Guilty pleasures – favourite pop albums of the 80s: Part 3

Continuing my series of posts about favourite albums from the 80s, I’ve now entered the second half of the decade, with 2 of the 3 albums featured here being amongst the biggest sellers of all time.

Peter Gabriel – So (1986): I had a cassette recording of this album that I played again and again during the late 80’s. It had a who’s who of musicians on various tracks, including L. Shankar on violin, the Police’s Stewart Copeland on drums and Nile Rodgers on guitar. Given how much I loved it, it’s surprising that I never bothered to listen to any other Peter Gabriel album! Sledgehammer was a huge international hit on the back of its eye-popping Claymation music video and along with Big Time (which also had Claymation in its video), these are the two overtly commercial dance-rock songs from the album. The rest of the songs in So are very different from these two, their pacing and mood reflecting the somber political, social and environmental subject matter. Red Rain, which opens the album has a driving percussive intro which always sets my heart racing; Gabriel starts off with the chorus in a low smoky, gravelly voice painting a visual of a grim and desolate landscape; he then switches to a higher register for the verse and switches up further into a falsetto for a couple of phrases. Absolutely beautiful combination of vocals and dense, textured music really packs a punch. At the other end of the spectrum, Don’t Give Up is a poignant duet with Kate Bush (one of my favourite female pop voices) that plays out like a conversation between the two singers; Gabriel expressing his hopelessness while Bush encourages him not to give up; the song is so beautiful, it could be a hymn. That Voice Again opens with a sing-along chorus before abruptly throwing the listener off balance by switching down to verse delivered in a spoken voice. And the album ends with the love song, In Your Eyes with the fantastic combination of pre-chorus (“All my instincts, they return; And the grand façade, so soon will burn…”) and chorus (“…In your eyes, I see the doorway to a thousand churches…”); and Senegalese singer Youssou N’dour fades out the final chorus with magical backing vocals sung in his native language Wolof.

Madonna – True Blue (1986): Madonna’s 3^rd album arguably catapulted her to 80s pop superstar status, although her previous album Like a Virgin actually sold more copies. I would argue that Like a Virgin success was on the back of mainly the title track and Material Girl (which became her signature song). But in my view, True Blue has greater depth and range of material; all 5 singles released from the album would easily feature in her lifetime Best Of collection. It’s probably her happiest album produced at a time when she was enjoying her new-found fame and had just got married to Sean Penn. The title track is strongly derivative of the 60’s girl group pop sound (with synthesizers added on). The other song from the album with a similar retro vibe is Jimmy Jimmy, with bubble gum lyrics like “Why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh whyyyyy do fools fall in love with fools like you”. I could imagine Doris Day singing this song! The real change of pace for Madonna on this album is Live to Tell (the first single released), a surprisingly introspective and mellow ballad. Madonna’s vocals go lower than usual and I love how the song goes quiet in the middle, after which she starts the bridge “If I ran away, I’d never have the strength to go very far…”. The other change of pace comes from the Hispanic styled La Isla Bonita. Sounds like a Gloria Estefan song! The song White Heat is named after the 1949 James Cagney film noir classic and starts off with dialogue from the film; I actually don’t like the opening verse/chorus because I feel that the lyrics have been shoehorned into the music structure; the really appealing part of the song is the way Madonna launches into four-line build-up to the chorus “I don’t want to live out your fantasy…”. Open Your Heart similarly has lovely delivery of the one-off line “One is such a lonely number” inserted after the 2^nd chorus. These are both examples of how the singer can bring alive a line just through the way it’s sung. Incidentally, Richard Marx and Siedah Garret both sang background vocals on this album; one year later, both had become well known as lead singers.

