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| Chad Finkelhoffer and Shannon Buns pose for 1982 Pork Bend High Yearbook |
At the time, I sneered at
Duran Duran because they were a stoopid girls' band, and I was a sophisticated-type guy who (obviously) knew better. I convinced myself they weren't real musicians, their lyrics were shit, and the production was plastic and horrible. Listening to the
Rio album all these years later, I was so very, very wrong. Maybe the lyrics
are a bit shit, but they can play as well as they need to, the production is exactly of its time but exceptionally imaginative, and the songs, written and arranged by the band, are just too damn infectious to resist. A consistently fine and varied piece of work, going out on the atmospheric
The Chauffeur, which wouldn't be out of place on a Roxy Music album, unexpected coda and all. And that
perfect cover ...
Decades after its release,
ABC's
Lexicon Of Love is still a lush pop swoon. Cinematic, literate without being pretentious, it's ideal for detailed listening or just throwing shapes to. The cover is appropriately dramatic, elegant, and, with that block of text, just a
tad highbrow. Note how this and the
Rio cover feature an image bleeding off one side from a dark solid color, and serif fonts. Class. From
The Dictionary Of Soul to
The Lexicon Of Love maybe isn't so very far ...
Orange Juice's second (!) album from '82,
Rip It Up left the twee-core and indie jangle behind, and today sounds utterly timeless. A little crooning, a subtly funky vibe, and state-of-the-art production (unlike their first) make for a hooky, laid-back breeze of an album. The self-consciously artless cover, at once "real" and fake, reflects the band's pose of indie amateurism. That hi-hat!
The Church had to wait until
Under The Milky Way for the public to catch up, but in 1982 they quietly released a landmark psychedelic rock album in
The Blurred Crusade. The guitars swirl and shimmer, the beat pulses, the lyrics are an opium haze, and Bob Clearmountain's production is as crystalline as the sky over Kanchenjunga. You couldn't dance to it anywhere but in your head. And the cover is ...
oh, wow. Of these four albums, this is the one I felt was truly
for me, having joined their congregation with the first album, and it's still a rush, after all these years.
Thanks to Altoid for the It Up Rip.
Relive those crazy '80s when kids still met up and hung out for laffs!
ReplyDeleteParticipate in the FMF© Data Mining Program™ by telling us either what you were doing in '82, or suggesting another swell album from that year!
1970-1982 is a complete black-out to me. what friends are left tell me they wish they could black out the memory of what i was doing at that time.
Delete1982...I'd joined my first ceilidh band and found myself on the fringes of the Fairport scene.
ReplyDeleteNotable album?...no contest - "English Settlement" by XTC.
I'll second English Settlement, I don't think XTC made a bad album.
DeleteAlso worth mentioning from '82, Laurie Anderson - Big Science, The Damned - Strawberries and Donald Fagen - The Nightfly
In '82 I'd been working in an advertising agency, and was now a paste-up artist, in the days before computers totally changed everything. Also I had money, not a lot but enough to go to pretty much any gig I wanted. No mortgage, no commitments.
No question - Elvis Costello and the Attractions : Imperial Bedroom (sometimes known as IbMePdErRoIoAmL, but not by me).
ReplyDeleteI am sometimes inclined to think that this is his best ever album, but I have too many favourites of his so it constantly changes - top 2 or 3 anyway.and Manout of Time the top tune on it.
Here's the new one by Elvis Costello and The Imposters' "The Boy Named IF"
Deletehttps://workupload.com/file/9mGXzzEJttF
Thanks, Babs, aint heard that one yet. Does this mean it's possible to like EC and the Dan? Better not tell Mr 3.
DeleteMy pleasure, Mr. Noblemon.
DeleteI like EC and the Dan. My husband and I had an inside joke, we called Elvis Costello: Abbot Presley, and Steely Dan: The Yokohama Dildos
Abbot Presley , I like it, I was a massive fan, from seeing him on the Stiff Live Stiffs tour and many times since. Had nit bithered with him in recent times, but really liked his last lp, so am looking fwd to hearing this.
DeleteThanks again
1982.....8th grade enrolled in St. Mary's Catholic School.....Hmmmnn...As I remember it was Van Halen, Men at Work, The Cars things like that at school and my Mom's Jazz collection and my Dad's 45 collection when I was home slowly building my DJ setup from scraps Dad would bring home or have stowed in the basement.
ReplyDeleteIn 1982, I was developing stochastic mathematical models (on an Apple III), in the financial sector. My children were 8 and 10 years old, and my husband was teaching Physics at Columbia University.
