Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

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DaveC
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Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by DaveC »

When folks say that little good music was released in 1981 that's when I reach for my revolver.

My favourite song of the 1980's from their post-punk masterpiece "Playing With a Different Sex"
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by DaveC »

Next a landmark album of British Folk Music (specifically Scottish). Folk Roots readers and critics both named it the greatest album of the 1980s.

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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by DaveC »

Girls at Our Best! - Pleasure

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One of the greatest one-of-a-kind albums in music history.

They produced several fairly run of the mill post punk singles before creating 'Pleasure' which has a musical aesthetic all of it's own. The expanded release of the album (as on Spotify) greatly confuses by front loading the album with the early singles.

This marvellous fun album runs from 'Pleasure' to 'Goodbye to That Jazz'.

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Listyguy
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by Listyguy »

There's some pretty good albums outside of the top of the AM list; Deceit, Rue de Siam, and Beauty and the Beat are a few of my favorites from that category.
Last edited by Listyguy on Sat Mar 02, 2019 3:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
BobPatience
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by BobPatience »

I want to share some tracks from the second record one of the finest Dutch 80s band's.

The band is Doe Maar (Dutch for: 'just do') and the album is their 1981 breakthrough 'Skunk'
You might smell an animal here, but actually it's a portmanteau of 'ska' and 'punk', the band's music styles.

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Considering their first album did not chart, this breakthrough came as a complete surprise, eventually topping the charts for 3 weeks and spending a total of 56 weeks in the Top 100.

The singles did a little worse. The first single, 32 jaar (Sinds 1 dag of 2), made the Top 40, topping at 29. The second single, Smoorverliefd, didn't even make the charts. Their legacy, however, is much bigger. With '32 jaar' beating all their Top 10 hits in the annual Dutch all time polls. And Smoorverliefd being the first song I remember hearing and liking (In the movie 'Abeltje', I was around 5 y.o. at the time).

Of course their full oeuvre is on Spotify, so linking their album tracks on youtube might be a little boring, when instead we got these: full orchestrated live performances in 2012 (fittingly '32 jaar' (years) after recording the songs in 1980)

Smoorverliefd:
32 jaar (Sinds 1 dag of 2)
Encore:
A live classic; Most Dutchies will know the chorus.
A youtube commenter goes as far as claiming it to be the "unofficial Dutch national anthem".
It's an album track called 'Nederwiet', cannabis sativa hollandica. The lyrics basically are a manual on how to grow weed.
Now in 2019, the rest of the world has advanced way more weed-wise than The Netherlands have since 1980, but we'll never lose the greatest Dutch reggae anthem. I present:

Song starts about 1 minute in.
Last edited by BobPatience on Thu Mar 14, 2019 8:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Safetycat
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by Safetycat »

Two of my favourite songs from 1981 are from a New Zealand band named Blam Blam Blam.

The first song is "Don't Fight It Marsha, It's Bigger Than The Both Of Us"
And the other song is "There is No Depression in New Zealand"
and here's some more context on the latter of the two: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/n ... ew-zealand
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Madzong
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

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Safetycat wrote:Two of my favourite songs from 1981 are from a New Zealand band named Blam Blam Blam.

The first song is "Don't Fight It Marsha, It's Bigger Than The Both Of Us"
And the other song is "There is No Depression in New Zealand"
and here's some more context on the latter of the two: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/n ... ew-zealand
Awesome! I was going to recommend these same two songs!
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BobPatience
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by BobPatience »

I'm quite indifferent to the second song. It's just a bit too busy for my tastes.
The first song however, was great once I got through the first minute (luckily it lasts for almost 5), it sounds pretty experimental for an '81 record, a bit reminiscent of Mark Hollis (Rip). I'll surely be keeping it on hand.
It sucks that they disbanded over a car accident, just after chart succes, and just before their first full album release.

I can also name 3 New Zealand musical groups now. (or 2.5, or 2.25, how 'newzealandish' is Crowded House?)
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by Safetycat »

BobPatience wrote: I can also name 3 New Zealand musical groups now. (or 2.5, or 2.25, how 'newzealandish' is Crowded House?)
Depends if you're asking an Australian or not :mrgreen:
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by BobPatience »

Safetycat wrote:
BobPatience wrote: I can also name 3 New Zealand musical groups now. (or 2.5, or 2.25, how 'newzealandish' is Crowded House?)
Depends if you're asking an Australian or not :mrgreen:
What If I'm not?
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Safetycat
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by Safetycat »

BobPatience wrote:
Safetycat wrote:
BobPatience wrote: I can also name 3 New Zealand musical groups now. (or 2.5, or 2.25, how 'newzealandish' is Crowded House?)
Depends if you're asking an Australian or not :mrgreen:
What If I'm not?
Quick summary, so basically they're technically more Australian since they were based there, and 2/3 of the original members are Australians (Nick Seymour and Paul Hester).

