https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5uxYP2xVoLVQ7CKzyvkUj2
The only non-spotify track is Mari Wilson's "Ain't That Peculiar"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCtikc9ZATE
― Yours in Sorrow, A Schoolboy: (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 22 July 2021 23:53 (two years ago) link
Dom...dom...dominatrix.
― stirmonster, Friday, 23 July 2021 00:07 (two years ago) link
Thanks, forks!
https://i.imgur.com/XIGebfd.jpg
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Friday, 23 July 2021 00:27 (two years ago) link
It's Smash Hits issue 10th of May 84. It was fortnightly, just to let the Americans and specifically my friend forksclovetofu, know :)
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Friday, 23 July 2021 00:30 (two years ago) link
The review of Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go is quite something in hindsight. Maybe Dave Rimmer got it right.
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Friday, 23 July 2021 00:37 (two years ago) link
It's hard not to vote for Dom-Dom-Domanatix but I have to vote with my heart and say that Rimmer was right. Red Guitar is really really something. The (prepared?) piano interlude that begins around 1:50 here was and remains incredible. I love this song so much. The album Brilliant Trees changed my life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tTX49CjAgo
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Friday, 23 July 2021 00:44 (two years ago) link
Incredible that Red Guitar was a mainstream pop song in 1984. Sylvian is/was just such an unlikely cultural force.
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Friday, 23 July 2021 00:57 (two years ago) link
Sakamoto was credited on Brilliant Trees as Piano and Sylvian was credited as prepared piano, so I'm not sure who did what on RG.
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Friday, 23 July 2021 01:02 (two years ago) link
Red Guitar rules but i had to vote for Dominatrix as i had a formative experience to it, and i ended up being pals with one of them, which would have blown my tiny mind to smithereens back in 1984. Yhat same tiny mind would have been further blown had i known at the time that Peter Baumann who i was a mega fan of in '84 (still am) also played on it.
― stirmonster, Friday, 23 July 2021 01:11 (two years ago) link
Much of this music was considered "college music" at the time, and I didn't hear it until the fall or later. My college station had Sylvian, Ultravox, and PiL in high rotation, and it's got to be "Red Guitar" for me. Listened to it recently and it's chock full of amazing sounds.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Friday, 23 July 2021 03:17 (two years ago) link
Xps now if i could only figure out what a fortnight is...
― Yours in Sorrow, A Schoolboy: (forksclovetofu), Friday, 23 July 2021 03:33 (two years ago) link
Oh, that's what Dave Rimmer looked like? Nice hair.
Favourite at the time: The Dominatrix, by a country mile. It is a matter of eternal regret that I have never heard it played in a club. Despite not having access to a record player (I was in Berlin, the record player was in the UK), I still bought a copy, and was intrigued to find Peter Baumann's name on the credits.
Favourite over time: The Style Council. They'd played a fantastic show at the Metropol a month earlier, and I clicked with every aspect of their early aesthetic, drifting away from them in around twelve months' time. It probably helped that I was spending inordinate amounts of time drinking cappuccino in Berlin cafes (unlike the angry ex-Jam fan who vented to the NME letters page: "we haven't got many coffee shops in Bolton"). I still find everything they released in 1983 and 1984 - B-sides, the lot - utterly magical.
I'm with Rimmer on The System - nothing could match the the power of that first album - but "I Just Wanna Make You Feel Good" still became a big favourite; it encapsulates that whole Summer 1984 "hot tempo" sound really well.
I liked Divine Sounds a lot, enjoyed Imagination, but rather breezed over David Sylvian when I should have been paying closer attention. Sade was great at the time, but my love for her didn't survive the seemingly endless afterlife of that first album, the lazy soundtrack choice for every crummy joint with pretensions for years to come. Very much the Moon Safari of its day.
"What Presence?" is where I got off the Orange Juice bus - three years earlier, they'd been my favourite band - but I did accidentally catch their last ever show, opening a miners' strike benefit at Brixton Academy in January 1985, which brought back all the good times.
"Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" is also where I got off the Wham! bus, and I would have been in full agreement with Rimmer at the time.
And it was quite the week for jumping off buses: hello "Bad Life", goodbye PiL. I've got a radio tape of it somewhere, which ends with a fragment of a bitterly disappointed John Peel ("when all that's left is cynicism..."), and the phrase stuck in my mind more than the track.
