important influence and starter of the genre also SAW forgot what hi-nrg was by 1987 although some of the remixes were still good enough I preferred US and continental hi-nrg for the year you have chosen I would declare Laura Brannigan - Self Control a superior and more indicative of the template Non-SAW hi-nrg used
|
|
TheThorne
Member
*Hillside, slip and slide, feel the pain, it's no surprise!*
Posts: 27,592
ONLINE
|
Post by TheThorne on Oct 25, 2012 22:15:09 GMT 1
And no Dire Straits to not belong in this thread especially by Brothers In Arms my guesses for 1986 would be Farley jack master funk - love don't turn Around the first big house record, Run Dmc - Walk This Way when rap really made it worldwide ,Metallica although 'Master Of Puppets' would probably be better suited to an album list or my choice would be Jesus & Mary chain - Some Candy Talking more forward looking and edgy than indie had been , indie was going to get noisy
|
|
vastar iner
Member
I am the poster on your wall
Posts: 17,465
|
Post by vastar iner on Oct 26, 2012 18:54:05 GMT 1
See, this is the excruciating joy of limiting a list. There are so many worthy inclusions and some have to miss out. But then again if you throw everyone in there's not much point in limiting it. At least those that miss out I can try to incorporate in other ways, at least via a similar artist.
1985
Cocteau Twins - Aikea Guinea
"Can anything good come out of Grangemouth?" Nicodemus might have said had he been in or around Fifeshire in the 1980s. A dirty oil refinery town that didn't even have a Scottish league team. They are about to get one though. East Stirlingshire, which sums up the extent of the ambitions of the place. Yet somehow, out of the unpromising surroundings, came the sound of God.
Their influences are not easy to trace. Elisabeth herself was a fan of Nina Simone, but that's not evident in the way she uses her voice as an extra instrument. A stronger influence comes from the ambient music scene. Roxy stalwart Brian Eno had worked on musak in the 1970s, with the History Of Albums candidate Music For Airports, and one of his collaborators Harold Budd was an early Twins producer.
There are also soupçons of a number of others - Siouxsie, Buzzcocks, Echo & The Bunnymen and so on - but overall the mixture is one that is unique, and irreplaceable. And one which corralled in some surprising admirers. Prince was once quoted as saying Blue Bell Knoll was one of his favourite albums, and Michael Jackson, stochastically enough, said that he was a fan of Elisabeth's voice. Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction said all women in rock were influenced by her (Tori Amos is one of the more obvious), Robert Plant outed himself as pro-Twin, and in one of the more Big Trainesque conversations that must have taken place Seal introduced Trevor Horn to Heaven Or Las Vegas. With such a wide spectrum of followers, they must have been doing something right; with so many people not actually following in their footsteps, nobody could have done it better.
The CTs themselves helped to usher in a new paradigm of music loosely labelled dreampop, of which more anon; more importantly they were to the 4AD label what The Smiths were to Rough Trade, the standard-bearer and magnetic north for the labels' particular sounds, with 4AD specializing in some of the more outré material, such as Bulgarian a capella choirs and underground American rock like Throwing Muses. Even indie had its own indie.
Add to that influences on various forms of dance, but nobody managed to capture exactly what the Twins could do. Simon Raymonde has since set up the Bella Union label which carries on the Twins' legacy soundwise, and some of the more feted acts like Antony & The Johnsons and Grimes are of a similar vein, but I doubt there will ever be another Cocteau Twins.
In sum: beyond words
|
|
vya
Member
Posts: 8,776
|
Post by vya on Oct 26, 2012 20:18:38 GMT 1
Hmmmm....any My Bloody Valentine coming up? I wonder...or do the Cocteau Twins fill that niche already.
A great thing about 4AD records - apart from the frequently excellent music - was the whole appearance of the package, of 12" singles - fine, carefully tailored artwork, sometimes with an inner sleeve as well. Creation occasionally went down that road (e.g. the first five Ride EPs), and to a lesser extent Mute and Factory paid attention to such matters too - - but 4AD were well out in front, when it came to putting together total stylish (without the superficiality that that word might imply) sound + vision packages. The CD generation (let alone the download generation) have missed out on such small, but finely honed, pleasures.