ReplyDeleteThree swell albums from 1982:
Black Rock - James Blood Ulmer
Life Cycle - Dave Holland
Midnight Love - Marvin Gaye
Yes, they are indeed swell, Babs - but apart from Marv's Sexual Healing, did pop entirely pass you by in the 'eighties?
DeletePretty much.
DeleteBabs' place sounds like a very very cerebral household. Must dig out those three.
Delete1982 for me was the end of the 1970's, a bit like the 1960's not starting until 1962/3.
ReplyDeleteI have a big gap in music from there until about 1996. The only gig I went to in the whole of 1982 was Dexy's Midnight Runners. They did an In Concert as part of a Radio One Weekend in Newcastle, in a marquee on the Town Moor. We were standing right in front of the band, I don't think there was even a stage. I'll never forget the feeling of the blast wave from the brass section hitting me in the stomach. This was after the Geno phase and was the launch of the Too Rye Aye era, so they had both the fiddles and the brass. I have a cd of the gig which I'll have to dig out to see if it's as good as I remember.
Poor old Johnny Ray etc etc....
In 1982, was was trying to manage the career of a singer-songwriter who didn't write all that many songs, and was trying to make it via the downtown bar scene. The guy's biggest claim to fame was that he'd been in Animal House (fake playing the guitar in the Otis Day & The Knights scene...BTW, the guy playing bass was/is an actual guitar great, Robert Cray....) Since the guy couldn't hit the high notes, fame was not to be.
ReplyDeleteI haven't watched Animal House in years, but must check out Robert Cray on bass next time. That film inspired me and my friends to misbehave and get into party music. Thanks for the info.
DeleteThere are clips of the scene that can be found quite easily.
Delete"The Chauffeur, which wouldn't be out of place on a Roxy Music album.."
ReplyDeleteYou say this like it's a good thing.
I've always liked the ABC|record, "tooraliyooraliyay" and all. The rest, well, no. But that's Life's R T, no?
Roxy Music...I look back on them now and wonder what all the fuss was about. I like "Love is the Drug", but only because of the bassline.
DeleteFor me, nothing else Roxy Music ever did came close to the joyous pleasure rush of Virginia Plain. Nowhere to go but down from there.
DeleteRoxy are an interesting band. Saw them in '73, thought they were trash, and think they were mostly trash now, but there have been periods when I really liked the first two albums, and maybe I will again. Sort of like a prog New York Dolls.
DeleteIt's almost ironical that 1982 was both the year that Duran Duran took over MTV and the year of Roxy Music's farewell album Avalon. "More Than This" is still lovely. Robyn Hitchcock's version turns it into an existential lament without changing a word. "There's NOTHING more than this."
DeleteI was writing commercials for Japan Airlines in 1982 and convinced them that it would be a good idea to give me a month long, expenses paid tour of the Land Of The Rising Sun.
ReplyDeleteAnyway I was designing network databases on an HP3000, driving a 1969 Austin Cambridge and "renovating" a house that we could only afford because it had been Cypriatanised.
ReplyDeleteSorry, Cypriotised. And listening to the radio. Taping and playing Charlie Gillett, Humph, Brian Beastly, Richard Cook etc.
ReplyDeleteCypriotised. Ri-ight. Everything makes so much more sense now!
Delete1982 - I was a copy editor at a big publishing house in London, going to gigs by the barrowload, drinking by the barrelload and generally being even more of an angsty little bugger than I am now.
ReplyDeleteAlbum highlights from a year I recall as being somewhat nondescript - Shoot Out the Lights by Richard and Linda Thompson and Donald Fagen's The Nightfly.
Your album choices would be my #3 and #2 respectively.
DeleteLights was the first RT album with a bit of the "edge" that was a feature of much of his later output.
Nightfly was just perfection.
In 1982 I was selling bagged milk. (honestly) I was always listening to this - Oh No! It's DEVO!
ReplyDeleteIn 1982, I was working two jobs in Sydney. The main job was as a mechanic, working for Telecom, and the moonlight special was at the Caltex station at North Narrabeen. It was around Christmas when the Caltex tanker drivers went on strike for more money.... the general wage for the rest of us at the time was roughly $330 a week. Caltex was paying it's drivers in excess of %650 a week. The strike lasted around six weeks, There was hardly any work, and it nearly drove us to the wall. I had taken a months holiday from Telecom just prior to the strike and had decided to pay a months rent ( a mistake). In the last week before returning to work, I had to go to the pawn shop in Collaroy to hock my SLR for $60 to buy food to feed my family. I retrieved it the following month for $80. It was the first and only time I ever pawned ANYTHING. A few years later, union power was crushed in Australia. So was moonlighting work...now the government know when you blink.
