Rock Evolution – The History of Rock & Roll - 1998 - (page 271)

[threespires]

Prompted by Rob's earlier post and Sadds on the album thread, can someone pull their finger out and nominate something off Hats please :-)

 

[Mad Eyed Screamer]

Couldn't find "Standing There" on Spotify, but as you'dnamed 5 songs instead of 4, let's not worry about it

Apologies Rob, I thought it was 5 - no problem.

 

[RobMCFC]

Apologies Rob, I thought it was 5 - no problem.

Don’t worry about it. We like to bend the rules a little on this thread :)

 

[RobMCFC]

Two nominations to go.

I frequently quote “Pop Singer” in these music threads. This brilliant Stones-influenced rocker was written by Mellencamp about his disdain for the pop music businesses. “Never want to be no pop singer, never want to write no pop song” he laments. Not sure about that, but I love his assertion that he “never had no weird hair to get my songs over”. Amen to that - lots of 80s bands with weird hair compensating for little talent.

I rounded off the 80s seeing Bon Jovi at the NEC. Fortunately, I treated myself to the latest album by support band, Dan Reed Network, for Christmas and had three days to cram on the songs before the show. What an amazing performance as a support band and a great rock/funk crossover album in Slam. One or two days later, I met my future wife and the rest is history.

“Pop Singer - John Cougar Mellencamp
“Make It Easy” - Dan Reed Network

 

[OB1]

Two nominations to go.

I frequently quote “Pop Singer” in these music threads. This brilliant Stones-influenced rocker was written by Mellencamp about his disdain for the pop music businesses. “Never want to be no pop singer, never want to write no pop song” he laments. Not sure about that, but I love his assertion that he “never had no weird hair to get my songs over”. Amen to that - lots of 80s bands with weird hair compensating for little talent.

I rounded off the 80s seeing Bon Jovi at the NEC. Fortunately, I treated myself to the latest album by support band, Dan Reed Network, for Christmas and had three days to cram on the songs before the show. What an amazing performance as a support band and a great rock/funk crossover album in Slam. One or two days later, I met my future wife and the rest is history.

“Pop Singer - John Cougar Mellencamp
“Make It Easy” - Dan Reed Network

“Slam” is a good album.

“Pop Singer” is one of JCM’s best.

 

[dom]

Not sure if I'm allowed this one?

Elkie Brooks subsequently had a much bigger hit with this but it was of course written by Chris Rea; though I think Brooks has a great voice this is better because it's invested with the original meaning as Rea wrote it for his little sister. It also indirectly spawned another (less well loved) Rea song; he recounts driving back to Middlesbrough at a point when he was struggling and looked like his house might be repossessed. On the door mat was a royalties cheque for Fool, which had been a decent hit in the US and his financial woes were gone and he could enjoy his Christmas (which he and his wife had driven home for). In my mind, this pick and Stainsby Girls absolve him for some of his more popular tunes!

Chris Rea - Fool (if you think it's over)

So much more poignant now that we have lost Chris..RIP, Stockton lad

 

[dom]

I was surprised that the Alannah Myles album was so early in 1989 - like most people, I only caught up when "Black Velvet" became a hit in 1990. Great song.

Belfast child is a superb track.. steeped in the bitter sweet tradition of the Irish lament..but with a hint of hope!

 

[Saddleworth2]

Prompted by Rob's earlier post and Sadds on the album thread, can someone pull their finger out and nominate something off Hats please :-)

Jeez. I even nominated it on the album thread.
Which track would you like? I’ll nominate and you choose :-). Btw I was distracted from this thread. Still trying to work out what you said about LCD SS. ;-)

 

[RobMCFC]

Belfast child is a superb track.. steeped in the bitter sweet tradition of the Irish lament..but with a hint of hope!

Yes, a very good song. The violin was played by Lisa Germano who made her name in John Mellencamp’s band.

