An Ear For An Era: 1984

In 1984 I turned 1. How old are kids when they start kind of understanding things and singing along with songs? I'm not sure. So I don't know how old this song was and how old I was, but my earliest memories song-wise are singing along to Stevie Wonder's "I Just Called To Say I Love You" with my mom. Cheesy as it is, that song will always take me back. At my wedding I picked the too-cool Magnetic Fields' "Nothing Matters When We're Dancing" for my first dance with my wife, but I picked the not-cool-enough-for-anything "I Just Called To Say I Love You" for my dance with my mom.

Stevie Wonder "I Just Called To Say I Love You"

Bruce Springsteen was also kind of cheesy on the surface with Born in the USA. After Nebraska, I feel like he kind of earned that singing-like-it's-the-most-important-thing-in-the-world thing he was known for. All the working class anthems are now kind of perfect here. I like a lot of the songs. I don't know if I need to share any because they're so well known and I try to point to the obscure. You know all those singles from this album? "Glory Days," "Dancing In The Dark," "Darlington County," "No Surrender," etc? Yeah, I think they're great too!

But now I'm super cool and hip. I listen to punk rock and obscure soul and other things spoken about on this blog.

The only Hüsker Dü album I own is Zen Arcade. I think I should get more. I think I like it more than other Bob Mould projects. But that's just me. I want to hear him rock out a little more because he's good at that. But this album is a good mix of punk and pop and other boundaries of punk that were broken as they recorded this. It's hard to pick one track because of all the different directions it goes in but since I said I like to hear Mould rock out here's a pretty straightforward punk rock track.

Hüsker Dü "I'll Never Forget You"

Speaking of fierce, Scratch Acid may be the fiercest punk rock in my collection. Yow screams with such intensity and I'm pretty excited I have a few years of material from the collection The Greatest Gift. I went to the Touch & Go 25th anniversary block party thing a few years ago and it featured (among lots of other amazing acts) a Scratch Acid reunion. At this time however I was suffering from an unfortunate bout with plantar fasciitis and couldn't stand for very long. I suffered hard for my rock & roll but as I stood in the huge gathering crowd for (I think it was) Sally Timms or something (something Mekons related), the pain increased and I hadn't yet gotten into Scratch Acid so I was the one person leaving the area as Scratch Acid was setting up and people were highly confused by my actions. If I had made the effort to listen to them before this I probably would have stuck it out...but it was an all day thing, man! My foot was killing me! I still heard them but I could have been up in it, around the 10th row of people. Regrets. Here is an awesomely sleazy song that just kills my feet and your ear drums (turn it up loud!).

Scratch Acid "She Said"

Now a completely different but still vaguely punk rock thing: The Pogues! I first heard The Pogues in high school when I was watching a public access music video show (they mostly played punk rock) and some Pogues live performance played after a Rancid song. I think I remember thinking of them as not punk, just a Celtic band, and as I was sooooo punk rock I considered it something of a guilty pleasure (Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly were the celtic PUNK bands, after all!). Now I just feel guilty for ever having any guilt about it. I loved the ugly/beautiful thing that I can't quite explain. It's a perfect ugly/beautiful combination, what they do. Not afraid to sound ugly in the vocals, screaming, but having the backing of perfectly executed Celtic folk, they have become my favorite drinking music. Red Roses For Me is actually my second Pogues purchase (after If I Should Fall From Grace With God, which I'll talk about when we hit 1988). There are just a ton of great songs on here, I want to be in a crowded pub raising a pint and singing these songs. When I went to Ireland last year I listened to this album to get excited and for a week before the trip this song kept getting in my head and got me very very very excited:

The Pogues "Streams of Whiskey"

Can I please go back there tomorrow?

I hadn't heard from Leonard Cohen in a while but here he is! Various Positions has hints of cheesy 80s production (not as bad as I'm Your Man, however) but it's mostly pretty solidly grounded. There's a kind of weird echo on the vocals but it does just kind of give it more weight. It has "Hallelujah" on it so what else do you need to know? One of the greatest songs ever written, a song I have to stop everything to listen to when it comes on. Even if Jeff Buckley's version is the definitive version, there's a lot to like about Cohen's original version.

