In looking up early live performances from R.E.M., I came across their appearance on Late Night with David Letterman in 1983. It was their first national TV appearance, and the performance was quite raw and contained no shortage of enthusiasm. Besides performing two songs, they also gave a mini-interview. Michael Stipe, known for his shyness, sat quietly in the background while Mike Mills and Peter Buck handled Letterman. They started with “Radio Free Europe” and finished with a song that was so new it did not yet have a name. It would later evolve into “So. Central Rain,” which would later show up on their second album, Reckoning.
Here’s the band performing “Radio Free Europe,” with Michael Stipe hiding behind his hair and Peter Buck doing his signature shuffle.
The yet untitled “So. Central Rain.”
Side note: This November, R.E.M. will release a 6-DVD box set (REMTV) that spans 30 years of live TV and concert performances.
U2’s The Unforgettable Fire was released 30 years ago today. The album was very important to me growing up, and still continues to resonate with me. Although Boy might be my favorite album from the group, The Unforgettable Fire is a close second. I have to admit, I don’t listen to much of U2’s post ‘80s music. When I do add them to playlists, it’s mostly material from their first four albums (“Gloria” currently being the song of choice). To some degree, they were my favorite band during this time. In retrospect, my appreciation of their earlier work has waned but at one time they were my rock & roll heroes.
Partially recorded in Slane Castle in Ireland, The Unforgettable Fire is U2’s fourth album. It was a big change from the previous War, with its militaristic sound and pulsating guitar. Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois were brought in to produce the album (after the mutual parting with Steve Lillywhite), ushering in a more atmospheric and experimental sound. The whole second side of the album has a dreamlike quality that flowed like no other previous recording. The biggest hit off the album, “Pride (In the Name of Love),” is the only song that sounds like a traditional U2 song. It peaked at #3 in the UK, and reached #33 on the US charts.
The lead song off the album, “A Sort of Homecoming,” shows how much their sound had changed. Instead of the hard drumming sound of War, it has a soaring, rhythmic quality with a toned down guitar. Although not on the video clip below, the album version has Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders on backup vocals. She also sings backup for other songs on the album but is credited as Christine Kerr, having been married to Jim Kerr of Simple Minds at the time.
“The Unforgettable Fire” is the most orchestrated single off the album. Back in the mid-eighties, MTV started showing world premiere videos and this was one of them. I remember eagerly anticipating getting my first glimpse.
I’ve been a fan of the Eurythmics since their 1983 album Sweet Dreams(Are Made of This), which I had mistakenly thought was their debut album. Little did I know that they had actually released their first album, In the Garden, two years prior. I came across the album in yet another search for overlooked new wave music. It turns out the album had very little chart success and had faded into obscurity. It was considered too experimental and didn’t quite find an audience at the time. Not released in the US until 2005, anyone who has an appreciation for electropop music from the early eighties will find this album well worth listening to.
Co-produced by electronic music pioneer Conny Plank, the album is a mix of brooding electronic and psychedelic sounds. The duo had worked with Plank in their previous band, The Tourists, which they left to form the Eurythmics in 1980. Feeling that a fixed band line-up was stifling them creatively, they wanted to form a project that would allow for more experimentation with “electronics and the avant-garde.” They determined that they would be the only permanent members of the group and would collaborate with others musicians based on how compatible they were with their musical vision.
“Never Gonna Cry Again” was the first single from the album, and the first video by the Eurythmics. It’s a moody song with what is described as a reggae-style baseline, which new wave artists were experimenting with at time. The song also features a rare performance on flute by Annie Lennox.
Considered one of the album’s more accessible songs, “Belinda” was a commercial failure. It’s one of my favorites from the album and is included regularly on my playlists.
One of my favorite songs from the early ‘80s was “The Unguarded Moment” by The Church. I remember seeing the video on MTV and promptly getting my tape recorder ready in hopes that it would be shown again (that’s how we did things before VHS recorders). There wasn’t much to the video, just the band performing the song on a studio soundstage with very little visual effects. It didn’t matter though, the guitar intro alone was enough to grab my attention. I heard little more from the band until their US success in the late ‘80s. It wasn’t until recently that I decided to track down more of their earlier work to see what else I might have missed.