Michael Jackson – Bad (1987): Even more so than Madonna’s True Blue, little or no explanation needs to be given for why this album should be in my or any pop lover’s hit list. The only discussion may be why Bad why not Thriller. I guess I just feel that the songs in Bad are more sophisticated and hit me at a more visceral level than the Thriller songs. The album has 10 songs (with a 11^th song Leave Me Alone subsequently added to the CD issue) and incredibly 9 of them were released as singles. The album kicks off with the title track (which was actually the 2^nd single released) and music video directed by none other than Martin Scorsese. In fact, this is my least favourite song from the album. There’s no point in listing each song and saying that I love it! I’ll just say that every time I listen to the love ballad/duet I Just Can’t Stop Loving You (with Siedah Garrett) and Man in the Mirror, I just shake my head and wonder what kind of magic conjured up such incredibly beautiful songs, from the lyrics to the arrangement to the production. Many of the songs were featured in the film Moonwalker which was released a year after the album came out, and watching the movie is an essential part of the album experience, in my view.

Guilty pleasures – favourite pop albums of the 80s: Part 2

Continuing to reminisce about my favourite pop albums of the 80s, here are the next three in chronological order:-

The Police – Synchronicity (1983): I discovered The Police just as they were breaking up. After four successful albums in as many years, Synchronicity was recorded in an atmosphere of interpersonal tension, which would eventually lead to the breakup of the band. But they sure went out on a high with their most commercially and critically successful album. I can’t remember why, but I really disliked the lead single Every Breath You Take when it first came out and not having heard any of their earlier work, I didn’t understand why the radio DJs were so excited about this band. A couple of months later, when Wrapped Around Your Finger was released, I fell in love with the song and realized there was something special about this band (and of course, Sting’s voice); I loved the mystical lyrics (“You consider me the young apprentice, Caught between the Scylla and Charibdes”). And some months later, when Synchronicity II was released and I listened to the brooding and disturbing lyrics (“Many miles away there’s a shadow on the door, Of a cottage on the shore, Of a dark Scottish lake”) and saw the dystopian music video, I was hooked! My favourite song from the album is the final single, King of Pain; the lyrics spoke to me (“There’s a fossil that’s trapped in a high cliff wall, that’s my soul up there”), as I’m sure it did to many an angsty adolescent, each of whom thought it was his destiny to be the King of Pain! I also really liked Miss Gradenko, both for its humorous take on Cold War paranoia and for the groovy mix of piano and drums. The meditative Tea in the Sahara was a welcome change of pace (indicative of what was to come in Sting’s solo career, I think).

Genesis – Genesis (1983): The self-titled 12^th album from the group kicked off a new phase in the evolution of their music; for most of the 70s, Genesis were known as an avant garde prog rock band and now they were moving to a very commercial pop-rock sound. In what now appears to be a trend, I didn’t really like the lead single Mama – it was too experimental and harsh for me, but subsequently once I developed a taste for hard rock (the song has been covered by Brazilian metal band Angra), this song grew on me and I love listening to it now. My other top songs from the album are 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th singles – Home by the Sea (which has a largely instrumental companion piece called Second Home by the Sea), the controversial Illegal Alien (“But I’ve got a sister who’d be willing to oblige, She will do anything now to help me get to the outside”) and Taking it All Too Hard. I love the simple, catchy pop hooks and Phil Collins’ everyman voice. While the easy-going That’s All is one of the popular songs from this album, it’s not one that I really enjoy listening to (too “happy” to be part of this album, I think). I do like the slow, groovy vibe of the last song in the album, It’s Gonna Get Better. The two ‘filler’ songs I don’t much care for are Just a Job to Do and the repetitive Silver Rainbow.

Nik Kershaw – The Riddle (1984): The album is best known for the title track and lead single (and good luck trying to figure out what the lyrics mean). I picked up the album because I loved this song and also because I loved Wouldn’t It be Good from his debut album Human Racing. I was obviously looking for songs with a similar sound and was initially disappointed. But after listening to it a few times the songs grew on me and eventually became one of my favourite discs that I can listen to and sing along with any time. Many of the songs have a strong guitar driven sound that combines well with the synthesizer. The wistful lyrics and vocal delivery of Don Quixote (the third and final single from the album) contrast with the driven and propulsive nature of the music. The philosophical and deep lyrics of Wild Horses, refer to a man caught in the corporate rat race – “He got indecision and indigestion, and he wonders where the last ten million went”. Easy has a funky sound underlined by a wonderful synthesizer line that makes it as easy to listen to as the song title implies! Other fun songs are the foot-tapping Wide Boy and the fast-paced You Might, with intriguing lyrics (You might be an oil tycoon, You might be a Cobb cartoon..You might be but you’re not!”). And finally, a real change of pace, but a suitable end to the album is the plaintive and sombre Save the Whale is as relevant today as it was 34 years ago!

