loveless
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Bringing ballet to the masses. Sticking to the funk.
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Post by loveless on Apr 28, 2023 16:12:52 GMT
1985
What can I say? In spite of them probably releasing 7 or 8 of their very greatest songs/tracks in 1984, they must have really been on a roll (my top two picks for this year were this and another Smiths track). Picking them during their primacy (84-86, for me) feels a bit too obvious - like picking the Beatles ca. 63-69. But...none of my contenders felt anywhere near this robust.
Marr's chord game is fucking ridiculous. People will be copying this shit for time eternal.
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Post by riggers on Apr 28, 2023 16:43:22 GMT
1985
Green On Red-"Hair Of The Dog"
One of those bands that no-one talks about anymore, but they were really something. They got lumped in with 'Cowpunk' or 'Paisley Underground' or some other shit that was beneath them. Part Stones, part Crazy Horse, part southern preacher with a killer band. Dan Stuart's Alleycat yowl, coupled with Chuck Prophet's wiry, serpentine guitar put this lot way in front of their contemporaries and there was better to come. Chuck is one of my guitar heroes and he excels on this track, which never fails to put a smile on my face.
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toomanyhatz
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I've met him/her. He/she's great!!
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Post by toomanyhatz on Apr 28, 2023 17:31:05 GMT
Green on Red isn't forgotten in MY house (though I might like the original, punkier, pre-Prophet band a little more). I just got back in touch with Dan Stuart after many, many years and he's still at it. Check out the semi-autobiographical Marlowe Billings trilogy if you haven't already (though the first two books are pretty hard to find). Great stuff!
Anyway, my 1985 is led by another band from Arizona - this one the Phoenix area. I like the albums before it and after, but neither come close to this. (Though it's hard to break down into individual songs, as part of its greatness is how well it holds together as an album - particularly side one.)
1985:
Meat Puppets - Up on the Sun
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osgood
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Post by osgood on Apr 28, 2023 17:51:12 GMT
1985
Bryan Ferry - Slave to Love
It's far from my usual confort zone, but this song got me right from the first time and I still love it.
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Post by fonz on May 2, 2023 17:46:54 GMT
Killing Joke 'Nighttime'
I've linked to a live version for a good reason-it's more dynamic and exciting than the studio version. I opted for this over the better known 'Love Like Blood'.
This was my first live concert experience-Killing Joke at Leeds Uni in '85. Life-changing.
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Post by DayoRemix on May 2, 2023 18:34:21 GMT
1985
"Black Planet" The Sisters of Mercy
The Cult,Fishbone,Sonic Youth,Einsturzende Neubauten and Minimal Man were right there..Went with darkness..(SY and JAMC will feature later on)
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Post by DarknessFish on May 3, 2023 9:24:54 GMT
1985
Have to admit to struggling with a pick for 1985. I was tempted to go with a Sisters track, but Dayo has nicked that option, and it wouldn't have been my choice. Seems to have been a transitory point; the kind of end of the independent DIY boom of post-punk, goth dominated by the Leeds-goth deep-voice and synths thing, the underground struggling for direction, Stock Aitken and Waterman about to explode on our consicousness.
So I went for a toss-up between Skinny Puppy and Neubauten. Neubauten won.
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Post by DayoRemix on May 3, 2023 9:26:59 GMT
That's the Neubauten track I was considering..One less on the Omission pile..
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Post by Stacy Heydon on May 4, 2023 6:15:24 GMT
I should've posted Adam's selection, so here it is:
i've raved enough about the playn jayn over the years, but they really were the best band i've ever seen! two lead singers, their gigs were always exciting. visually they looked like the small faces, but musically they were some kind of hybrid of the monks and the seeds with some gothic horror thrown in. unfortunately, their recorded output is not a true reflection of their live sound mainly due to the awful 80s production, but i have to include one of their tracks in my canon.