― mike t-diva, Friday, 23 July 2021 09:37 (two years ago) link
This was my personal chart, as of 9th May 1984:
01 (03) The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight - Dominatrix02 (01) Beat Box - The Art Of Noise03 (02) Give Me Tonight - Shannon04 (10) Hand In Glove - Sandie Shaw05 (06) Big In Japan - Alphaville06 (04) Disconet 1983 Top Tunes Medley - Various07 (NE) Play That Beat Mr DJ (The Payoff Mix) - G.L.O.B.E. & Whiz Kid/Double Dee & Steinski08 (NE) No More Words - Berlin09 (re) High Energy - Evelyn Thomas10 (07) Automatic - Pointer Sisters11 (re) The Lebanon - Human League12 (36) Thieves Like Us/Lonesome Tonight - New Order13 (NE) Drums Only - Taracco14 (17) The Nine Lives Of Dr Mabuse - Propaganda15 (NE) Dizzy - Boney M16 (09) Colour My Love - Fun Fun17 (08) Just Be Good To Me - SOS Band18 (NE) One For The Treble - Davy DMX19 (05) People Are People - Depeche Mode20 (NE) Gloria In 3D (Hot Tracks remix) - Laura Branigan21 (11) Paco's Super Mix - Latin Rascals22 (22) No Sell Out - Malcolm X23 (NE) Peace In Our Time - The Imposter24 (13) All Night Passion - Alisha25 (12) Watch The Closing Doors - I.R.T. (Interboro Rhythm Team)26 (35) I've Got To Find A Way - Zena Dejonay27 (15) In The Heart/Tonight - Kool & The Gang28 (NE) It's My Life - Talk Talk29 (20) Hip Hop Bommi Bop - The Increadible T.H. Scratchers Starring Freddy Love 30 (NE) Borderline - Madonna31 (26) Get In Touch With Me - One Blood32 (23) Don't Tell Me - Blancmange33 (14) She's Strange - Cameo34 (NE) Love System - The Twins35 (24) Locomotion - OMD36 (19) I Want A New Drug - Huey Lewis & The News37 (NE) Tie Me Down - Romance38 (21) They Only Come Out At Night - Peter Brown39 (28) Let Me Love You - Force M.D.'s40 (27) Fresh - Fresh 3 MC's
― mike t-diva, Friday, 23 July 2021 10:03 (two years ago) link
That PiL B-side is extraordinary, though, and accidentally ahead of its time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBXgTHInGMs
― mike t-diva, Friday, 23 July 2021 10:39 (two years ago) link
An easy vote for my favourite Orange Juice single. That line-up didn't last long, did it?
― Mark G, Friday, 23 July 2021 11:09 (two years ago) link
I'm fairly sure that Malcolm Ross rejoined them for that final Brixton Academy gig, at least; I think he also played later that night with Aztec Camera, who headlined.
― mike t-diva, Friday, 23 July 2021 11:22 (two years ago) link
Re: piano on the Sylvian record: everything on "Red Guitar" is Sakamoto, you can tell by the jazzy, delicate filigrees. Sylvian plays prepared piano on "Backwaters".
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 23 July 2021 14:37 (two years ago) link
good for him panning that awful wham song
voted for ultravox even tho he didn't like that either
― dyl, Friday, 23 July 2021 15:05 (two years ago) link
Have to say, his writing style is very "old man from the fifties"...
― Mark G, Friday, 23 July 2021 15:20 (two years ago) link
Wake Me Up is both the best song and the best review on that page.
(in the US that was the first we heard from them, so it's weird to think of that as a disappointment to long time fans)
Dominatrix sounds like you had to be there.
Solo David Sylvain (for me) is one of those I keep trying to get into, but it isn't working.
― enochroot, Friday, 23 July 2021 15:37 (two years ago) link
Wake Me Up was Wham! nadir imo. Also completely unavoidable in UK at the time to the point of total over saturation. To this day just hearing "Jitterbug..." is enough to set off a Pavlovian reaction.
