Rock Evolution – The History of Rock & Roll - 1984 - (page 198)

Protein Junkie said:
The beauty of this thread is that it has almost surreptitiously encouraged me to revisit a lot of music that I bought in the late 70’s and early 80’s.
A lot of it is best left in that time period but I have been totally reinvigorated towards Foreigner.
The Vocals from Gramm have not been better imho and its pulsating rhythm is almost a go to safety net.
Foreigner -That was Yesterday.
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A brilliant record.
Brings me to tears.
 
BimboBob said:
DA marked change of direction for the genius that is Herbie Hancock but one that was groundbreaking in its own right.
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My cousin ,Eric Miller had been into Herbie before Rockit,,..and the only bit of Jazz I had in my life
Was listening to to I thought it was you...a long time before Rock it
I remember those warm late 70s summer evenings listening to HH( The 1978 world cup Scotland etc...) was almost a background issue.,...I knew Jazz was quality music,I could feel it's rawness and smooth vocals,...it was wonderful music to listen too
But Siouxsie and the Banshees had already made a Big impression on me,and Herbie was forgotten
Until Rock it!1983.
.
 
dennishasdoneit said:
My cousin ,Eric Miller had been into Herbie before Rockit,,..and the only bit of Jazz I had in my life
Was listening to to I thought it was you...a long time before Rock it
I remember those warm late 70s summer evenings listening to HH( The 1978 world cup Scotland etc...) was almost a background issue.,...I knew Jazz was quality music,I could feel it's rawness and smooth vocals,...it was wonderful music to listen too
But Siouxsie and the Banshees had already made a Big impression on me,and Herbie was forgotten
Until Rock it!1983.
.
Click to expand...

When you say your cousin Eric Miller, you don't mean the producer Eric Miller do you?
 
Protein Junkie said:
My fourth track and just to prove I can diversify a bit I am going for Simple Minds -Waterfront.
Driven by Derek Forbes’s pulsating baseline this song definitely sits with those with a penchant for Prog/pop.
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Didn’t we have that on last year’s playlist; not that it bothers me to have it on ‘84: one of my top 3 Minds’ tracks.
 
OB1 said:
1984 - PART 2
The final chapter Conclusion: Immortal riffs, unending echoes

Looking back 1984 was not Orwell’s nightmare; so why does it loom so large in pop’s rear-view mirror? Surely it is more than just nostalgia. Artists were not merely responding to the zeitgeist - they were making it. Musicians addressed AIDS, unemployment, the arms race, and the evolving language of gender and race. The omnipresence of MTV meant that image and sound merged into a pop culture ecosystem, exposing global audiences to everything from British new romanticism to American blue-collar grit.

The continuing rise of synthesizers and digital recording democratised music-making, and chaperoned in a golden age for pop, when melody, image, and attitude collided in a glittering, era-defining spectacle.

The impact is felt in every contemporary genre: alternative rock’s introspection, hip hop’s DIY aesthetic, electronic dance music’s machine power, and pop’s chameleonic spectacle all have roots in the raucous alchemy of 1984. The idea that an album could be a manifesto, a tour a crusade, and a single a call to arms traces a direct line back to this year.

It is a peculiar magic trick of 1984 that even as its sound has been endlessly referenced and imitated, its central energy of restlessness, creativity and cultural fusion remains stubbornly fresh. Prince’s purple lightning. Madonna’s unbreakable glamour. Springsteen’s battered optimism. Metal’s ironclad resilience. Every synth riff, every torn denim vest, every neon explosion on MTV was not simply the soundtrack of a year, but the unfolding of an era.

Orwell predicted a bleak, uniform world. What we got instead was a shimmering neon bright shoulder-padded kaleidoscope of sound.

This was a year when stadium rockers, pop idols, indie dreamers, and metal maniacs all fought for the same space on your mixtape. And somehow, improbably, they all belonged.

Which brings us to the “modern’ mixtape equivalent, the Spotify playlist:

We open with a 2-4-1 from Van Halen: 1984 / Jump.

By January ’84, Van Halen had gone from Sunset Strip party kings to stadium dominators. And then came the one-two punch that redefined them: a synth intro that made guitar purists spit out their Budweiser, followed by a pop-metal anthem so irresistible it went to # 1 in the US.

1984 is a brief spacey wash of Oberheim synths providing an overture that sounds like Blade Runner after too many Jäger shots.