However, NZer Neil Finn was the frontman, main songwriter, lead singer, etc, and their most acclaimed album (Woodface) also features Tim Finn, his brother, so there's an equally good case for NZ. Also our country gets quite clingy over things that originated here so we just see them as a Kiwi band. AM lists them under New Zealand, and RYM under Australia, so it's still quite a split opinion.

But really this is coming too soon - we've got another 5 years/months until they even release their first album!
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Madzong
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by Madzong »

And don't forget these other two New Zealand classics from 1981:

Split Enz - History Never Repeats
The Swingers - Counting The Beat
Last edited by Madzong on Sat Mar 02, 2019 6:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Pierre
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by Pierre »

I'm not sure I'll be joining these polls yet (I totally missed 1980 already as I keep myself busy), but I'd still like to recommend the Neville Brothers' Fiyo on the Bayou for this year, which IMO is a really charming New Orleans funk album.
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Pierre
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by Pierre »

I'm doing re-listenings for this poll and I knew that Rickie Lee Jones' Pirates would place very high on my list, but man I had forgotten how beautiful this album was. Delicate female singer-songwriter stuff with the music caught between film soundtracks and the E-Street Band (with, apparently, Donald Fagen on synths somewhere, but they're so discreet on this album, it's hard to tell). A lost classic, probably.
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by Cold Butterfly »

My #1 album for 1981, Tin Can Alley by Jack DeJohnette, hasn't been mentioned in any other ballots for the albums poll. It's a great jazz album that mixes elements of cool with avant-garde and fusion styles, and I implore anyone who's looking for obscure picks of the year to check it out.

Another great obscure pick is the Adolescents' self-titled debut, which is one of my favorite punk albums of all time.
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Pierre
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by Pierre »

I've just discovered a band called the Comsat Angels through Allmusic's review for the Sound, and I believe that fans of this band, Echo and the Bunnymen or the Chameleons should give it a shot, it's really great post-punk in my opinion. Their 1981 album, Sleep No More, is featured on Youtube, but I think I'll stop posting videos here because the thread is getting heavy to load on mobile phones.
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

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The_Claw
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by The_Claw »

BobPatience wrote:The band is Doe Maar (Dutch for: 'just do') and the album is their 1981 breakthrough 'Skunk'. You might smell an animal here, but actually it's a portmanteau of 'ska' and 'punk', the band musics style.
Skunk is also slang for cannabis ;)

Bob came with the most important Dutch band of the early 1980s, so I’ll present you the greatest Belgian act of that period, TC Matic. Fronted by the inimitable Arno Hintjes, their sound is an idiosyncratic hybrid of new wave with funk, chanson and blues.

In 1981, they released their self-titled debut album, containing their best-known song, “Oh La La La”. And as you might expect from the country that gave us Plastic Bertrand, it is a wonderfully weird piece of danceable punk, a mix of English and French lyrics sung by Arno like a Flemish Johnny Rotten.
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Listyguy
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by Listyguy »

A few more albums that haven't appeared on many lists so far: Penguin Cafe Orchestra (self-titled album) and King Crimson's Discipline. Both are definitely worth a listen!
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Pierre
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by Pierre »

Listyguy wrote:King Crimson's Discipline
Non-streamability is probably the main issue for anything Robert Fripp. Personally, non-streamable albums on Spotify or Youtube will not be in my list whatsoever.
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Listyguy
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by Listyguy »

Pierre wrote:
Listyguy wrote:King Crimson's Discipline
Non-streamability is probably the main issue for anything Robert Fripp. Personally, non-streamable albums on Spotify or Youtube will not be in my list whatsoever.
This is fair, it was rather difficult for me to track down as well. My local library had a copy, which is how I personally heard it.
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by Live in Phoenix »

Some listening objectives:

