Tag: 1980s

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Eighties’ best 100 redux: #92 The Housemartins “Caravan of love” (1986)

<< #93    |    #91 >>

Ah… the high school dance memories…

The Housemartins’ “Caravan of love” at track #92, reminds me of the half-hugging*, half-shuffling we would call “slow dancing” back in the old high school auditorium days. Teen boys lining the walls on one end of the hall and groups of tittering teen girls on the other, each eyeing and sizing the other up, while betwixt them were couples that had got up the nerve to cross the floor and find each other. There might be a few more songs on this list that call this image clearly to mind, some on this list mostly because of this memory.

In this case, though, I consider myself something more of a fan of the group that sang the song. The Housemartins were formed in 1983 by Paul Heaton and Stan Cullimore and went through a number of personnel changes, that included drummer Dave Hemingway, who would go on to form The Beautiful South with Paul Heaton later on, and bassist Norman Cook, who would later go on to fame as Fatboy Slim. Their music was jangly, indie pop at its best with Paul Heaton’s extraordinary vocal work at the centre of it all.

The group only ever released two full-length albums and a handful of singles in their brief five years in existence, but so many of their songs soundtracked the latter half of my high school years and the ones immediately thereafter. Indeed, The Housemartins’ 1988 compilation, “Now that’s what I call quite good”, was one of first compact discs I ever bought, a necessity after I had worn out the cassette tape I had copied from a friend. So many great tunes on that one and it’s a compilation that I keep hoping will see a vinyl reissue one day.

“Caravan of love”, an a cappella cover of an Isley-Jasper-Isley tune (this is the first of a number of covers that will grace this list), gave The Housemartins their first and only UK #1 hit in December 1986. Paul Heaton and company often delved into a cappella territory but for some reason this is the one that struck a chord with the buying public. It certainly is a song that begs to be sung along with.

I think I’ll go sing along to it again.

“…Everybody take a stand, Join the caravan of love… Stand up, stand up…”

Original Eighties best 100 position: #89

Favourite lyric: “We’ll be living in a world of peace /
In the day when everyone is free ” Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?

Where are they now?: As I hinted at above, the band went their separate ways after they broke up in 1988 and never looked back. I read somewhere that the original members were gathered for a photo shoot and feature by Mojo magazine in 2009 and at that time, they unfortunately maintained that there won’t ever be a reunion.

*Not too close, mind you, it was a Catholic high school!

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

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Eighties’ best 100 redux: #93 The Lightning Seeds “Pure” (1989)

<< #94    |    #92 >>

Here’s an example of an artist and song that I most definitely wasn’t listening to in the 1980s. In fact, I wasn’t even listening to them in the same century as the 1980s.

As astounding as this may sound, I only became familiar with Ian Broudie’s The Lightning Seeds a couple of years ago when this very song came up on a Spotify playlist that was ‘generated for me’. The song blew my mind and sounded vaguely familiar so I had to stop what I was doing and check my iPad screen to investigate its provenance. Of course, The Lightning Seeds’ name was familiar to me, having been a keen listener of alternative rock radio and a voracious consumer of British music magazines in the early nineties, thus, I decided to delve deeper. I switched from said playlist to The Best of The Lightning Seeds and within a few songs that sounded very much within my wheelhouse, I found myself wondering where this band had been all my life. And shortly after that, when I was having a drink or two or three with a bunch of my old friends of similar age and musical tastes, I made mention of the group and all of them, to a one, knew and loved their music. To this day, it remains a mystery how the Seeds’ music escaped my notice for so long but they’ve not been far from my listening tendencies ever since and when I decided to redo this Eighties Best 100 list last summer, there was no way “Pure” would be left off it.