ReplyDeleteIrony of ironies, as Thatcherism started to bite I got temp clerical work at Fountain Street Job Centre, Manchester. The soundtrack to after-work refuelling on the Corbieres juke box in '82 were indeed Elvis C (You Little Fool), Dexys (Eileen, obviously) and also Scritti Politti (Faithless) and several by the rather marvellous but short-lived Haircut 100 (Favourite Shirts was my favourite). But '82 was an ugly year. Lots of Falklands jingoism on the streets and in the pubs...
ReplyDeleteDon't worry Sir. April 82 I was approaching Government house in Buenos Aires (it was halfway between school and sports camp) and political parties along with trade unions were rioting against the military.
DeleteWithin a week same parties and unions were cheering the military for taking the islands. They both remain ready to praise even Pol Pot if it suits their business.
It made me think what a country full of idiots I was doomed to live in.
Thanks for the records Dear Farq.
I chose these (apart from The Church) from '82 for their mainstream obviousness, which may be a reason for you to have dismissed them at the time, and because they've been a surprising source of pleasure for me recently. I wasn't into any of the U.K. comment choices at the time - Costello, XTC, Dexy's have always left me utterly cold. By '82 I was already hunting back for stuff I'd missed, mostly US.
ReplyDeleteGive 'em a whirl - who knows?
Costello ...always left me utterly cold, that's as bad as me not "getting" steely dan.
DeleteI consider myself blessed!
DeleteYes, thats it, the penny has just dropped, Farquhar Throckmorton III, pah, you and your not blinking yous is :
Deletehttps://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/brian-blessed-quiets-booming-voice-25975717
Innit?
Nice to see someone else not falling for the Costello bandwagon. Can't stand his voice nor his steadily inflating serious artiste persona. Watching the detectives was good though.
DeleteHe has the pretentiousness of Sting - both married a posh bint to boost themselves up the social ladder, both are convinced of their lofty artistic worth. But where Sting is consumed by vanity, McManus is driven by resentment at a world which mostly fails to fall at his feet. I could forgive him that if I could forgive his voice - perhaps the worst of any pop singer other than Randy Newman (another adenoidal head-voice intellectual). A voice which could corrode a submarine hull. Okay, the poisonous little shit has written some good songs, but I'm with Bonnie Raitt.
DeleteThere's perhaps three songs of EC's that I like - Oliver's Army, Accidents Will Happen and Watching the Detectives. I really can't stand his voice.
DeleteRandy? He writes some great songs and I can stand his voice on them.
Sting? Pretentious cack.
I'd trade all three for Warren Zevon.
The case for the defence m'lud :
DeleteVoice - never thought there was ought wrong with it, but admittedly he'll never be a Tiny Tim.
Persona - Wouldn't want to meet him, but that applies to 'em all
Bonnie Raitt? Don't get the reference, unless you mean Bonnie Bramlett?
Songwriting - a finer collection of ditties I've yet to hear, at least until he got to Juliet Letters which I have never "got"
Music - him and The Attractions were brilliant live, Lipstick Vogue in particular, plenty examples on youtube e.g. below Pink Pop Festival 1979 with segue into Detectives but I don't expect to convert any of yous
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YFnZNvqViU
I'm with the Noblemon vis a vis EC and the mighty Attractions. This Year's Model fires on all cylinders, kicks like a mule, and accomplishes various other feats of superlative speech. Get Happy is equally astonishing.
DeleteKing of America was the last EC LP that I truly enjoyed. 1982's Imperial Bedroom had one of the greatest side-one-track-one songs in "Beyond Belief", and '82 was also the year that he penned "Shipbuilding".
His voice? There are worse. Pretentious? Yes, his reach exceeds his grasp, but I admire his ambition.
Heh, the cavalry arrived, I'm with you on This Year's Model, pretty sure that usually comes out as my favourite. Agree that King of America was his last great one, and his concerts are always magnificent. Like you, always admired his ambition, even if I never gof Juliet Letter.
DeleteHmmm - I see from the internet (a device I recommend, if you haven't got one installed yet) that the CD was introduced at the tail end of '82, so these albums are among the last of the First Vinyl Era.
ReplyDeleteThey may have been introduced in '82, but were very expensive in the early days, both discs and players. I'm pretty sure my first cd player was late '80s. The charity shops in the uk now are full of cd's disks (four for a pound), I guess people are ripping them to music players or onto disc storage.
DeleteI notice that quite a few vinyl albums from late 80's and early 90's seem to fetch a high price - frinstance Neil Young - Ragged Glory or Weld, very pricey. I guess mostly people were buying the cd version, having decided them rekkids were old tech. I bought many an album around this time when people would sell all their vinyl at car-boot sales for very little money.
