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Post by Stacy Heydon on May 4, 2023 7:40:40 GMT
So 1986 then. I struggled with it then and I struggle with it now. British chart pop was increasingly becoming glossier and more disposable, SAW were beginning to make their presence felt (or was that 1987?), not much, other than The Smiths, was happening in indie.
Thankfully things were more exciting over the Atlantic. Strange new sounds were coming from Chicago and Detroit, although it would take a couple of years for us to hear some of them, and hip-hop had entered its golden phase.
However I'm turning to one of the decade's brightest stars for my selection. Prince was in the middle of his imperial phase at this point and Mountains is slyly (..see what I did there) funky and full of his light as a feather assurance, he just floats over the whole thing.
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Post by fonz on May 4, 2023 7:57:44 GMT
A wonderful deeper cut from Siouxsie's last great album.
I was full-on into my Siouxsie/Joke/Cult phase in '86, before I discovered daylight and colour.
The invention on this album (Tinderbox) is terrific-no blue notes anywhere. Carruthers took what McGeoch and Smith did and evolved it further-he was a great choice for a replacement in that particular revolving door. Budgie is, as ever, brilliant. Severin was probably the real creative mind behind a lot of their music.
Nice
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Post by Reactionary Rage on May 4, 2023 10:28:57 GMT
1986
I could have picked Kiss or maybe Live To Tell but I went with this PREDICTABLY because I do think it is one of their masterpieces and the apogee of the Morrissey/Marr relationship. Shall we talk about Marr's contribution here and the beauty of the backing track? The brilliance of the arrangement? The (synthesized) strings that appear at the start of the first chorus are an obvious thing to do but they are wonderful nevertheless, capturing not just the yearning and sadness of Morrissey's lyrics but also affording the relationship a sacred quality, in the singers head at least. Listen to the "darkened underpass" verse and marvel not just at the universal moment captured in the lines, "but then a strange fear gripped me and I just couldn't ask" but also Marr working his magic in the background. Has the northern milieu of the Smiths world ever sounded so magical and alive? So cinematic (black and white naturally) and filled with the existential longing and heartbreak of ephemeral youth in all its life-or-death glory? Some might say that Marr maybe lays it on a little bit thick with the arrangement as the song climaxes but he's earned it and the song has too. The final minute is like an elegy to a relationship that, of course, probably never even existed. Which in itself is a desperately sad, lonely, yet very human fantasy we can all relate to. The central concept of Just My Imagination taken to its heart-breaking completion. In this moment the songs brilliance lies in a total lack of irony with Marr's sublime arrangement elevating the power of Morrissey's lyrics into a hymn like devotion to the beauty and perfection of the unobtainable.
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Post by fearlessfreap on May 4, 2023 11:08:40 GMT
Ultramagnetic MC's.
I can no longer support popular songs. By 86, it had all gone to hell. With the exeption of Prince and few others, the American hits of the second half of the 80's held absolutely nothing to me. It will be mainly hip hop from here onward. Even indie rock was a shadow of what it had been in the first half of the 80's, Flying Nun being an exception. Hip hop took off in the US in 86 with multiplatinum albums from Run DMC and the Beastie Boys. It would supplant rock in the hearts of teenagers very quickly.
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rayge
Administrator
Invisible
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Post by rayge on May 4, 2023 11:55:44 GMT
I can no longer support popular songs. By 86, it had all gone to hell. With the exeption of Prince and few others, the American hits of the second half of the 80's held absolutely nothing to me. It will be mainly hip hop from here onward. Even indie rock was a shadow of what it had been in the first half of the 80's, Flying Nun being an exception. Hip hop took off in the US in 86 with multiplatinum albums from Run DMC and the Beastie Boys. It would supplant rock in the hearts of teenagers very quickly. I may have got this hopelessly wrong, but didn't you have a metal-based thread on BCB? |
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Post by fearlessfreap on May 4, 2023 12:02:09 GMT
I can no longer support popular songs. By 86, it had all gone to hell. With the exeption of Prince and few others, the American hits of the second half of the 80's held absolutely nothing to me. It will be mainly hip hop from here onward. Even indie rock was a shadow of what it had been in the first half of the 80's, Flying Nun being an exception. Hip hop took off in the US in 86 with multiplatinum albums from Run DMC and the Beastie Boys. It would supplant rock in the hearts of teenagers very quickly. I may have got this hopelessly wrong, but didn't you have a metal-based thread on BCB? I did. I still like a lot of it, but haven't followed new music in the past several years. |
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Post by tory on May 4, 2023 12:12:01 GMT
Nitro Deluxe - Let's Get Brutal
The first "dance" record I ever bought, albeit in 1987 from Our Price in Croydon. I still have the 12". Funnily enough, I heard this, not as might be expected in some Bacchannallian scene in a club, but at around 2pm in a cafe in Haltwhistle, Northumberland whilst walking Hadrian's Wall with my Scout group. It sounded nothing like I'd ever heard before at the tender age of 13 (I had yet to hear Kraftwerk).
Years later it still sounds fresh, but with an underlying tone of classicism. Aldo Marin's Nitro Deluxe project was a synthesis of three genres that would come out of these years - House, Techno and Electro. It's none of these genres and yet has elements of all three. As a budding student of the history of dance music, this is a record where all three strands converge for a brief moment and then go their separate ways again.
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loveless
god
Bringing ballet to the masses. Sticking to the funk.
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Post by loveless on May 4, 2023 12:34:13 GMT
1986
SWING OUT SISTER - "Breakout"
I had another seven contenders for this year (not an amazing year, but...some triumphs across my own spectrum of tastes), but...none felt as bold as this...I don't know...what are the words I'm looking for "frothy", "frivolous", "sunny", "brassy"...and, my God, this may be the best music video of all time.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on May 4, 2023 12:45:44 GMT
Somebody pick Word Up and Kiss ffs
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Post by Stacy Heydon on May 4, 2023 13:25:37 GMT
I'd like to see The Cocteau Twins. 1986 was the year of Victorialand. They were important to people back then in a way that people who didn't live through the decade probably don't realise.
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Post by Stacy Heydon on May 4, 2023 13:26:33 GMT
1986SWING OUT SISTER - "Breakout" I had another seven contenders for this year (not an amazing year, but...some triumphs across my own spectrum of tastes), but...none felt as bold as this...I don't know...what are the words I'm looking for "frothy", "frivolous", "sunny", "brassy"...and, my God, this may be the best music video of all time. Hard to imagine that one of them had been in Magazine! |
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Post by oh oooh on May 4, 2023 13:26:42 GMT
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Post by DayoRemix on May 4, 2023 14:38:26 GMT
Shouldn't this be pinned?
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Post by Stacy Heydon on May 4, 2023 14:42:23 GMT
Shouldn't this be pinned? Yeah I'm sure it will be when Ray sees it. He's been very good at keeping track of the canon and administrating it. |
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Post by DarknessFish on May 4, 2023 16:18:44 GMT
Shouldn't this be binned? A bit harsh, I like some of the tracks posted so far... |
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