 

[threespires]

Jeez. I even nominated it on the album thread.
Which track would you like? I’ll nominate and you choose :-). Btw I was distracted from this thread. Still trying to work out what you said about LCD SS. ;-)

Need to focus on the match but you've rightly shamed me so I'll nominate later :-)

Planning to try and better explain my view on LCD SS too at some point!

 

[Saddleworth2]

Need to focus on the match but you've rightly shamed me so I'll nominate later :-)

Planning to try and better explain my view on LCD SS too at some point!

We had a pretty good run down today. No rain for about the first time this season. Let’s hope they put in a performance

 

[Black&White&BlueMoon Town]

1989 was the first year I traveled outside of the US for the UK and Ireland on a 3 week trip starting in May with my then-girlfriend after we both graduated from university. We mostly stayed in Northumberland where her extended family was, but got to travel to such places as Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, and Inverness in Scotland; Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester, Chester, York, and London in England; Holyhead, and scenes of Wales from the train; Dublin, Cork, Killarney, Ring of Kerry, and the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. All hail Britrail student passes and a thankful "non-crash" course in driving in both countries. Only 2 ventures down a town road going the wrong way with no incidents was a win in my book! ;-)

It was quite a memorable trip for seeing all those places, castles, coastlines (but no giant creatures in the water), for the first time. Initial memories of trying to stay awake while driving a small car listening and eventually singing along to "Fergus SIngs The Blues" (loudly) on a 5 hour drive jetlagged while drinking luke-warm sodas from rest stops along The A1 is still talked about with both of us. Memories do last with you for a lifetime, especially those special ones. The sad memory of that trip included watching footage near the end of the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre of those in the Chinese democracy movement during that trip. Pretty sobering there.

With that trip as one of the most still etched in my mind on my first visit overseas, I'm going to pick a band her and I both enjoyed and listened to in the late 80's as a prime example that brought our differing musical backgrounds together. While she originally introduced this band to me earlier on, by then I was more a fan of theirs as their sound was more in my genre. I can at least still claim bringing Rush to the table. ;-)

This Welsh band's 4th album was engineered and produced by the great Tony Visconti, who worked with Bowie, T. Rex, Badfinger, and many other artists over the decades. I will let lead vocalist and the great and now-missed Mike Peters explain how this track came to be on this album of theirs as his interview on this song is fascinating to me:

Well with the [I]Change [/I]album I actually had a massive amount of songs to choose from, and I think we had about 40 or 50 songs and so [Visconti] had a lot to get through and then I said, right at the end really, I said there’s one more song I’d like to play to you and I think you will be the only person in the world that would get this. It’s not your usual Alarm song and I played him a cassette demo of it and he went ‘Mike, that’s got to go on the album, that’s beautiful, you’ve got to do that’ and Tony said ‘that completes the album for me’ and we sat down and said how are we going to do it though? Because there’s no drums, no guitar solo for Dave, no bass part and there was a little bit of resistance in the band because everyone thought the album was complete, with "Sold Me Down the River", and all the big tracks that were on there, "No Frontiers" and everyone was ‘we’ve got the big songs’, but Tony was ‘this is not just about the singles, this is about making a piece of art, an album that people are going to be able to come back to and this song you’ve got here is the heart and soul of the record and we’re going to do it’. That was it, it was going to be on the album.

As a song that covers similar circumstances in that industry of how my now wife and her family came to immigrate to the US, there could be no other selection as I think back upon that initial trip that year together.

