Tag Archives: 1984

562. spot the difference

Posted on by
Reply

“If you think you ‘get’ the music of the mid-1980s but you don’t know Tupelo Chain Sex, you’re wrong. The cover of 1984’s Spot the Difference may suggest a hardcore outfit, but it’s not remotely as simple as that. Because what hardcore band includes fiddle (c/o Don Sugarcane Harris) and saxophone in its weaponry, not to mention reggae, jazz and other unbound tendencies? And man, did they kill it live! True, some of the lyrics were rather dumb (the stuff about the Jews roaming around murdering blacks – seriously?). Welcome to 1984, I guess. Passion and rage as big as the world, and about as rational.” (Philip Random)

TupeloChainSex-live

618. black girls

Posted on by
Reply

“The second Violent Femmes album is the one for me, the serious one. Songs of doom and murder and apocalypse and madness and, in the case of Black Girls, f***ing. Which pissed some people off at the time. They called it sexist and racist, but nah, it was just Gordon Gano telling the truth about some of the crazy sh** he got up to when he was young and horny. And man, did they rock it live! Normally just a three piece (and scaled down at that), the Femmes dragged out some horns and things went wild, delirious even. Horny indeed.” (Philip Random)

violentfemmes-1984-2

619. the big music

Posted on by
Reply

“The Big Music is the first Waterboys song I ever heard and it didn’t do much for me. It felt too on the nose, and anyway, wasn’t Big Music U2’s thing? But a decade slipped past and I guess I found it serving a different purpose. More of a statement of intent (from Mike Scott in particular) than some half-baked U2 rip-off. Because the Waterboys had since proven themselves entirely their own unique beast, and pagan at that, like the wild crash of surf on a northern shore, at sunset, everything turning blood red. I actually saw that happen once, off Ireland, while listening to a different Waterboys track. Proof that gods exist, and here they were showing off at the edge of things. And they’re still at it, by the way. The Waterboys, that is. I can’t speak for the gods.” (Philip Random)

waterboys-1984

632. Kumbayah

Posted on by
Reply

“In which the band known as Guadalcanal Diary take a campfire singalong about God (or whoever), apply rock and roll thunder and voila! a glimpse of what might just be heaven (or whatever). From 1984’s Walking in the Shadow of the Big Man, which is the first thing I ever heard from them, and the last thing I really needed to. The whole album’s a gem.” (Philip Random)

(image source)

671. reel ten

Posted on by
Reply

“If I haven’t seen Repo Man twenty times, I’ve definitely seen it fifteen. But I still couldn’t tell you how it ends exactly. Something to do with Otto getting into the car with the wigged out mechanic guy Miller … and going for a ride in the sky. But then what happens? Anything? Does the movie just end? Clearly, it doesn’t matter. Repo Man is a movie of scenes and moments, with more superlative pieces than any random ten Oscar winners put together. And one of them is definitely that scene with the flying car, mainly because of the music. A track called Reel Ten by the band known as the Plugz, who I otherwise know nothing about, except somebody told me they played on Letterman once with Bob Dylan.” (Philip Random)

674. crush

Posted on by
Reply

“A friend brought this Tall Dwarfs nugget back from New Zealand in the mid-80s sometime. Garage-psychedelia by way of lo-fi bedroom recording that was as sharp, as grimy, as fresh, as messy as anything else the world was offering me at the time. Crush makes the list for the sheer urgency of its groove, the cardboard box sounding drum sound, and the brutal relevance of its lyric. How do you feel when you find that the whole world hates you? Like a slugbuckethairybreath monster apparently.” (Philip Random)

TallDwarfs-Slugbucket