Category: 80ies

Songs of the 1980ies

From Civil Rights to Live Aid

On 25 July 2022

In 1985, 80ies

Some songs come into this world, delight us for a breathtaking moment and fall back into sweet oblivion in as little time as it took them to appear. Others take on a life of their own, gain new meaning against the backdrop of a changing zeitgeist and reinvent themselves repeatedly over decades. Marvin Gaye is a particular master of (co-)composing the latter, as exemplified by the Motown signature song “Dancing in the Street”.

Released in 1965 by Martha Reeves, the song was originally simply inspired by people cooling themselves off during a hot summer in the streets of Detroit by opening fire hydrants. However, it was soon picked up as a civil rights anthem by young black demonstrators demanding equality. But it’s metamorphosis would not stop there, many different famous versions would be recorded over the years:

Shortly after the initial release the British “The Kinks” were recording their own version, branded as being far too boring by critics. A year later The Mamas & The Papas followed suit and they would end up finishing their famous (and last) live performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 with the song. Grateful Dead, Little Richard, Van Halen – the list of artists covering the song is long and contains many famous names. Since we’re so far focusing on Music Videos we’re going with the 1985 version by David Bowie and Mick Jagger here.

As part of the big “Live Aid” famine release cause of that year the two English rock stars originally planned to sing the song together – live, from two separate stadiums: Wembley in London and John F. Kennedy in Philadelphia. Unfortunately while both of these two were certainly great musical artists, they happened to be slightly less brilliant data transmission engineers and when they realised that one of them would have to be not-quite-so-live due to the two seconds delay of the (at the time quite revolutionary) satellite transmission involved neither of the two was prepared to give in and be “that guy”, so it did not happen.

They ended up recording the song in Abbey Road studio and – certainly helped by the popularity of the Live Aid movement – it would become the most successful of the many recorded versions of this song, reaching top spot in the charts of many countries.

This Is Not A Rick-Roll

By vanElden

On 22 July 2022

In 1987, 80ies, Must-See-Video

If you paid close attention to this week’s selection of artists you might have noticed that they all shared a common detail: a leading letter “r”. And so we’ll round out the week with rrrrrolling royalty:

You might only know the song from the practice of “Rickrolling” – likely the first worldwide Internet prank – where an unsuspecting victim is baited into clicking onto a link behind which something completely different is suspected, only to be doted on by a merry Rick Astley, dancing happily around the London Borough of Harrow. However, by the time the song thus gained a second life it had already been Ashley’s signature song and a huge success for two decades.

The singer initially was not too sure what to think of himself becoming a meme just when he was coming back to perform after a ten-year hiatus, but he soon embraced the jolly prank and has not only made his peace with it, but played into the phenomenon himself on a couple of occasions.

We’re, however, not presenting this as a prank, but as what it really is: A video of the 80ies you ought to know, even had it not become a meme. And would encourage you to watch it through to the end for once in your life. It’s a flashback into a care-free time not likely to occur again anytime soon, and just watching the happy faces of the protagonists does seem like a good reason to prank someone into observing it.

The common detail of this weeks selection of videos really was of course that they all had some sort of direction in the title. Or was it?

This Time Run That Way

By vanElden

On 20 July 2022

In 1986, 80ies

Yesterday we talked about a terrible chimera produced by mixing two genres. In order to soften the impact a little let’s have a look at an example where doing that went just fine:

Originally released by Aerosmith in 1975, “Walk This Way” was a fairly successful rock song, one of a number of hits that gained them some traction. But it wouldn’t be until ten years later, when Run-D.M.C. covered the song, creating a cornerstone for the subgenre of “Rap Rock” (which would have a good go up to the early noughties, when it kind of trickled out), that the song really came to shine. While half of Run-D.M.C. had never even heard the name “Aerosmith” and none of them knew the song or lyrics in it’s entirety, they just so happened to freestyle over the first few seconds of the song during their shows. But when Rick Rubin pulled out the song while working on their album “Rising Hell” and proposed to do a proper cover he met quite some resistance.

They were in a for a surprise themselves, when the song – which they had not intended at all to become a single – eventually started to get lots of airplay on urban and rock stations. In the end, it would mark a comeback for Aerosmith as well, who at that time were at the brink of being disbanded, but were able to follow up with a number of multi-platinum albums.

If you have followed the course and done your homework, you should by now spot the reference to Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” at the beginning.

Drowning Vampires

By vanElden

On 13 July 2022

In 1985, 80ies

In the early 1980’s a new musical – or perhaps more accurately: cultural – subgrene began to emerge, following the Post-Punk and New Wave movements: Gothic Rock was at the beginning of a whole subculture that would go on for many years, up into the 21st century.

One of the most prominent representatives of the genre was The Cure, with their frontman Robert Smith (the only band member to stay on over the course of the bands 44 years so far) steering the group to a slightly more pop-influenced course from about 1982, which greatly increased the commercial success of the band.