Jump begins with a joyous brass-like synth riff that is one of the most recognisable openings of the ’80s. Bold, effervescent, and utterly triumphant. Underneath, Alex Van Halen hammers out a pounding beat, Michael Anthony provides trademark backing vocals, and Eddie sneaks in one of his most fluid guitar solos, reminding everyone he was still the king of six strings.

The words are David Lee Roth personified, part motivational speaker, part barroom flirt. “Go ahead and jump!” is both a rallying cry and a pick-up line, delivered with that trademark Roth smirk.

It mashed pop sensibility with rock energy. MTV loved it, radio loved it, teenage America loved it. Purist guitar heads grumbled, but their little sisters bought the single in droves.

Me, I love it like few other tracks. It is one of two tracks from the year that I included in top five favourite songs when BlueHammer85 ran a poll, which really means that there is no song I like more. If this doesn’t put a smile on your face, Daryl Dixon probably lopped off your head.

The Cars: Magic

The Cars are a band that I never saw live but I was a big fan by 1984 and bought the album that conjured up this slice of power pop perfection upon release. Recorded by uber producer Mutt Lange, “Heartbeat City” was their most commercial album, stuffed with singles, and Magic was the track that married Ric Ocasek’s deadpan cool with a strutting summer groove.

From the opening keyboard shimmer, “Magic” announces itself as glossy, but not hollow, ’80s pop-rock. Greg Hawkes’ synths sparkle, Elliot Easton’s guitar sneaks in tasteful riffs, and David Robinson’s drums lock into that big, reverb-heavy groove that practically defined mid-’80s radio.

The chorus “Oh oh it’s magic, when I’m with you…” is pure earworm, layered with harmonies that make it sound huge without losing The Cars’ wry detachment. It has been a summer mixtape / cd / playlist favourite of mine for forty years.

Steve Perry: Oh Sherrie

When Journey’s golden-voiced frontman decided to step out on his own in 1984, the result was Oh Sherrie, a power ballad so big it could have floated a Zeppelin. Dedicated to his then-girlfriend Sherrie Swafford, it became Perry’s calling card outside of Journey and a textbook example of mid-’80s FM-radio drama.

From the first drum thwack and synth swell, you know you are in Big ’80s Ballad territory. Perry’s voice, one of the purest, most soaring instruments in rock, glides over glossy keyboards and chiming guitars. The chorus is built for maximum uplift; the kind of hook that can take a simple love song and make it sound like the fate of the universe hangs in the balance. The lyrics are direct, heartfelt, and utterly unambiguous: Perry ain’t hiding behind metaphor. It is love, pure and simple, shouted from the mountaintop with a microphone and probably a wind machine. In a decade of ironic detachment, “Oh Sherrie” stands out for its sincerity.

It hit # 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and remains Perry’s defining solo moment.

Ratt: Round and Round

In 1984, Los Angeles was exporting a very specific cultural package: big riffs, bigger hair, trousers too tight to sit down in, and choruses built for MTV. At the heart of it was Ratt, and their breakout single from the album Out of the Cellar. This was the song that blasted them from Sunset Strip club rats into arena headliners.

The song opens with Warren DeMartini’s slick killer riff, metallic but catchy, and from there the song struts like a peacock in spandex kex. The rhythm is sharp, Stephen Pearcy’s vocals are sneering but melodic, and the chorus is a monster: simple, circular (fitting the title), and designed to lodge in your skull.

Beneath the glam, there’s serious musicality. Ratt were not just posers, they had chops, and Round and Round proves it.

“Round and Round” hit No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 4 on the rock charts, making Ratt one of the first glam-metal bands to break big in the US. It remains their signature tune.

Prince & The Revolution: Let’s Go Crazy

If you had to distil Prince into a single track, this astonishing iconic number would be a strong candidate. Released as the opening salvo of Purple Rain, both the film and the album, it is part sermon, part pop hooks, part dance floor funk detonation, part hard rock guitar heroics.

It opens not with a riff, but with a sermon: Prince intoning from the pulpit about “the after world - a world of never-ending happiness.” Church organ, hushed reverence, then boom the band kicks in with a frenetic, funk rock groove.

From there, it is pure controlled chaos: synths shimmering like neon; guitar stabs punctuating every line; Sheila E.’s driven drums that swing harder than Mohammed Ali’s right arm.