Hip hop! Afrika Bambaataa took the next logical step (or the first logical step?) and featured James Brown on a track, "Unity Part 1 (The Third Coming)." It's kickin'! And then I had my intro to Fat Boys, which epitomizes the whole novelty thing that hip hop may have been in danger of falling into. I quite enjoy Fat Boys, but the stuff from 1984 seems a little too disco. Still could be fun to listen to at a party. But a new group came along to push hip hop forward, to rescue it from obscurity by taking things a little more seriously. Run-D.M.C. is of course who I'm talking about. Their back-and-forth vocals are really cool, really good on my short attention span. Here they are being socially conscious before backpacking was a thing (related to hip hop).

Run-D.M.C. "Wake Up"

Is Purple Rain the crowning Prince (& The Revolution) achievement? Just brilliant front to back, all over, I feel like it's similar to Born in the USA in that I can't really pick out an obscure track because the whole thing is so well loved. I don't know what I can say about this album because I don't have personal stories about it and everything's been said. Brilliant songwriting, Prince kind of lasted longer than Michael Jackson and while he didn't have a Thriller I think his sustained career during this period makes him the real king of pop. And the way he incorporates rock & roll, particularly on the closing title track, is pretty epic. Did you see him do that song at the super bowl halftime show that one time? I think he's the best super bowl halftime performer ever.

...And another classic by "Weird Al" Yankovic. In 3-D really pushed his game forward. This is no longer bedroom (or bathroom or whatever) recordings. No more banging on an accordion case for percussion. No more need to have everything accordion based (but he still uses it a lot). The parodies sound closer to the originals production-wise. I think it being the early 80s lended itself well to this, because so many popular songs already sounded goofy. Particularly "Safety Dance." Of course a song about The Brady Bunch would sound funny set to that melody. Because it's a funny sound. "Eat It" was one of his biggest hits ever, "I Lost on Jeopardy" was one of my personal favorites (particularly the video!), and "Nature Trail To Hell" made me nervous to get this tape because it had the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks word in the title and I didn't want to get in trouble (I looked at this tape a lot of times before I bought it and kept going to different Weird Al tapes...it was probably one of my last Weird Al tape purchases as I collected them all). But what I'm going to share here is his first in a series of brilliant polkas he put together on almost all of his albums. Medleys of popular songs done in polka style. My first exposure to a lot of these songs. I thought it'd be a fun lesson in music history to listen to all the polkas sequentially, but then I realized he's all over the map here. His later albums mostly covered current hits, but this one jumps back and forth between the 80s and the 60s (and I know later on he'd do one entirely devoted to Bohemian Rhapsody and another devoted to the Stones) so it wouldn't really be in order. Still. Here's a quick rundown of what we've covered and where we are now in this AEFAE project.

"Weird Al" Yankovic "Polkas on 45"

Other stuff to say about stuff:

• The Cars' "Drive" is so 1984.
• The Vandals' When In Rome Do As The Vandals is too damn goofy. Actually I think it's the goofiness of the whole album that makes the satire "Slap of Love" not sit right with me. Too serious of a subject to approach in that way when everything else on the album is about skinheads not being allowed in mohawk town and space nazis and such. I don't know, I'm having a hard time explaining this.
• Depeche Mode. I don't have whichever album this is but "Blasphemous Rumours" is a damn good song.
• Serge Gainsbourg's Love on the Beat is an odd one. Essentially taking the Serge Gainsbourg formula but replacing the beautiful orchestral arrangements with cheesy 80s beats (and English choruses that only hint about what he's singing about in French). I can't quite get behind it. We do get our first sampling of Charlotte Gainsbourg though, the very young girl (12 years old!) singing on "Lemon Incest." Creepy that that's the name of the song but I couldn't tell you what it's about.
• Madonna's "Like A Virgin" is a song I always move back and forth between Weird Al's version when I sing it and don't think about it too much. "Better give me all your gauze nurse" etc.
• Van Halen was "Hot For Teacher" (and you know, they had that whole album 1984 in 1984 but I only have "Hot For Teacher").
• R.E.M. I liked Reckoning more. Good jangly guitars that would soon dominate the indie rock world. Hey! We're getting into the indie rock world now!
• Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!
• Carmel had another brilliant cut "Bad Day." Love that voice!
• Queen was back to rockin' on The Works. I feel like "Radio Ga Ga" is more relevant today than it was in 1984.
• Dead Kennedys' "Kinky Sex Makes The World Go 'Round" is a super effective creepy track that is just way too full of truth.
• 99 Luftballons.

