Tag: 1990s

Categories
Playlists

Playlist: “Raging Retro” (a mixed tape)

So I was downstairs in the basement a few days ago, looking for something else entirely, when I came across a treasure trove of my old cassette tapes. Yes, you read that right: cassette tapes. And with that clarification, you may be asking yourself why I still have cassette tapes in my possession, especially when I no longer have the appropriate hardware on which to play them. Well… it would be the same reason why I still have piles of old concert tickets, old floppy discs, rough drafts of long forgotten and unfinished short stories, and other random bric-a-brac from my past, all cluttered together in the same roughneck storage bin. The memories attached to these things are priceless and irreplaceable and even though I only ever come across them once or twice a year (while looking for something else), I can’t bring myself to part with them.

It was while sorting through these cassettes, remembering when and for what reason I made each, and reading through the track listings, that I got the brilliant (well, you might not think so) idea to share one or two of these as part of my (Spotify) playlist series. I’m starting off with this one, “Raging retro”, because it’s one of only a handful of those in the box that I didn’t in fact make, but instead, was made for me. Susan, a scenester friend of mine in university (and who I haven’t spoken to in years), actually made a few mixed tapes for me, though this might be the only one that I still have.

As evidenced by the faded but still legible in some places playlist pictured below, the mix was conceived in October 1995. Susan wanted to share a taste of the songs that had been in constant rotation at an eighties night she started attending regularly the previous summer. I feel like this was one of the first times I ever heard the term “retro” being used in regards to music. I was dubious at first because the memories I had of the music from that era were not great but I ended up listening to the tape quite a bit.

Pretty soon, I was hearing the term “retro” everywhere, mostly in reference to music from the 1980s, and not necessarily the mainstream music to which I grew up listening . A couple of years later, I found myself going to a Toronto club named “Whiskey Saigon” pretty regularly on Sunday nights. Of course, that was the night the club had an eighties night that was so wildly popular that the radio station, Edge 102, broadcasted live to air every week and the club was constantly filled to capacity, on all three floors. Retro, for a time, almost became like a sub-genre of music all its own, which for some reason even appealed to young hipsters that were too young remember this music when it was originally released.

In 1997, the film “Grosse Point Blank” was released starring John Cusack (incidentally, another 80s icon making a comeback) with a soundtrack featuring a number of eighties songs, including ones by The Clash, The Beat, and The Specials (there were three other Specials songs in the movie that were not on the soundtrack). This movie and the ubiquitous presence on eighties night playlists is how songs like the Violent Femmes’ “Blister in the sun” resurfaced in the nineties, was infinitely more popular than when it was originally released in 1983 and is now considered a classic in popular music.

But I’ve gone off on a tangent, let’s get back to this mixed tape. For me, “Raging retro” was the springboard to regaining an appreciation of the 1980s. So many of those tunes on this tape became favourites of mine. And for those bands of which I wasn’t already a fan, it led me to delve deeper into their catalogues. Such is the magic of a well-executed mixed tape and the main reason why I’ve decided to share it with you all today.

As I mentioned above, some of the tracks in the listing are no longer legible. Apparently, purple ink doesn’t have the staying power against the sun and the passage of time as has black ink. Nonetheless, I was able to piece it all together and laid it out for you below. At least three of the songs were apparently too obscure to be found on Spotify but I at least managed to find YouTube links for those of you who want to know what you are missing as you peruse this delicious Spotify mix.

But before I get right into the playlist itself, here are some highlights that you definitely should check out and incidentally, half of those are ones that Spotify hasn’t made available:

      • “Sinful”, the debut solo single by Pete Wylie, who got his start in punk bands with Julian Cope and Ian McCulloch and led a band in the early 80s with multiple names, all including the word “Wah!”
      • The version of the early The The single, “Perfect”, that appears in the YouTube video linked below is the one that was on my cassette but I’ve never been able to locate a physical copy of it
      • Scottish new wave band Endgames never truly broke through but their single “First last for everything” was a mainstay on Edge 102.1’s 80s shows
      • The Chameleons UK were an English post-punk band that I always meant to explore, mainly on the back the very excellent “Swamp thing”, and I’m happy to say that I finally picked up a copy of “Strange times” this year
      • This a cappella cover of Yazoo’s “Only you” by The Flying Pickets is just as good as the original in my books
      • Canadian new wavers Boys Brigade were pretty obscure everywhere but here at home but their single “Melody” is definitely worth checking out