― stirmonster, Friday, 23 July 2021 16:46 (two years ago) link
https://giphy.com/gifs/vintage-80s-RG01kHJGpCAY8
― tean mean poleand cheaseang theas means hamseak feasts (breastcrawl), Friday, 23 July 2021 17:47 (two years ago) link
fucked that upanyway, #teamIWannaDanceWithSomeoneWhoGo-Go
― tean mean poleand cheaseang theas means hamseak feasts (breastcrawl), Friday, 23 July 2021 17:50 (two years ago) link
https://media4.giphy.com/media/RG01kHJGpCAY8/200.gifthat’s the way you do itmoney for nothing and your gifs for free
― tean mean poleand cheaseang theas means hamseak feasts (breastcrawl), Friday, 23 July 2021 17:53 (two years ago) link
Sade was great at the time, but my love for her didn't survive the seemingly endless afterlife of that first album, the lazy soundtrack choice for every crummy joint with pretensions for years to come. Very much the Moon Safari of its day.
Totally get this but Love Is Stronger than Pride is the best Sade song/single.
― Halfway there but for you,
Thanks for that info. I could probably have just looked out the record. It makes sense that that's not a prepared piano. I should have known that already.
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Friday, 23 July 2021 23:01 (two years ago) link
Always good to see mike's lists. Wild that you've kept them all the years!
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Friday, 23 July 2021 23:02 (two years ago) link
Here's the full issue from this fortnight: https://www.flickr.com/photos/51106326@N00/albums/72157643123473814/
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Friday, 23 July 2021 23:07 (two years ago) link
Fantastic footage of Sylvian with Sakamoto, Czukay, Hassel, Ronny Drayton and Steve Nye from the Brilliant Trees recording sessions.
https://vimeo.com/575291448/1874bdcf17
― mr.raffles, Friday, 23 July 2021 23:20 (two years ago) link
despite ‘bad life’ being repudiation of original pil project etc, can’t help but feeling quite fond of it - as a relatvely context-free teen i liked it as a funky weird pop single, and actually appreciated the cynicism!
― lemmy incaution (emsworth), Friday, 23 July 2021 23:21 (two years ago) link
^From that issue: The two page spread where Boy George, Marilyn, Pete Burns and someone called Tasty Tim (who has escaped my memory) all bitch about each other is grimly amusing
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Friday, 23 July 2021 23:21 (two years ago) link
Thanks for that raffles!
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Friday, 23 July 2021 23:22 (two years ago) link
Am curious to see what this Mr. Rimmer thought of Wham!’s Fantastic-era singles. “Wham Rap” is generally regarded as a joke these days (I think Allmusic gave that album one-and-a-half stars), so I’m pretty surprised people at the time felt let down by “WMUBYGG”
― Mr. Snrub, Friday, 23 July 2021 23:43 (two years ago) link
Wait -- was cappuccino such a part of The Style Council's ethos? Really?
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 23 July 2021 23:53 (two years ago) link
"Wham Rap" is anti-Thatcher.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 23 July 2021 23:54 (two years ago) link
i like "Wham Rap".
They also played a benefit gig for the miners' strike.
― stirmonster, Saturday, 24 July 2021 00:05 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdCs2K_ZEpU
― brimstead, Saturday, 24 July 2021 00:26 (two years ago) link
Apparantly (according to this) (and it is witten partly by the C D'A crew) Wham Rap the Francois K version was a tune at Cocktail D'Amour.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/dec/10/cocktail-damore-berlin-worlds-best-parties
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Saturday, 24 July 2021 00:27 (two years ago) link
Well, their sleeve notes were penned by "The Cappuccino Kid" (actually Paolo Hewitt), and their debut album was called Café Bleu...
― mike t-diva, Saturday, 24 July 2021 11:20 (two years ago) link
Re. Wham!, they were originally seen as somewhat conceptual, witty and subversive, playing ironic games with male archetypes. "Wake Me Up" felt like a sharp break from all that, shedding nuance in favour of banal mass appeal. We'd expected more.
― mike t-diva, Saturday, 24 July 2021 11:26 (two years ago) link
Yeah, it was a let down, away from 'credible' funk pop into radio friendly etc.
― Mark G, Saturday, 24 July 2021 12:22 (two years ago) link
Oh, and at the time, cappuccino was a pure cafe/Italian thing, but subsequently.. I'm sure the Style Council had a lot to do with it!
― Mark G, Saturday, 24 July 2021 12:24 (two years ago) link
It's "You're The Best Thing" vs. "Panama" over here. Mike, great hearing about that era, and agree on '83-'84 Style Council (and EBTG and Carmel from those same years).