And the Twins were amazing.
|
|
vastar iner
Member
I am the poster on your wall
Posts: 17,465
|
Post by vastar iner on Oct 27, 2012 9:15:25 GMT 1
my choice would be Jesus & Mary chain - Some Candy Talking more forward looking and edgy than indie had been , indie was going to get noisy I would have included them - but there's a soundalike act that can, paradoxically, represent a movement even better. 1986The Shop Assistants - I Don't Want To Be Friends With YouThe J&MC merged the fuzz feedback of the Velvets with the sensibilities of girl groups like The Shangri-Las and the surf of The Beach Boys. As the mid-eighties became more and more jaded they seared across the monochrome like a rainbow of gold. They weren't the only ones doing it though. Other acts had happened upon a similar formula; The Darling Buds, Primitives and Transvision Vamp were of the same ilk, all fronted by platinum singers and thus lumped together as a sub-genre called Blonde; we've already seen the Cocteau Twins immersing the listener in sound. And then you have The Shop Assistants. Basically the poppier end of the J&MC, or the J&MC end of pop. It's not so much the sound as to why they are included though. They represent a new paradigm of making music. It was punk redivivus. It was DIY. But this time from a different perspective. Punk was rebellious because it claimed to be (at least, at its best - difficult to take " Right To Work" by Chelsea seriously, for example, given that I doubt the band would have been happy given a broom). This new genre was rebellious because it did not. Like so.And the weird thing is that nobody knew it was a movement. At least not until the NME created it by accident. These days one feels ripped off if one's music magazine does not come with a covermount CD, usually including Bon Iver, it seems. Back in the day though you were lucky to find a coupon for 10p off Griddles. It was a big thing when Sounds had a free EP every week for 3 weeks. One of which included The Shop Assistants. The other thing that they did was, occasionally, produce cassettes you could send away for. The NME, being pro-guitar, did one in 1981; they repeated it in 1986, the tape was called C86, and it kickstarted a quiet revolution. The acts on it were actually rather disparate. The name was borrowed for the sort of jangly indie pop that the Shoppies formed part, and other acts on the tape - The Wedding Present, The Servants, The Bodines - fall within that. But there was also the Beefheartesque Stump, the agit-pop of McCarthy, the music hall of HMHB, the techno-crash of Age Of Chance and the discordancy of Bogshed. Nevertheless, it seemed to galvanize a number of outsider artists into regenerating their efforts, and others to get going. A number of labels started to take the thing seriously, and those on the underneath even got going; Sarah Records of Bristol, a philosophy of sound, produced a hundred or so rather sweet records of consistent quality on a shoestring. What's more, as shown with The Shoppies, you had actual real-life women in bands. Until the early eighties they were there as eye-candy of a novelty; if anyone remembers The Applejacks it's because they had a female bassist, Mo Tucker was seen as part of an artwork, Clout were one-hit wonders and even that was one more than The Go-Go's managed in the UK. Only now could women appear in bands as musicians. And there were also the fanzines, if you were too shy even to appear in one of these anti-stardom bands - Stephen of The Pastels used to take his teddy bear on stage, Talulah Gosh appeared like eight year olds with very unstarry pudding basin haircuts (both men and women) - you could write about it instead and produce a bedroom tape. And out of it all came a few stars; The Wedding Present and Primal Scream had both been on C86, and the seeds elsewhere soon sprouted into almighty continental forests. There are two things that seem to sum this whole approach up. One, The Shop Assistants' debut (only) album spent 1 week at number 100 in the album charts. The most apologetic chart career possible. Two, one band (which took the homespun ethos to its ultimate limit, as they were, frankly, hopeless) took its name from Peter Cook's E L Wisty character's plan to take over the world. World Domination Enterprises. Wisty was asking people one by one whether they would give their consent to him dominating the world. The quiet road to revolution. Somehow fitting. In sum: misfits
|
|
vastar iner
Member
I am the poster on your wall
Posts: 17,465
|
Post by vastar iner on Oct 28, 2012 13:41:21 GMT 1
