Found Or Forgotten; 60 Years Of Great Music
Bleep, bloop, it’s the early eighties! Synthesizers! Vocoders! Drum machines! Big hair! Ok, that last one wasn’t auditory, but you get where I’m going with this.
Against my better judgment, I’m undertaking a project to determine my top 10 albums of every year since 1960. Instead of just picking my favorite stuff out of my collection, I intend to explore, re-visit and discover. While I can’t promise to leave no stone un-turned, I am going to go deeper than I ever have before. Why would I partake in a journey that will inevitably take many years and that I ultimately may never finish? Most importantly, to uncover great music that I’ve never heard before. Second, to boost my knowledge of music history and get a sense of what was happening at a macro scale in a snapshot of time. Finally, I want to share my passion for music with you and, fingers crossed, generate a dialogue down in the comments. So without further ado, here is #10 in the series. My random number generator tells me that our next year to explore is 1997!
Check out my entry on 1960 here. Check out my entry on 1969 here. Check out my entry on 1974 here. Check out my entry on 1978 here. Check out my entry on 1989 here. Check out my entry on 2003 here. Check out my entry on 2004 here. Check out my entry on 2015 here. Check out my entry on 2016 here.
The Greatest Albums of 1982
After posting recently that genres are close to obsolete in modern-era music, it’s kind of nice to journey back to a time where you can see the various strands of popular music and how they were evolving. The two biggest genres at the time, at least to me, were the new wave of British heavy metal and the post-disco funk movement. NWBHM was in full flower in ’82, with seminal releases from Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, as well as works from Saxon, Samson and Diamond Head. Meanwhile, funk geniuses like Prince and George Clinton had successfully integrated electronic elements to their sound in similar ways to Zapp, the Dazz Band and others. New wave (of the non-British heavy metal variety) had a rather subdued year, particularly compared to the genre’s astounding 1978 that I covered last summer, but artists like Devo and the B-52s were still in the mix. The biggest development came from the burgeoning hip hop movement. “The Message”, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five’s uncompromised take on inner city life is unequivocally considered as the genre’s most important step forward, but the album that shares its’ name has only a few tracks that make it a worthwhile investment. It seems that labels were still hedging on this new art form, including several warmed over R&B and funk songs to each release in order to increase mass appeal. The Sugarhill Gang’s 8th Wonder suffers from the same tampering, but I encourage you to seek out the standout tracks from both albums because they are essential hip hop building blocks (and generally a lot of fun.)
In other news, I still fail to understand the appeal of the Cure and the Clash, but I did finally find a Springsteen album I could connect with. Progress! Also, I listened to, and enjoyed, the first classical album of this journey, so there’s something new. In general, I found that there was a stellar set of albums at the top of my list (I think this is the strongest top 5 outside of 1969 so far), but you’ll notice by my relatively sparse Honorable Mention section that the overall volume of good music was pretty low. If I’m truly honest, some of those are only partial recommendations as well (see: the two hip hop albums listed above). I’ve long maintained that the 80’s were not the musical nadir that many proclaim, but so far the two years I’ve covered have failed to live up to the general level of quality that the other decades have produced. We’ll see how it shapes up over time.
The Number of the Beast – Iron Maiden
When a certain segment of my friends and I discuss the relative merits of Iron Maiden’s discography (which happens more frequently than you might think), the debate always starts at #2. Everyone knows that The Number of the Beast is the best Maiden album, and a strong contender for the best metal album overall. Yet, I wonder if it receives enough consideration from the broader community of music fans. I feel like younger metal heads are plenty aware of, and appropriately deferential towards, Metallica, but I’m not sure that Iron Maiden gets their full due among the increasingly splintered fans of black metal, doom metal, grindcore, etc. Also, I get that there’s a barrier for non-metal people to take an album seriously with that cover art and those song titles, but I bet most Van Halen or even Nirvana enthusiasts would find a lot more to relate to than they might expect. The fact is, The Number of the Beast is a masterpiece that defies relegation to some lesser category just because of the trappings of 80’s metal. Look no further than entries 2-5 on this list to see how esteemed I find it.