Prince’s vocal is half preacher, half rock god, all charisma, sweeter than molasses; and his outro guitar solo is a fuzzed-out, Hendrix-channelling shred that made every rock guitarist of the era not called Eddie glance nervously at their fretboard.

No other pop song had sounded like this, and it went straight to #1 in the US.

Deep Purple: Perfect Strangers

Nothing to add really to the brief review above, other than this is probably my second favourite Purple track.

Bryan Adams: Run to You

The first single from his blockbuster album Reckless, it set the tone for the Canadian rocker’s rise from opening act to stadium headliner. Gritty, hooky, and just a little bit naughty.

It is a song about cheating and not one with an ounce of contrition. In the MTV era, though, the melody was so strong that most casual listeners just heard a passionate love song and ignored the moral compass.

The intro riff, a sharp chiming guitar figure, is instantly recognisable and perfect for radio. Keith Scott’s guitar lines are lean, melodic, and classy: he is Adams’ secret weapon. The rhythm section drives the song along and the chorus is a stadium sized singalong.

Bruce Springsteen: Born in the USA

My favourite Springsteen track, and it is the one that he never bloody well seems to play at gigs I go to e.g. last year he played it the following evening at Wembley.

Few songs in rock history have been as misunderstood, misused, and mythologised as Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA: it became an anthem shouted in stadiums, blasted at rallies, and stapled onto every Fourth of July playlist, often by people who never listened closely to the verses. But at its core, it is one of the darkest, angriest songs of Springsteen’s career, dressed up in a fist-pumping, synthesizer drenched package.

“Born in the USA” is not a flag-waving anthem: it is a protest song wearing the clothes of a pop hit. Its brilliance lies in that contradiction. It forced America to dance and cheer along to a story of disillusionment, reminding us that patriotism is not blind celebration; it is holding your country accountable when it falls short. You do not have to be sceptic tank to relate to its intention or be moved by it.

Yes: Owner of a Lonely Heart

By the early ’80s, progressive rock was supposed to be dead. Lengthy epics, concept albums, and virtuoso noodling had alienated radio. But Yes, a flag-bearer of symphonic prog, did the impossible with Owner of a Lonely Heart by creating a song that sounded futuristic, aggressive, and hooky, all at once. Released late in 1983 on 90125, it became a defining track of 1984.

From Trevor Rabin’s the first chopped metallic guitar hit it is immediately obvious this isn’t a journey through a Topographic Ocean. The riff is mechanical, funky, and impossible to ignore, Chris Squire’s bass snaps like a whip, Alan White’s drums are tight and precise, and Jon Anderson’s voice soars above it all like a golden thread.

The production by Trevor Horn adds a dazzling ’80s gloss: gated reverb, sampled sounds, sudden stops, and studio tricks that make the song feel both synthetic and alive. There’s even a horn-like synth stab mid-track that gives it an almost funk-disco punch. This is what a kitchen sink sounded like in the mid ‘80’s.

Yes managed to retain their progressive sensibility (odd chord changes, subtle time shifts) while packaging it as a radio-friendly monster that became their only US #1 single. It helped revive their career, introducing the band to a whole new generation.

In a year of comebacks and reinventions, this track was perhaps the most stunning example.

Finally (well for now), we come to the other song that I put in my top 5, in fact, I placed it as my favourite ever song, although only by tossing a coin to decide whether to put it or “Kashmir” first. I do think it is the perfect 1980’s track.

Don Henley: The Boys of Summer

Released in October 1984 as the lead single from Building the Perfect Beast, The Boys of Summer instantly marked Don Henley not just as the Eagles’ frontman, but as a solo artist capable of creating something timeless, moody, and hauntingly evocative. It is a song that feels like driving along a sun-drenched coastal highway with one hand on the wheel and a lifetime of memory in the other, simultaneously nostalgic, melancholy, and cinematic – the distillation of a hundred teen movies.

Producer Jimmy Iovine and Henley crafted a sound that balances organic instrumentation with the modern studio technology of the era, giving it a timeless texture.

Heartbreaker and co-writer Mike Campbell’s shimmering, echoing riff sets the tone: ethereal, spacious, and instantly recognisable. Synths, drum machines, and the light snap of electronic percussion give the track an ’80s sheen without ever sounding cheesy.

Henley’s Vocals are dry, reflective, emotionally restrained yet aching, the perfect counterpoint to the glistening instrumentation. He isn’t screaming, he’s observing; haunted by memory.

The ironic line “Out on the road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac” is one of my favourite lyrics and was based on something Henley did witness.

