Tag: 80’s

Debaser – Pixies

“Debaser” is a song by American alternative rock band Pixies, released in April 1989 as the opening track on their album Doolittle and later as a promotional single following the dissolution of the band…

1929 short film by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. The film includes a scene in which a woman’s eye is apparently cut open by a razor, which is referenced in the lyric “slicin’ up eyeballs.” According to frontman and songwriter Black Francis:

I wish Buñuel were still alive. He made this film about nothing in particular. The title itself is a nonsense. With my stupid, pseudo-scholar, naive, enthusiast, avant-garde-ish, amateurish way to watch Un chien andalou (twice), I thought: “Yeah, I will make a song about it.” [He sings:] “Un chien andalou”… It sounds too French, so I will sing “un chien andalusia”, it sounds good, no?

The title “Debaser” references the fact that Un Chien Andalou “debases” contemporary morality and standards of art: “I guess it means: one who debases. A debaser. It was an attempt to introduce a new word into the lexicon, but I don’t think it’s been successful, else I would have heard about it.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debaser

Thriller – Michael Jackson

Thriller is the sixth studio album by the American singer and songwriter Michael Jackson, released on November 29, 1982,[4][5] by Epic Records. It was produced by Quincy Jones, who previously worked with Jackson on his 1979 album Off the Wall. Jackson wanted to create an album where “every song was a killer”. With the ongoing backlash against disco music at the time, he moved in a new musical direction, resulting in a mix of pop, post-disco, rock, funk, synth-pop, and R&B sounds, and darker themes. Paul McCartney appears on “The Girl Is Mine“, the first credited appearance of a featured artist on a Michael Jackson album. Recording took place from April to November 1982 at Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles, California, with a budget of $750,000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_(album)

First Two Hours Of MTV

Your parents had to have let you stay up till midnight Friday/Saturday August 1, 1981 to have ever seen this. This probably all seems totally quaint and archaic now but this collectively blew us ALL away back in the day 🙂

EDIT: Had to remove about 3.5 mins of this due to a claim by “April Wine”…I really tried to get them to understand that this was an historical archive, not an attempt to steal money from their band….They didn’t want to hear it…All the other artist were totally ok with this but “April Wine” said FU. Go Figure : / EDIT: EDIT: Video was taken down again because Cliff Richard suddenly decided that I was ripping him off and shut down the video…I wrote back trying to get him to change his mind but no deal, had to chop Cliff out of the video for it to be posted again. Sorry everyone.

Publication date 1981-08-01
Usage Public Domain Mark 1.0

Max Speedster

Burning Down the House – Talking Heads

On writing “Burning Down the House”
The phrase “burning down the house” I’d heard being used as a chant at a Parliament-Funkadelic concert that I’d seen. They didn’t have it in a song. It was just a kind of chant that they started chanting and the audience joined in and it meant, like, “We’re going to blow the roof off the sucker. We’re going to set this place on fire. We’re going to have a really amazing time here.” It didn’t mean literally, let’s set fire to our houses or anything else. And the rest of it, I thought, let me see if I can make a song that is basically a lot of non-sequiturs that have a kind of emotional impact. That they have some sort of emotional resonance, but literally they don’t make any sense. … Like the film title, it doesn’t make literal sense, but it makes emotional sense.

https://www.npr.org/2023/11/01/1209679558/david-byrne-talking-heads-stop-making-sense

JERRY HARRISON: We thought MTV was a little silly. A lot of the videos, like Duran Duran’s, felt more like fashion shoots than films. David directed “Burning Down the House” with Julia Heyward, a conceptual artist, and the idea was that we had alter egos, including a little kid who climbs all over David. He had a tendency to cram a lot of ideas into those early videos, but the one for “Burning Down the House” was actually a hit.

I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution

Watch out, you might get what you’re after
Cool, babies – strange but not a stranger
I’m an ordinary guy
Burning down the house

Hold tight, wait till the party’s over
Hold tight, we’re in for nasty weather
There has got to be a way
Burning down the house

Here’s your ticket, pack your bag, it’s time for jumping overboard
The transportation is here
Close enough but not too far, maybe you know where you are
Fighting fire with fire, ah!

All wet, here, you might need a raincoat
Shake-down, dreams walking in broad daylight
Three hundred sixty-five degrees
Burning down the house

It was once upon a place, sometimes I listen to myself
Gonna come in first place
People on their way to work say, “Baby, what did you expect?”
Gonna burst into flame, ah
Burning down the house

My house is out of the ordinary
That’s right, don’t wanna hurt nobody
Some things sure can sweep me off my feet
Burning down the house

No visible means of support and you have not seen nothing, yet
Everything’s stuck together
I don’t know what you expect staring into the TV set
Fighting fire with fire, ah

Madonna Fans – 1980s

daylightxx
Ah, the Madonna wannabes. I love this look even today!

Hefty_Run4107
Oh don’t even get me started on the Madonna wannabe look… Especially the “Crazy For You” video look…

I met a girl like that in HS, maybe 9th or 10th grade. It was an ex-girlfriend of a school friend of mine, we where hanging one day and passed by her, they where still friends and he introduced her to me, i still am amazed at myself that i could even word out a very shy “hi…”

She was a Madonna nut, absolutely drop dead gorgeous, and a spot on Madonna “Crazy For You” video look, down to the crucifix earing.