Most people were first introduced to The Church through their 1988 hit “Under the Milky Way,” off the album Starfish. It was an international hit and peaked at #26 on the US charts. But within their native Australia, the group had been churning out hits since 1981. Formed in Sydney in 1980, the band had an infectious post-punk, guitar-heavy psychedelic sound. The group released their first album, Of Skins and Heart, in 1981 to good commercial success. The album was later repackaged and released in the US in 1982 as The Church. Their second album, 1982’s The Blurred Crusade, performed well in Australia but wasn’t released in the US, as it was considered not radio-friendly enough for North American audiences. By the ‘90s their sound had gone more mainstream, bordering on progressive rock. They continue to tour and record and will release their 25th studio album, Further/Deeper, in late 2014.
“The Unguarded Moment” was the second single released from their debut album, Of Skins and Heart. It peaked at #22 on the Australian charts and led one Rolling Stone critic to describe it as The Church’s “1981 jangling gem.”
The song “Dropping Names” is from the band’s third album, 1983’s Seance, which found the group gravitating to more of an atmospheric sound.
When I started going to dance clubs in the late ’80s, I’d regularly pester the deejays to play The Damned‘s “Alone Again Or.” It never failed to elicit the best goth moves from the dance floor. A remake of the 1967 song by the group Love, it’s quite faithful to the original version. (The band acknowledged Love as one of their influences). The single is off the album Anything, released in 1986. It didn’t have any chart success in the US, but hit #27 on the UK charts. The video is a surreal mix of desert landscape, horses, motorcycles, trucks, and flamenco dancers.
I was recently asked to make a list of 15 movies that had a lasting impact on me. At first I thought this would be an impossible task but after mulling it over, I decided to take five minutes and write down the first movies that came to mind. The British film Breaking Glass was one of those movies, not because it was a great film but because it really laid the foundation for my appreciation of punk and new wave music. I remember seeing it as a kid in the early ‘80s (for some reason it was played religiously on HBO) and it really made an impression on me – the hard-driving music, the fashion, and the anti-establishment message was unlike anything I’d seen or heard before.
Released in 1980, Breaking Glass is the familiar story of a band (Breaking Glass) getting discovered in a seedy bar, rising to fame, and then succumbing to the pitfalls of money and stardom. It’s also a tale about the underbelly of the music industry and the ease of how the most artistically earnest of individuals can sell out. The backdrop of high unemployment, industrial strikes, and general discontent only add to the bleak atmosphere of film. The songs for the soundtrack (produced by Tony Visconti) were written by Hazel O’Connor, who also plays the lead singer, making it the first time a female both wrote and performed a film’s entire soundtrack. The album, which was the basis for the soundtrack, went double platinum and reached #5 in the UK. It also produced numerous hit singles. The soundtrack, with its urgent and energetic sound, impressively holds up after all these years.
The song “Big Brother” has O’Connor speaking out about the perils of conforming to a soulless society. The clip below has stills of the movie, which show O’Connor looking very much like a character out of Blade Runner.
“Eighth Day” is the final song performed in the film. It finds O’Connor dressed in a futuristic costume (inspired by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis) cautioning of a time when machines and technology will rule the world.
“The Killing Moon” is a single off of Echo & the Bunnymen’s fourth album, Ocean Rain, released in 1984. The album marked a change in the group’s music, moving away from their post-punk roots to a lighter sound incorporating strings and piano. The song remains one of the band’s biggest hits – peaking at #9 on the UK charts. The single didn’t make much of an impact in the U.S. and is probably most well-known for its use in the opening scene of the 2001 film Donnie Darko (one of the great marriages between film and song). The video is dark and full of wind-swept images that perfectly fit the mood of the song.
This week marks the 30th anniversary of the release of Alphaville’s debut album “Forever Young.” With an estimated 2,000,000 copies sold, it was the German group’s most successful album. Besides producing the single of the same name, it also yielded the hit “Big in Japan.” Although quite successful in Europe, the album had little chart success in the US, peaking at #180. The single “Forever Young,” which has gone on to achieve pop culture status, only reached #65 on the US charts. Despite this, numerous artists have covered the song and it’s been used prominently in movies, commercials, and television throughout the years. The video for the song was filmed in a sanatorium in Surrey, England. If features the group performing before a ragtag audience of young and old, and sporting matching jumpsuits, which were quite popular at the time.
Living In Oblivion 