Remember "CD rot"?
DeleteI wrote a letter (remember letters?) to Virgin when I found strange brown stains and tiny holes inside the plastic of my XTC "Skylarking" CD.
They sent me a replacement straightaway.
That's been affecting my trousers too lately.
DeleteSkylarking another XTC classic.
In 1982 I was a high school student, a fanzine scribbler, and a vinyl junkie. It was a great year for American bands: Bad Brains, Descendents, Gun Club, Misfits, Dream Syndicate, Mission Of Burma, Flipper, Fear, Dead Kennedys, Husker Du, Chrome, Rank & File, dB's, Bongos, REM ...
ReplyDeleteFrom the other side of the pond: Hex Enduction Hour, English Settlement, Special Beat Service, Strawberries, The Gift, Combat Rock, The Sky's Gone Out, and A Kiss In The Dreamhouse.
Chrome rules!
DeleteThe sophisticated set I was part of in those days used to piss ourselves laughing at Half Machine Lip Moves. We kept it for special occasions, parties. Absolutely priceless.
DeleteYeah, you could empty quickly any party (or small town) to the first ten minutes of Half Machine.
DeleteWe used to listen to it from beginning to end and every now and then I repeat the ritual. Had to move to the countryside since. I noticed bird migration happens earlier.
Great favourite. Still have the original vinyl with senseless poster.
"LOL" (as the Young People are saying)
DeleteIf my record collection is to be trusted, I was waiting for 1983 to start. The best I can come up with are UB40 (Present Arms) and Simple Minds (New Gold Dream). Among the 45's that stand out for me are Eurythmics (Sweet Dreams), and Juluka (Scatterlings of Africa). Maybe the fact that I had got married the previous year and found out from my neighbour that she was shagging somebody while I was out working somewhat blighted 1982 - just saying....
ReplyDeleteJust finished school and did my replacement service instead of joining the army (remember Pershing2 missiles ?) Favorite music: NDW (neue deutsche welle) but not the cheap stuff (like "kleine taschenlampe brenn") but:
ReplyDeleteNina Hagen, Westernhagen, Extrabreit and some liedermacher like Danzer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i_0i1f0oAg and german classic Udo Lindenberg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67tLOd1uM8Y
Nina Hagen - I remember voting for African Reggae as my favourite single of 1979, but am ashamed to say I haven't heard anything else by her.
DeleteI finished high school in Puerto Rico and was off to a university in New Jersey. My favorite artists were Zappa and Rush. At school I would soon be turned on to Discipline-era King Crimson, Peter Gabriel's first three solo records, Kate Bush, and Adrian Belew's Lone Rhino in 1982.
ReplyDeleteLone Rhino was a great record, and one of my favorite LP covers. Kate Bush's album The Dreaming was a brilliant 1982 release, and "Shock The Monkey" was on the radio.
DeleteNot nearly as clever as we imagined at the time, set of us who a few years previous been in punk bands found ourselves in BRLA for a hot minute in 1982 did a one-off at some bar (The White Horse?) as Durian Durian...who knew I'd later find myself on a Thai-based blog. I also sat in with The Human Rayz at The Bayou were for wont of anything better to do we played "Louis Louie" for far too long and confirmed that graduate school was the right place for me to be if I couldn't really master more than 2.5 chords....wasn't 1982 also Bananarama's moment in the sun...they seem Isle O'Foam© adjacent, no?
ReplyDeleteBananarama? *shudder*
Deleteyou made me laugh; thank you.
DeleteHey man! Robert de Niro's waiting, talking Italian...
DeleteFirst half of 1982: Swotting for my 'O' levels, sitting them and then going off on the wrong path entirely.
ReplyDeleteUltravox 'Quartet' & Tangerine Dream 'White Eagle' are my two on that dateline. Was also digging for the other German acts of TD's wave, not an easy thing to do in my circumstances and at that time. Pat Metheny Group 'Offramp' and Weather Report's untitled LP were released then but came to me a little later.
Also Bowie's wonderful 'Baal' EP, music by Dominic Muldowney. Which reminds me that I haven't heard it in years.
1982 Lps: Mesopotamia (B52s) The Gift (The Jam) & yes, English Settlement (XTC).
ReplyDeleteSpecial mention for F.M.F. database algorithm processor, 1980 Lp, Kings of the Wild Frontier (Adam & the Ants)
I was in kindergarten in 1982.
ReplyDeleteBruce Springsteen - Nebraska
you win. Well, not for Nebraska, all due respect....
Deleteever notice that when people say "all due respect...."