Ian Broudie formed the project in Liverpool in 1989. Prior to that, he had been a member of a number of notable New Wave groups, like Big in Japan, and did production work on albums by other groups that will also appear on this list, like Wall of Voodoo and Echo & the Bunnymen. Generally a studio-only project for its first handful of years, Broudie put together a collection of musicians to take the show on the road in support of The Lightning Seeds’ third album, 1994’s “Jollification”. Two more albums were released and Broudie decided to put the group on hiatus to close out the 90s. After the aforementioned best of compilation and a new album saw the light of day in the latter part of the 2000s, The Lightning Seeds have been an on again, off again concern right up to present.

“Pure” was The Lightning Seeds’ very first single, released in June 1989, more than six months in advance of their very first album, 1990’s “Cloudcuckooland”. It was the very first song Broudie had ever written and sung himself, and did very well on the UK singles charts. And why not? The song is a blast of sunshine and rainbows. An amalgam of New Order and The The new wave, but with a lot more cheer. It dances and flits with computer bleeps, jangly guitars, boppy rhythms, and glorious horn flourishes. And Broudie gathers himself together and lets loose his thoughts on love and happiness. It’s good times on repeat.

Original Eighties best 100 position: n/a

Favourite lyric: “Fresh and deep as oceans new / Shiver at the sight of you / I’ll sing a softer tune / Pure and simple over you.” Just like that, heart-melting stuff.

Where are they now?: The Lightning Seeds released their seventh album, the amazing “See you in stars” in 2022 and then, opened up one of Glastonbury’s stages in 2023, so very much alive.

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

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Eighties’ best 100 redux: #94 Echo & The Bunnymen “Lips like sugar” (1987)

<< #95    |    #93 >>

Echo and the Bunnymen originally formed as the trio of Ian McCulloch, Will Sargent, and Les Pattinson in Liverpool in 1978. Drummer Pete de Freitas would eventually replace the band’s drum machine as the fourth member in 1980. It was this lineup that recorded and released the band’s first five and best-loved albums: “Crocodiles” (1980), “Heaven up here” (1981), “Porcupine” (1983), “Ocean rain” (1984), and “Echo and the Bunnymen” (1987). After McCulloch left to pursue a solo career in 1988 and de Freitas died a year later, the remaining two members carried on with new recruits and released a mostly forgettable album in 1990 before dissolving a few years later. The name and band was revived in 1997 after McCulloch and Sargent successfully worked together again as Electrafixion on one album and then, Pattinson returned to work with them.

I original got into the group with a cover. I was super haunted by their version of The Doors’ “People are strange”* that appeared on the “Lost boys” soundtrack, a film that I watched despite my parents warnings as a teen and then, watched and rewatched many times over. I came upon this very song, “Lips like sugar”, on an 80s compilation, a bunch of years later, and from there, it was an easy hop, skip, and jump to the rest of their singles.

“Lips like sugar” was originally released as the second single off Echo & the Bunnymen’s 1987, eponymously-named fifth record, the group’s most commercially successful album in North America. In fact, frontman Ian McCulloch initially disliked the song because he thought it sounded too commercial. His view towards it has softened considerably over the years, likely because he was right. Money does have a way of changing views towards the positive.

Regardless of its commercial activity, it’s a great song. Evoking fantastical imagery and that magical feeling of early love and longing, in that time when the object of your affection is near perfection. Pounding drums echoing that of a racing heartbeat, guitars jangle and ring and chirp and roll off into the distance, and all the while, McCulloch wavers between croons and howls, all bouncing and reverberating off of prison walls of his own making. This definitely wasn’t what mainstream sounded like back then, but it certainly paved the way for what was to come.

Original Eighties best 100 position: n/a

Favourite lyric: “She floats like a swan / grace on the water” It’s a great image and it so completely sets the tone and gives you a clear image of who McCulloch is pining over.

Where are they now?: Echo and the Bunnymen is still very much a going concern, though these days the only remaining original members are Ian McCulloch and Will Sargent. They last released an album of new material in 2014 (“Meteorites”) and back in 2018, released an album called “The stars, the oceans, and the moon”, which was mostly reworked versions of earlier tunes.

*This very cover of The Doors’ classic appeared at number sixty-eight on my ongoing list of 100 favourite cover songs.

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