Miracle Legion came our way in 1984 amid the so-called jangle pop resurgence that followed REM’s initial breakthrough. Suddenly it was okay, cool even, for guitars to sound nice again, melodies sweet. In the case of The Backyard, that meant a tight, driving bit of melancholy about early childhood, a time when your whole world was your backyard, but even that could break your heart.
“Aphrodite’s Child are a weird one from the 1960s, a sort of pop-psychedelic outfit that managed to be both sonically extreme and sentimentally cloying, sometimes in the same song. And oh yeah, they came from Greece. You Always Stand In My Way goes resolutely for the extreme edge of things, with singer Demis Roussos (who would eventually settle into a prosperous career as an easy listening fave) giving his wailing all, whilst keyboardist Vangelis (yes, that Vangelis) tears things up on lead mellotron. I actually found this one in a yard sale sometime in the early 90s, maybe paid a buck for it, the guy who sold it to me sort of scratching his head and mumbling, oh yeah, this bloody record.” (Philip Random)
“But The Cure weren’t even Goth! Or so I heard it argued back in the day. How can you be something that hasn’t even been named yet? What they were, was good, sometimes great, which is true of Caterpillar, a wigged out pop experiment if there ever was one. Nothing does what you expect it to, but it always works, keeps the foot tapping, the head nodding, the earworm slithering.” (Philip Random)
“The Undertones being one of the greatest singles bands ever, You’ve Got My Number (why don’t you use it?) being a darned fine single. Though I’ll be honest. I never really liked them that much at the time, for which I blame Edward. One of those obsessive fan-holes who can’t let a good thing speak for itself – has to evangelize it, until you come to hate it, even if you don’t, just to get under the guy’s skin. Anyway, he’s long gone now, haven’t seen him in decades. Which rather sets the Undertones free.” (Philip Random)
“A Sonic Youth song about Joni Mitchell (or so I think I read somewhere years ago), found on 1988’s Daydream Nation, a four-sided psychedelic monster if there ever was one (even if it did show up in a most un-psychedelic year). Or whatever. I’ve always had trouble putting words to Daydream Nation kicking as it did through all the gloom and permafrost of its time, like an unexpected future full of cool and fierce and infinitely complex noise, and in that complexity hope, I guess. Because I did need it.” (Philip Random)
Bill Nelson first got some notice via the ill-fated glam-art-prog-whatever outfit Be-Bop Deluxe for whom he sang and unleashed gobsmacking guitar wizardry. But come 1982’s The Love That Whirls (diary of a thinking heart), his fifth solo release, he’d ditched the guitar, gone all-in with keyboards, drum machines, tape loops, the future in general. And hopeful it was in an artful sort of way.
Randophonic 