I have been charged by FHB to share with you the music that was hip when I turned 18, by starting out with a look at the Billboard #1 hits listings...
This is pretty much where I hit a roadblock (read: recoiled in horror).
I turned 18 during 1989, and I have come to realize that this might possibly be the absolute worst year to turn 18, from a musical standpoint.
Let' see...
5 weeks of Milli Vanilli at #1, 6 weeks of Paula Abdul, New Kids on the Friggen Block, Roxette, Debbie Gibson, Bobby Brown... well, you get the idea.
1989 was a pivotal year for me, because that was when I Crossed The Pond to live in this fair nation and I remember being massively underwhelmed by the quality of music that I was introduced to. MTV was a great concept, utterly wasted on the multitude of crappy hair bands and old school rap that seemed to dominate the scene when I immigrated...
So anyway, I'm going to have to modify this tag, and I'll lay out 5 bands that exemplify the kind of music I was into (and still am for that matter) at the time:
The kind of music that was really starting to hit in the UK when I left was "acid" or "acid house", and New Order tried to cash in on the scene with this one, called "Fine Time", which was better on vinyl than live. I loved the genre back then, which has morphed into my current covert love of Techno...
One of my favorite bands of all time is Eurythmics, a love affair which started after getting a copy of their album "Be Yourself Tonight". I subsequently bought everything by them I could get my hands on, including stuff by "The Tourists", the band Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart were in prior to the Eurythmics. The last album they released before I left for the States was "Savage", a song from which I shall now post:
Oh yeah. Dig that blond wig. Tell me she was not banging. I had a huge crush on Annie when I was a teenager (hell, I guess I had a crush on just about anything in a skirt at that age). Bottom line: Annie Lennox is one of, if not THE finest female vocalists out there. Her voice is flat out beautiful, and her range is unsurpassed. Check out "There Must Be an Angel (Playing with my Heart)" if you don't understand what I mean.
Kate Bush is another awesome female vocalist who has this absolutely haunting voice. She's been on the scene since the seventies, but I think this song. "The Red Shoes" is from right around the late eighties/early nineties. Her style is unique, with a heavy dose of folk, and I love it all. Her voice just enchants me.
I've mentioned these guys before, but no post about music that impacted me would be complete without a nod to the Manchester Sound, and the Stone Roses in particular. This stuff was just starting to get big as I left the old country too, and I just get lost in those funky bass lines, and the hypnotic drum beat. You can even hear the dude's northern accent peek out through the lyrics... Manchester was about 30-40 miles from where I grew up...
Last but not least I need to give a nod to another influence in my young life: Gothic. No, not that crap/discordant screaming by Marylin Manson or AFI, but the older stuff like Bauhaus:
Now, this video is of "God in an Alcove", which relates the demise of the old gods of sacrifice and the rise of Christianity, "the lily poet of our time" "love became the in theme then". Great stuff. Unfortunately, this video (the only one available on Youtube for this song, by the way) starts out about halfway in and is crap, but you can get a feel for the music somewhat.
These guys went on to create Love and Rockets, and Daniel Ash, a member of Bauhaus, pursued a short-lived (one album I think - I liked it) solo career...
So, there you have it. Five groups/artists that I was heavily into when I was 18, and I'm proud to say that none of them made that awful Billboard chart for 1989...
I still listen to all this stuff today - I think my music taste froze in around the year 1992, because I have absolutely no appreciation for what I've been hearing on the radio lately.
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11 comments:
Well done my man. I was gonna tell you how to do those posts but I see you figured it out. Yep, it can be tricky if you don't make sure you coppy all the code. Been there, done that. Had a problem a few times when I would cut and paste a code to the post, and then while I was finishing the post and setting it up I'd lose code and have to do it again. Frustrating, to say the least.
And your music choices are excellent. Yea, to hell with the top-40. The masses are asses, as someone said, and thier choices in music prove it better than anything.
