Tag: 1980s

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Tunes

Eighties’ best 100 redux: #75 Peter Gabriel “In your eyes” (1986)

<< #76    |    #74 >>

I didn’t mean to take a break. Honest. It just happened.

Save for a quick post sharing pics from the Matt Berninger show I caught, the last piece published to these pages was another Eighties best 100 post, just under a month ago. So I figured I’d return to our regular schedule (albeit a bit slower to start) after that brief pause with another from that series. Song #75 is perhaps Peter Gabriel’s most mainstream of tracks, “In your eyes”.

The track in question comes from Gabriel’s fifth proper studio album, the first not named “Peter Gabriel” (not including the soundtrack for “Birdy”, recorded the previous year), and likely, his best loved album, 1986’s “So”. This album is multiple-times platinum in a number of countries and has spawned his biggest hits on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. This is probably the result of Gabriel purposefully dispensing with some of his experimental tendencies and consciously making a pop record, albeit not without his usual world music influences.

“In your eyes” made my list not so much for the song itself, not that I don’t enjoy it, but instead for its place in pop culture and my own personal musical memory. Much like The Proclaimers’ “(I’m gonna be) 500 miles”, which was song #82 on this list, “In your eyes” had something of a resurgence when it was used on the soundtrack for a film and is perhaps more popular now because of it. It was used in two scenes in Cameron Crowe’s directorial debut film, 1989’s “Say anything”, but most famously, in the scene below:

If you’ve never seen the film, Lloyd Dobler (played by everyone’s favourite cool/not-cool kid, John Cusack) just had his heart stomped on by the well-meaning but misguided Diane Court (played by Ione Skye) and is trying to woo her back by serenading her with Peter Gabriel’s song. The film “Say anything” is perhaps the best teen 80s film not made by John Hughes and is consistently on lists of the best films of all time. The character Lloyd Dobler is now a cultural icon and there is an ongoing debate on the Internet over who was the better man between him and “Sixteen candle”‘s Jake Ryan.

My own money will always be on John Cusack.

Incidentally, when Peter Gabriel toured in 2012 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of “So”, performing the album in its entirety at each show, John Cusack appeared onstage at a handful of concerts in California, specifically during the intro to “In your eyes” to hand Peter Gabriel a boom box.

Original Eighties best 100 position: 77

Favourite lyric: “Without a noise, without my pride / I reach out from the inside” I don’t know if it’s so much about these lyrics as the way Peter Gabriel sings them. What a voice.

Where are they now?: Peter Gabriel has been active, off and on, throughout the years His last album of new, original material was 2023’s “I/O” and apparently, another album is due out later this year, this one called “O/I”.

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

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Tunes

Eighties’ best 100 redux: #76 The Mission “Tower of strength” (1988)

<< #77    |    #75 >>

At track #76 is The Mission’s eight-minute epic single, “Tower of strength”.

The Mission (known as The Mission UK in North America) was formed by Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams after they left Sisters of Mercy due to a disagreement with frontman Andrew Eldritch before the recording of that band’s second album. In fact, a handful of songs that appeared on The Mission’s debut album, “God’s own medicine”, were written by Hussey and were meant to be recorded as Sisters of Mercy songs.

I was introduced to The Mission by my friend Tim (who incidentally also introduced me to Sisters of Mercy and a bunch of other Goth and Industrial bands) back in high school. It all started when he included their track, “Deliverance”, as part of a mix on the back side of a cassette tape on which he had recorded The Wonder Stuff’s second album “Hup” for me. Speaking of the Stuffies, they have a Mission connection, too. If my memory serves, the story behind their “Mission drive” track is that Wayne Hussey (a friend of Miles Hunt) invited The Wonder Stuff out to tour with them, which, in effect, saved them from breaking up before their time. Anyway, “Deliverance” only served to pique my interest in The Mission and was immediately usurped as my favourite track by them when I heard “Tower of strength”.

This single, which comes from the band’s second album “Children”, encapsulates the dark and epic beauty of The mission’s music at that point in their career. Wayne Hussey’s soul crunching vocals just soar over the strumming guitars that underpin the entire eight minutes. The video below is for the radio edited version, which is only half as good (because it is half as long) as the album version, but you’ll get the picture.

Original Eighties best 100 position: 79

Favourite lyric: “You are all passion and heart / When I lay in your embrace / And heaven is in your kiss / Salvation lies just a touch away” …oh so dark and romantic.

Where are they now?: The Mission are now currently on their second reunion, this time with three of the four original members. The have released two albums and toured a number of times since reforming in 2013.

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

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Albums

Best film soundtracks: Honourable mentions

And now for something completely different… er… perhaps just a mild change of pace.

I’ve been doing these ‘Best albums’ series pretty regularly since I started this blog close to 10 years ago. But up to now, each of these series have been focused on a specific year, whether it be an end of the year recap of faves or a fond nostalgic look back on a certain year. For my first ‘Best albums’ series of the year, however, I’ve decided instead to go thematic and focus on my favourite ever motion picture soundtracks.

Back when I was a teenager and into my early twenties, I was a rabid cinephile. Indeed, I almost spent as much time watching films as did listening to music. It was a love I got from my mother, who’d been watching films since her own youth and began collecting films as soon as they were available in a format to watch from home, first on VHS and later, DVD. The household collection grew quickly and I never wanted for something to watch. In fact, it was often a bigger problem and took a herculean effort to choose just one film. It wasn’t long before I had my own favourite actors, directors, and screenwriters that I would follow and typically knew when they had something new being released. After moving out of my childhood home, my film watching slowly waned and I eventually got to a point where I would watch films weekly rather than daily, quality rather than quantity.

Still, many of my favourite films are from the days of my youth. And of course, I still love sitting down to dig into a good flick. Maybe I won’t watch just anything these days but certain actors will always tempt, as will anything that focuses on writing and writers and to be sure, anything to do with music.

Which brings us back to the task at hand: film soundtracks. We’ll get down to my top ten favourites over the next few months but first, on this first day of February, I’m going to whet your appetite by sharing a handful of great soundtracks that didn’t quite make the cut.

Action!

21 (2008):  A slick and hip, indie-heavy soundtrack that perhaps even out-hipped the slick, heist film that was based upon but over-sensationalized real events.
Check out: “L.S.F. (Lost souls forever” Mark Ronson feat. Kasabian

24 hour party people (2002):  The soundtrack for the amazing biopic on Factory Records, Tony Wilson, and the Manchester scene features a number of artists, both well-known and lesser-known, associated with Factory.
Check out: “Love will tear us apart” Joy Division

Forrest Gump (1994):  A double album of strictly American musical artists that reflect and embody the three decades – from the 50s to the 80s – that we experience of Forrest Gump’s remarkable life.
Check out: “Turn! Turn! Turn!” The Byrds

Rocky Horror picture show (1975): The soundtrack of the cult film/musical/phenomenon features the film’s cast*  belting out those twisted numbers we all know and love.
Check out: “The time warp”

Stand by me (1986): Music from the 1980s film based on the Stephen King novella “The body” perfectly evokes being a teenager with your friends on an adventure at the end of summer in 1959*.
Check out: “Stand by me” Ben E. King

*Including Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Richard O’Brien, and Meat Loaf.

**Okay, I wasn’t there, but that’s how I imagine it. That’s certainly how it felt for me at that age in the 80s, but with different songs.

I’ll be back very soon with albums #10 through #6 for my Best film soundtracks list. In the meantime, you can check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.