The first release by the band after lifting lead singer Bruce Dickenson from Samson, The Number of the Beast is everything you want in a metal album – fast, heavy and precise. It isn’t the fastest or most precise, though, and if it was the heaviest at the time, that is certainly no longer the case. What it features over any other metal album is a pure, balls-out energy. Is balls-out a real qualifier? If not, I’m happy to coin it in service of this album. From the opening riff of the off-kilter yet ear-wormy “Invaders”, through the epic crescendo of “Hallowed Be Thy Name”, Maiden delivers some of the most dynamic and vibrant music ever performed in a recording studio. Their first two albums are great, but it’s clear that Dickenson is a catalyst for the band to climb to new heights. The rich textures of the instrumentation, the semi-theatrical singing (as opposed to semi-competent growling) and the general sense of urgency that permeates the album propel it away from the pack. The sound would go on to influence 80’s metal stalwarts from Queensryche to Cowboys-era Pantera, and many bands beyond. Not only that, but it features the best entry into the micro-genre of rock guys singing about the plight of Native Americans from the Native American’s perspective (a.k.a. “Run to the Hills”, the most fun that exercising white guilt has ever sounded). I don’t know if I’ve converted anyone with my description, but I implore everyone to give this a shot, particularly if your concept of heavy metal was formed sometime in the late nineties, or later.
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1999 – Prince
For some reason, I had a hard time connecting to 1999 when I first heard it. Compared to the more familiar rock feel of Purple Rain or soul vibe of Sign ‘O’ the Times, I think it came across a little cold and distant. Of course, I was a dummy. I’ll still maintain that 1999 doesn’t touch those other two masterpieces, and where it stands in relation to Dirty Mind is up for debate. That’s no knock against the album, however, but rather a staggering reminder of just how amazing Prince was in the eighties. As I listen to it now, I’m kind of shocked that it didn’t strike an immediate chord. Every song is a killer. It kicks off with the title track, followed by “Little Red Corvette”, “Delirious” and “Let’s Pretend We’re Married”, before “DMSR” comes along and smokes them all with its insistent funkiness. In fact, those were the first five singles, followed by “Automatic”… motherfucker basically just said “Yeah, all my songs are singles, just put them out in order.” And he was right. And this is maybe his fourth-best album of the decade. Just in case anyone was wondering why so many of us freaked out when he passed away last year.
Musically, 1999 might be the least organic-sounding album Prince ever made. It plays like the soundtrack to the party the robots will have after we’ve all been wiped off the face of the Earth. He and Morris Day have some fun trashing New Wave on the Time’s What Time Is It?, also released in ’82, but that seems a little disingenuous given the influences on display here. “Something in the Water (Does Not Compute)” might as well be titled “What Black Devo Would Sound Like”. Elsewhere, his vocal sounds affected and borderline disinterested. Look at the way he buries the world’s most insidious hook inside the unassuming “Lady Cab Driver”. That hook is vapor-thin, almost like he can’t be bothered with his own genius creation, lackadaisically purring “La-dy (pause) cab dri-ver (pause) roll up your window fast (doot doot do-do-doot)”. Yet I can’t stop playing it in my head. Every time sit down to type this post, every time I see a picture of Prince, every time I encounter a weird, MTV-style collage font… doot doot do-do-doot. This is only album number five for the famously prolific artist, and already he is operating on a whole different plane, where everything he does works, even if it shouldn’t. Suffice it to say, this won’t be the last time he pops up on these countdowns.
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Thriller – Michael Jackson
In my mind, Thriller was such a phenomenon when it came out that you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it. My hazy recollection of 1982-83 (I was four years old, mind you) was that you could be walking down the street and hear “Beat It” blasting on the car radio of some black teenagers, pass a Chinese-owned storefront that had “Baby Be Mine” pouring out onto the street, then stumble upon a group of white octogenarians doing the zombie shuffle to “Thriller” at the grocery store. The reality is probably much less dramatic, but there is no denying that it was a big deal. My parents owned the record, for one thing, and I don’t recall them having any other contemporary R&B (plenty of 60’s Stax and Motown soul, though). I was in Kindergarten when Jackson made his famous Motown 25 appearance, an event I still remember for my mom commenting on his single sparkly glove with a bemused “he’s so weird” and for my teacher knowingly asking the class who was on TV the night before. Queue twenty kids squealing “Miiichael Jaaacksooooon!” It was a huge record, and one that’s charms are still undeniable. One quick point of order – I tend to separate “the artist” from “the person” in my mind, and I don’t intend on tackling any of the allegations or wrongdoing of the person in this, or any other, review.