Next time:

1985. The best Cure album? Brian Ferry solo? Dead Kennedys have changed a lot since the 70s. Descendents are back on here. Fishbone! The last great album according to Stephin Merritt (Psychocandy). Mekons! the end of Minor Threat! Prince continues to own the world (in a day). Rites of Spring (whoa emo's here already??). Everybody Wants To Rule The World. Tom Waits continues to be amazing. And another classic from Weird Al.

An Ear For An Era: 1983

All right, here it is. I'm going to see how this music of my birth year defines me as a person. From the timeless to the cheesy to the timelessly cheesy. Okay.

I was born in April of 1983. One album listed on Wikipedia as being released in "April 1983" was Minor Threat's only actual album Out of Step. I have a lot of love for this album. It exemplifies the greatness of Ian MacKaye's lyrics from the clarification of the title track (insisting that he doesn't care if you drink/smoke/etc he just doesn't happen to care for it) to the satire of the closing track "Cashing In." There's a bit more complexity to the music on this album, they started turning into something more. But still with the energy level that I love about them.

Minutemen sure doubled down on Double Nickels On The Dime. (DAMNIT I just saw it was released in 1984, not 1983. Someone needs to go through my music and correct all the dates! I'll still write about it here though because I listened to it in a slightly-incorrect context). This is all I have from them at the moment but I'd like to hear more. I kind of liken this album to a more stripped-down version of Gang of Four. The same rhythm attack is there in the bass and drums, but they were not trying to make you dance. It's thinking music. And it's 43 tracks long, so it's a commitment. It's got punk rock rage without being dumbed down and it's not afraid to slow it down. There's way too much going on for someone like me without more time to devote to it to give it justice, but just listen to "West Germany." I think it covers what I've said here. Unfortunately, people that put stuff on youtube are strange so I can't find just this track. Here's apparently the full album in youtube format. "West Germany" is probably around the 45 minute mark (or just listen to the whole thing, why not??).

Minutemen Double Nickels on the Dime

Latter era Ramones are a strange beast. Oddly enough, Subterranean Jungle is the first Ramones album I got because I gave vague instructions one year that I wanted Ramones albums for Christmas and this is what I got. Of course I knew the classic early hits so this wasn't my first exposure to them as a whole, but this album wasn't exactly what I was looking for. I listened to it quite a bit anyway though, and then didn't, so this album still takes me back to those days. It's more of a classic rock/pop album, not really trying to be punk amongst an era of great artists running with what they had kickstarted only 7 or so years earlier. But it really just feels out of touch, like a band of grandpas trying to fit in. Or dads I guess. At least on tracks like "Time Bomb" about how "I'm gonna break every rule" and "I'm not gonna stay in school." Fake rebellion that is not sold by the music or the vocal delivery. But I do enjoy the songs that play to their pop strengths, like this one.

Ramones, "My-My Kind of a Girl"

Kind of a timeless song on an otherwise cheesy/dated album. Now let's flip it.

