Tag Archives: 80s

Strangeways, Here We Come (The Smiths) – Album Review

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The Album's Title Is A Play On "Borstal, Here We Come" From Billy Liar

The Album's Title Is A Play On "Borstal, Here We Come" From Billy Liar

The Smiths’ final studio album is a very graceful way to bow out. Leaving aside the presence of some songs that spoil its second side and which are notoriously glaring, the record adheres to the formula that had worked so well before: self-questioning lyrics over jangly guitars and very solid grooves.

The album’s opener is (in my opinion) the best opener of all their albums. The song is called “A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours”, and it has a roaring vocal from Morriseyy while the main melodic instrument is a piano. It is abutted by “I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish”, a song which was released as a single. I agree with that decision – while it doesn’t lead the band into unchartered  territories it does play their formula to a hilt, and it plays it well. But I can’t disagree with those who claim “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before” would have been a better A-side.

The other single, by the way, was “Girlfriend In A Coma”. Again, it incarnates their classic sound. It doesn’t take the listener anywhere he hasn’t gone before, but it lets him enjoy the ride for sure. Continue reading →

Mummer (XTC) – Album Review (Part 2)

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Part 1 is found here. It deals with the songs on the original LP.

Like every other XTC album, this was to be reissued in the ’90s. Every single CD comes with additional tracks, and I must tell you that the booklets are uniformly subpar. Upon release, Mummer was quickly (and deservedly) hailed as the XTC album that was bonus-tracked the best.

Six songs have been added. Two are instrumentals from the Homo Safari series, and while they are the weak links they do work. If there is an album where you could throw anything into the mix and get away with it, that is Mummer. The songs would have stood as a sore thumb anywhere else.

The four actual songs that have been added, though, would have worked here, there and everywhere. But in the context of Mummer, they work like a dream. You have two incredibly uplifting numbers in the shape of “Jump” and “Gold”, whereas “Toys” is one of Andy’s most whimsical tunes of the period, but it is absolutely lovable because (unlike the Mummer tracks) he stays more true to the sound that always characterized XTC’s most soaring pop moments. Continue reading →

Mummer (XTC) – Album Review (Part 1)

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The Cover That Was Accepted By The Record Company. A Cover With The Band In Mummer Regalia Was Rejected.

The Cover That Was Accepted By The Record Company. A Cover With The Band In Mummer Regalia Was Rejected.

XTC’s music is characterized by marked twists and turns, both in terms of melody and lyrics. As a new listener of the band, I always knew that any of their albums would be an experience akin to a mystery to be elucidated, and I was ready for anything. I wasn’t, however, ready for Mummer. And the fact that it was one of the last XTC albums I bought makes that all the more significant.

As you probably know, this was the first album to be released after Andy’s nervous breakdown and his decision that the band was to become a studio entity from that point onwards. It was also the first album without Terry – he left the band and moved to Australia with girlfriend Donna (and son Kai), and worked there as a drummer for some time before leaving music behind for good. Also, the ties with manager Ian Reid were to become severed and lead to an exhausting litigation shortly. Continue reading →

Goodbye Cruel World (Elvis Costello) – Album Review

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The Front Cover

The Front Cover

Costello defines this album as his worst ever. After listening to it attentively, I dare say it was (up to that point in his career, 1984) the album that was approached the worst. Some of the material holds well under scrutiny, but the fact that the best songs are segregated on the first side does lead to an exhausting listening experience. Continue reading →

Get Happy!! (Elvis Costello) – Album Review

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The Retro-happy Cover Of The LP

The Retro-happy Cover Of The LP

Issued for the first time in 1980, Get Happy!! was Elvis Costello’s fourth album, and (to me) the one signaling the end of his purple years. Granted, his biggest hits were yet to come, but those were to be sporadic successes. The string of consecutive Top 10 singles ended here with his cover of “I Can’t Stand Up (For Falling Down)”. The sound of the album also marks the first detour from Elvis’ “classic” New Wave sounds, as some R & B inflections are very evident throughout.

The original LP has 20 tracks. Many last little more than 2 minutes, and some are even shorter than that. Absolutely nothing has a chance of getting on your nerves, and the one “long” track (in the context of the album, obviously) is the set closer. The song is named “Riot Act” and it is one of Elvis’ most balanced lyrics from the period. Content and form are perfectly interweaved, and the disc couldn’t finish on a higher note. Continue reading →

Black Sea (XTC) – Album Review (Part 2)

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This is Part 2 of the review. Don’t forget to read Part 1 for the introduction!

