Tag: Retro

Tunes

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

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date January 12, 2026
7 Comments on 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.

Tags 1980s, Alternative, Best tunes, British rock, Kirsty MacColl, Morrissey, Retro, Singer/Songwriter, Solo

Tunes

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

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date November 28, 2025
5 Comments on 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.

Tags 1980s, A-Ha, Alternative, Best tunes, New Wave, Norwegian, Retro, Synthpop

Tunes

Best tunes of 1994: #25 Frank Black “Headache”

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date November 4, 2025
2 Comments on Best tunes of 1994: #25 Frank Black “Headache”

<< #26 | #24 >>

Back in the early 90s, Toronto alternative radio station CFNY collaborated with music retailer extraordinaire HMV on a series of alternative music compilations. Fittingly titled “Free at last”, the radio station would hand them out as promotional items at events and the store would give them out free with purchases of music by at least one of the artists appearing on the compilation. There were five of them made (that I know of) from 1991 to 1995 and I’m pretty sure they were available both on cassette tape and compact disc, though the art work differed between the two.

I must have had friends that had a few of the volumes because I still have a couple of copies dubbed to cassette packed away in the basement. I also have stowed with them a legit one that I got myself from HMV: Volume 4, from 1994. Looking at the track listing, I figure I probably got a copy with Lush’s second album “Split”. Other artists that appeared on this volume included The Breeders, The Charlatans, Meat Puppets, The Tindersticks, and yes, you guessed it, Frank Black. The very track of focus today, the only single off his sophomore solo long player.

I had only just gotten into his band, the Pixies, a year or two before they announced their break up in 1993 and almost immediately, the frontman* appeared with his debut solo album. In truth, Black had been working on solo material for some time, recording some covers for a planned album as early as during the sessions for Pixies 1991 long player, “Trompe le monde”. The eventual self-titled debut only ended up with one cover on it** when it came out but had a banger of a single on it called “Los Angeles”, whose video I recorded one night from CityLimits and watched and rewatched and rewatched. The sophomore release, “Teenager of the year”, appeared the following year, including twenty two tracks, mostly of typical Pixie length, in and around the two to two and a half minute mark. I never really got into that album as a whole but man, did I love “Headache”, and this was mostly due to the compilation I spoke about above.

“This wrinkle in time, I can’t give it no credit
I thought about my space and I really got me down
Got me so down, I got me a headache
My heart is crammed in my cranium and it still knows how to pound”

Economical as ever, Black packs it all into three minutes. There’s no running start here, going from zero to a hundred, right from the get-go. Crashing drums and slacker guitars, feeling so free and loose. But it’s Black’s vocals and melody that are the star. There ain’t no time to sit and ponder one’s place in the universe and in history. You just gotta go for it. Live it and sing along with Frank. Back him up, screaming all the way. You’ll never be sorry.