Tom Waits' Swordfishtrombones is crazy. And timeless. And one of the greatest albums ever recorded, really. It starts off with Waits screaming over a circus, includes allusions to everything he's done in the past (some spoken word content, some beautiful ballads, etc), but it's all so different. The music particularly. This is where he turns "unclassifiable" in my genre labels. Because what is this, aside from amazing? It's heartbreaking all over the place, but it's a rough-and-tumble ride through rage and such a high level of "cool" that only a few people in music have ever accomplished. Basically he could have farted into the microphone and it would have been amazing. This was ten years into an already incredible career, in the midst of an incredible string of albums, in a way that just makes everything he would do from now on "credible." And he ran with it, producing it himself, throwing everything at the wall, and all of it managed to stick.

Tom Waits "16 Shells From a Thirty-Ought Six"

The only full Daniel Johnston album I have is Yip/Jump Music. Super lo-fi bedroom recordings, simple songs with outrageously simple arrangements, but it's all just straight from the heart and it hits you in the heart in the most direct way that music can. He is such a great writer in the way he manages to distill it down to a few simple words.

Now we'll begin our drift from the timeless back to the dated, but this one is still timeless in a way that it doesn't matter that it sounds exactly like it's from the early 80s. I'm speaking of course about Talking Heads' Speaking in Tongues. Past their original era, past their work with Eno, they were now well-seasoned veterans of great composition. And I guess this is their most popular album because of "Burning Down The House." Which is a great house-burning track for sure. But I think "Girlfriend is Better" is a better single.

David Bowie also was getting very popular with Let's Dance, the title track of which was the #1 song in the UK on the day I was born. I used to like that track, but it's been overplayed which makes me realize that there's just not that much to the song. There are a couple other good songs on the album, but it's just not up there. And looking through what I have coming up, there's barely any Bowie I have from 1983 to 2001. I'm sure there's some good stuff I'm missing, but I think this marked the end of his great era of art rock dominance before some great comeback material he would later come back with.

New Order. "Blue Monday." One of the great house burners of the 80s and 80s revival nights and so 80s but so good. I've heard this song tons of times without getting sick of it. It comes from Power, Corruption & Lies, the only New Order album I actually own aside from their 2005 return. "Age of Consent" is a good opener, "Your Silent Face" is a good deep cut that you should listen to if you haven't, but "Blue Monday" is just one of those songs.

And now for the timelessly cheesy.

Whenever anyone tries to ask me my guilty pleasures, I have a hard time with that question. I don't think musical pleasures should be guilty. No matter what. But then I say something along the lines of "people might consider "Weird Al" Yankovic a guilty pleasure, but there's so much talent and intelligence there, and so many of my peers grew up on him that he's pretty universally loved." I don't know why that's in quotes, that's the first time I've expressed it exactly like that. But he's just great and his self-titled debut already has so much going on. It was my brother that had his self-titled tape on cassette, and the reason I got into Weird Al. We would listen to it a lot and laugh about the moaning/grunting guy that randomly popped up in "Another One Rides The Bus." And the wordplay of "Gotta Boogie." And playing "Happy Birthday" on people's birthdays. And thinking that "Stop Draggin' My Car Around" was an original and someone should reverse-parody it with "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" (turned out that already did exist as a song that was being parodied by Al, of course). And this music video, oh this music video:

"Weird Al" Yankovic "I Love Rocky Road"

Rocky Road is one of my favorite ice cream flavors and now I'm not sure if that is because of this song or not. I just can't remember if it was the reason I first tried it, if it's the reason I repeatedly asked for it afterwards, or what. I'm sure it had some influence though. But marshmallow in chocolate ice cream is a brilliant idea.

Now the guy that probably could be considered a guilty pleasure if I'm being honest. 80s Billy Joel holds a significant place in my heart even though in my heart I know his 70s output has to be better. I think my parents probably just listened to An Innocent Man a lot and because it's so catchy it caught on with me as well. Once I was talking to Neil of The Lawrence Arms about Billy Joel, insisting this was his great achievement, but now I'm kind of embarrassed for saying that because his 70s stuff probably was his great achievement. Even from the perspective of accepting that everything he did was cheesy. But An Innocent Man is all songs I know from my childhood, and I know it's silly but "Uptown Girl!" (particularly thanks to the hippie episode of The Simpsons) and the a capella "For The Longest Time!" Even in college this was one of the albums I would put on before going out, listening to this song to get me excited about hanging out with a girl I had a crush on (nothing ever happened because I didn't "Tell Her About It").