Silence, where's the future in this place?
The question hangs unanswered, all eyes on a newborn babe

"A New South Wales" - The Alarm

Recorded at BBC Wales Cardiff with the Morriston Orpheus Male Voice Choir and members of the Welsh Symphony Orchestra

 

[RobMCFC]

1989 was the first year I traveled outside of the US for the UK and Ireland on a 3 week trip starting in May with my then-girlfriend after we both graduated from university. We mostly stayed in Northumberland where her extended family was, but got to travel to such places as Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, and Inverness in Scotland; Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester, Chester, York, and London in England; Holyhead, and scenes of Wales from the train; Dublin, Cork, Killarney, Ring of Kerry, and the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. All hail Britrail student passes and a thankful "non-crash" course in driving in both countries. Only 2 ventures down a town road going the wrong way with no incidents was a win in my book! ;-)

It was quite a memorable trip for seeing all those places, castles, coastlines (but no giant creatures in the water), for the first time. Initial memories of trying to stay awake while driving a small car listening and eventually singing along to "Fergus SIngs The Blues" (loudly) on a 5 hour drive jetlagged while drinking luke-warm sodas from rest stops along The A1 is still talked about with both of us. Memories do last with you for a lifetime, especially those special ones. The sad memory of that trip included watching footage near the end of the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre of those in the Chinese democracy movement during that trip. Pretty sobering there.

With that trip as one of the most still etched in my mind on my first visit overseas, I'm going to pick a band her and I both enjoyed and listened to in the late 80's as a prime example that brought our differing musical backgrounds together. While she originally introduced this band to me earlier on, by then I was more a fan of theirs as their sound was more in my genre. I can at least still claim bringing Rush to the table. ;-)

This Welsh band's 4th album was engineered and produced by the great Tony Visconti, who worked with Bowie, T. Rex, Badfinger, and many other artists over the decades. I will let lead vocalist and the great and now-missed Mike Peters explain how this track came to be on this album of theirs as his interview on this song is fascinating to me:

Well with the [I]Change [/I]album I actually had a massive amount of songs to choose from, and I think we had about 40 or 50 songs and so [Visconti] had a lot to get through and then I said, right at the end really, I said there’s one more song I’d like to play to you and I think you will be the only person in the world that would get this. It’s not your usual Alarm song and I played him a cassette demo of it and he went ‘Mike, that’s got to go on the album, that’s beautiful, you’ve got to do that’ and Tony said ‘that completes the album for me’ and we sat down and said how are we going to do it though? Because there’s no drums, no guitar solo for Dave, no bass part and there was a little bit of resistance in the band because everyone thought the album was complete, with "Sold Me Down the River", and all the big tracks that were on there, "No Frontiers" and everyone was ‘we’ve got the big songs’, but Tony was ‘this is not just about the singles, this is about making a piece of art, an album that people are going to be able to come back to and this song you’ve got here is the heart and soul of the record and we’re going to do it’. That was it, it was going to be on the album.

As a song that covers similar circumstances in that industry of how my now wife and her family came to immigrate to the US, there could be no other selection as I think back upon that initial trip that year together.

Silence, where's the future in this place?
The question hangs unanswered, all eyes on a newborn babe

"A New South Wales" - The Alarm

Recorded at BBC Wales Cardiff with the Morriston Orpheus Male Voice Choir and members of the Welsh Symphony Orchestra

Brilliant song from what is, in my opinion, The Alarm's best album. The production is wonderful across all tracks and "A New South Wales" is something a little different, making a fitting end to the album.

You've just jogged a 1989 memory for me. Back when I was at University, I used to get the alarm clock radio to come on to Radio One and lie there waking up for 20 minutes or so as I listened to Simon Mayo playing the music.

One morning, I woke up all groggy, listening to a song I knew, but I was confused that I couldn't make out any of the words. It was the bombastic "Sold Me Down The River" (Mike Peters' vocal on this is superb, in-your-face and raw). When the song faded out, Simon Mayo apologised for putting on the B-side with it's Welsh Language. Now it made sense why I couldn't understand it :)

It's great that you've nominated something from the Change album. I said that 1989 was a good year with a near impossible choice, and even though I've half considered this as an album nomination in that thread, it temporarily slipped my mind when it came to making a list of songs for this year.

 

[Black&White&BlueMoon Town]

Brilliant song from what is, in my opinion, The Alarm's best album.