1987M|A|R|R|S - Pump Up The VolumeWe're back to 4AD and two of the more relentlessly uncommercial acts they had signed up. Experimental dreampoppers AR Kane, who were gradually moving into a dub sort of direction, and Colourbox, electro samplers with a nod towards New Order and Pop Will Eat Itself. The surprise was that Colourbox had actually had a chart hit, their self-titled album nudging the top 70 in 1985, whereas AR Kane had topped the indie album charts but had never crossed over into the mainstream. Ivo Watts-Russell at 4AD had the idea to team them up to mix together the best of two worlds. A genius move. Well, maybe not quite, the two acts did not gel, and their collaboration turned into a Colourbox track with some AR Kane input and an AR Kane track with some Colourbox input. And put out as a double a-side, under the name M|A|R|R|S; the M and S standing for Martyn and Stephen Young of Colourbox, and the A and Rs for Alex, Rudi and Russell from AR Kane. Nobody played the AR Kane side; the focus was on the Colourbox side... Because Colourbox had gone a bit more experimental, and drafted in a couple of DJs, CJ Mackintosh and Dave Dorrell, to work on introducing samples. Using the industry itself as the most prominent instrument was still fairly new; usually sampled tracks were the bedrock of rap songs, although Malcolm McLaren had been ahead of the curve, as ever, and had already gone past that into a new operatic curve that never resolved itself. But producers like Coldcut were beginning to carve their own reputations as innovators, getting themselves jobs as remixers to turn dull into gold. Which is where Mackintosh and Dorrell came in. I remember at the time there was a lot of sympathy for this track. Not least because it came from such an underdog background, but because everyone was already sick to the back teeth of the SAWmill and its relentless PR pressure. Little did we know it would never improve. Nevertheless, its sampling was fresh to many ears, the sampling had been chosen sympathetically to turn the whole thing into a pop song that basically had other records as instruments, and it became a surprise hit. Such a surprise hit, in fact, and such a threat to the status quo (and to Status Quo) that those godless b*st*rds SAW took out an injunction to stop it from removing Ghastly from the top of the charts, on the pretext that there was an uncleared sample (audible for about seven seconds here). A shameful move, and even more shameful that the chart compilers allowed such obvious strongarm tactics to succeed in distorting what the actual chart should have been. Nevertheless, it only postponed the inevitable; M|A|R|R|S became the unlikeliest chart-toppers since Lieutenant Pigeon, the record is known as being a pioneer of British house, and Ghastly is only known for being a bad joke. In fact one wonders how close they were to missing out; in July Jack 'N' Chill had nudged the forty with "The House That Jack Built" but it was too much too soon. A few months later and the charts were filled with this sort of sampling and JNC ended up in the top ten. Coldcut and The Beatmasters and LA Mix and Simon Harris and others emerged blinking into the limelight of the top twenty. But nothing could have the sheer groundbreaking impact of PUTV, somehow cohering a brilliant pop song out of a jigsaw of jagged edges. In sum: Brit hop
|
|
vastar iner
Member
I am the poster on your wall
Posts: 17,465
|
Post by vastar iner on Oct 29, 2012 21:19:35 GMT 1
The Sugarcubes - Birthday
We got a teletext (RIP) telly for the first time in 1987. I quickly found the old Blue Suede Views on Channel 4, which had the indie chart top twenties - singles and albums - on a Tuesday. And it was through there that I saw the name The Sugarcubes for the first time. Heh, interesting name, I thought.
Then I watched The Chart Show (RIP) on Channel 4. The old version where there was a half-an-hour break in the middle for something else. It was the indie chart top ten. There was a new entry. The screen went blue, then this pixellated pixie somehow emerged from the murk, wailing incoherently against a fractured jazz background.
I was transfixed. What in the name of God was going on? It was the most impossible sound ever. The only other reaction I had similar to that was when Vic Reeves' Big Night Out started. I was thinking "am I the only person on the planet that gets this?" It was one of those formative influences.
I then heard it again via Peel and it topped out the Festive 50. And seemingly never left the indie charts. Indeed occasionally it would pop its head above the national chart parapet.
The Sugarcubes (basically an Icelandic supergroup, members of bands like Kulk and Thor) never reached such extreme heights again, moving more pop (and mastering the single with gems such as "Hit" and "Walkabout"), but this is the epochal one that should go down in history.
But why include it in the 100? It was influenced by a number, it did not however carry much influence further down, even The Sugarcubes themselves and their constituent members never repeating what they had done.
