Friday 80s Flashback for October 28, 2022

[40 Years of Wind and Roses] -- Forty years ago this week, this very day, The Dream Syndicate released their first full-length record: The Days of Wine and Roses (October 28, 1982). The album title is lifted from a line in Ernest Dowson's 1896 poem, "Vitae Summa Brevis." The Dream Syndicate were the darker, more cynical outfit that came out of L.A.'s Paisley Underground scene. You can hear it in their aggressive guitar riffs, abrasive rhythms, and antagonistic lyrics. And this jangly, alternative album comes in at #99 on Blender's list of 100 Greatest Indie-Rock Albums Ever (note: subscribers only post). As far as I can tell, there were no singles released from this album ... at least, none that charted. That tracks because, despite critical acclaim, The Dream Syndicate were largely a commercial failure. Somehow, I don't think that translates to failure in their minds. Anyway, in the absence of singles, may I suggest "Then She Remembers" and "Halloween" (tracks 4 and 5)? 

Flashback: The Days of Wine and Roses (October 28, 1982)

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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.

I'll see you in seven!

Friday 80s Flashback for October 21, 2022

 

[Goodbye Mom - Redux] -- By Friday, October 20, 2017, I was more than two thirds of the way through writing a Flashback post, but I no longer wanted to use it. My sister had called me around 5pm the prior day and told me that our mother was gone, that she had unexpectedly died overnight. Sis had gone over to Mom's house to check on her, as per usual, but instead found ... well, she found that Mom never made it out of bed that day. Her memorial service was the following Wednesday, 10/25/2017. 

So, instead of highlighting a record that turned 40 years old this week, I'm offering up a single flashback song for this weekend. And, just as I did five years ago this week, the song I'm sharing is in memory of my mother, gone too soon at age 71. 

I'm also cribbing the write-up from a previous post, but hopefully you'll forgive me.  

It is probably no surprise that I could reliably turn to Disney for a song that honors the very heart of motherhood. Well, I sort of turned to Disney. I turned to Hal Willner, an American music producer with several tribute albums and live events listed among his many credits. In 1988, Willner released his fourth tribute album, Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films. Stay Awake featured new recordings of Disney tunes by a whole range of performing artists, from Sun Ra to Michael Stipe, and from Buster Poindexter to Ringo Starr. This is still one of my favorite CDs from the 80s. At the time, I loved it because it made a somewhat adult soundtrack out of songs originally created for kids. Over 30 years later, I still love it for the milestone in my life that it represents. The second track on Stay Awake pairs Bonnie Raitt with Was (Not Was) on "Baby Mine" from the 1941 film Dumbo. 

And it never fails to make me think of my own mother. 

R.I.P. Mom (August 1946 - October 2017).

"You're so precious to me | Cute as can be | Baby, you're mine." 

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Just one song, but 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.

I'll see you in seven!

Friday 80s Flashback for October 14, 2022

[A Quartet of Decades] -- Intro.Forty years ago this week – on October 15, 1982 – Ultravox released their sixth studio album. For this outing, Ultravox dropped their longtime producer, Conny Plank, and instead opted to work with George Martin (yes, that George Martin who worked with The Beatles). While the album resulted in four singles that were top 20 hits in the UK, and the album peaked at #6 on the UK's album charts, there were (are?) detractors who felt the band was slipping into a safe and conservative space with this outing. Meanwhile, those four singles – "Reap the Wild Wind", "Hymn", "Visions in Blue" and "We Came to Dance" – remain some of my favorite songs in this band's catalog. Among the singles, I particularly love "Hymn" and "We Came to Dance." Of the non-single tracks, "Cut and Run" holds a special place in my heart. 

The embedded YouTube playlist has all nine tracks from the 1982 release as well as the official music videos for "Reap the Wild Wind" and "We Came to Dance," so you get a total of 11 tracks this week. 

Flashback: Quartet (October 15, 1982)

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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.

I'll see you in seven!

Friday 80s Flashback for October 7, 2022

[You Are 40] -- While reflecting that this month includes the fifth anniversary of my mother's passing, I'm struck by the knowledge that one of her favorite albums turned 40 this week. Well, it's a record that has some of her favorite radio hits; I don't know that she loved the whole album. But we'll celebrate the entire album here on the Flashback. 

If you couldn't tell from the accompanying image, I'm talking about Lionel Richie's self-titled, solo debut. Released on 10/6/1982, Lionel Richie peaked at #3 on the Billboard 200 and launched three hit singles: "Truly," "You Are," and "My Love." Each one peaked within the top five of the Billboard Hot 100, with the first single, "Truly," reaching the #1 position. My mom loved the mid-tempo and brightness of "You Are," which she had to have on a cassette mix I recorded for her; it was a collection of high and mid-tempo tunes that she would listen to on her power walks. I later had to recreate some of that playlist for her iPod Nano. 

Lionel Richie was still a member of the Commodores when this album was released. The record was intended to only be a side project, but Richie left the Commodores shortly after its release (or, perhaps, after he realized he could be a successful solo artist). Seems his voice was better suited for ballads and upbeat tunes than the funk and disco of his former band. He certainly had the songwriting chops, which he proved prior to this album's release by composing and singing the theme to Endless Love, which he recorded as a duet with Diana Ross. That tune, and his other laid backed compositions for the Commodores – "Easy" and "Three Times a Lady" – were something of a template for this record if not much of his career. Some find this style too cheesy, but he became a go-to balladeer in the 1980s, releasing a bunch of his own hits and writing songs for others. And it all started with this album. 

Not what you'd expect from the preppie look featured in that cover photo, right? 

Flashback: Lionel Richie (October 6, 1982)

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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.

I'll see you in seven!

Friday 80s Flashback for September 30, 2022

[Back in the Frame] -- Forty years ago this week, Depeche Mode released their second studio album, A Broken Frame (September 27, 1982). This was the band's first record after the departure of Vincent Clarke, who wrote most of the songs for the debut album. This time around, Martin Gore stepped up to write all the songs on this album, which Depeche Mode recorded as a trio.  

A Broken Frame peaked at #1 in the UK Independent Albums chart, and #177 on the US Billboard 200. Not quite as light in tone as their previous release, this second album received mixed feedback, though it has gained a better reputation over time (perhaps that is a retrospective view). Gore's compositions with Dave Gahan's lead vocals don't exactly aspire to a single concept, but Gore has lamented what he calls "that sickly boy-next-door stuff" of his earlier songwriting efforts ("Sin Machine," NME, London, pp. 34–35, February 1990). The three singles – "See You," "The Meaning of Love," and "Leave in Silence" – did well in Europe, but none of them charted in the US. Despite said lack of hits, these songs, and A Broken Frame in general, are still quite popular with fans here in the states. At least, I'd like to think so as I still quite enjoy them. 

Do you have any favorites from this album?

Flashback #1: A Broken Frame (9/27/1982)

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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.

I'll see you in seven!

Friday 80s Flashback for September 23, 2022

[Love Over Gold] -- Forty years ago this week, Dire Straits released their fourth studio album, Love Over Gold. With only five tracks, it still clocked in at just over 40 minutes of music. That was due in large part to the band's longer form songs: The opening track, "Telegraph Road," is nearly 15 minutes long as it weaves through history to provide an object lesson in overdevelopment and exploitation. Even the shortest song, the single "Industrial Disease," is 12 seconds shy of hitting the six minute mark. At a time when radio formats and record execs pushed artists to make songs that were short and snappy, or even short and sappy, this record was an outlier. 

And it ranks as one of my favorite records from the 1980s. 

Guitarist Mark Knopfler is in full control of his instrument, ripping blistering solos and squeezing out languid riffs with equal fervor. He was also in full control of the studio, Love Over Gold being the first record on which he possesses solo credit as producer (in collaboration with Neil Dorfsman as recording engineer). 

Only two singles were released. First was "Private Investigations," which peaked at #2 on the UK Singles Chart, but did not chart in the US. There were two versions of the song: the album version was 6:45 long, while the single edit was trimmed to be barely under six minutes (5:51). The second single was the highly humorous "Industrial Disease" (British slang for work-related illness or disease), which did chart in the US, reaching #9 on Billboard's Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart as well as #75 on the Billboard Hot 100. One could make the argument that "Industrial Disease is a prequel of sorts for the band's 1985 (and MTV) hit, "Money for Nothing." 

Regarding the title track, "Love Over Gold," it seems to me that this record was a statement of art over popularity. At least, that's what I make of the final verse of that song:

It takes love over gold
And mind over matter
To do what you do that you must
When the things that you hold
Can fall and be shattered
Or run through your fingers like dust

Let us know what you think. 

Flashback: Love Over Gold (September 24, 1982)

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Once again, I remind you that the rule of three applies when doing Flashbacks. As I've made my three offerings, 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.

I'll see you in seven!

Lightyear

 Dangrdafne review

I was really looking forward to watching Lightyear. I love the Toy Story movies (although truth be told we still have not see #4). I always thought my toys were alive and would do things when I wasn't looking. So the movies always fed my childhood dreams.

I like this clever take on an origin story for Buzz Lightyear. Seems very meta or something. I definitely enjoyed reading all the trivia on IMDB after the movie. Pixar loves their hidden "Mickeys". 

If you enjoy Toy Story or Pixar I recommend this movie. My absolute favorite part of the movie was Sox, the cat. Like Goose in Captain Marvel, he is a critical part of the movie. I also just think he is soooo adorable and hilarious.

I wish I hadn't read some of the reviews of this movie though. I don't understand why people just can't watch a simple animated movie and enjoy it. Not every movie will be award worthy or perfect. Anyway, I enjoyed the movie overall and I am glad we watched. Moreso than our last one, Thor: Love and Thunder. 

The movie is funny, heartwarming, clever and fun.

3 paws