Tag: Post Punk

1985, Music

Meat is Murder (1985) by The Smiths

One of two things is happening: either I am slowly – slowly – getting so inured to The Smiths that I no longer hate their guts – or I have listened to enough of the British music of the 1980s to finally understand why people thought they were such a big deal. I still don’t …

1980, Music

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (1980)

As I listen to evermore synthpop my dislike of the genre is falling away, as I realize that there are songwriters hiding behind the synthesizers, and electronic bass and drums, and the more I discover this, the more I like some of these bands. OMD are one of the innumerable ’80s British bands who were …

1995, Music

The Great Annihilator (1995) by Swans

I am still far from a Swans expert – though I have seen them in concert! – but I feel compelled to echo the comments of others about how this record feels either like “more accessible Swans” or some kind of hybrid of their ’80s sound with a more traditional approach to songwriting (at least …

1979, Music

Real to Real Cacophony (1979) by Simple Minds

How synthpop and the New Romantic movement evolved out of punk via post punk has always been one of the most confusing parts of recent popular music history, at least to me. But it’s records like this, caught somewhere in the middle (of punk and synthpop), that make that whole evolution a little more clear.

1979, Music

Cut (1979) by The Slits

I am having a hard time thinking of this band as something more than “not the Raincoats” or “lesser Raincoats”. And that’s utterly ridiculous. A quick google will demonstrate that this album came out two months before the Raincoats’ debut album. And it’s not either band’s fault that I have listened to multiple Raincoats albums …

1979, Music

Join Hands (1979) by Siouxsie and the Banshees

The problem with listening to much of band’s catalogue before listening to their early records is that those early records inevitably sound primitive or immature (or both) in comparison. And that was very much my first impression of this record when I listened to it, as if I was listening to the Banshees before they …

1979, Music

Drums and Wires (1979) by XTC

I maintain that the Atlantic created a pretty different sonic difference between American and British New Wave and and, later, American and British Post Punk. With New Wave that gulf is so big that it almost feels silly to call them the same genre; compare to Elvis Costello or the Police to Pere Ubu and …

1984, Music

Double Nickels on the Dime (1984)

The Minutemen’s magnum opus is really a magnum opus, coming in at a fairly ridiculous 45 tracks in 81 minutes. (That runtime is longer than Zen Arcade by over 10 minutes…) The band basically admits they included virtually everything they had, dubbing the final side “Chaff”. This is supposed to be a record by a …

1984, Music

Hyaena (1984) by Siouxsie and the Banshees

Reading about this album, it’s absolutely incredible how much ink was spilled over Robert Smith’s involvement. Even though it sounds like the Banshees (much more than the Cure) and even though Smith’s involvement in the songwriting is not explicitly laid out (perhaps because of this), the critics of the time attribute basically everything they like …

1989, Music

Disintegration (1989) by The Cure

“Disintegration is the best album ever!” says Kyle at the conclusion of “Mecha-Streisand” from the first season of South Park. I don’t know if I was even 17 yet when I first watched that episode and heard those words. I didn’t know much about the Cure, beyond the fact that Robert Smith could save the …

1979, Music

Live at the Witch Trials (1979) by The Fall

Debut albums can be quite hit and miss. Most bands do not record their first album with a completely unique sound. The unique debut albums we do remember which stick out do so because they are so rare. Most bands’ debuts are not only not their best albums, but don’t capture them doing something wholly …

1984, Music

The Smiths (1984)

The British music critic establishment and whomever else greeted this band as saviours must have been so desperate for guitars to greet this band – this jangle pop music – as the thing to deliver them from synthesizers, instead of something louder or more interesting (or both). The Smiths are one of those mystifying bands …

1974, Music

Sparkle in the Rain (1984) by Simple Minds

What do you do when you’ve heard one band your whole life and not another, and then you hear the second band and they sound a lot like the first? But, the thing is, the second band was actually first, and really doesn’t sound that much like that first band.

1989, Music

Technique (1989) by New Order

The fusion of alternative and dance was such a big thing in the late 1980s in the UK. But it’s not something I really get because, well, I don’t like dance music. But I wish I could appreciate it more, because there are all these bands, with all these acclaimed albums, and I listen to …

1978, Music

Public Image First Issue (1978) by Public Image Ltd

Simon Reynolds begins his definitive history of post punk, Rip It Up and Start Again with “Public Image” and this album. He argues that Lydon leaving the Sex Pistols, recording and releasing a song about them and releasing this record mark the point at which punk wasn’t just punk, but evolved into something else. It …

1983, Music

Head Over Heels (1983) by Cocteau Twins

My only experience of the Cocteau Twins before this record was Blue Bell Knoll, a record that both sounds very different from this one and quite similar. Listening to this, knowing now where they came from, I think I should have rated Blue Bell Knoll higher, because I never would have guessed that it was …

1983, Music

Soul Mining (1983) by the The

My main complaint against synthpop is that the majority the bands decided to entirely or mostly drop conventional instruments in favour of synthesizers and drum machines. I have never been a huge fan of either instrument and so it’s an uphill battle for me when an entire album is performed with instruments I don’t like. …

1988, Music

Peepshow (1988) by Siouxsiee and the Banshees

The opening song “Peek-a-Boo” really threw me for a lip – those samples are a massive departure from what I’m familiar with from this band. My initial impression of it was that they were trying to piggyback on the emerging sound of hip hop and electro which they didn’t understand and were failing terribly. That …

1978, Music

Real Life (1978) by Magazine

As an album recorded by a band featuring the former lead singer of one of the original British punk bands, but manifestly not playing punk rock, I think there’s a temptation to say this record could be the original post-punk record. (It literally is “post punk” in that sense.) That in itself would make this …

1988, Music

A Bell Is a Cup Until It Is Struck (1988) by Wire

I am a long-time fan of both Pink Flag and especially Chairs Missing but have somehow never managed to get to any of their other material. Having not heard their first album after they reunited either, this is a surprise.

1983, Music

Learning to Cope with Cowardice (1983) by Mark Stewart + Maffia

I have long meant to listen to The Pop Group but somehow it seems I’ve just never gotten around to doing it. Because of that I lack the knowledge of the connection between this music (made by its lead singer) and the earlier music. Maybe this would make more sense to me with that context.