Theboarddot’s Albums of the 1980s- Discussion Thread

[borracho]

anyone mention making movies or love over gold from dire straits? i liked those better than brothers in arms.

edit: well, totp deserves better than that line above... so here's a story. summer 1985 i had a choice - see dire straits in concert or heart. they were back-to-back nights here in okc and i only had enough money to go see one, so teenage boy me chose heart because 1985 heart was hawt. older me regretted that decision for so many years until i finally saw mark knopfler solo live in 2001 to kinda make up for that.

[monasterymonochrome]

Aug 4, 2022 12:46:09 GMT -6 chvrchbarrel said:

Aug 4, 2022 12:41:38 GMT -6 monasterymonochrome said:

With apologies to Jenny and the S-Dog, here are a few things I learned today:

1.) I only know two Dire Straits songs, Walk of Life and Sultans of Swing
2.) Sultans of Swing is actually from the 70s?!
3.) Mark Knopfler drops the f slur multiple times in "Money for Nothing" - a song which I've probably heard before but was definitely an edited version. I get how it's used in the context of the song, but I did multiple double-takes hearing it nonetheless.
4.) Clean, bluesy guitar leads don't do very much for me, and Mark reminds me too much of Eric Clapton.
5.) I guess I don't like this album.

These videos still slap tho:

As early as the late '80s, MK was replacing "that little f*" with "that motherfucker" in live performances, as I think people weren't really getting the full context of the satire

Honestly, good for him.  I get what he was going for, but it's cool that he was able to pivot without raising a big stink.  And yea lol, as a Randy Newman and Patti Smith (and Gun Club) fan, I'm not unaccustomed to hearing a surprise slur mid-song, but I was absolutely not expecting it in a song / album that hugely popular.  Was  also just surprised I had never heard of it before too.  

[chvrchbarrel]

Aug 4, 2022 12:52:08 GMT -6 borracho said:

anyone mention making movies or love over gold from dire straits? i liked those better than brothers in arms.

edit: well, totp deserves better than that line above... so here's a story. summer 1985 i had a choice - see dire straits in concert or heart. they were back-to-back nights here in okc and i only had enough money to go see one, so teenage boy me chose heart because 1985 heart was hawt. older me regretted that decision for so many years until i finally saw mark knopfler solo live in 2001 to kinda make up for that.

Love over gold should be on my list

[monasterymonochrome]

The first of three Cure albums that are likely to appear on my list - probably the one that will be in third position amongst them? I've always loved the big singles from this one, but it has some killer album tracks too. "Push" is a big favorite of mine, and "A Night Like This" and "Screw" are great too. In fact, the whole back-half of this record is pretty untouchable. Love how they're reaching for such a big sound here. It paid off well.

[monasterymonochrome]

This one also sounds good when you're grocery shopping at TJs

[monasterymonochrome]

Fun fact - googling "scary monsters" will get you this album cover, but you'll also see lots of other creepy shit! Would not recommend!

This album is great tho - I find it really difficult to rank Bowie's discography, but it's probably somewhere in my 6-8 range, which is a high compliment for such a legend. Beautiful mixture of strange moments (It's No Game), to soaring leads (Teenage Wildlife).

[monasterymonochrome]

Working on thank you cards today so Emma and I listened to some old favorites (Smiths, New Order, Soft Cell) - I want to highlight instead this record that I'm listening to right now. William Onyeabor's last record (1985) before going born-again Christian and giving up music, refusing to even really talk about his career for near 30 years. This record is a beaut. Dude was a Nigerian synth god - this is equal parts Kraftwerk, minimalist, slick, and propulsive. But it's also equal parts something else - this music is warm, alive, bursting with the goodness of humanity. William and his backup singers often weave gorgeous call and responses, engage in lilting harmonies - and at one put there's even a cornet and brass section soloing? I haven't listened to all of his discog - just this record and the seminal Who Is William Onyeabor?[/i] comp, but I highly, highly recommend it and can't wait to hear more.