The original album had 11 songs, and the CD rerelease 14. If we had to summarize what XTC achieved here in one word, that would be “consistency”. The album is a true work, and in certain places it feels like a continuous track (some songs actually run into each other).

It is not an easy task picking favorites this time – as I said, there is such a sense of unity that the album is one of the most rewarding listening experiences within XTC’s catalog. What I can do is pick out personal favorites: these would be any of the singles plus the splenetic “Paper & Iron” and “Burning With Optimism’s Flames”. “Paper & Iron” has my favorite performance from Terry on any of their albums – he carries the whole song, takes it wherever he wants and finishes it with a detonation the kind Keith Moon would be proud of. For its part, “Burning With Optimism’s Flames” has a mesmerizing chorus that makes the title of the composition become more than a mere asseveration.  Rather, it turns into a true validation for pushing forwards no matter what. Continue reading →

Black Sea (XTC) – Album Review (Part 1)

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On Of The Original Names For The Album Was Gong To Be "Work Under Pressure". The Photo Session That Produced The Album 's Cover Was Based On That.

One Of The Original Names For The Album Was Going To Be "Work Under Pressure". The Photo Session That Produced The Cover Was Inspired By That, Hence The Diving Suits. The Title Was To Be Scrapped, But Not The Shot.

“Black Sea” was the fourth album released by XTC. The record was issued in the year 1980, and it garnered unanimous praise. It is now considered as their first truly indispensable album. Critical reaction was so fabulous that Andy & Colin were compared for the very first time to Lennon & McCartney. Such a comparison was sure to elicit a reaction, for the mere fact that even thinking about placing someone on par with the two timeless composers is sacrilegious to many. In hindsight, it showcases what a lukewarm response the Swindon boys were eliciting from critics even in those days. And – maybe most importantly – they were starting to reach a broader public. The album had another Top 20 hit, and this time it was a song penned by Andy. Success, at last. Or was it? Read on…

The main denominator of the songs contained here is the toughness and density of the sound. Andy insisted on recording only arrangements that could be replicated live. That meant that if they included a keyboard, that would be at the expense of a guitar and so on. This worked on their advantage in the long run, as the songs were free from unnecessary embellishments (“The Big Express”, anybody?) and could be reproduced onstage naturally. Continue reading →

Joy Division – General Introduction

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Joy Division

There is something about Joy Division that is impossible to apprehend or even hope to comprehend. Is that because they beget a caterwaul of emotions when you listen to them, and these emotions turn to be the ones we want to keep our distance from yet at the same time the ones we want to have as a permanent fixture within our lives?

The band formed in Manchester in the year 1977. Its members were singer and occasional guitar player Ian Curtis, drummer Steven Morris, guitarist Bernard Albrecht and bass player Peter Hook. They were going to release one EP and two full albums, as their career was to be truncated by Curtis’ suicide in late 1979. He suffered from epileptic seizures, but his lyrics made it clear there was so much more going on, that his frail health was the tip a devastating inner conflict. And the real tragedy is that maybe what happened could have been avoided – the band members readily admitted they never paid his lyrics any heed, and after that fateful day whenever they listened to the old songs something always clicked. Continue reading →

The Queen Is Dead (The Smiths) – Album Review

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The Front Cover

The Front Cover

If you have read the general introduction you already know I regard this album as The Smith’s crowning achievement. In a certain sense, it does what was done in the previous albums. But the difference is that what was previously done either good or very good now is done in an excellent fashion. With the sole exception of “Vicar In A Tutu” (a rockabilly number that is best left alone) and the acceptable “Never Had No One Ever”, all the songs hit hard. Generally speaking, they make a solid point out of solid disappointment: “I Know It’s Over” and “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” deal with the anxiety of a love that ends and takes life away with it, and a love that ends without ever having started respectively. For its part, the bouncy “Frankly, Mr. Shankly” takes the form of a resignation letter from a disgruntled employer to his boss, in which (as much as he tries to refrain from doings so) he must finally “speak frankly, Mr. Shankly” and call a spade a spade. Continue reading →

Greatest Country Hits (John Denver) – Compilation Album

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The Front Cover Of The CD

The Front Cover Of The CD

John Denver (1943 – 1997) was one of the best loved country musicians ever, and deservedly so. He was a compassionate man that was incredibly gifted as a performer, and this compilation (released in 1998) highlights that fact. The title is not 100 % accurate in the sense that not all of the compositions were hits – they were all released as singles, and some flopped like “The Cowboy & The Lady”, arguably the weakest thing on offer here. But regardless of the current performance on the charts, every song is imbued with the characteristics that made John Denver legendary – a great singing voice, an eminent set of melodies and a rush of emotions when one listens to them. Continue reading →