“The Boys of Summer” is a meditation on youth, love lost, and the inexorable march of time. Unlike most pop hits, the song is subtle, introspective, and tinged with regret. It is a track that rewards repeated listening, the more you hear it, the more you feel it.

So that is my opening offer. Let’s see what you want to add.

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Their should be a love button to click , like isn't appropriate to respond to another masterpiece.

I think Billy Joel should look at making a remake and have OB1 on the credits.

Brilliant stuff OB1.
 
Black&White&BlueMoon Town said:
The History of Rock & Roll - 1983

And so we're told this is the golden age
And gold is the reason for the wars we wage
Though I want to be with you, be with you night and day
Nothing changes on New Year's Day

I know I already touched on this, but the strong first 10 that @Saddleworth2 offered up for this year had both that nostalgic and reassuring sound that my wife and I really enjoyed on our VT visit. Standouts for me would be U2's "New Years Day" as quoted above, as this was the year I would first hear the band. I nominated another song from the album as it is one of my favourites. Kenny and Dolly singing along was also a nice smile to a time long-gone, and I too echo Sadd's note about Dolly's voice - just impeccable. My wife preferred Culture Club and The Smiths from music she was listening to at that time. My next choices next to U2 would be The Police and Big Country's hits, but all 10 were enjoyable.

The Big Winner
“She's A Beauty” – The Tubes, maybe not my favourite song from this year, but when I think about that year, this song always rises to the top for reasons I mentioned at the time of its nomination here. Tough to shake that history...

Top New Songs
  1. "Script for a Jester's Tear" - Marillion, a buddy of mine named his first daughter after one of their top hit future songs, and always asked me why I wasn't into them given my similar prog rock leanings at the time. One band I plan to listen to more now that we're in this decade given their early Genesis/Yes/Rush/Floyd sound, and later influenced a UK band I love.
  2. "A Place In The Sun" - Marine Girls, a not to be confused with Everything But The Girl to come later, this was quite enjoyable indie, very subdued but accessible with that bass line.
  3. "The First Picture of You" - The Lotus Eaters, just an amazing new wave pop song that I've never heard before. Quite the find here, given they weren't ever popular or charted in the US.
  4. "A Girl Called Johnny" - The Waterboys, given how much I've enjoyed their later output, it's no surprise this gem worked so well for me. Love that sax and piano sound.
  5. "Right Now" - The Creatures, probably the throwback surprise that I didn't see coming with some fantastic vocals, drums, and of course those horns. Souxsie and Budgie shine here!
  6. "Temple of Love" - Sisters of Mercy, never heard this or of this band before, but a very catchy and danceable post-punk sound from this English dark rock institution
  7. "Age of Consent" and "Blue Monday" - New Order, I know I've heard these, but I don't think I've ever listened to them intently, so I'll count this in this group here as this was not my normal genre back then.
  8. "Get the Balance Right!" - Depeche Mode, every earlier song from this band I've enjoyed from later material, so that's another win here. The vocals from them are unmistakable.
  9. "The Busy Girl Buys Beauty" - Billy Bragg, some good stripped down folk punk
  10. "Nobody's Diary" - Yazoo, very nice vocals and snyths that was big in the US at the dance clubs
Top Songs I Knew Quite Well
  1. "Going Home: Theme Of The Local Hero" - Mark Knopfler, "Howay the lads", indeed! ;-)
  2. "Overkill" - Men At Work, I think Hay's vocal range in the last verse at 2:45 doesn't get enough credit for how varied and spine tingling it really is.
  3. "Separate Ways" - Journey, one of the few Journey songs I really liked back then, thank you Neil Schon
  4. "Love Is A Battlefield" - Pat Benatar, vocals alone from Pat on this song gives her the icon status in female rock vocals to me
  5. "King of Pain" - The Police, I liked this and the title track more than the iconic hit off of this album
  6. "Pride and Joy" - Stevie Ray Vaughan, the song that started it all for the guitarist legend
  7. "Come Dancing'" - The Kinks, always one of my favorite songs from the lyrics master Ray Davies, a bigger hit in the US than the UK.
  8. "Pink Houses" - John Cougar Mellencamp, the first album with the last name. Wasn't that America, you and me?
  9. "Gimme All Your Lovin'" - ZZ Top, the album and year that ZZ Top made it on the popular rock map, this album was on some endless loops at the time. Haven't listened much since stranglely.
  10. "I Want A New Drug'" - Huey Lewis, initially loved the album, but it too got overplayed on FM radio. Not Huey's fault, but it happened.
Honorable mention to Def Leppard, Michael Jackson carry over hits from 1982, Billy Joel, and Talking Heads, all big FM radio staples too.