[monasterymonochrome]

One of the more underrated follow-up albums of all time, me thinks. Crazy Rhythms is - no doubt about it - the superior album (and will almost certainly feature in my Top 10), but this one would have made a name of the Feelies in its own right. This record is less frenetic and wired as their debut, but it's no less energized - this time using warm layers of clean, turbo-strummed guitars instead of double-timed percussion. Vocals take a similar approach. They sound more stoned than strung out, suiting the shift in song style to a T. Check out "Slipping (into Something)" - it may be the Feelies' best song, and features a ferocious, climactic solo.

[monasterymonochrome]

Holy shit Kate Bush is featured on So? This rocks.

[monasterymonochrome]

Aug 8, 2022 10:22:48 GMT -6 monasterymonochrome said:

Holy shit Kate Bush is featured on So? This rocks.

Laurie Anderson is on this album too?!?!?  Hell fuckin' yes.

[monasterymonochrome]

Yeah this one absolutely fucked. First time listen for me (tho I knew Sledgehammer and In Your Eyes, obviously), and honestly I have no notes. Maybe Mercy Street is a little too long? That's really my only gripe with this album. Otherwise every song either bangs in a delightfully maximalist way, or is a slightly off-kilter examination. Obsessed with the obvious Kate Bush influence everywhere here, and I also love how thoroughly the Laurie Anderson sounds like an equal collaboration between them. Loved it!

[monasterymonochrome]

Haven't revisited this one since college (it was a favorite late-night listen for me back then), and maaaan it hit wickedly hard today. I think my listening has become a lot more favorite to Talk Talk's influences during this period (namely, jazz and other improv-based musics). The biggest difference, to me, is how listening to a ton of jazz and jam music in the last 2-3 years has encouraged me to actively listen to largely instrumental music. Putting something like Spirit of Eden on as 'background music' should be a crime, but - for years - I mainly remembered this as an album I'd throw on at 2:00am playing poker in college. This thing contains multitudes. The warm organ soaking over the hushed guitar chords of "Wealth" while Mark Hollis heightens the drama with his indistinguishable vocals. The beautiful choir and organ driving home "I Believe In You." The improvisational guitar stabs anchoring "Eden" - which, before resolving on their own accord are plunged back into the bass melody. This album is a self-contained treasure.

[monasterymonochrome]

Another album that I wanted to like a lot more than I actually did. I think my hang-up is with the accompaniments here, everything (save for the a cappella track) is mid-tempo, with that super clean, bright guitar sound (that I've been noticing a lot of in these massively successful 80s albums) that do little but provide a backdrop of Chapman's (excellent) vocal performances. But they don't really leave an impression in my mind after the song wraps up? Nor ever carry melodies on their own? Idk. Willing to give it another try this week, it just wasn't connecting with me today.

[doso]

It took a loooooooong time to get to the point where I have enough distance (i.e., not regularly listening to XRT) from So that I can appreciate it again. But I made it and it’s a contender for my top 20; close to a perfect record.

[teekoh]

It's probably close to top 10 for me, too.

[monasterymonochrome]

Julee Cruise - the artist who basically invented Beach House 20 years before the Wham City band came onto the scene. The key word for this album is "space." All of these songs have incredible amounts of room to breathe. There's like "Other People" levels of negative space inside these songs. Meanwhile, Cruise's gorgeous vocals are so isolated among the sparse backing synths and brushed cymbals that you almost feel like you're listening to a personal soundtrack. Which, is apt, given Cruise's rise to fame as a featured performers in David Lynch's Twin Peaks. And even more aptly on that note, many of these songs contain sudden brass punctuations (see: the Rahsaan Roland Kirk sounding horns on "Rockin' Back Inside My Heart" and "I Float Alone) that both hammer home the music's emotional core, and serve to dislocate the listener from drifting into any sort of comfort zone. This music is sweet, saccharine, peaceful. But occasionally very visceral, almost even unsettling. All this to say - it's a deeply unique album. RIP Julee Cruise.