Billy Joel "This Night"

So let's see what defines me based on my birth year. Creative, punk rock, artistic but simple, and not afraid to be silly and downright cheesy. Sounds about right.

Other commentary:

• Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It" came up. It's a good rocker.
• Madonna's first single "Holiday" is a pretty good one there.
• I quite enjoyed "Radio Lover" by George Jones. A good story, gets country sad of course.
• "Every Sperm is Sacred," of course. Monty Python and whatnot.
• I don't have Sports, a purportedly great Huey Lewis & The News album according to some media (American Psycho). But according to Bender on Futurama, it didn't age well. All I had was "I Want a New Drug" which is entertaining enough and reminds me of more incoming Weird Al.
• Just a couple Prince singles for 1983, but both are great jams. "Delirious" and a dance remix of "Little Red Corvette."
• Berlin is a very dated sounding band but since Alkaline Trio and others covered them I developed an interest. I have the full album on vinyl, but all I've bothered with obtaining digitally are "The Metro" and "Sex (I'm A)," the latter of which is a pretty good entry into that whole clever sexy dance thing that got so popular in the revival of the early 2000s.
• Into to Pulp! So weird that Pulp was already up and going way back in 1983. They had a ways to go before they got to some of their later era genius though.
• For the moment Elvis Costello & The Attractions are pushed to this category. Punch the Clock is one of his lesser albums in my opinion. It's mostly all bombastic horn driven stuff and some more of that dated 80s sound. Of course there are some absolute classic greats on there. I quite enjoy "Charm School" and "Shipbuilding" is still one of his greatest ballads.
• Rick James' "Cold Blooded," later to be covered by ODB, is a great jam.
• What? They Might Be Giants AND Weird Al got going in 1983? The year I was born? No wonder I'm such a nerd! I never got as much into TMBG as I would have liked to (and I still hope to even though I'm now in my 30s) but some demos here are pretty good...
• Violent Femmes had some singles, "Ugly" and the brilliant "Gimme the Car." Wikipedia says the album I gushed about for 1982 was also actually from 1983 (April even!). Oops. I wonder how many of my dates are inaccurate, screwing this whole project up?
• I only had one hip hop jam for 1983! But it's yet another classic: "Renegades of Funk" by Afrika Bambaataa & Soul Sonic Force.
• R.E.M. had their debut with Murmur. I need to give it more spins before I say much about it. But it probably signals some big step in alt rock that should be noted.

Next Time:

Big Brother is after you! Well I'm sure my 3-year-old big brother was super sweet on 1-year-old me, but watch out! 1984! Bruce Springsteen is back to being cheesy/bombastic, hip hop starts expanding with Fat Boys and Run-D.M.C., Husker Du is the classic punk rock band, a return of Leonard Cohen, The Pogues arrive, Purple Rain falls, Scratch Acid, The Smiths, and another Weird Al classic (I might have this at the end of every "Next Time" for a while since I look in alphabetical order and they were all classics in my eyes).

An Ear For An Era: 1982

And...we're back! 1982. The last year before me. The world would forever change (for me) in just one short year. So what kind of music was coming out? Lots of kinds at this point. Some great oddities, some of the biggest pop albums of all time, and some of my favorite albums of all time. It was a big year.

Let's start with the pop because my goodness was this album huge. I don't know if you've heard of Thriller, by young up-and-comer Michael Jackson, but it came out in 1982. I don't think much needs to be said about this. "The Girl is Mine" is pretty cheesy but besides that this album is just so full of gigantic pop anthems it's kind of ridiculous. "Thriller" is followed up immediately by "Beat It" and then "Billie Jean?" But it doesn't feel like it's all stuffed together because there are only 9 tracks and the hits just keep hitting? That's right, person with theoretical questions. That's right.