On Second Thought
I just never was an initial fan of the Violent Femmes "Blister In The Sun" back in the 80's, probably lyrically for the most part. Musically, a great song. I should probably add "Relax" here too, but I'm still trying to warm up there too, a continued "work in progress".
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If you get the chance have a listen to their debut album No Sense of Sin I found it a bit hit and miss but my favorite tracks I still play often , it was 18 years before they released more material. I agree with your sentiment about the song I nominated , brilliantly written and produced new wave IMO as it should be I am surprised they split up so soon.
 
OB1 said:
If there is one year that redefined the sonic DNA of the modern age, it is 1984, a year so monstrous, so thrillingly eclectic, you could almost feel the ozone crackle each time the radio dial flicked. It was an epochal detonation, a kaleidoscopic rush that splintered genre boundaries and mainlined music into every cranny of global culture.
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I just want to highlight this paragraph again, one that is so visual and amazing that I think it deserves its own mention, in case anyone might have missed it!

My 2nd and 3rd tracks will come from the many shows I saw in 1984 as the concert floodgates would open that year from the single show in 1982 (Van Halen). While no where near what @OB1 was seeing at the time, the spring of junior year and fall of my senior year of high school consisted of early Saturday mornings when tickets would go on sale to camp outside the Wanamakers (now Macy's) to be near in the front of the line to get those dot matrix generated Ticketmaster tickets for shows. Given there were multiple avenues to the register that would process tickets, finding the "sweet spot" of the door that would be closest to run to was always a planning event in its own right. This dedication by myself and my high school friends got us to see shows by:
  • Yes (30 April for $11.50 and 10 September)
  • The Cars (16 July) - one of the dullest performances I've ever seen, you didn't miss anything OB1
  • Bruce Springsteen (17 September, Spectrum indoors $16)
  • Rush (6 November)
U2 wouldn't come around until April 1985, but I did see them then for the first time in The Unforgettable Fire tour. We had moved past needing parental transportation to a show at the Spectrum with driver's licenses in hand, so it was game on with seeing some iconic shows there.

Onto the shows and songs!

OB1 said:
Born (Again) in the U.S.A.

Bruce Springsteen did not just release an album in June 1984; he unleashed a monster that defined a country’s mood and topped the charts worldwide. Born in the U.S.A. was instantly deployed on a thousand FM stations, gave birth to a record breaking seven Top 10 singles and sold over thirty million copies. It catapulted the Boss into stadium filling global superstar territory. His Levi clad derriere became the most famous in rock.
  • My Hometown – A fitting finale. A hushed heartbreaking elegy to American decline.
Born in the U.S.A. was the sound of America in 1984: conflicted, hopeful, bitter, triumphant. The world tour that followed left both fans and the Boss himself drenched in sweat and catharsis. I was lucky enough to see him at Wembley the following year for a marathon show that remains one of the most memorable I have attended.
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Well said, and I will go with that song from that album of the Summer of 1984 down at the Delaware beaches where everyone was playing this album. I think this album just really hit me on the beach that day trip with my friends where a focused listen and every track was a bona fide hit really was made apparent early into its release.

This album closing song always did it for me:

Last night me and Kate we laid in bed
Talking about getting out
Packing up our bags, maybe heading south
I'm thirty-five, we got a boy of our own now
Last night I sat him up behind the wheel
And said, "Son, take a good look around
This is your hometown"

"My Hometown" - Bruce Springsteen

30 songs and nearly 4 hours later, I was simply blown away for the first time:

www.setlist.fm

Bruce Springsteen Setlist at Spectrum, Philadelphia

Get the Bruce Springsteen Setlist of the concert at Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA, USA on September 17, 1984 from the Born in the U.S.A. Tour and other Bruce Springsteen Setlists for free on setlist.fm!
www.setlist.fm www.setlist.fm
OB1 said:
Grace under pressure

Rush didn’t just survive the ’80s, they reinvented themselves multiple times within the decade. Grace Under Pressure sits right in the middle of a trilogy of very different albums, each with its own flavour, that sees synthesizers progressively taking the lead role.