― ... (Eazy), Saturday, 24 July 2021 12:50 (two years ago) link
― mike t-diva, Saturday, July 24, 2021 7:26 AM
Until the ebullience and craft of "Careless Whisper" and "Everything She Wants" and "Freedom" made you renounce this apostasy.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 24 July 2021 12:54 (two years ago) link
I disliked "Wham Rap" at the time. Haven't heard it for years. "Wake Me Up" I seem to remember thinking was a record I would never like enough to buy but it was pleasant enough if it came on the radio. I've always liked that bit where it breaks down to organ chords and the singing comes back in with "I wanna hit that high...". "Careless Whisper" I found irritating at the time but now think is a masterpiece. "Freedom" I can hear in my head now and I like it. "Everything She Wants" I can't bring to mind.
― dubmill, Saturday, 24 July 2021 13:34 (two years ago) link
Hated "Careless Whisper", thought it was such a dreary dirge; I'm sort of OK with it now, but I'd take "Nothing Looks The Same In The Light" off the debut album every time. I identified with it very strongly, and decided there and then that only a gay man could have written it.
Didn't rate "Freedom", couldn't see past the surface jollity, but there's no arguing with the majesty of "Everything She Wants".
― mike t-diva, Saturday, 24 July 2021 13:45 (two years ago) link
I never knew Wham did a song called "Nothing Looks the Same in the Light". When you mentioned it I immediately thought of "U Sure Do" by Strike (1994). That same phrase occurs in the lyrics. I guess they must have stolen it from Wham.
― dubmill, Saturday, 24 July 2021 13:59 (two years ago) link
'nothing looks the same in the light' is so good, but i think i like this one even more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AuEbm6hD7s
― disraeli grinds my gears (NickB), Saturday, 24 July 2021 21:48 (two years ago) link
wow, I'd completely forgotten about that track. Thanks for the reminder!
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Saturday, 24 July 2021 22:00 (two years ago) link
I actually found a bootleg extended edit of it that's good. Pretty true to the original which is a bit too short. I can't send that to you (or anyone else) if you care for that kind of thing.
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Saturday, 24 July 2021 22:59 (two years ago) link
These threads are a bright spot on ilx atm
― Linda and Jodie Rocco (map), Saturday, 24 July 2021 23:25 (two years ago) link
*thumbs up emoji*
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Saturday, 24 July 2021 23:29 (two years ago) link
This is an interesting one because I remember hardly any of these singles.
Sorry to be a bonehead but I have to vote for Van Halen. The PiL would be #2. For a long time I've owned the Commercial Zone record, on which "Bad Life" is called "Mad Max," as well as the This Is What You Want... record, and I have to say I much prefer the latter.
― Josefa, Sunday, 25 July 2021 00:42 (two years ago) link
George produced that amazing track Blue (Armed With Love) that NickB posted. Really gorgeous production.
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Sunday, 25 July 2021 22:16 (two years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― System, Thursday, 29 July 2021 00:01 (two years ago) link
'State Of Love' - didn't know it as a kid but holds up v well
― nashwan, Thursday, 29 July 2021 09:16 (two years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Friday, 30 July 2021 00:01 (two years ago) link
Eddie's guitar was mostly red, just like Sylvian's.
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 30 July 2021 01:52 (two years ago) link
What on earth...
― Heavy Messages (jed_), Friday, 30 July 2021 10:25 (two years ago) link
I got hard thinking of David Sylvian singing "Panama."
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 30 July 2021 10:26 (two years ago) link
wake me up before you cum-cum
― tean mean poleand cheaseang theas means hamseak feasts (breastcrawl), Friday, 30 July 2021 10:38 (two years ago) link
That's a rough result for Divine Sounds and The System. Are we doing another one? Please?
― mike t-diva, Friday, 30 July 2021 10:49 (two years ago) link
will try to post one before or during the weekend.
― think “Gypsy-Pixie” and misspelled. (We are a white family.) (forksclovetofu), Friday, 30 July 2021 16:16 (two years ago) link
SMASH HITS Singles - September 26 1984
― think “Gypsy-Pixie” and misspelled. (We are a white family.) (forksclovetofu), Saturday, 31 July 2021 17:28 (two years ago) link