For those who don’t use Spotify or if the embedded playlist further below doesn’t work for you, here is the entire playlist as it appeared on the original mixed (complete with side titles):

Side one “Trapped in the 80s”:
1. Dexy’s Midnight Runners “Come on Eileen”
2. The Icycle Works “Birds fly (Whisper to a scream)”
3. A Flock of Seagulls “I ran”
4. Pete Wylie “Sinful” (unavailable on Spotify)
5. Naked Eyes “Always something there to remind me”
6. Big Country “In a big country”
7. The The “Perfect”
8. Alphaville “Forever young”
9. Endgames “First, last for everything” (unavailable on Spotify)
10. Chameleons UK “Swamp thing”

Side two “Disgruntled 20 somethings”:
11. New Order “1963”
12. Soft Cell “Tainted love”
13. Talk Talk “It’s my life”
14. R.E.M. “Superman”
15. The Boomtown Rats “I don’t like mondays”
16. Split Enz “I got you”
17. The Jesus And Mary Chain “Head on”
18. Nena “99 luftballons”
19. The Flying Pickets “Only you”
20. Boys Brigade “Melody” (unavailable on Spotify)
21. The Dream Academy “Life in a northern town”
22. The Smiths “Unhappy birthday”

And here is the promised embedded Spotify playlist for your listening pleasure. Get out your Vuarnet sunglasses and neon spandex and enjoy.

If you’re interested in checking out any of the other playlists I’ve created and shared on these pages, you can peruse them here.

Categories
Albums

Best albums of 1991: #5 The Wonder Stuff “Never loved Elvis”

Throughout the first half on the 1990s, I made no apologies and did not waffle either way. The Wonder Stuff was my favourite band. Period. And though I’ve listened to them less and less over the years, I’ve learned, while doing these Best tunes and Best albums list series for this blog, that they are, in fact, still, one of my favourite bands.

I’ve already written the story of how I discovered them a number of times on these pages so I won’t tread those paths again. If you’re interested, you can read about that in my post on their debut album, “The eight legged groove machine”, when it appeared at number two on my Best albums of 1988 list, or the post on “Hup”, their sophomore album, which appeared at number five on my Best albums of 1989 list. I was almost apologetic at their appearances so high on those two lists, blaming the nostalgia factor. And while that was most certainly the case for those two records and the same can be said of all of The Wonder Stuff’s early work for me, there’s more to it than that when it comes to their third album, “Never loved Elvis”.

I bought this album on cassette tape, with my own money, from “Hooked on video”, our small town’s only music store at that time, where and when I went looking for more music where “The eight legged groove machine” came from. It turned out to be not at all what I expected but I fell for it just the same. “Never loved Elvis” became a constant fixture in my walkman. I learned every nuance of the fiddle, mandolin, and juke-joint piano influenced folk-rock that underpinned Miles Hunt’s biting pomes (yes, I misspelled that on purpose).

Legend has it, the original working title for the album was “F*ck Elvis”, which absolutely toes the line of Miles’ typical combative, don’t give a shit attitude in those days. However, the title got a tone down when he heard comic Dudley Moore state in a television interview that he “never loved Elvis”. The album was anti-pop and rock and anti-establishment and fit its moniker. Funny, then, that it became the band’s biggest selling album to date, initially all on the back of the band’s first huge hit, “The size of a cow”. Not to worry, the irony of it all was never lost on Miles, who has always appreciated the song and the fact that it made him lots of money.

This version of The Wonder Stuff* would only make one other album after this, their fame and Miles’ innate self-destructiveness were the main culprits, but for “Never loved Elvis”, the stars aligned perfectly. Or maybe it was just the alcohol and those late nights hanging out with The Mission’s Wayne Hussey.