Well, it's because sometimes, in pop music history, you do get something come along with no visible parents and no visible children. Something right on the edge, that inexplicably hits a nerve and then vanishes. Usually a novelty but sometimes chiming a sort of musical curve that, like a comet, intersects with the solar system once every 24 million years and then vanishes, leaving a memory.
So, this song represents all those. The Sue Wilkinsons, the Japans, the Laurie Andersons, the Will Powerses, the Whistling Jack Smiths, the Joy Sarneys; and also all those indie acts, the Stumps, FSKs, Television Personalitieses, Frazier Choruses, Genesis P-Orridges, Dresden Dollses and so on who came up with something from out of nowhere. Who, had the universal axes been aligned slightly differently, might have started something bigger, but whose traces are far greater than their actual impact. Even in the most jaded pop landscape, there is always the chance that something might come along and give you a kick.
In sum: infinite jest
|
|
TheThorne
Member
*Hillside, slip and slide, feel the pain, it's no surprise!*
Posts: 27,592
ONLINE
|
Post by TheThorne on Oct 30, 2012 8:01:58 GMT 1
You weren't the only one Vast that song was a wow moment for a generation of indie fans and yes the first time you heard it you were like wot the hell is this but the 2nd time you loved it the production the voice the weird lyrics my favourite line was the one that sounded like ' she painted huge boobs and draws them together' no ideA if she actually says that but in my head she does
|
|
|
Post by davyboyb on Oct 30, 2012 16:34:23 GMT 1
The big names in the immediate preceding years were outsiders. Boy George, Adam Ant, even Shaky. People who had been on the fringes and working at their act before they caught on. The immediate aftermath of Thriller saw the Next Big Thing from Frankie Goes To Hollywood - an act that were built on pure hype. Then there was Madonna, pretty much ditto, and then the SAWmill, tritto. "Thriller" was indeed a watershed moment - but not for the better. loving this thread. Very very interesting stuff. But I would disagree with seeing Madonna (at the start of her career) as markedly different from Boy George, say. Both seemed to me to have largely self-invented images which were then hyped to oblivion once the suits cottoned on to their marketability. I would put her as one of the last in the pre-Jacko category rather than the first of the post-Jacko. And I don't know if this was necessarily a new thing for the industry - The Osmonds, The Monkees, The Jacksons themselves, The Bay City Rollers - more that after this point, it seemed to become all-consuming for the mainstream, with pretty much anything/anyone new which lay outside this model being firmly filed under a specialist umbrella or with the catch-all 'indie' epithet.
|
|
vastar iner
Member
I am the poster on your wall
Posts: 17,465
|
Post by vastar iner on Oct 30, 2012 19:36:43 GMT 1
Yeah, it was never a new thing, it had always gone on, just that it has been all-consuming over the past couple of decades. Fix Factor sums it up; the ONLY music shown on mainstream television now is that specifically chosen by the industry. At least with TOTP there was the chance for people to have a say...
1988
Public Enemy - Don't Believe The Hype
The beauty of rap was that you needed nothing other than your own wits and a delivery. Rap battles could take place with no extraneous equipment; so long as you had the rhyme, you had the audience. And it was a cheap way for talent to be spotted. No need for intermediaries. It was from the mouth to the promoter - autotune and prettiness was not a prime requisite.
Which is how Chuck D got discovered; he prepared a demo tape for the radio station where he was working as a sort of mass comeback to various other MCs. The radio station owner managed to introduce the demo to would-be record producer Rick Rubin, who was beginning to explore the rap demi-monde, with the idea that Chuck D would be the perfect frontman for an idea. Hard-hitting in-your-face rap, but more overtly political. Street preachers with a revived sixties message of youth rebellion.
The demo tape was called Public Enemy No. 1 and Chuck adopted the name for the consortium he brought together. First on the list was Flavor Flav, whose clownish get-up hid an acute sense of showmanship and delivery; the two had produced a one-off single in 1982 but now their time had come. And the key ingredient was the production. The Bomb Squad, including Chuck himself, brought together practically everything they could find into one coherent backing; dense layers of funk, soul and disco, and even a hint of metal (whereas Run DMC went with the comparative AOR of Aerosmith, Public Enemy tag-teamed with Anthrax), with dozens of samples used simultaneously to create a unique and distinctive foundation for Chuck and Flav's rhymes. It brought them mainstream success; "Don't Believe The Hype" made the UK top 20, and even those who did not loke rap could enjoy the production work.
