Like most people my age and younger, I first heard “Mad World” through a cover in a video game commercial. The song made a big impression, so much so that the first time I heard the original I was like “I don’t like this.”
Category: 1983
Quick Step and Side Kick (1983) by Thompson Twins
Now this is more like it.
Porcupine (1983) by Echo and the Bunnymen
I really enjoyed Heaven Up Here and I perhaps had too-high expectations when I first listened to this record. The first time I heard it, I wasn’t feeling it. A lot of that had to do with listening to War for the first time in ages at the same time, as both records were released …
What Makes a Man Start Fires? (1983) by Minutemen
This is such a unique take on hardcore – if you can even call it hardcore, since it’s hardly loud enough or musically violent enough to qualify. It’s like something else. I see the descriptor “post punk” thrown around, which might fit, though Minutemen sound absolutely nothing like the British post punk bands (or the …
Duck Rock (1983) by Malcolm McLaren
For much of 2017, there was an ongoing public conversation about “cultural appropriation.” It’s a concept and charge that I have a complicated relationship with because, on the one hand, I believe everyone should be freely able to access and to make use of any cultural artifacts but, on the other, I recognize that there …
Pyromania (1983) by Def Leppard
I struggled with just giving Hysteria my usual three listens and so I was not looking forward to this record. The good news is that it is better than Hysteria. The bad news is that claiming anything is better than Hysteria is damning with faint praise.
Cuts Like a Knife (1983) by Bryan Adams
I’m Canadian, so like every Canadian under a certain age, I know Adams’ hit singles rather well, whether or not I wanted to know them at all. But this is the first record of his I’ve ever heard. It sounds very much like I would expect Bryan Adams to sound (and I’ve heard the title …
Trouble in Paradise (1983) by Randy Newman
Most people who are not fans of Randy Newman seem to be put off by his voice. (Though given his prominence lately, and given the sheer proliferation of unique voices, I think that he sounds a lot less weird than he did when he first starting releasing music.)
Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) (1993) by Eurythmics
I heard my first Eurythmics album after listening to Annie Lennox’s debut and I guess that distorted my expectations for their later work. I also read a lot about how their later work was “weirder” but, well, it isn’t weird… “weird compared to what?” is a question that occurred to me.
Knussen: Horn Concerto, Whitman Settings, The Way to Castle Yonder, Flourish with Fireworks (1996) by Various Artists
This is a collection of Knussen’s orchestral music.
Higglety Pigglety Pop!; Where the Wild Things Are (2001) by the London Sinfonietta conducted by Oliver Knussen, starring Cynthia Buchan, Lisa Saffer et al
This disc features both of Oliver Knussen’s “children’s operas,” based on books by Maurice Sendak.
Complete String Quartets (2008) by Philip Glass, performed by the Smith Quartet
First off, this is no longer ‘complete’ if it ever really was – Glass has apparently written a 6th quartet. (Also, there are other pieces he has written for string quartet that do not appear here, but they are not numbered among his string quartets, apparently.)
1934 (1983, Farrar Straus Giroux) by Alberto Moravia
I have written before about my love-hate relationship with Italian movies. But I can’t say that I have had this same experience with Italian literature, at least until now. Until now, I have genuinely liked the few Italian novels and short stories I have gotten my hands on. It seemed to me that what I …