I was slistening to most of this stuff back then, and still like it.
Not familiar with most of New Orders stuff, but alwaus loved to see that vid for True Faith. That shit was excellent, but that's about where my love for then went. Can't deal with the electric drum machine sound.
And I also loved Annie Lennox and Dave, though I always want to say Dave Thomas. Not! Very different dudes. Her Marylin impression here is rich. Love it. And in that Kate Bush vid... is that Maranda Richardson in the bandages? Wild voice on Kate, fer sure. Always loved her videos.
I think I remember you sayin' before that you loved the Stone Roses. Me too. This tune here is the one that turned me on to them, but I think by the time I got to know about them they had already fizzled.
Never been into Goth though, though I loves me some Tool (Sounds a bit odd, don't it?). This last one doesn't sound Goth to me. I guess I've grown to associate that word with the very dark and heavy stuff that is put out now.
Well done bud.
Kate needs a little waxing done on those eyebrows...
I'll admit, at first I thought Kate Bush sounded like a dying cat, but after being exposed to her on several occasions at the lab, she grew on me. She gets tons of credit for being original and keeping to her own style.
Who doesn't love Annie Lenox and The Eurythmics??
FHB - thanks sir... I spent two plus hours putting this post together (yeah still new at this crap), stayed up waaay past my bedtime, and when I went to publish, the effing videos didn't show. Gah! That's when I fired off that plea for help, right before I turned in. Slept on it and figured I'd try something TOTALLY out of the box -- check the "help" link on Youtube. What the hey, it was actually useful!! I don't know if that's Miranda Richardson - don't know who she is I'm afraid...
That Bauhaus vid is pretty crap, their live sound doesn't sound like the records I have and it's not a particularly dark song, just one of my favorites of theirs...
Julie - you MUST love the Kate! Couldn't agree more re Annie and Dave...
Yow, sexy Annie Lennox! She only hit my radar later with short hair, but still had the heat - didn't know she did that song...makes sense now. I had a thing in an earlier time for Lena Lovich...
And Nina Haggen.
Ever watch Blackadder? M. Richardson was Queen Elizabeth in #2. She's been in a few good flicks too.
I saw Nina Hagen in concert in Vienna - whew boy!
I never saw that Kate Bush vid before, and that WAS Miranda Richardson. Lovely! Did you get her Aerial cd in '05? Superb. Incredible way to break her decade-long silence. I highly recommend it.
I LOVE when Peter Murphy says "Not another song, surely." Yummy. Saw him solo several times - love him, love that rich baritone. Delectable.
Phlemmy - I did indeed get her Aerial CD - I've pretty much snapped up everything Kate Bush put out that I could get my grubby little hands on.
At least you didn't have to suffer through the 70's disco crap!
I LOVE Annie and Kate. I don't think Annie ever became as famous in the U.S. as she deserved. Her voice is fabulous, and I love her lyrics. I do wish, though, that she and Dave had done more "happy" songs, like "Right By Your Side."
Kate always reminded me of an English version of Stevie Nicks. "The Hounds of Love," "Cloud Bursting" and "The Big Sky" are some of my favorite songs. Gotta love "The Big Sky"!
You know the cool thing about Aerial was at first, I was besotted with the second disc, but not so much with the first. Over time, though, my taste has shifted. The final song on the first disc, A Coral Room, totally wrecks me. After repeated listenings, I came to understand this song was about 9/11, the loss of one's mother, the loss of innocence. All so beautifully done and echoing the elegant tonal motif of "This Woman's Work." Absolute genius, and in my opinion, her very best song.
Her voice has always had a crackling fragility which I found scintillating, but I think her voice is somewhat weaker now, and all the more elegant and stirring for it, if you know what I mean. It's going on 16 months now that I've intended to do a review of this cd on my blog, but I'm glad I waited. I wasn't ready to understand it all at first. Shit, it's like a fine wine, isn't it?
Good stuff.
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