100% agreed from me on this. Right there with you, my favourite from them by far. End to end, I love this album and it was played non-stop for me in those early 1990's as I got my younger brothers into that band from this release.

The production is wonderful across all tracks and "A New South Wales" is something a little different, making a fitting end to the album.

You've just jogged a 1989 memory for me. Back when I was at University, I used to get the alarm clock radio to come on to Radio One and lie there waking up for 20 minutes or so as I listened to Simon Mayo playing the music.

One morning, I woke up all groggy, listening to a song I knew, but I was confused that I couldn't make out any of the words. It was the bombastic "Sold Me Down The River" (Mike Peters' vocal on this is superb, in-your-face and raw). When the song faded out, Simon Mayo apologised for putting on the B-side with it's Welsh Language. Now it made sense why I couldn't understand it :)

It's great that you've nominated something from the Change album. I said that 1989 was a good year with a near impossible choice, and even though I've half considered this as an album nomination in that thread, it temporarily slipped my mind when it came to making a list of songs for this year.

My biggest concern was you were going to snag that song. ;-)

Great memory you mentioned there and they also recorded "A New South Wales" in Welsh as well, of course.

I won't cry if another track makes the Coda too. There are No Fron-tiers! ;-)

 

[Black&White&BlueMoon Town]

With the threat of between ½ - 1 inch of freezing rain/ice expected starting tonight with this “New Mexico to New England” storm hitting, I’m going to get my final selections in tonight while we still have power, just in case.

I saw this “one album” band and lineup live in concert in August of 1989 back in Philly before I headed to the Midwest for my post-graduate school. This was a band I had seen twice prior, but not with the classic lineup featuring Steve Howe, Bill Bruford, and Rick Wakeman, who had reunited with Jon Anderson for this classic “Yes” lineup. The project began in 1988 when Yes vocalist Jon Anderson had felt artistically constrained within the band’s current format. While Trevor Rain’s songwriting had taken the band in a commercially successful direction that decade, it wasn’t musically or lyrically working for the direction Anderson was looking for. Anderson that year regrouped with his former bandmates and King Crimson bassist Tony Levin, who was with Bruford in that band then. I remember first hearing the initial singles from this album that summer after the album was released in June, and it would become a major enjoyment on the epic Yes tracks from the past decade, but a freshness of the time.

This song was not released as a single from the album, but the instruments within all highlight the various members, especially Howe, Wakeman, and then Bruford on the tempo changes. This track concerns the British nuclear tests at Maralinga in the 1950s and 1960s in Australia and incorporates material by Howe and Max Bacon for their band Nerotrend. Anderson’s lyrical delivery is especially powerful within.

For without them we are lonely
This England we are blind
Like all the Empires crumble
Will surely change the tide

“Birthright” – Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe

 

[RobMCFC]

With the threat of between ½ - 1 inch of freezing rain/ice expected starting tonight with this “New Mexico to New England” storm hitting, I’m going to get my final selections in tonight while we still have power, just in case.

I saw this “one album” band and lineup live in concert in August of 1989 back in Philly before I headed to the Midwest for my post-graduate school. This was a band I had seen twice prior, but not with the classic lineup featuring Steve Howe, Bill Bruford, and Rick Wakeman, who had reunited with Jon Anderson for this classic “Yes” lineup. The project began in 1988 when Yes vocalist Jon Anderson had felt artistically constrained within the band’s current format. While Trevor Rain’s songwriting had taken the band in a commercially successful direction that decade, it wasn’t musically or lyrically working for the direction Anderson was looking for. Anderson that year regrouped with his former bandmates and King Crimson bassist Tony Levin, who was with Bruford in that band then. I remember first hearing the initial singles from this album that summer after the album was released in June, and it would become a major enjoyment on the epic Yes tracks from the past decade, but a freshness of the time.