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osgood
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Post by osgood on May 8, 2023 18:44:02 GMT
1985Bryan Ferry - Slave to Love It's far from my usual confort zone, but this song got me right from the first time and I still love it. I wasn't confortable with my pick and thanks to Dayo input on the Contenders thread, I change it for a much better alternative, probably my fave REM track (how could I have missed that?) 1985R.E.M. - Driver 8
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rayge
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Post by rayge on May 11, 2023 15:23:11 GMT
1982
Having chosen The Dancing Did in 1981, the 1982 choice came down to a three singles with political themes, each with a singular sound and a piece of guitaring that made me sit up and take notice. What clinched it for me is that Dr Know's extraordinary ten seconds or so of soundscaping on Bad Brains' Big Take-Over, beginning with the single greatest note in the history of recorded music (well, the bits I've heard anyway) is surrounded by stuff that is only pretty good, while the Wild Swans' Revolutionary Spirit, about the Spanish Civil War is let down a little by the vocals.
Which leaves Dancing by Zounds. Lyrically, it's a song about Germany in the 1930s, 'an anti-fascist song' as the band always explained when they played it live (they recorded a new version during the first Covid lockdown www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeTRRi_NlK4 ), and for that alone, I think it deserves a place in the canon. At the time they were lumped in with the anarcho-punks like Crass, Flux of Pink Indians and Poison Girls, at least in part because of the visual style of their sleeves, as well as the overtly political material of most of their lyrics. While I wouldn't put any of those bands down, Zounds were a definite cut above: the EP Vache Qui Rit, the album The Curse of Zounds and the single Demystification were great favourites in Raygeworld, while the the doom march of the bass drum dragging at the spiralling, yearning long lines of the guitar that weave in and out of what is a wonderfully visual, hypnotic and atmospheric record make Dancing their finest moment for me.
Zounds - Dancing
First 4.25, although the up-tempo B-side, True Love, is pretty nifty, too.
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rayge
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Post by rayge on May 11, 2023 15:50:27 GMT
1983
I've more or less given up doing deep research on this project, just going with the first thing I come across that I can enthuse about. As with the Dancing Did, my favourite tracks by the Go-Betweens appear the following year on their peak album Springhill Fair, but I've already chosen something else for that year, so I'm going with a single from the previous year, yet another remarkably visual piece of music, an autobiographical sketch of growing up in Queensland, with a lovely guitar sound and some wonderfully evocative words. I genuinely believe that Robert Forster and Grant McLellan were one of the finest writing and performing partnerships in popular music, and the Go-Betweens are one of the few bands where I relentlessly collected everything I could lay my hands on.
The Go-Betweens - Cattle and Cane
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rayge
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Post by rayge on May 11, 2023 16:00:43 GMT
1984
Setting aside some of the wonders from Springhill Fair (Part Company, Man o' Sand and Bachelor Kisses for three, all perfect-adjacent pop songs beautifully recorded), I'm going for a Fall B-side. While I was behind the band from the beginning, I thought that the addition of Brix on poppy guitar and vocals made a hell of a difference to the sound. Or maybe it was just that MES was happy.
Anyway, I still play this (the long version from the 12" version) from time to time, which is more than you can say about most of the music I listened to in my thirties.
The Fall - No Bulbs
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Post by Stacy Heydon on May 11, 2023 22:14:54 GMT
1983 an autobiographical sketch of growing up in Queensland, with a lovely guitar sound and some wonderfully evocative words. I always loved the line "His father's watch, he left it in the shower". So simple, yet it, for me anyway, says so much. As a kid you want to please your parents so much, not because you're scared of them, but because you admire them, want to be them in a way. And then you do something to let them down and the world seems a bit darker and more complex. I might be projecting a lot on to it, but then great lyrics invite us to do that.
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rayge
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Post by rayge on May 17, 2023 10:50:05 GMT
1985 Leaving aside the claims of Downtown Train, Primitive Painters and Never Understand, not to mention a coupe of other tracks from Hounds of Love, I'm going for a celebration of one of my discordian nutter heroes, Wilhelm Reich. Although it shouldn't make a difference, the quality of the video was a factor here, too.
Kate Bush - Cloudbusting
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