Guilty pleasures – favourite pop albums of the 80s: Part 1

For the past few weeks, I’ve been catching up with some of my favourite albums from the 80s. This was a time when I was listening exclusively to pop (specifically songs that featured on the UK Top 20 and later, the US Billboard Top 10), before I was introduced to classic rock and heavy metal. As I listened to these albums, feelings and memories came flooding back, as well as a deeper appreciation of why I liked the songs in these albums. So I decided to list out my top albums from this period, the ones where I liked a significant % of the songs, not just the hit singles. In time, other beloved albums that I hadn’t listened to in some time came bubbling up to the surface of my memory and I finally ended up with about 15 albums, listed in chronological order, which I’ll break it up into 5 separate blog posts. Here’s part 1:-

Joe Jackson – Night and Day (1982): Joe Jackson’s 5^th album is I think still the most commercially successful of his career. The big hit from this album was Steppin’ Out, which I didn’t care for at the time, but over the years has really grown on me and I love the steady, simple rhythm track in the background and the piano hooks in the foreground. The song that I really fell in love with at that time was Breaking Us In Two, a poignant narrative of a relationship that isn’t working. I remember recording this song off the radio onto a cassette tape and listening to it regularly for many years until I couldn’t play the tape any more. It wasn’t until the internet came along that I was able to listen to it again! These two songs and Real Men were the three singles from the album; Real Men is a thought provoking commentary on gender stereotypes which seems more relevant today than ever before. Among the other songs in the album, I love the Latin jazz sound of Cancer with it’s tongue-in-cheek lyrics and the jazz-funk sound of Another World.

Duran Duran – Rio (1982): If you asked me which my #1 group was from the 80s, I would answer Duran Duran without hesitation. This was their breakout album and the title track can be considered their signature song. For some reason, I thought that this was the lead single from the album. In fact, the first song to be released from the album was My Own Way, which gets almost no airplay today (it has a catchy chorus, but otherwise is pretty repetitive). This was followed in quick succession by Hungry Like the Wolf (with the eminently hummable “do do do” and some strong guitar licks, which made the song sound much ‘harder’ compared to their previous synth-based singles) and Save a Prayer (love that synth riff it begins with) before Rio was released in August 1982. Although not released as a single, New Religion is a track I love, although I have to admit that I zone out during most of the song and it’s really the chorus that I wait for! The rest of the songs are pretty much filler material (although Lonely in Your Nightmare isn’t too bad and I really dig the bass line on Last Chance on the Stairway), but 5 great songs out of 9 is a fantastic strike rate.

Duran Duran – Seven and the Ragged Tiger (1983): When I first heard the opening lines of New Moon on Monday, I thought I was listening to a new single from David Bowie’s Let’s Dance album which had been released earlier in the year; I was so fooled by Simon LeBon’s ‘deep voice’ (which then swung all the way to a falsetto just before the chorus). Compared to Rio, this album had a more grown up sound, more complex arrangements and of course very ambitious movie-type music videos. Every song sounded like it was the soundtrack to an adventure movie and what better way to showcase this than with the epic sound of the lead-off single Union of the Snake. All the big hits from the album, including The Reflex had very mysterious lyrics (and I spent many an hour pondering their meaning with my school mates). Among the ‘non-singles’, I love the super-catchy choruses of Cracks in the Pavement (“Something on my miiiiiind, breaking open doors I’ve sealed up before…”) and I Take the Dice. Crime and Passion experiments with an unconventional song structure (by Duran Duran standards, no catchy hooks) and manages to pull it off. And of course, who can forget the wonderful atmospheric sound in the instrumental Tiger Tiger and the ballad The Seventh Stranger (love the way the synth follows Le Bon’s voice at the end of the second line in the chorus).

And because of Spotify, all these albums are literally at my fingertips today!