This song was not released as a single from the album, but the instruments within all highlight the various members, especially Howe, Wakeman, and then Bruford on the tempo changes. This track concerns the British nuclear tests at Maralinga in the 1950s and 1960s in Australia and incorporates material by Howe and Max Bacon for their band Nerotrend. Anderson’s lyrical delivery is especially powerful within.

For without them we are lonely
This England we are blind
Like all the Empires crumble
Will surely change the tide

“Birthright” – Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe

Stay safe, and I hope the power holds out.

 

[Protein Junkie]

I would like to add to @Black&White&BlueMoon Town ABWH memories with a beautiful ballad from that same album - The Meeting.

 

[Black&White&BlueMoon Town]

I would like to add to @Black&White&BlueMoon Town ABWH memories with a beautiful ballad from that same album - The Meeting.

Awesome selection, I was hoping you'd chime in with something too. ;-)

That album was such an exciting time for having most of that "classic lineup" back.

I already had that song nominated on our BlueMoon Playlist Thread and it was played at our wedding during the dinner portion, so you can bet that also is a big favourite of mine.

 

[Black&White&BlueMoon Town]

The music in the Midwest and especially in the Detroit market was entirely different than music I had heard prior. Alice Cooper, The J. Geils Band, Ted Nugent, Grand Funk Railroad, and many others dominated the airwaves there. I remember having 7 FM presets on my tuner in my apartment that fall, and with the breadth of rock radio options there, it was often tough to fit them all on the presets.

The Cult’s fourth album and initial single hit of “Fire Woman” released earlier in the summer had been often played, but Detroit would often play the deeper cuts on the new albums, so songs before they were hits or some never released received a good amount of airplay and exposure. The one song I remember distinctly that became one of my favourites from this album was this. Led by Ian Astbury’s strong vocals, Billy Duffy’s blistering guitar, and Jamie Stewart on bass and keyboards, The Cult built upon their previous 1987 Electric’s hit of “Love Removal Machine”. This release continued in the hard rock and heavy metal vein of its predecessor, which was red meat to the Motor City Music scene, always hungry for new music in that genre. The album also contained a more bluesy, progressive, and arena rock influences of the time. Duffy's guitar approach also changed significantly here. He stated on this release that he’d "come full circle with the Les Paul. I started taking the front off the Les Paul and went back to the natural finish while also playing the wah pedal half-closed like Mick Ronson. It was back to guys like Mick Ronson, Mick Ralphs, Thin Lizzy, and Jimmy Page.”

Sonic Temple’s blockbuster release and all around success had put them firmly on the US rock stage. My favourite song from that release led by its distinctive guitar opening was this tribute to Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol's 1960s muse, chronicling her tragic fall from "Warhol's darling queen" due to addiction. The lyrics depict her glamorous rise, lost innocence, and eventual demise - serving as a cautionary tale about fame's dark side.

Why did you kiss the world goodbye?
Ciao, baby
Don’t you know paradise takes time?
Ciao, baby

“Edie (Ciao Baby)” - The Cult

 

[BimboBob]

@Protein Junkie has already picked two songs from my favourite album of 1989 so I've had to re-evaluate. Can I just add to the hatred for Belfast Child...thank you. Putrid dross. Another band that disappeared up their own arse.

Anyhoo...

First up is the most over produced song in the history of over produced songs and yet...it works!

Tears For Fears - Sowing The Seeds Of Love

My next choice is by a Scottish band who went on to hit the charts with a cover of "Word Up". Stepping away from that nonsense my pick is their first single. Much "better" all round.

Gun - Better Days

Next up is the last track on an album called The Sensual World. Look out for Lord Percy in the video and a gorgeous orchestrated chorus arranged by Michael Kamen.

Kate Bush - This Woman's Work

My last choice took a few listens to understand when I first heard it. After the dark success of the previous album this release was a surprise. Guitars? A Kate Bush sample? A cowboy video? What madness is this? And then it clicked...and if this is the lead from the new album then...hurry up and release it you bastards! There are so many mixes of this...got to love a 12"...but I think I'll go with the original.

Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus