Friday 80s Flashback for June 19, 2026

 

[Queen Jamboree] -- Forty years ago, in June 1986, two bands released new albums into their respective catalogs. Although both are critically lauded, one has become an undisputed classic while the other tends to languish as an under appreciated gem. I'm talking about The Queen Is Dead by The Smiths and Jamboree by Guadalcanal Diary. 

The Queen Is Dead – After their sophomore album, Meat Is Murder (1985), The Smiths went into retreat to write songs for their next release. And so, forty years ago this week, The Smiths released their third studio LP, The Queen Is Dead, with songs written mostly by guitarist Johnny Marr and vocalist Morrissey at Marr's home. Morrissey and Marr also co-produced the album under the auspices of Stephen Street's engineering. In a retrospective review, Gavin Edwards wrote, "Whereas previously Morrissey had sourly lectured his listeners that meat was murder, on The Queen Is Dead he made one of the funniest rock albums ever" [Rolling Stone 920, April 17, 2003]. The Queen Is Dead peaked at #2 on the UK Albums Chart, where it spent over five months, and it climbed to #70 on the US Billboard Top Pop Albums chart. 

In case you're not sure, this album is the one I referenced as an undisputed classic in the opening paragraph. For more about the album, go track-by-track with the band in NME's 2016 post, "The Full Story Behind The Smith's The Queen Is Dead". Their quips about the singles – "The Boy with the Thorn in His Side", "Bigmouth Strikes Again", and "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" (all of which were top 40 hits in the UK) – are brief but worth it. 

Jamboree – Guadalcanal Diary released their sophomore album, Jamboree, 40 years ago this week. Or, maybe, at some point between May and the end of June. So, it has turned, or will turn, 40 years old as of June 2026. The album debuted to decent reviews, with the Chicago Tribune saying it was "low on flash and affectation" and "a thoughtfully crafted, guitar-based effort" [Wikipedia, Chicago Tribune]. Good reviews, however, did not translate to sales. Neither the album nor its two singles – "Lonely Street" and "Spirit Train / Cattle Prod" – charted. 

I'm not sure if Guadalcanal Diary's oft-cited similarity to early R.E.M. hurt them, but they should have had at least as much success as their jangle pop contemporaries, even if just on college radio. And I agree with David Cleary of AllMusic who ended his review of Jamboree by writing, "This is an excellent, if sometimes bewildering album very much worth hearing". 

My favorite song is the opening track, "Pray For Rain." Go check it out and I'll bet you'll be lured into the rest of this all but forgotten gem. 

Now, on to the music. 🎶

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Flashback #1: The Queen is Dead (June 16, 1986)

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Flashback #2: Jamboree (June 15, 1986)

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And that's all till next week. Dedicated 80s-philes can find more flashbacks in the Prophet or Madman archives or via Bookended's 80s Flashback tag. As always, your comments are welcome on today's, or any other, flashback post. And if you like what I'm doing here, please share the link with your friends. If, however, you don't like the flashback, feel free to share it with your enemies.

See you in seven!

Friday 80s Flashback for June 12, 2026

[Tiger Line] -- Canadian rockers, Glass Tiger, released their debut studio album, The Thin Red Line, forty years ago this week. Other sourced cite the release date as being anywhere between February 1986 and July 1986, but most seem to point to a mid-June 1986 date, so that's what I'm using for this post. 

The Thin Red Line was Glass Tiger's only release that grabbed much attention stateside. It peaked at #3 in Canada and reached into the top 30 (#27) on the Billboard 200. It even achieved Gold record status in the states. That success was probably due to two very popular singles: "Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone)", which peaked at #2 in the US, and "Someday", which was a mere top 20 hit in Canada but peaked at #7 here in the States.

"Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone)" was their lead off single featuring backup vocals from fellow Canadian artist, Bryan Adams. There are two versions of the music video. The original Canadian video mixed performance with a storybook concept and was nominated for Best Video at the Juno Awards of 1986. The other video (which is linked above and included in the embedded playlist below) was made to target other markets because the Canadian version was deemed "too cutesy and directed solely toward the youth market" [Billboard (Nielsen Business Media, Inc.) 98 (49): 22. 1986-12-06].