The king and the Prince. Both put out crazy big pop albums in 1982. Prince's 1999 is significant to me mostly because they played the crap out of that song on NYE 1998 and 1999 I think, both of those New Years Eves. But it's got other big awesome hits like "Little Red Corvette" and Prince's trademark sexiness in songs like "Let's Pretend We're Married."

How do I get from pop to punk? Billy Idol will do fine as a bridge here. His self-titled debut album is pretty hit-and-miss, but the hits are quite good. There's a certain musk to how he presents himself, it brings me back to my dancin' days of the early-to-mid aughts. Those 80s dance nights were a place to listen to "Dancing With Myself" and dance with a few people and show off the debauchery we were capable of, our flexibility, and whatnot. It was a big time for my social life and it was songs like this that made it happen (and people like Enoch; I miss you so much buddy!). As a wallflower, unable to talk to people I didn't already know, this is the music that allowed me to be social because I didn't have to talk.

Is this getting too personal? Too bad, pretty soon this blog is going to be focused on my personal experience with music instead of just a way to carry through the old stuff that happens to also tie me to a certain time/place in my life.

Punk continued to push forward on both coasts. I think I've already discussed how great the early 80s were for punk, but 1982 saw some big debuts and otherwise huge albums. There was The Vandals, whose EP Peace Thru Vandalism showed a band refusing to take itself seriously. Flipper brought all the attitude to punk rock but changed the approach by playing really slow/brooding songs. The Misfits used a lot of whoa-oh-ohs that would go on to be such an integral part of punk rock, and while I wasn't into them so much in high school I feel like if I had gotten this album back then it would have been pretty high in rotation. And then there was Bad Brains, one of the most ferocious punk bands when they played punk. Then one of the most soulful reggae bands to be heard outside of Jamaica when they played reggae. They played up that dichotomy in much more black-and-white terms than others that combined them.

The Clash blurred that line quite a bit with Combat Rock. Actually, they blurred it their whole career. I just figured this would make a good transition. I'm going to miss The Clash popping up here, because this is the last I'll be hearing from them. This is their poppiest album, their most successful financially, and includes such hits as "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" and "Rock The Casbah." Confession time: I never got this album until just a few years ago. I got to the point where I was embarrassed to pick it up because I didn't want people to know I didn't already own it. So I'm not as familiar with it as their other work, but I do like opener "Know Your Rights," and obviously I am a big fan of "Straight to Hell" (to later be sampled on a certain hugely successful M.I.A. song). That song and having a contribution from Allen Ginsberg keeps the cred here even if it sounds like they were starting to pursue that larger audience they were picking up. Still a worthy addition to The Clash's discography, and that's a pretty big compliment you can give an album.

And now we're really getting into the stuff that I have loved for years and years.

The Descendents' debut album (I just realized I missed their "Fat EP" here because I only have it on vinyl! D'oh!) Milo Goes to College might be my favorite punk rock album of all time. Or pop punk if that's the correct term. Back when pop punk wasn't an embarrassing term because all the "pop" meant was catchy. They sang about being kids. They perfectly encapsulated that time for me. I listened to some punk in high school but I wasn't a punk. I was just a "square going nowhere." They weren't afraid of singing about girls and even marriage in a genre that was mostly tough guys and political posturing. I got this album in my stocking one year for Christmas and I listened to it over and over again immediately that morning. Before this, I'd only heard their "new" stuff, Everything Sucks from 1996. This was so much rawer but so engaging...I don't think any initial listening of an album has stuck with me for so long, the experience of hearing these songs for the first time was ingrained into my being and this album will always be such a significant part of me. Every time I hear it, I'm taken back there, to those simpler times. I have to play the opening track because that's the first thing I heard that morning and even though I love all the tracks, this exemplifies the spirit: There's no reason for you to quit just because we try harder!