[monasterymonochrome]

I have no idea how I came across this record. It was definitely sometime in college when I was getting into the weirder corners of post-punk, dabbling in the Residents, Red Krayola, This Heat. Basically, when I was trying to look cool to my college radio friends. But this one - Family Fodder's Monkey Banana Kitchen is in a league of its own. It's a largely unhinged hodgepodge of sounds and influences. Sometimes they drop in the catchiest hooks, sometimes they descend into the depths of acid-damaged noise freakouts, sometimes they crank up the bass reverb and take on dub, sometimes they fuck around with tape loops until it sounds like someone sent latter day Low to hell? The songs themselves are equal parts catchy and unsettling. Check out "Monkey" for the full spectrum of how bizarre this group is. And yet - if you're up for it - this thing will hook you in. Maybe a better place to sample would be the proto-Stereolab track "Savoir Faire" or the Sparks-esque glam of "Cold War." It is a weird album. But it's really the only album from the avant-garde front that has stuck with me over the years.

[monasterymonochrome]

I know there are others here more steeped in Mekons lore than I, but I want to take a moment to say how much I love this album. It's probably not the first alt-country album, but it's hard to find a band (outside of the psychobilly scene) who were so entrenched in the avant-punk milieu that took such a bold, successful leap into American roots music. Chivalry, Flitcraft, Last Dance, and Lost Highway are the obvious smashes here. Basically anytime that electric fiddle gets going on top of the Mekons' shambolic beat and Langford's faux-Texan-via-Leeds howl - you're in for a good time. But I also want to highlight the weirder moments on this album. For instance, the spoken word juxtapositions over burnt-out groove in "Darkness and Doubt." The Dirty Projectors forerunning vocal harmonies and barking narration over the near amelodic backing of "Trouble Down South." Or the sax-laden avant-jazz leaning spoken track "Psycho Cupid," which almost feels like a mid-70s era Bowie accompaniment to my ears. I mean, these guys started as a deeply weird, no-folds barred punk band alongside Gang of Four and the Delta 5. Listen to "Not A Bitterman" or "Fight the Cuts" from The Mekons Story. It's easy to skip over the weirdness of this record and band in favor of the more straight-forward country stomp tracks. But I love how hints of their past peak through the holes of their new outfit. A very cool evolution, and a very cool record.

[monasterymonochrome]

Listened to Peter Gabriel on my lunch break and ran back through Mission of Burma's Signals, Calls, and Marches. Now I'm revisiting Big Science, probably one of my most listened to albums of 2022, at this point. This is a gentle reminder that the run from O, Superman to the end of the album is literally flawless. "Example #22," with its exhilarating climax, "Let X=X" - which is probably my favorite song on the album. So elegant, so moving. Truly awe-inspiring music that I don't really have the capacity to describe with any justice. The perfect transition into "It Tango." This is art pop at its artiest and most spectacular. Forward thinking but warm and accessible. One of the decade's best.

Maybe one of these days I'll clear out my calendar and listen to the entire United States project.

[monasterymonochrome]

I've written about this one somewhere on here before, but it's another avant-idk, choir? Masterpiece. Meredith Monk is probably one of the more unimitable voices of the 20th century and beyond. Almost all her vocalizations here are wordless - bounding up and down the scales with abandon. But she doesn't hammer home repetition like a Philip Glass opera. She's building her own melodies, soundscapes, emotions. A track like "Education of the Girlchild: Traveling" illustrates this well, I think. It has a boundless scope at times - almost like the best Kate Bush singles. But she can also cascade and crash her own voice to peaks and valleys like, idk, the climax of a jammy guitar solo? All I know is this album scratches some itch in me for tremendously evocative, primal music. But - also - like, it's so weird that I'd never in a million years play it out loud in front of other people lmao.

[monasterymonochrome]

Been mostly doing some re-listening this week, but I want to highlight this one. Truly a mindblowing, fully-formed, gem of a record. I've listened to it before, but I most not have been paying attention, because it absolutely floored me this time. (In)famously produced by Todd Rundgren (he and Andy Partridge purportedly clashed constantly during recording), it has his whimsical trademark, alongside beautiful, bouncy production. It's like an ode to the Kinks - but it eschews pastiche in favor of their own unique sense of humor, be it lyrically (Supergirl, Grass), or with unpredictable musical choices (the Ballad of a Rainy Day > 1000 Umbrellas) transition stuck out to me especially. This album feels like it laid the groundwork for a host of quirky classic pop-obsessed groups to come (see: Jellyfish, Elephant 6, to even (idk if these are reaches) Ween and, like, Barenaked Ladies). It's a hoot.