The music video for "Someday" juxtaposes an upbeat performance, a rehearsal perhaps, with scenes of their somber-looking lead vocalist dealing with the fallout of his relationship. Many of the 80s video tropes are present: nighttime scenes, nappily perched hats, arguments, camera-rushing-through-foliage, forlorn expressions while making a phone call, and more. 

A third single, "You're What I Look For", with a music video consisting of standard concert performance footage plus slow panning of the fans, is one of my favorite tracks on the album though it failed to chart in the US. 

Flashback: "The Thin Red Line (June 11, 1986)

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And that's all till next week. Dedicated 80s-philes can find more flashbacks in the Prophet or Madman archives or via Bookended's 80s Flashback tag. As always, your comments are welcome on today's, or any other, flashback post. And if you like what I'm doing here, please share the link with your friends. If, however, you don't like the flashback, feel free to share it with your enemies.

See you in seven!

Friday 80s Flashback for June 5, 2026

[Many Afternoons, Still No Utopia] -- In 1986, Alphaville released their sophomore album, Afternoons in Utopia. It was something of a concept album -- a sci-fi synth/disco opera -- but it still holds up pretty well, particularly considering it did not chart nearly as well as their first album, Forever Young [covered here on September 27, 2024]. Afternoons in Utopia was recorded over a period of nine months and involved nearly 30 different musicians [see Credits on Discogs]. The album barely squeaked into the US Billboard 200 (at #174) while four of the five singles charted internationally. None of them became a huge radio hit. 

Regarding Afternoons in Utopia's first single, "Dance With Me," Alphaville's lead singer, Marian Gold, reportedly said that the lyrics refer to child prostitution. I have found several references to this interview on the web, but I have yet to find a copy of the actual interview. Still, having read the lyrics afresh, and re-watched the music video, I do see some legitimacy to the claim. And I'll never be able to hear this song quite the same way again.

Oh, and I'm not sure how they picked which tracks to release as singles, but I think they missed out by not selecting "The Voyager".  

Flashback: Afternoons In Utopia (June 5, 1986)

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And that's all till next week. Dedicated 80s-philes can find more flashbacks in the Prophet or Madman archives or via Bookended's 80s Flashback tag. As always, your comments are welcome on today's, or any other, flashback post. And if you like what I'm doing here, please share the link with your friends. If, however, you don't like the flashback, feel free to share it with your enemies.

See you in seven!

Friday 80s Flashback for May 29, 2026

[What a Wonder] -- Erasure released their studio debut album, Wonderland, in the UK on May 1, 1986, and in the US on June 2, 1986. So, it is, or soon will be, one of those 40 year old albums I've been featuring in 2026. 

Vincent Clark, the keyboardist who had been a founding member of Depeche Mode and Yazoo, found a new musical partner in vocalist and songwriter Andy Bell. Their new duo, Erasure, would go on to be hugely successful, but not right from the start. Their debut album, Wonderland, was not a commercial success and none of its three singles cracked the top 40 in the UK. Now, the album did do fairly well in Germany and Sweden, reaching the top 20 in both countries. And it even snagged some positive reviews, such as this one in our own The Morning Call.

Even more fun is the fact that the US and UK versions of the album had differing track listings, with the US release dropping "Push Me Shove Me" and "Pistol" while adding "March on Down the Line". Also, the two albums had different versions of "Oh l'amour" (oh, and the Brazilian release had a live version of the song). 

While this album was not an immediate success, several of the tracks here have become fan favorites. Definitely, the three singles are listed among those faves: "Who Needs Love Like That", "Heavenly Action", and "Oh l'amour". Also, while putting this Flashback together, I came to realize that I've confused "Oh l'amour" with "My Heart... So Blue", one of my fave Erasure songs, for the last forty years! In fact, I think I kind of mashed them together in my brain. That might be due to the intro for the live version of "Oh l'amour" having a similar feel to "My Heart... So Blue". 

Regardless of its initial track record, and my mixup of two of the band's tracks, Wonderland is a strong debut from a duo that would become a synthpop juggernaut for the remainder of the 1980s. 

Flashback: Wonderland (May/June 1986)

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And that's all till next week. Dedicated 80s-philes can find more flashbacks in the Prophet or Madman archives or via Bookended's 80s Flashback tag. As always, your comments are welcome on today's, or any other, flashback post. And if you like what I'm doing here, please share the link with your friends. If, however, you don't like the flashback, feel free to share it with your enemies.