Thriller is so ubiquitous that it kind of feels funny even reviewing it. Do you really need me to describe “Beat It” to you, or care to read for the millionth time how Eddie Van Halen performed the guitar solo (the only worthwhile thing he did in 1982… take that Diver Down!)? What really strikes me now, re-evaluating the album, is what a weird mega-star Michael Jackson was. I don’t mean weird in the way that my mom meant, but thinking about what qualities exactly made him so popular. He was a good singer, but far from the best around. You could even argue that 12-year-old Jacko had a stronger voice than the 24-year-old man who recorded Thriller. There’s the fact that he was a good looking kid who had been groomed since a young age for stardom, but that’s hardly a revolutionary concept and it’s not like Ariana Grande has a global cult of worshippers with the rabid devotion of Jackson fans. He had an undeniable star presence, but it’s really only undeniable insomuch as he was undeniably a star. He didn’t come across with much swagger or confidence in those early days, with the one exception of when he was dancing. That dancing was definitely a huge part of his appeal, and he remains one of the most captivating performers I’ve ever seen from that perspective. I think a hugely under-appreciated factor in Jackson’s success is Quincy Jones. He produced the ever-loving shit out of those first couple solo albums, and stands as a huge reason that the songs have stood the test of time. I don’t often play the album straight through anymore, because my kids have developed an affinity for the big singles and proven that they can be worn out eventually. Yet, I perk up instantly at the opening strains of “P.Y.T.”, “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” or “Human Nature”. “The Girl is Mine” is pure cheese, but the best kind of cheese, like a creamy Gruyere or aged Romano. “The Lady in My Life” is by far the most overlooked Jackson song, just gorgeously colored with a melancholy hue. Oh, and I lied earlier, you can’t actually wear out “Billie Jean”. It, much like the album itself, is eternally great.
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Computer Games – George Clinton
After a brilliant run in the seventies that had started to peter out, and following the dissolution of his two ground-breaking bands, Parliament and Funkadelic, the outlook for George Clinton to retain his status as a funk luminary deep into the eighties was getting pretty dim. Of course it’s now 2017 and George is still actively touring and recording, so he proved any doubters wrong. I recall seeing him perform in a Northern Virginia bar more than a decade ago, and after last call, the bar’s manager came up and had a discussion with the man. Obviously, it was time to wrap up, and George must have assured him that after the closing number, an appropriately epic “Flashlight”, that the group would dutifully exit the stage. However, when “Flashlight” ended, the band went directly into “Give Up the Funk”, and eventually the lights came on, followed by the band’s power being cut. Clinton, still not content, kept the drummer and horn section on stage, and led the crowd through a raucous version of “Atomic Dog” before finally relenting and ending the show. It was clear that “pre-occupied and dedicated to the preservation of the motion of hips” was more than just a mantra, it was serious business. I’ve always recalled that performance as my favorite of Clinton’s (I’ve seen several), and in particular how “Atomic Dog” was such a communal highlight. The undeniable centerpiece of Computer Games, “Atomic Dog” stands shoulder-to-shoulder with any of Parliament’s seventies classics, gave Snoop Dogg “bow-wow-wow yippee-yo yippee-yay”, and ignited a decades-long P-Funk canine obsession. The album is far from a one-trick pony, however, as it effectively distills the various P-Funk permutations into a tight, quality package.
Nearly all of the standard P-Funk tropes are represented across the seven songs. “Man’s Best Friend/Loopzilla” is a sprawling funk workout with repeated phrases and callbacks to prior tracks. “Pot Sharing Tots” is the requisite bizarro pop trifle (“If I were one and you were two, I would do a striptease for you.” Uh… sure George), but hardly has the monopoly on craziness. “Computer Games” starts out as a standard P-Funk dis track (“I can out Temp a tation! I can out Rick a James!) but soon devolves into extemporaneous nonsense (“I can out Porky a Pig! I can out Easter an Egg!” Uh… sure George.) No matter how little the lyrics make sense, though, the music is some of the most thoughtfully arranged and layered in Clinton’s catalogue. All seven tracks hold together remarkably well, with a fluid progression from song to song. Clinton would go on to pepper the next 35 years with some good to great material (along with his share of duds), but this was the last true masterpiece from one of the most prolific and unhinged minds in popular music.