And of course this revolution in hip-hop was being mirrored in California, albeit with a far more sinister undertow. The politics were more violent; the message more vindictive and aggressive. Suge Knight bullied his way to the top of Death Row records; NWA were overt in their misogyny and racism. And it dragged everyone down with them. Tupac was hardly a gangsta from the rough streets of Compton, he was basically a stage school brat from a family of radicals. Yet like so many others he had to live up to the image of being from the street; like so many others it killed him.
The east coast scarcely took the moral high ground, but at its peak it was at least innovative, forward-looking and even inspirational...
In sum: best coast
|
|
TheThorne
Member
*Hillside, slip and slide, feel the pain, it's no surprise!*
Posts: 27,592
ONLINE
|
Post by TheThorne on Oct 30, 2012 20:27:23 GMT 1
1988 has to be something from Doolittle!!!! Debaser or Monkey Gone To Heaven especially Looking forward to as well 1989 so many options Madchester, Acid House, Techno,Balearic,. But for me it can only be one song Stone Roses - Fools Gold!!
|
|
|
Post by raliverpool on Oct 31, 2012 22:45:58 GMT 1
Vas, some fantastic selections but considering some of your earlier selections you seem to have gone down the UK Post Punk Faber 45s route and narrowed your musical genre scope a bit too much in favour of Indie/Alternative than capturing how it was so well in your earlier selections. Considering the odd curveball you've previously thrown I half expected a SAW or even (shudders at the thought) NKOTB; (d)Bros(s) or Milli Vanilli track to be thrown into the mix.... Anyway my last selection of 10 saw no identical matches, however I've selected a number of the same acts you have used with different tracks: 1983 Prince & The Revolution - Little Red Corvette www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDduqH5cciQ (The first track by a black artist to top MTV's USA's Most Requested chart on its weekly Friday countdown (despite misinformation from fans of another male artist). However it was replaced at #1 on that chart by ......) 1983 Michael Jackson - Billie Jean www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXhy7ZsiR50 ("Don't Stop Movin' to an S Club beat...". A brilliant pop record that saw MJ's rise into the stratosphere breaking the glass ceiling that had previously held black (ahem) artists back. In many ways MJ's appearance at Motown's 25th Birthday Party summed up everything about him. In the first half he performed a magical live vocals with dance move medley of Jackson 5 & Motown solo songs. In the second half he mimed to his own record whilst doing the Moonwalk which his record company and fans have uttered enough times that it seems to be regarded as fact that he "invented" the Moonwalk. Nevermind he was in the UK in 1982 staying at the McCartney's recording Say Say Say & The Man when they watched Top of The Pops and saw www.youtube.com/watch?v=END_WYdf8pw. "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." (Joseph Goebbels). As Vas put it MJ represented the beginning of the end of most mainstream popular music being great as increasingly the Music Industry moved from a capital M and a small i, to a small m and a capital I. Whilst he made concerts as a spectacle that were identical to the millisecond the norm, which allowed far less talented people than MJ to become huge global popstars due to marketing, looks and hype as the basic requirement to sing live became of secondary importance (Janet Jackson, Milli Vanilli, Paula Abdul, Britney Spears, etc). Stlll he was not all "Bad", he raised awareness of the rights and treatment of children and raised a fantastic amount of money for charity. In many ways you could say he was the USA equivalent of our much loved eccentric Jimmy Saville...) 1984 The Smiths - How Soon Is Now? www.youtube.com/watch?v=r69d9CaJiTg ("This Charming Man" was the breakthrough. "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" remains their most loved song. But surely this is their most iconic song that cemented their impact on Indie music forever) 1984 U2 - Pride (In The Name Of Love) www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHcP4MWABGY (The lead track from their 4th studio album, was the Dublin Christian rockers calling card for the big league, and saw them in a very strong position to capitalize on the post Band/Live Aid sentiment of Duran Duran/New Romantics out; U2/serious worthy music in.) 1985 Madonna - Into The Groove www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyAOLk9D-ao (I wanted a representation of the post Disco/pre House Dance scene, I seriously considered Shannon's Let The Music Play and Evelyn King's High Energy, but in the end I felt I had to go for this track which perfectly encapsulates the rise of the Queen of Pop during 1983-87. Not least due to her engaging performance at Live Aid. www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2dCRJQd-jU One thing is certain this is infinitely better than the rubbish she has released on her last two albums which are the musical equivalent of "King" Kenny Dalglish returning to Liverpool FC & Michael Schumacher returning to F1 disasters.) 