See you in seven!

Absolute Shade?

 Oh, dang. Rac Shade appeared in Absolute Green Lantern as a Darkstar. Does this make him Shade the Absolute Changing Man, or Absolute Shade? 

(page from Absolute Green Lantern #13). 

Friday 80s Flashback for May 22, 2026

[So, It's Been Four Decades] -- This week in 1986, Peter Gabriel released his fifth solo studio album, So. It was his first studio LP to have an actual title (though Geffen did release his 1982 Peter Gabriel album, his fourth such non-titled release, as Security in the US even after that record had been released without a title elsewhere). Titling was something that Gabriel took to reluctantly; he preferred to consider each album based on its sleeve art, but that caused a bit of confusion for marketing [Rolling Stone, September 4, 2012]. 

No confusion for this release. So was a tremendous success, not to mention Peter Gabriel's most accessible release. Almost immediately, this record launch Gabriel out of his prior cult status and into a stratosphere of mainstream stardom. There were five singles released – "Sledgehammer", "In Your Eyes", "Don't Give Up", "Big Time", and "Red Rain" – each one charting well, with several becoming top hits not only in the US and UK, but globally as well. From beginning to end, there's really not a clunker on this album. 

On paper, this album probably should not have worked. Gabriel utilized elements of world music with his usual digital sampling, but fused them with pop, soul, and prog rock, one moment swinging with brassy horns and the next quietly musing over a shimmering bass line. And, lyrically, the songs made stinging political statements and shared pointed self-reflection. Thematically, it is all over the place. But Gabriel's voice and direction, and the strength of the collaborations, keep the potential tensions from flying apart while presenting a cohesive and entertaining package. No, I can't really call So a package. It's an experience. 

So reached #2 on the US Billboard 200, #1 in the UK (as well as Austria, Finland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, and Spain), and well into the top 25 of other charts around the globe. And I have not even scratched the surface of how successful and influential this album truly was. 

"What I carry in my heart | Brings us so close or so far apart | Only love can make love" (from "That Voice Again"). 

Flashback: So (May 19, 1986)

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And that's all till next week. Dedicated 80s-philes can find more flashbacks in the Prophet or Madman archives or via Bookended's 80s Flashback tag. As always, your comments are welcome on today's, or any other, flashback post. And if you like what I'm doing here, please share the link with your friends. If, however, you don't like the flashback, feel free to share it with your enemies.

See you in seven!

Friday 80s Flashback for May 15, 2026

[40 Years of Raising Hell] -- 40 years ago this week, Run-D.M.C. released their third studio album, Raising Hell. Produced by Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin, Raising Hell was the first hip-hop record to achieve Platinum and multi-Platinum sales. And one of its singles is widely considered to be the first collaboration between rap and rock: a recording of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" that includes performances from Steven Tyler and Joe Perry (Aerosmith's vocalist and guitarist), both on the record and in the music video. 

That Run-DMC and Aerosmith collab definitely had a hand in bringing hip-hop into the mainstream. "Walk This Way" roared up the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the first song by a hip-hop act to reach the top 5 of that chart. The album had three other hit singles, each one doing well on multiple charts: "My Adidas", "You Be Illin'", and "It's Tricky". And Raising Hell not only sold well (remember the multi-Platinum sales I previously mentioned?), it topped the Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums chart at #1, peaked at #3 on the Billboard 200, and even charted globally, going top 10 in New Zealand and top 50 in the UK. 

Music journalist and critic Bill Adler likened Raising Hell to The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. By that, Adler was saying the album represents "the pinnacle of their recorded achievements" [Adler, Library of Congress, 2017]. Among its many accolades, Raising Hell earned a Grammy nomination, won a Soul Train Music Award (Best Rap Album), and was inducted into the National Recording Registry for its "cultural, historic and aesthetic importance to the American soundscape."

Raising Hell made Run-D.M.C. into icons, and it still stands as one hell of a record from the golden age of hip hop.  

Flashback: Raising Hell (May 15, 1986)

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And that's all till next week. Dedicated 80s-philes can find more flashbacks in the Prophet or Madman archives or via Bookended's 80s Flashback tag. As always, your comments are welcome on today's, or any other, flashback post. And if you like what I'm doing here, please share the link with your friends. If, however, you don't like the flashback, feel free to share it with your enemies.

See you in seven!