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Nebraska – Bruce Springsteen
I’ve long been a fan of stripped-down Americana about struggling blue collar workers and small time criminals. I just never expected to get such a potent dose from Mr. “Dancing in the Dark” and “Glory Days”. This collection of acoustic, largely unaccompanied tunes is as gritty and unflinching as the Drive-By Truckers or the Bottle Rockets, just much more low-key. The record is almost oppressively earnest, but its hypnotic in the unique way that Springsteen spins yarns that circle back to the same themes over and over. Set primarily in the Boss’ home state of New Jersey (yes, I see how that’s confusing), the tales cover cops, murderers and regular folks dealing with the circumstances of their surroundings and the consequences of their actions. A lot of time is spent justifying bad behavior. Springsteen threads common elements through the disparate stories: Lots of time is spent in cars, mostly on the Jersey turnpike, yet ironically no one seems capable of progress. The “Highway Patrolman” of track five is echoed on the desperate pleas of a “State Trooper” to pass the protagonist by on track six. Even a simple reference to fried chicken shows up on “Johnny 99” and later on “Open All Night”. This self-referencing makes the whole album feel insular and claustrophobic, echoing the limited choices available to the characters that populate it. Everybody may be looking for a “Reason to Believe”, but when the best answer you can come up with to solve your crippling money problems is to blow them off for a final weekend jaunt to “Atlantic City”, faith is hard to come by. If this all sounds depressing, well, I’ve described it adequately. Yet the lyricism and sense of purpose employed recall nothing so much as vintage Bob Dylan. It’s wholly missing Dylan’s wry sense of humor, but there is little doubt that Nebraska deserves its reputation as Springsteen’s masterpiece.
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Screaming for Vengeance – Judas Priest
Back in the early 80’s, the line between hair metal and “legitimate” heavy metal was razor thin. A few years later, it would become so divergent that you couldn’t help but look at them as two separate genres – Slayer and Poison have about as much in common as Ornette Coleman and Kenny G, after all. In many ways, I bemoan that divergence because while heavy metal did well to shed its association with the spandex and Aqua Net crowd, it also seems to have shed its sense of fun, as well. Screaming for Vengeance and its counterpart at #8 on the countdown fall on opposite sides of the heavy vs hair line, but they are far more simpatico than representative of divergent ideals. I’ll admit that I slept on Judas Priest for most of my life, but through this series I have discovered why they are so revered, the Beatles to Iron Maiden’s Rolling Stones (if you’re into SAT-style analogies.) The easiest way I can think to sum up the appeal is that they combine the muscle and drama of heavy bands with the hooks of great rock acts. On Screaming for Vengeance, Priest straddles that line expertly, dispensing incredible riffs (“Hellion”, “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’”), fun sci-fi and fantasy foolishness (“Electric Eye”, “Riding on the Wind”) and sprawling epics (“Prisoner of Your Eyes”) with absolutely no filler. If you’re still on the fence about Maiden, despite my glowing review to kick off the top ten, here’s an album in the same genre that should go down smooth even if you want your rock to just be about girls and shit (“(Take These) Chains”, “Devil’s Child”).
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Mesopotamia – The B-52’s
I really try to keep an open mind when I launch into a new year for this blog. My Spotify queue fills up not just with music that I already suspect that I’ll like, but with anything notable from the year in question, even if I’m fairly confident that I won’t be interested. It helps me get a sense of what the full musical landscape was like at a given time, but more importantly it allows for moments like this, when a B-52’s EP lands in my top ten. Now this is not entirely out of left field, as the production duties for Mesopotamia were handled by one David Byrne. I am an unabashed believer that the Talking Heads were the best band in the world at this point in time, and Byrne obviously had an outsized part to play in that. I’m not saying this is Remain in Light, necessarily, but it’s that much more than it’s “Love Shack”. The key element here is creativity. Every song is so unique and compelling in the way that they unfold that they really demand your attention. Honestly, the band is doing things on this album that I just assumed the Dirty Projectors made up thirty years later. Much like the music of the Talking Heads, this is best described as quirky funk music that is heavily inspired by, but radically different than, Parliament/Funkadelic. Singers Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson are actively great here, and Fred Schneider is… Fred Schneider, but used sparingly, which is a good thing. I probably overuse the word “propulsive” as a descriptor, but it fits. This is new wave party music, paradoxically heady and utter nonsense at the same time. Meaning that it isn’t simplistic like a lot of music that you’re supposed to dance to, but any album whose longest song is a description of a cake recipe has to be filed under the “nonsense” banner nonetheless.