Descendents "Myage"

The Violent Femmes' self-titled debut is another one that, front to back, has always been a favorite. The lowest rated song on the album for me is "Blister in the Sun," their one big hit. It's okay. But when they really get going, when they express the personal so effectively through the combination of incredibly heartfelt lyrics and catchiness and a circus of sound coming out of a very simple setup (acoustic guitar, bass, a couple drums, maybe a xylophone or violin here and there) that builds and rises (and RISES AND RISES) and falls again, when all of it comes together, it hits you hard. Or me. I can't say what it does to you. I think next time I do karaoke, and if they have something besides "Blister in the Sun," I will have to sing some Violent Femmes. Here I 'd probably play "Confessions" or "Add it Up" to exemplify what I've described if I could, but I can't resist playing the closer. It shuts me down anytime I hear it, that's for sure. The circus isn't here but it's the prettiest ballad with some of my favorite lyrics ever: "laughing at the sunrise like he's been up all night." Everything that that implies, just puts me in a place that has been a long night that you didn't want to end and you're so tired...so simply put together in a few words.

Violent Femmes "Good Feeling"

Speaking of ballads, those are the reason that Imperial Bedroom is my third favorite Elvis Costello (and the Attractions) album. Actually 2nd favorite with the Attractions, because one of the other two is not an Attractions one. Where was I? Oh yeah, ballads. And Imperial Bedroom. The songs are just so personal and sad. With a couple strains of hope strung along throughout. The way "The Long Honeymoon" tells the tale of a wife freaking out about her husband being out late, the burdensome side of a line like "she never thought her love could ever be as strong as this" (on a bed of the most lovely piano playing by Steve Nieve) transitions into some brutal power chords and screaming that just jolts you into the song "Man Out of Time" that didn't really need that jolt, it's just a way to keep you on your toes (the song itself is again piano based, pretty light, just bookended by these power chords), taking you back down to "Almost Blue," another gorgeous soft ballad...it's a roller coaster but it's consistent. It goes like this for the full album. Lots of songs from women's perspectives, music that goes up and down (mostly down). It's a great showcase of Elvis' lyrics and Steve's virtuoso piano playing. (The Audrey Hepburn montage is just bonus).

Elvis Costello & The Attractions "Almost Blue"

Another rock artist that put out a ballady collection was Bruce Springsteen. I can't claim a huge personal connection to this, but do you know how often Nebraska comes up when interviewing bands about their influences? Half of indie rock was influenced by this album! This is the side of Bruce that justifies all the hoopla he gets for his rock songs. It's the heart. It's just not disguised by synths and distorted guitars and stadiums. Stories of real people's real lives. Stripped down Bruce is the way to go.

Hip hop (that which I have in my collection at least) continued to be something of a novelty, as exemplified by this track from that Third Unheard comp I've discussed in the past. Willie Brown & Woodie recorded a track called "Ventriloquist Rap," because Woodie is a puppet. Of course. Dang it, I can't find it on youtube. Ask me to play it for you sometime because it's something else. Afrika Bambaataa had some great jams with Soulsonic Force. "Looking For The Perfect Beat" is good enough that it's the title to the collection of singles that I have. But "Don't Stop...Planet Rock" is just the song I have to put here. I just have to. It's officially a party here for the next 6 1/2 minutes.

Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force "Don't Stop...Planet Rock"

Now for the weirder stuff.

I don't remember how I first discovered Carmel, a jazzy soul band with one of the most unique and beautiful voices I've heard. I do know that it's hard to find anything by them anywhere, so any song I can pick up I will. I have a cover of "Tracks of My Tears" which is a great way to experience the voice in a somewhat familiar context (it's jazzy but it's the Smokey Robinson song) but just as a showcase of what I'm talking about here's the other song I have of theirs from 1982.