[monasterymonochrome]

Aug 12, 2022 18:12:28 GMT -6 monasterymonochrome said:

Been mostly doing some re-listening this week, but I want to highlight this one. Truly a mindblowing, fully-formed, gem of a record. I've listened to it before, but I most not have been paying attention, because it absolutely floored me this time. (In)famously produced by Todd Rundgren (he and Andy Partridge purportedly clashed constantly during recording), it has his whimsical trademark, alongside beautiful, bouncy production. It's like an ode to the Kinks - but it eschews pastiche in favor of their own unique sense of humor, be it lyrically (Supergirl, Grass), or with unpredictable musical choices (the Ballad of a Rainy Day > 1000 Umbrellas) transition stuck out to me especially. This album feels like it laid the groundwork for a host of quirky classic pop-obsessed groups to come (see: Jellyfish, TMBG, Elephant 6, to even (idk if these are reaches) Ween and, like, Barenaked Ladies). It's a hoot.

Edit: hearing a lot of Shins in this too

[Tweet]

Looking likely just based on my life that the list itself won’t come out until after Labor Day. Lists should be due the same day tho. 2 weeks! Get it done!

[monasterymonochrome]

Orange Juice - a leader of the Scottish jangle-pop scene of the early 1980s, which also included notable Postcard Record labelmates Josef K and Aztec Camera. This is their signature album, and maybe the signature record of that movement? Tracks from it have been in semi-regular rotation since I read their write-up in Rip It Up And Start Again - which is named after one of their (non-album) singles, actually. The whole album doesn't reach the highs of tracks like "Falling And Laughing" (their best song), "Consolation Prize," or "Wan Light." Maybe it's the singers voice? He's got a *heavy* 80s UK affectation and eventually I start to tune it out. Nevertheless, the jangly guitars go brrr so well that this album made my shortlist of 125 albums and may squeak onto the bottom of my final 100? All in all, a record that's great in parts, but I prefer it in bits than wholes.

[goodson]

MM when are you getting sprout-pilled

[Tweet]

Aug 15, 2022 12:16:35 GMT -6 monasterymonochrome said:

 This is their signature album, 

Hard, hard disagree.

[Tweet]

My simple review is if kb and I are the only ones with this in our top 40 I'm gonna start yelling at some of you motherfuckers.

[Tweet]

Man if you don't like this album fuck you.

[Tweet]

Aug 9, 2022 10:44:58 GMT -6 monasterymonochrome said:

I know there are others here more steeped in Mekons lore than I, but I want to take a moment to say how much I love this album. It's probably not the first alt-country album, but it's hard to find a band (outside of the psychobilly scene) who were so entrenched in the avant-punk milieu that took such a bold, successful leap into American roots music. Chivalry, Flitcraft, Last Dance, and Lost Highway are the obvious smashes here. Basically anytime that electric fiddle gets going on top of the Mekons' shambolic beat and Langford's faux-Texan-via-Leeds howl - you're in for a good time. But I also want to highlight the weirder moments on this album. For instance, the spoken word juxtapositions over burnt-out groove in "Darkness and Doubt." The Dirty Projectors forerunning vocal harmonies and barking narration over the near amelodic backing of "Trouble Down South." Or the sax-laden avant-jazz leaning spoken track "Psycho Cupid," which almost feels like a mid-70s era Bowie accompaniment to my ears. I mean, these guys started as a deeply weird, no-folds barred punk band alongside Gang of Four and the Delta 5. Listen to "Not A Bitterman" or "Fight the Cuts" from The Mekons Story. It's easy to skip over the weirdness of this record and band in favor of the more straight-forward country stomp tracks. But I love how hints of their past peak through the holes of their new outfit. A very cool evolution, and a very cool record.

nanatod updated/added to his list the day this review came out

[Tweet]

Jul 9, 2022 5:33:32 GMT -6 clouddead said:

Would you say you’re a fan o’ gano?

Just letting you know a month + later I finally remembered that guy