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Blackout – Scorpions
I consider myself something of a cock rock aficionado, yet I had totally forgotten about the radical “No One Like You”. Smarter than the bands’ hit “Rock You Like a Hurricane” and far less insipid than the massively popular “Wind of Change”, that track is a perfect amalgamation of pop-forward hard rock and power ballad that has enough staying power to instantly spark recognition the first time I had heard it in more than twenty years. The rest of Blackout is more heavy metal-oriented, and features some scorching riffs and really solid songs (exclusively about drugs and girls, natch.) German singer Klaus Meine charmingly sounds like he recorded the album phonetically, and has no clue what he’s actually singing, but there is little doubt that he studied under the tree of Freddie Mercury. No matter what vocal heroics are called for, he delivers time and time again. Released in an era when albums were allowed to be lean, the Scorpions waste none of their 36-minute run time, careening through nine well-honed and engaging tracks with precision and energy. Looking back at the trifecta of hard rock/heavy metal albums in my top ten, I’m struck by how fun rock music used to be. I understand how the whole thing came crashing down: More and more chart success bred proliferation of D-list bands like Slaughter, Trixter and Firehouse, and led legit outfits like Guns ‘N Roses to start touring with two keyboard players and a bevy of sexy backup singers. We had to pay for our excess at some point. Still, more than a couple decades after the bubble burst, I don’t think we’ve yet captured the same intoxicating spirit we probably took for granted back in the day.
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Five Miles Out – Mike Oldfield
When reviewing music, the most efficient way to express what something sounds like is to compare it to something else that is more well-known, or (a favorite technique of mine) what two or three things it sounds like a cross between. It’s a bit reductive, but provides an easy shorthand for the very real challenge of using words to describe sounds. With Five Miles Out, I’m at a complete loss as to a single analogue. Take “Taurus II”, which starts out riffing on Hendrix’s “The Power of Soul”, then meanders through prog rock, reggae and Celtic music, before landing somewhere that sounds vaguely like the “It’s a Small World” song from Disney, and wraps up with Hendrix again. And that barely covers the 22-minute suite of bizarreness that Oldfield chooses to open his album with. The title track is a cross between Daft Punk and Kate Bush (see, I told you it was a favorite technique), while “Orabidoo” is what I would call active ambient music, in that it shares elements of ambient but doesn’t put me to sleep and eventually reaches a prog rock-style crescendo. Some tracks sound like the score to a Studio Ghibli film. Then, “Family Man” is pure 80’s pop-rock, which should seem completely out of place on this album, but weirdly doesn’t. I guess when not having a unifying sound is your unifying sound, anything goes. Super strange, but worth the risk for adventurous listeners.
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Midnight Love – Marvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye’s career has two modes: Reliable and talented hit-maker within a proscribed formula (think 60’s Motown), or genius artist struggling with big ideas (most of his 70’s output). On Midnight Love, he’s back in the first mode, only it’s the electro-funk sheen of the early 80’s that provides the formula instead of Barry Gordy. Regardless, the first half of the album crackles with skittering dance beats and assured sexual energy. Even if Marvin isn’t pushing boundaries, he’s good at this type of thing, and nowhere is that more prevalent than on the album’s big hit, “Sexual Healing”. It’s a song that is overt enough that you could picture Rick James making it a trashy signature track, but Gaye knows how to approach songs about sex and keep them classy without neutering them (see: “Let’s Get It On”). “Rockin’ After Midnight” is a long, up-tempo highlight, as well, and come to think of it, that’s pretty clearly about sex, too. I guess if the title didn’t give it away, this is practically a concept album about getting it on. If Quincy Jones hadn’t been busy with Michael Jackson, I think he could have turned Midnight Love into a minor masterpiece. Unfortunately, the album runs out of steam towards the end, and the ho-hum production can’t save it. Candidly, this wouldn’t be sniffing my top ten in a year that wasn’t so thin on great albums. Still, there is a finite amount of Marvin Gaye music in the universe, and that fact alone makes this worthy enough to merit your time.
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Honorable Mentions
Rock/Metal: Breaking the Chains – Dokken; Borrowed Time – Diamond Head; Three Lock Box – Sammy Hagar; Coda – Led Zeppelin
Soul/R&B/Funk: What Time Is It? – The Time; Zapp II – Zapp
Hip Hop: The Message – Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five; 8th Wonder – The Sugar Hill Gang
Country: Highways & Heartaches – Ricky Skaggs; Go Where the Lonely Go – Merle Haggard
Classical: Glassworks – Phillip Glass
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