1986 Run DMC ft Aerosmith - Walk This Way www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B_UYYPb-Gk Tracks such as Little Red Corvette, Beat It, Let's Go Crazy, etc had shown their were elements of rock in RnB in the MTV era (Yes I know about previous stuff by Jimi Hendrix, Funkadelic's Maggot Brain, etc). Whilst I personally would much rather listen to Time Zone's World Destruction (aka Afrika Bambaataa & John Lydon) from 1984 that was not the huge hit it should have been. This inspired collaboration between veteran US rockers Aerosmith reworking one of their bigger 1970s US hit singles and New York's pioneering American hip hop Rap act Run DMC was truly groundbreaking on a US radio airplay and a quite literal video brutally massacred a few years ago by Girls Aloud and the Sugababes). 1986 Farley "Jackmaster" Funk ft Darryl Pandy - Love Can't Turn Around www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr-OgG1A74c (Quite simply this reworking of an old Isaac Hayes track is included as the first record in the Chicago House Music genre to cross over from the clubs into the worldwide charts) 1987 The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu - Whitney Joins The J.A.M.S www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYTFJvgxx5Q (This selection is a classic case of killing two birds with one stone. This 500 copies 12" white label track by Jim Cauty & Bill Drummond (aka The KLF, Timelords, etc) is built around plagiarised uncleared samples of Whitney Houston's I Wanna Dance With Somebody in which—thanks to studio technology—she "joins The JAMs". This 7-minute track is early example of a mash-up with a progressive, funky house beat, also featuring samples from the Mission Impossible theme and Isaac Hayes' Theme from Shaft. Personally I think this stuffs Pump Up The Volume; Beat Dis & Theme From S'Express, etc into oblivion.) 1987 Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w7OgIMMRc4 This Californian Hard Rock act are selected due to: 1. This is a fantastic record. 2. A representation of the rise of the US led "glam metal" music in the second half of the 1980s and I'm not selecting the awful sub-Springsteen moronic Living On A Prayer, let alone anything by Motley Crue or Poison. 3. I want this to represent the marketing with music contacts record executive genius that was David Geffen who worked for Elekta in the 1960s; set up Asylum records in the 1970, set up Geffen records in the 1980 and set up DGC in the 1990. Towards the end of his music executive career he centred on "pet projects" of making X act as big as possible by controlling and marketing a cool cred image of a band to people gullible to fall for it who would rather cut off their ears than listen to the Reynolds Girls or a Jive Bunny record. As he had 20+ years of credibility he was like a cool version of Simon Cowell. After doing such a superb job of turning GNR into a huge act before drinks, drugs and Axl Rose's ego spiralled out of control, he turned his efforts to a grunge three piece from Seattle and the release of their second album. As I think that act is the most overrated act in musical history I have excluded them from my list of 100 tracks. Not least as they completely and utterly ripped off the far superior ........ 1988 Pixies - Where Is My Mind? www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s78MwfReEk (Quite simply the greatest American Alternative Rock Band of all-time if not Greatest American Band ever period. Unfortunately they were signed to the UK indie label 4AD and not a label owned and run by a then billionaire now worth over $5 billion who had amassed connections with the US music papers, US radio and US TV that would make Simon Cowell green with envy. Whilst the fact this Boston four-piece looked like four farm workers from Idaho rather than three college drop outs from Cleveland did not help matters either. Taken from the band's first full-length album, Surfer Rosa recorded by Steve Albini. They were a proper band frequently mixing up their setlists such as performing their songs in alphabetical order. I've selected this white label track as it was their first release to European and US Radio before the release of "Gigantic". It's been used in the movies "The Fight Club" & "The Dark Knight" and numerous TV shows and has been covered or sampled by Arcade Fire, M.I.A., Kings Of Leon, Emmy The Great, Professor Green, Sunday Girl and even James Blunt, but at least Take That have not (yet) destroyed it. Their most successful album peaked at USA#70 and the band split in 1992 (but not publicly announced until January 1993) after a morale sapping tour supporting U2 whilst that band from Seattle was taking over the world. "The Pixies made just about the most compelling music of the entire 80s. Not since the Velvet Underground has a band come along so good who have influenced so many artists and bands with criminally so few sales" (David Bowie (1997)). Ironically, their drummer Dave Lovering is now an accomplished magician and has been hired for celebrity (children's) birthday parties by the likes of Dave Grohl and Courtney Love. The band reformed as an adhoc in demand touring act only since 2004, and are at least making the filthy lucre they should have made first time around. Black Francis, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago & David Lovering I salute you).