And while the video, featuring the band members stuffed into a giant wardrobe and playing various toy-instruments representing their actual individual craft, looks like it would have been fun to make, apparently it was hugely uncomfortable. Just imagine being confined to an extremely cramped space for twelve hours and then being thrown into a tank filled with 5000 litres of water…

Intermission: Service Advertisement

By vanElden

On 8 July 2022

In 1984, 80ies, Must-See-Video

While automobiles are likely the first thing that comes to mind at the mention of “Motor City” Detroit MI, the city plays an important role in the history of popular music as well. Long before becoming the birthplace of Techno it was home to musicians from John Lee Hooker to Suzi Quatro, from Bessie Smith to Madonna, from Marvin Gaye to The White Stripes. Not least of whom is Ray Parker Jr.

To call him a One-Hit-Wonder would not do his oeuvre justice, particularly not the many songs he wrote or played guitar on for other famous musicians. Nevertheless “Ghostbusters”, the title song for the 1984 movie of the same name, became his most famous piece of art by a similarly large margin. Quite an achievement considering he was only given a few days to come up with a theme song for the film and the fact that there aren’t exactly many words rhyming with the eponymous profession.

And so we’re going to cut him some slack that the bass-line borrowed heavily from Huey Lewis’ “I Want a New Drug”, which just so happened to be the temporary background music to many scenes in the pre-cut of the film that Parker had received as reference – after all that case was settled out of court.

The video might not be known quite as well as the film these days, but it features cameos by a great number of well-known actors and musicians of the time, none of whom were payed, but doing a favour to director Ivan Reitman, who also directed the movie proper.

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Chevy Chase, having featured heavily in the video of a recent episode and popping up in a cameo here might quite possibly now be officially the most featured artist of the blog.

Half the Work for the Bassist

By vanElden

On 4 July 2022

In 1986, 80ies, Around The World

Music is and always has been political. So it’s about time we’re going to deal with a song where this was a huge deal. In hindsight Paul Simon’s album “Graceland” turned out to bring much-needed attention to African talent. But the decision to work around the cultural boycott, put into place due to the country’s Apartheid regime, was very controversial at the time.

The bass-solo in “You Can Call Me Al”, short as it is, certainly is one of the most iconic ones in pop history. Simon had taken extra care with all the bass lines on “Graceland” at the time. But with this solo, even though it’s not that long, they went another mile:

What we hear is actually double of what was originally recorded, with the second half being the palindromic result of playing the recording backwards. Genius. And so good, that I can even live with finding out that what I thought to know about the solo (embodying the notion that it was recorded in a telephone booth in the streets of Johannesburg due to conflicting schedules) turns out to be an urban myth…

Despite the controversies, Graceland would become Simon’s most successful solo studio-album and that it came at a bit of a low point in his life, with his relationships to both parter-in-crime Art Garfunkel and partner-in-life Carrie Fisher having deteriorated, fits the song just well, seeing how it tells the story of a mid-life crisis in general and his journey to South Africa in particular.

Paul Simon is the guy on the left.

Breaking Into the Fourth Wall

By vanElden

On 1 July 2022

In 1985, 80ies, Must-See-Video

A popular fad of the 80ies we already covered in our first episode was combining live videos with animation. However, while “Sledgehammer” was certainly setting a standard, the title of “best Music Video of the 1980’s” in my opinion goes to a different representative of the genre. One and a half billion views on the remastered version on YouTube alone tell me I’m not the only one to think so.

While there had been a (rather boring) video for A-Ha’s “Take On Me” before, Warner Brothers saw much more potential in the song and so a second version was created. Produced by rotoscoping 3000 frames over the span of 16 weeks the video manages to tell a thrilling story over the course of it’s four minutes, complete with a boy-meets-girl beginning, two menacing villains and a heart-stopping climax where the life of the hero hangs in the balance… Ok, I might exaggerate a bit, but decide for yourself:

The Mannequin Band

By vanElden

On 28 June 2022

In 1986, 80ies, Must-See-Video

While it’s a simple enough concept, the video to Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love” back in 1986 provided us with a proper “WTF” moment. It certainly was one of the most noted ones of the era.

The concept of five models of the time as a – quite obviously fake – band was so iconic, that it would be recycled by Robert Palmer in two further videos – but much more noteably in 2003’s epic rom-com “Love Actually”, where the video is parodied by models going one step further when it comes to blank expressions, to the point of being obviously bored to death.

The video that would define a genre

By vanElden

On 24 June 2022

In 1986, 80ies, Must-See-Video

No, it was not the first video by far to accompany a song. MTV had existed for a good five years by the time Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” came out in 1986. Nevertheless, this was a game-changer. Combining a number of techniques that had been tried out tentatively before, this video would become the definition of what the term “Music-Video” would mean in the future. It featured heavily in MTV’s then-famous self-referential clips. It required Peter, at the time still mostly of Genesis-fame, to spend 16 hours lying under a glass sheet and it won 9 MTV awards in 1987, to this day the most any video ever won.