I can forever listen to each song on this record, just enjoy the originality of it all, and to sing along with and deconstruct Milo’s excellent lyrics. Every one of them has been and will be a favourite of mine through the past and the future. The three songs I have picked to highlight for you are all ones that have a lot of personal significance but are also excellent examples of The Wonder Stuff’s, in my mind, very underrated talents. “Thanks for your time and ears to lend…”

”Maybe”: Speaking of which, I’m starting things off here with track nine of thirteen, a song that was never released as a single but was one of my favourites by the group nonetheless. “Maybe I should be a writer, write a book and feel much brighter, share my thoughts with the world.” Those first three lines that start off Miles Hunts’ musing on being at a crossroads, trying to decide what to do with the rest of his life, it’s those words that completely rung true with me as a teenager. Even back then, I wanted to be a writer, dreamt of writing the great Canadian novel, was serious about meaningful lyrics in songs, all of which hooked me on to this band in the first place. I identified with all the questioning going on, since I was yet a teen and had no idea then where I would end up. I loved singing along with these words. I loved the whirl of organs, the rambling harmonica and of course, those fiddles that start off the proceedings against Martin Gilks shuffling drum beat. And each of these make an appearance all the way through, taking turns accompanying our man Miles as he name-checks the lead singer of R.E.M. and questions the sanity of the world and his own spot in it. Yeah, it’s still a favourite.

”Caught in my shadow”: The second single to be released in advance of the album was this one, featuring the following lines that run through it thrice: “These streets used to look pretty. This town used to look like a city. These people used to talk to me.” It sounds to me like Miles is feeling nostalgic for home, but not just home: the home of his youth. A sentiment with which many of us can identify and one that I’ve known every time that I’ve swung through the town in which I grew up and found it unrecognizable. Fittingly, the video for this track was filmed in Birmingham, not far from the band’s roots in Stourbridge. Originally planned as a commando, surprise busking gig, requirements for city approvals meant that a sizeable crowd appeared and were treated to acoustic renditions of a bunch of the band’s hits and of course, this tune. Bongo drumming, acoustic strumming, a shine of the beautiful mandolin, and Hunt’s snarling memories, all highlight this otherwise driving pop song. And heroically done.

”Welcome to the cheap seats”: “Arriba!!!” Released as the fourth single to “Never loved Elvis”, my last pick for you today has already appeared on these pages in the number eight spot on my Best Tunes of 1991 list. It was actually released the following year to headline a double EP and was accompanied by a documentary film of the same name, both of which I owned copies of in the past, the former on cassette and then compact disc and the latter on VHS. “Welcome to the cheap seats” features the accordion work of Linda McRae of Canadian folk-rockers Spirit of the West (with whom the Stuffies toured and became friends) and the backing vocals of everyone’s favourite, Kirsty MacColl. It puts excellent use to these two extraordinary talents, contrasting Kirsty’s smiles with Miles’s snarls and pairing the accordion with the fiddle, all set against the driving strum on the acoustic and the peppery drums. It all makes for a ridiculous waltz, a tear and reel through a shattered looking glass, everything distorted and nothing as it seems. The lyrics are equally nonsensical and surreal, adding up to three wonderful minutes of whimsy. “Imagine his suprise when he opened his eyes and I’d run the lawnmower over his thighs. Imagine the disturbance at the time of the occurrence, when his life became a burden and we laughed at his cries.”

*The Wonder Stuff broke up in 1994, which I’ve bemoaned in other posts on these pages. Miles resurrected the band in 2000 and they’ve soldiered on with their intrepid leader and a varying supporting cast ever since.

Check back two Thursdays from today for album #4. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:

10. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin “Godfodder”
9. Spirit Of The West “Go figure”
8. Chapterhouse  “Whirlpool”
7. Blur “Leisure”
6. Levellers “Levelling the land”

You can also check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Ned’s Atomic Dustbin “God fodder”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Ned’s Atomic Dustbin
Album Title: God fodder
Year released: 1991
Year reissued: 2019
Details: 180 gram, limited edition, reissue, numbered 939/1000, black and silver marbled vinyl

The skinny: The moment that I heard that Music on Vinyl was reissuing one of my favourite albums from my youth on vinyl, I got on the pre-order machine immediately, especially after seeing that the initial pressing was numbered and limited to 1000 and pressed to black and silver marbled wax. Yeah. It’s oh so pretty. For a band with such a ridiculous moniker, their music stands up remarkably well. So well, in fact, that it squeezed its way to number ten in the Best albums of 1991 series that I just started last week. It’s noisy and high energy but still melodic. And it brings back a ton of memories of blasting a bunch of these tunes (including the one below) on my stereo in my basement bedroom while my parents stomped on the floor above, the universal messaging that the music is too loud. I rarely turned it down, though, and sometimes turned it up. It just begs to be played at a high volume, which is why I always dig out my high quality headphones when I place this disc on my turntable these days.

Standout track: “Kill your television”