Air - B.K.
Birthday Party - Nick the Stripper; King Ink
The Blasters - Border Radio; American Music
Glenn Branca - The Spectacular Commodity; The Ascension
David Byrne - Two Soldiers; The Red House; Ade
Cabaret Voltaire - Sly Doubt; A Thousand Ways
Chic - Stage Fright
Crass - Where Next Columbus?
dB's - Black and White
Devo - Beautiful World; Jerkin' Back 'n' Forth; Through Being Cool; Working in the Coal Mine
DNA - Blonde Red Head
The Embarrassment - Celebrity Art Party
Roky Erickson - I Think of Demons
The Fall - Leave the Capitol
Flesh Eaters - Pray til You Sweat
Half Japanese - New Brides of Frankenstein
Kip Hanrahan - India Song; Heart on My Sleeve
Kid Creole and the Coconuts - Going Places
(Lydia Lunch) 8 Eyed Spy - Love Split With Blood
Parliament/Funkadelic - Electro-Cuties
Raincoats - Shouting Out Loud
(Adrian Sherwood) African Head Charge - Stebeni's Theme
(Adrian Sherwood) Creation Rebel/New Age Steppers - Chemical Specialist
(Adrian Sherwood) New Age Steppers - Fade Away
Television Personalities - This Angry Silence
Undertones - Julie Ocean; It's Going to Happen!
Tom Verlaine - There's a Reason; Penetration; Fragile
(Hal Willner) Amarcord Nino Rota - Juliet of the Spirits, La Strada
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by Moonbeam »

This song by Alicia Myers is a wonderful blend of disco, funk, soul, and gospel. Her genuine happiness at finding true love is infectious:

"I Want to Thank You"

The boogie queen Evelyn "Champagne" King also had some classic cuts perfect for the dancefloor:

The ever-sampled "I'm in Love"

"Spirit of the Dancer"

One of my favorite Eurythmics songs is "Take Me to Your Heart". I gushed about it thusly in the big Eurythmics poll I helped run last year:

Oh, oh, oh! ❤️ Out of all of the different worlds that Eurythmics painted with their diverse soundscapes, this little cavern of sound might just be the most beautiful. That bass line propels with such thick texture! The discord between the higher pitched synth line which delights with such twinkling magic and the lower pitched one which carries a mournful tone captures the spirit of the track wonderfully. And yes, I do mean spirit: while the song is disguised as a plea for closeness with her lover, something about the moonlit ambient electronics that hang throughout the song like a thick fog and Annie’s ghost-like delivery give the song a paranormal vibe, as if she is trying to reach her beau from beyond the grave after he has sadly moved on.

The choice of the word “contact” is key to this impression for me, particularly the way it is sung - a standard rhythm of the words “I try to contact you” would shorten the word “to” and lengthen the “con-“ in “contact”, and yet here, “to” is given the same duration as the previous words, and “contact” is subsequently delivered more rapidly. This unusual phrasing is such a brilliant way to emphasize that word - who knew that by shortening the delivery you could add emphasis?! This delivery highlights the *urgency* of the need for contact, and it routinely gives me chills. Add to that the way Annie echoes out of the song in a seemingly endless loop of “time after time...” and “when I’m alone...” and I get imagery of Annie’s ghost returning to her grave, forever carrying this obsessive love that crosses the mortal realm. The highlight of In the Garden for me and one of the greatest creative triumphs of the 80s, IMO.
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Pierre
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by Pierre »

Fans of Swans might be interested in trying out a little EP called Circus Mort, which is Michael Gira's first release ever. It's your average post-punk thing, but the work on synths and tribal rhythms reveals that he already had that interest for atmospheres which would come in full bloom with Swans. It's available on Spotify on my end.
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by _______________ »

Oooooooh--- 1981 is my ultimate trigger year... just ask fellow user Brick Maurer, a former supersaiyabababooban user in here, we married recently after but that's a different story: my vote goes to Level 42 with their self titled debut album, a hidden meta fugazi from a rather obscure post bop band who crafted catchy tunes out of early teenage pre shirley tempo angst that was so typical of the Thatcher years of the late 1990s and it showed!

late edit: look no further than here, they ruled the western hem for an incredible short amount of time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDIYOiQUi2s
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by CupOfDreams »

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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

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Pierre
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Re: Recommendation Thread: 1981 Poll

Post by Pierre »

Has anyone heard of this forgotten thing compiled by ZE Records and Island Records?

https://www.discogs.com/fr/Various-A-Ch ... ster/70845

I'm listening to it right now, and it's probably one of the weirdest Christmas records I ever listened to, with a lineup featuring Suicide (and Alan Vega solo) or Was (Not Was) (and sorry for the cocka-doodle-doo moment, but there's also French singer-songwriter Charlélie Couture on this, as he was a Chris Blackwell protégé at that point. His contrib to this album ain't the most notable though, try his solo album Poèmes rock instead if you're curious). It's on Spotify, so if you feel like giving it a spin, I encourage you to do so. Probably a novelty, but a really listenable one.
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