|
|
vastar iner
Member
I am the poster on your wall
Posts: 17,465
|
Post by vastar iner on Oct 31, 2012 22:46:41 GMT 1
A Guy Called Gerald - Voodoo Ray
Midway between the east and west coast was the mid-west. Chicago, Detroit. Motor cities, heavy on industry. And a bit lighter on gang culture. Which meant that hip-hop there took a different turn; more technical, using funk and deep bass as the backing, rather than sampling to the same extent.
It was this Chicago house style that caught on in the UK. British rap in the late 80s was spelt with a c; the likes of Wee Papa Girl Rappers were to rap what Zandra Rhodes was to punk culture. Even the likes of Derek B were already old hat compared to the US sounds. Only some underground acts like Ruthless Rap Assassins (despite their name) were progressive and more philosophical in their outlook.
No, the thing that Britain took on - and made its own - was the backing for Chicago tracks. Actually turning their back on vocals. In a simultaneous rise with the acid house scene, the focus was on the dancing, the freaking out, the being seen; and for that you did not want to distract attention with lyrics. You needed repetitive, hypnotic beats.
The Haçienda, as so often, was the epicentre of this new phenomenon, with Mancunian acts like 808 State in on the groundfloor. And one of 808 State's early collaborators, Gerald Simpson, came up with one of the defining singles of acid house. "Voodoo Ray", taking its name from a sample of the unlikely source of Derek & Clive, built itself up from nothing, came to an early peak, and then varied the theme throughout the remainder of the cut, a psychopomp through an alternative world.
It's astonishing to think back how the mass media thought this sort of thing was the biggest threat to humankind since the bubonic plague. Acid house was banned pretty much everywhere, many songs not getting airplay at all as a result, including, rather oddly, D-Mob's "We Call It Acieed" being banned for promoting drug use when the lyrics were saying the exact opposite. The Hate Mail racking up an imaginary panic to spook Middle England? Surely shome mishtake. Anyway, raves at which acid house music broke through were held in the middle of nowhere with parades of motors following each other on the grapevine. In defiance of a law that sought to ban repetitive, hypnotic beats. And, of course, made the whole thing more alluring and edgy. Well done Daily Fail.
For a couple of years though acid house ushered in the Second Summer of Love and an ever-complex series of blissed out or euphoric sounds that swamped the lower reaches of the chart. This one should have topped the chart, via its inclusion of the Brits 1990 medley, but it was stopped by Snap!'s "The Power". Which DEFINITELY was rap with a capital C. Until of course the whole thing became too mainstream...
In sum: house of the rising sons
|
|
vastar iner
Member
I am the poster on your wall
Posts: 17,465
|
Post by vastar iner on Oct 31, 2012 22:56:53 GMT 1
Vas, some fantastic selections but considering some of your earlier selections you seem to have gone down the UK Post Punk Faber 45s route and narrowed your musical genre scope a bit too much in favour of Indie/Alternative than capturing how it was so well in your earlier selections. It's partly because the quantum leaps in music have already largely been made. Think of evolution; in the space of 100 million years life went from bacterial to sponges, jellyfish, insects, arthropods, vertebrates, molluscs and plants. In the 500m years since it's basically variations on those models. No new quantum leap has really emerged. Plus if it were a simple mainstream list it would not represent music, but more the hype. There's no real difference between Olivia Newton-John and Kylie Minogue, or Lily Allen and Jessie J. Before 1983 you could have almost anything succeed; since then the categories have been extremely limited. So it's only the alternative that represents the broader spectrum of what music really can be...
|
|