Top Songs of the 80s

WFNX Top 101 of the Decade (1989)
https://www.rocklists.com/alltime16.html

1. The Smiths – How Soon is Now?
2. The Cure – Just Like Heaven
3. Modern English – I Melt With You
4. The Cult – She Sells Sanctuary
5. U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday
6. The B-52’s – Love Shack
7. R.E.M. – It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
8. The Cure – In Between Days
9. Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime
10. New Order – Blue Monday
11. R.E.M. – Radio Free Europe
12. U2 – Bad
13. XTC – Dear God
14. Peter Gabriel – In Your Eyes
15. The Clash – London Calling
16. Talking Heads – Burning Down the House
17. New Order – True Faith
18. U2 – Pride (in the Name of Love)
19. The Cure – The Lovecats
20. The The – Uncertain Smile
21. Kate Bush – Running Up that Hill
22. The B-52’s – Roam
23. U2 – I Will Follow
24. The Mighty Lemon Drops – Inside Out
25. Public Image Ltd. – Rise
26. The Sugarcubes – Birthday
27. The Cure – A Night Like This
28. R.E.M. – Fall on Me
29. Tracy Chapman – Fast Car
30. Ministry – Every Day is Halloween
31. Sinéad O’Connor – Mandinka
32. U2 – New Year’s Day
33. The Cure – Let’s Go to Bed
34. The Pixies – Monkey Gone to Heaven
35. The Psychedelic Furs – Pretty in Pink
36. R.E.M. – So. Central Rain
37. O Positive – With You
38. New Order – Age of Consent
39. The English Beat – Save It for Later
40. The Cure – Close to Me
41. XTC – Mayor of Simpleton
42. Violent Femmes – Blister in the Sun
43. Big Audio Dynamite – E=MC2
44. New Order – Temptation
45. The Cure – Why Can’t I Be You
46. The Vapors – Turning Japanese
47. The Replacements – Alex Chilton
48. Tears for Fears – Mad World
49. INXS – The One Thing
50. R.E.M. – Pretty Persuasion
51. Bryan Ferry – Slave to Love
52. Chameleons U.K. – Swamp Thing
53. The Clash – Rock the Casbah
54. The Waterboys – The Whole of the Moon
55. Mission of Burma – That’s When I Reach for My Revolver
56. The Smithereens – Blood and Roses
57. Roxy Music – Avalon
58. Hoodoo Gurus – Bittersweet
59. Indigo Girls – Closer to Fine
60. U2 – I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
61. The Cure – Lullaby
62. The Smiths – Bigmouth Strikes Again
63. Love and Rockets – So Alive
64. Peter Gabriel – Red Rain
65. The The feat. Sinéad O’Connor – Kingdom of Rain
66. Roxy Music – More than This
67. New Order – The Perfect Kiss
68. The Pretenders – Precious
69. The B-52’s – Private Idaho
70. Echo & the Bunnymen – The Killing Moon
71. The Sisters of Mercy – This Corrosion
72. U2 – With or Without You
73. Siouxsie and the Banshees – Cities in Dust
74. The Clash – Clampdown
75. Echo & the Bunnymen – Bring on the Dancing Horses
76. The The – Infected
77. Depeche Mode – Just Can’t Get Enough
78. INXS – Don’t Change
79. Morrissey – Suedehead
80. U2 – Two Hearts Beat as One
81. The Cure – Fascination Street
82. Echo & the Bunnymen – Lips Like Sugar
83. The Pixies – Gigantic
84. The Church – Under the Milky Way
85. The English Beat – I Confess
86. The Cure – Love Song
87. XTC – Senses Working Overtime
88. Peter Gabriel – Sledgehammer
89. INXS – Need You Tonight
90. Tribe – Abort
91. Midnight Oil – Beds are Burning
92. The Godfathers – Birth, School, Work, Death
93. Billy Idol – White Wedding
94. Simple Minds – Don’t You (Forget About Me)
95. The Psychedelic Furs – The Ghost in You
96. INXS – Devil Inside
97. Blondie – Rapture
98. The Pretenders – Back on the Chain Gang
99. Thomas Dolby – She Blinded Me With Science
100. Gene Loves Jezebel – Desire
101. David Bowie – Cat People

RIP – Terry Hall

Here’s a rembrance at BBC:
Terry Hall of The Specials dies aged 63

From Wikipedia:

“Ghost Town” is a song by the British two-tone band the Specials, released on 12 June 1981. The song spent three weeks at number one and 10 weeks in total in the top 40 of the UK Singles Chart.

Evoking themes of urban decay, deindustrialisation, unemployment and violence in inner cities, the song is remembered for being a hit at the same time as riots were occurring in British cities. Internal tensions within the band were also coming to a head when the single was being recorded, resulting in the song being the last single recorded by the original seven members of the group before splitting up. However, the song was hailed by the contemporary UK music press as a major piece of popular social commentary, and all three of the major UK music magazines of the time awarded “Ghost Town” the accolade of “Single of the Year” for 1981. It was the 12th-best-selling single in the UK in 1981.

Addicted to Love – Robert Palmer

JOHN TAYLOR: Robert Palmer wasn’t comfortable doing videos. “Addicted to Love” exemplified how he felt about it—it’s a video commenting on itself. He’s making fun of it. He didn’t really step outside of that. He did “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On” and “Simply Irresistible,” and they’re both variations on “Addicted to Love.” He was a bit too old and self-conscious by the time videos became important.

JULIA BOLINO: Robert Palmer was very polite, very professional. His wife was there, so perhaps he had no choice.

MAK GILCHRIST: None of us felt we were being exploited in that video. That was a shock to me, when people said the video was demeaning to women. I thought the opposite; I thought we looked strong and quite scary.

I Want My MTV
Tannenbaum, Rob; Marks, Craig.