Carmel "Storm"

My dad introduced me to art rock. It was my dad. I've talked about how he got me into Nilsson and Kristofferson, but that wasn't enough. He introduced me to really really weird music. Music that is now on display at MoMA. I saw the video there as an art installation! Us kids really liked it when Dad put on this tape. Of weird talking and wolf howling. Have you guessed yet? Laurie Anderson! Big Science! It made us laugh at times, it was terrifying at others (and sometimes the same time), and we couldn't get enough. "I no longer love the way you hold your pen...and pen...cil." "We are all going down...put your head in your hands, put your hands on your hips, haha..." I bet this makes no sense to you if you haven't heard this album. You should listen to it. I can't really do it justice. Here's a taste, but really, hear the whole thing. Preferably in a small truck with your siblings and your dad.

Laurie Anderson "Sweaters"

And of course if I played Laurie Anderson now I have to talk about her husband Lou Reed. You may have heard of him. When he passed away last year I wasn't sure if I should try to write about him on this blog. But I didn't think I had the perspective needed to do anything of importance; other tributes were written beautifully so I didn't have anything to contribute. So I just put a few words on Facebook, knowing I'd soon get to some more Lou Reed on this here project.  The Blue Mask is a very good Reed album. It was just weird trying to listen to it subjectively because it's the first time he's come up in this since then. The weirdest thing about this was that the last couple tracks on here are pretty death-obsessed. "The Day John Kennedy Died" and "Heavenly Arms." I remember looking for a fitting song to play after his death and couldn't find a suitable one from Berlin. But this will be a good way to say goodbye (not really goodbye though, I have some more stuff because he did a lot between 1982 and 2013).

Lou Reed, "Heavenly Arms"

Other things to say things about/Other things about which to say things:

• How about other random pop songs that everybody knows and loves? Maneater by Hall & Oates? And "Sexual Healing" by Marvin Gaye?
• Or what about the quintessential 80s/new wave/whatever jams that, yes, everybody knows and loves? "Come on Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runners, "Rio" by Duran Duran, and "She Blinded Me With Science" by Thomas Dolby. Is that enough of that?
• Speaking of Duran Duran, I also have the song "The Chauffer" thanks to the Greenberg soundtrack, and it is really something!
• Daniel Johnston put out some more greatness; I quite enjoy the song "Story of an Artist."
• Right now Sonic Youth will be in this miscellaneous category. The fact that they are part of the lexicon now changes everything, but I'll be writing about them a lot in the future. Their self-titled debut shows hints of what's to come but they weren't quite there yet. I like it but don't love it. It takes a bit more than an EP to change music forever.
• Queen fully embraced the 80s with Hot Space, a very poppy album from a band previously known for its emphasis on rock & roll and guitar solos. Lots of dance tunes here, including the always beloved "Under Pressure" featuring David Bowie. They do dance/pop well, it turns out.
• I'm not a big metalhead, but Iron Maiden's The Number of The Beast is very great. The title track is my go-to if I ever find myself in an air guitar solo competition. Love that solo.
• I didn't have a ton of two tone era ska from 1982 other than a Bad Manners album Forging Ahead (such an 80s sounding ska album!) and some Madness tracks including their big hit "Our House." It's good stuff.
• Remember that old Volkswagen commercial and that "Da Da Da" song? It's by a German band called Trio and that song came out in 1982. When the commercial was big my buddy really wanted the album that song came off of, and I ended up finding an import after much searching. There was a German version and an English version and the English version sounded goofy because I don't think they knew English that well. Anyway, it's the German version I have in my collection now.
• Always turn it up for a couple more Minor Threat songs. "12XU" is a cover but it's still one of my favorites.

Next Time...

The year that bore me! I'll totally remember picking up all these albums at the record store on release day from here on out because that's how with it I am. Ever since birth. Or not. But here's what's in store (alphabetical order). Billy Joel at his cheesy best, a full Daniel Johnston album, Bowie says Let's Dance! Duran Duran, Elvis Costello as usual, a Minor Threat album, Minutemen, New Order, Pulp (already??), R.E.M. (seriously??), Talking Heads Speak in Tongues, They Might Be Giants have some Early Stuff To Share Already, Tom Waits' crazy circus finally comes around in full with the brilliant Swordfishtrombones, and We Are Now Officially In The Era Of "Weird Al" Yankovic So Watch Out!