We all have things we like more than other things, that hit certain buttons or pleasure points. And the moment the title track started I was like “This is for me”. I love carnivalesque music in places where it shouldn’t be, for whatever reason, and the lead off track to an album by a band …
Tag: New Wave
Kilimanjaro (1980) by The Teardrop Explodes
It’s funny what gets labeled “psychedelic”, especially when music wasn’t particularly psychedelic. I’ve never heard this band before – though I’ve heard Cope’s solo music but the label “neo psychedelic” really steers one the wrong way. Yes, it’s a spectrum, but this is pretty typical 1980 British post punk with a couple of major differences: …
Dirty Mind (1980) by Prince
Like so many artists’ early work, I’ve come to this Prince album backwards. And I suspect that a lot of my issues with it come from all the later Prince I’ve heard. Because, on first listen, this record just sounded like Prince in utero or, um, proto Prince.
Empires and Dance (1980) by Simple Minds
Is “I Travel” the first post punk song this dancey? It sounds like they invented New Order’s sound before New Order got to it. I gotta say I wasn’t expecting that when I put on this record.
The Head on the Door (1985) by The Cure
My general appreciation of The Cure keeps running into problems. The problem is that I had their singles collections for years and listened to them fairly regularly but didn’t get around to their albums until recently. And now I listen to them haphazardly: one from the early ’80s here, one from the mid ’80s there, …
Wild Planet (1980) by The B-52’s
As with their debut, this is a wacky, dancy, vaguely surfy and extremely campy record which is a lot of fun.
The Affectionate Punch (1980) by The Associates
This is an excellent debut albums which combines post punk and new wave to mostly great effect.
Vienna (1980) by Ultravox
I understand that this album represents a fairly major change in the band’s personnel. I’m less sure about how much of a change in sound there was, which should tell you that I don’t know anything about this band. So I can’t say anything about where this fits in their history/evolution.
Searching for the Young Soul Rebels (1980) by Dexys Midnight Runners
If, like me, you are born after this record came out, you likely know one and only song by this band, “Come on Eileen”. (In North America, anyway. Their other biggest hit, the one from this record, was not a hit here.) Moreover, you’ve heard that song so much that you hate it and the …
Little Creatures (1985) Talking Heads
Talk about a left turn.
I Just Can’t Stop It (1980) by The [English] Beat
Remember when 2 Tone was a really big deal?
Freedom of Choice (1980) by Devo
As someone else put it: Devo have actually devolved – as they claim was happening to culture – only to produce their biggest hit. This contains “Whip It” – far and away their most famous song – and, as a result, the album was their biggest hit.
Empty Glass (1980) by Pete Townshend
The story goes that Townshend was writing songs for both this album and the subsequent Who album and Daltrey at least feels like Townshend kept most of the good material for himself and gave the band the less good stuff. (I should point out I’ve never bothered with Face Dances because one thing I don’t …
Glass Houses (1980) by Billy Joel
I read somewhere that this is supposed to be Joel’s “punk” album, not in that it sounds like punk that it is his response. I think that comes from a way too deep reading of the lyrics to “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me”, and if it is indeed his response to these trends …
Night Time (1985) by Killing Joke
Why is it that all industrial bands eventually embrace dance music? (Or, at the very least, danceability?)
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 …
Get Happy!! (1980) by Elvis Costello and the Attractions
I don’t know Costello’s career as well as perhaps I should, given his sheer volume and his reputation as perhaps (British) New Wave’s preeminent songwriter. But I feel like I know it well enough to mark this as the first record when he began his genre-driving. It’s not as drastic as a departure as some …
Broken English (1979) by Marianne Faithful
Broken English is one of those records I heard so damn much about throughout my life that, by the time I listened to it decades after first hearing about, there was going to be a let down, it was inevitable. With multiple listens, the record is growing on me a bit, but it’s still worth …
The Pleasure Principle (1979) by Gary Numan
Gary Numan’s debut album continues where Tubeway Army’s final album left off; basically it feels like it’s nearly the logical conclusion of what their second album suggested: a fusion of Synthpop and New Wave that sounds far more like New Wave than virtually all other Synthpop music of the time.
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 …
The B-52s (1979)
I first encountered the B-52s through “Love Shack” and its relative ubiquity. And then I became familiar with Kate Pierson through Out of Time. But I have never really been a fan of camp – or rather I am only a fan of selective camp – and so I thought they would never appeal to …
Candy-O (1979) by The Cars
Did you want to read a hot take about the second Cars record? Well I have one for you: It’s better than their “classic: debut album. (Shock! Horror!)
Replicas (1979) by Tubeway Army
For some reason I skipped over the debut record, even though its anniversary was last year and it was on my “to listen” list. I don’t really know what happened there but here we are, listening to the second record first once again.
New Values (1979) by Iggy Pop
One might be tempted to read into the title of this record, given that it’s Pop’s first record without David Bowie and his backing band in a few years. That might be reading into it too much, though, as I’m not sure this record is dissimilar enough from Lust for Life to really spend to …
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.
Touch (1983) by Eurythmics
The distinguishing characteristic about the Eurythmics that makes them more accessible to me is that, unlike most synthpop bands from their era, they believe in instruments other than sythesizers and sequencers and the like.
Outlandos d’Amour (1978) by The Police
The Police’s debut album is a bouncy energetic thing, with way better than you’d expect musicianship for their music scene and the kind of performances you would require from that same scene. Much of what initially captivated people about this band, present on this album, would disappear by the end of their career.
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. …
She’s So Unusual (1983) by Cyndi Lauper
I have heard “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” way too many times and seen the video way too many times. I can’t say I’ve ever liked the song but at some point it became annoying. (And it doesn’t help that Weird Al’s “Girls Just Want to Have Lunch” is on the lazy side.) And, …
Parallel Lines (1978) by Blondie
My dad bought a Blondie compilation sometime in my teens. It was a double disc. So I feel like, to the extent I know Blondie, it is through that compilation. Had he bought it 10 years earlier, I would likely know all their hits very well. Alas, he bought it a few years before my …