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Eighties’ best 100 redux: #77 Morrissey “Interesting drug” (1989)

<< #78    |    #76 >>

Song #77 on my Eighties’ best 100 list is Morrissey’s fourth solo single, “Interesting drug”.

Stephen Patrick Morrissey was quick in releasing his first solo album, “Viva hate”, less than a year after the dissolution of The Smiths. “Interesting drug” was released the following year in 1989 as a non-album single, though it would be included on the 1990 compilation “Bona drag”. The song features three former members of The Smiths (Rourke, Joyce, and Gannon) as Morrissey’s backing band, as well as the lovely, inimitable backing vocals of Kirsty MacColl*.

I’m near certain that “Interesting drug” was my introduction to Morrissey as a solo artist. It was track number two on a mixed tape (simply titled “Mixed tape”) that my friend Elliott made for me a very long time ago, a friend whom I haven’t seen or heard from in years, but who played an important part in my discovering my own personal musical tastes during my teen years**. I still have said mixed tape packed away in a shoebox in my basement, and though it hasn’t been played in decades, and likely wouldn’t play even if I could find a tape deck to play it on, I doubt very much that I could bring myself to part with it, like the other tapes in that box.

The song, notwithstanding the nostalgia piece, is one of my all-time favourite Morrissey tunes. Likely because it is also one of his more upbeat songs, the music, I mean, not the lyrical subject matter. “Interesting drug” sounds like it could have been a late Smiths track, given the jangly guitars, though the drumming is a bit heavier handed and funkier than most songs by that earlier band. It jumps and cavorts, getting deep under your skin and crawling up and down your spine, while Mr. Morrissey warbles and croons, giving it to the right. He’s defending the use of drugs for release and accusing the conservative government of the day of clamping down on drug use as a means of control.

It’s definitely an… interesting point of view. I didn’t know any of this back in the day but I did appreciate the anti-establishment sentiment. And of course, it had a great beat and I could dance to it.

 

*Spoiler alert: Despite not having her own song on this list, MacColl will likely get a couple more mentions in relation to other songs.

**Indeed, Elliott’s name has appeared a few times on these pages over the years and likely will again.

Original Eighties best 100 position: 80

Favourite lyric: “On a government scheme / Designed to kill your dream ” Does this really need a comment?

Where are they now?: Morrissey is still performing and making music but unfortunately, his career has been sidetracked by controversy of late, much of it of his own making. He just last week announced the upcoming release of a fourteenth studio album, his first since 2020.

For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.

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Eighties’ best 100 redux: #78 A-Ha “The sun always shine on T.V.” (1985)

<< #79    |    #77 >>

Some people might think that I’ve gone daft with my pick for song #78 and moreover, its inclusion on this list at all, but I really do love A-Ha’s 1985 single, “The sun always shines on TV”.

To this day, A-Ha is still Norway’s biggest ever musical export and while they have enjoyed continued success in Europe, especially in their native Norway, their album releases have all but been ignored here in North America. That is, save from the explosion and excitement of their debut and most successful album, “Hunting high and low”. Indeed, no place in the world was safe from exposure to that album’s first single, the extremely popular and ubiquitous hit, “Take on me”. I admit to enjoying that single and its infinitely catchier synth melody but I have always preferred “The sun always shines on TV”, their third and less popular single. Both tracks were mainstays on AM top 40 radio and the music video channels at the time and they appeared on all the budget compilation albums that were all the rage back then. In fact, our song of focus today was on one such compilation tape called “Hit energy” that I convinced my parents to buy for me while out shopping at Zellers one night many moons ago. I played the hell out of the cassette, wearing it out in the tape deck of my bedroom’s stereo, but pretty much forgot about it until I sat down to write this post.

I think a big reason for A-Ha’s early success came from their use of the music video during the mid-80s golden age of that medium. Who doesn’t remember the video for “Take on me“, with its use of pencil-sketching animation? For those who don’t, an animated version of the lead singer, Morten Harket, pulls an unwitting, live-action woman sitting in a cafe into a comic book with him, where they are chased around the pages by two thugs. Of course, it all ends happily, until the video for “The sun always shines on TV” picks up the story, the lead singer begins to revert back to his drawing form, and runs off, leaving the heroine alone in the forest. Both of these music videos do an excellent job of putting a story to the respective songs and imbuing them with additional meaning, especially in the case of this latter song, where it only serves to add to the ironic assertion in the song’s title.

Listening to “The sun always shines on TV” now, I feel that it has aged better than its seemingly more robust older sibling. It’s an epic five minutes that starts out all calm and heavenly with synth washes and Harket’s angelic vocals but soon bursts forth with beats and flourishes that would give any Duran Duran hit a run for its money.

Original Eighties best 100 position: 78

Favourite lyric: “I fear the crazed and lonely / Looks the mirror’s sending me these days” Me too, sometimes.

Where are they now?: A-Ha has broken up and re-formed a number of times over the years, released 11 studio albums, and are still active today with their original lineup intact.

For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.

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Eighties’ best 100 redux: #79 Love and Rockets “So alive” (1989)

<< #80    |    #78 >>

At track #79, we’ve got “So alive” by Daniel Ash’s third and longest lasting band, Love and Rockets.

After the ground-breaking goth act, Bauhaus, disbanded in 1983, guitarist Daniel Ash focused more on his side project, Tones on Tail, with friend Glenn Campling and Bauhaus drummer Kevin Haskins. They would release an album and a litany of EPs (including popular club single “Go!”) before dissolving in 1984. Shortly afterwards, the members of Bauhaus, minus vocalist Peter Murphy, reconvened under the moniker Love and Rockets.

This trio started off in much the same dark place musically as Ash’s two previous bands but as time wore on, Love and Rockets would play with more elements, like psychedelic rock, folk, glam rock, and much later, electronic music, as their sound continued to evolve. “So alive” comes from their self-titled, fourth album and is an obvious example of the band’s love affair with glam rock. It’s sleek, it’s smooth and for the first time, Ash sounds like a sexy beast as he leads a slew of backup singers through a chorus of “doot-doots”. “So alive” became a surprise hit for the band in North America, peaking at number 3 on the billboard charts, their highest ever charting.

This song was so popular back when I was in high school, I couldn’t help but know who Love and Rockets were. I have very specific memories of scouring the cassette tape racks lining the walls of HOV (Hooked on video) music store, the only such purveyor of music in my small hometown, looking for the Love and Rockets album that had this particular song on it. For some reason, I never found it there amongst the other Love and Rockets albums, perhaps because it was always sold out.

I now have a copy of the band’s very fine greatest hits compilation, “Sorted!”, and have developed an appreciation for a great many of their other tracks. But I will always have a soft spot for the “doot-doots” of “So alive”.

Original Eighties best 100 position: 81

Favourite lyric: “I don’t know what colour your eyes are, baby / But your hair is long and brown” Interesting that he doesn’t know her eye colour? What does that mean, I wonder?

Where are they now?: Love and Rockets was a going concern throughout the 90s, finally calling it quits in 1999. They reunited for some live shows for a few years in the latter half of the 2000s and despite the fact that Ash was quoted as being finished with the band in 2009, they returned in 2023 after a failed Bauhaus reunion and are active again… for now.

For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.