With Grace Under Pressure, they steered even harder into the technology and paranoia of the decade: synths everywhere, lyrics about nuclear dread and alienation, and Alex Lifeson’s guitar having to fight for elbow room against Geddy Lee’s Oberheim arsenal. The album sounds like it was recorded in a bunker lit by flickering fluorescent tubes.

Rush leaned fully into the 1984 aesthetic to produce a sound that was all icy synths, gated reverb, sharp production (courtesy of Peter Henderson with the band). It could have dated badly, but somehow still works because beneath the keyboards are three guys still playing like their lives depend on it. Peart is on ferocious form: precise, inventive, and constantly surprising.

Grace Under Pressure isn’t the friendliest Rush album, but it is one of their most compelling. It captures the paranoia and techno-fear of the era while still delivering choruses, riffs, and musicianship nobody else could touch.
  • Between the Wheels – Closes the album in full apocalyptic grandeur. Haunting keys, dramatic dynamics, and Geddy belting lines about history grinding humanity down. A real spine-tingler.
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I'm going with the non-single to close the album as you noted above. I think Rush is the band I've seen the most in concert of all time (I'm adding gigs to Setlist.fm, and I should have that tally soon), but this was the very first time I saw them in November of that year. Of course they played this song and more.

We can go from boom to bust
From dreams to a bowl of dust
We can fall from rockets' red glare
Down to "Brother, can you spare..."
Another war, another wasteland
And another lost generation

"Between The Wheels" - Rush

www.setlist.fm

Rush Setlist at Spectrum, Philadelphia

Get the Rush Setlist of the concert at Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA, USA on November 6, 1984 from the Grace Under Pressure Tour and other Rush Setlists for free on setlist.fm!
www.setlist.fm www.setlist.fm
 
What a superb write-up @OB1, the effort you put in really shows and they are absolutely brilliant to read. You could quite easily put these into a book!

Wham - Last Christmas

One of the great songs that everyone knows and soundtracked every Christmas since it was written. It's timeless.

It's an absolutely superb pop song and one we'll hear plenty of times in the coming weeks. Personally, I'll never tire of hearing it - the lyrics, the singing, the melody, the production. It's simply one of the greatest Christmas songs ever written.

On and On - Jesse Saunders

As we've seen over the years, it sometimes takes a few years for the sounds of underground or counter culture to make an appearance.

The music of Kraftwerk, Krautrock, Electro, Disco and Euro-pop was starting to coalleasce into a new sound in the clubs of Chicago. Emphasising more of the beat, deliverately going for a more electronic sound with drum machines and basslines and featuring repetition, longer tracks and sounds rather than instruments. It also sounds very much like it's been made in a bedroom and has none of the lush production of Disco or Philly Soul. It's a marked move away from that towards a DIY sound that will be developed in the years to come.

Whilst it's never easy to say 'this song invented this genre', 1984 sees the arrival of what is certainly one of the first House music tracks. It features the iconic Roland 303 bass synth and the 808 drum machine as well as the Korg Poly-61 which come to be used in a lot of House/Acid House tracks to come.

The Cars - Drive

Personally, I cannot listen to this song without thinking of Live Aid. The images of those poor people in Ethiopia is etched into my mind when I hear this song. This song of the soundtrack of the footage of the famine.

The famine and Live Aid played such a huge part of this year that it's very hard to separate the two.
 
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First couple from me, one of my favourite Waterboys songs, great thought provoking lyrics about the end of WW2 and the start of the Cold War.From the brilliant album A Pagan Place.

‘RED ARMY BLUES’

Not sure if we had any of this Canadian singer song writer.His first political single written about the Guatemalan Civil War, but just as relevant today.Bruce Cockburn’s

‘IF I HAD A ROCKET LAUNCHER’
 
Black&White&BlueMoon Town said:
I just want to highlight this paragraph again, one that is so visual and amazing that I think it deserves its own mention, in case anyone might have missed it!

My 2nd and 3rd tracks will come from the many shows I saw in 1984 as the concert floodgates would open that year from the single show in 1982 (Van Halen). While no where near what @OB1 was seeing at the time, the spring of junior year and fall of my senior year of high school consisted of early Saturday mornings when tickets would go on sale to camp outside the Wanamakers (now Macy's) to be near in the front of the line to get those dot matrix generated Ticketmaster tickets for shows. Given there were multiple avenues to the register that would process tickets, finding the "sweet spot" of the door that would be closest to run to was always a planning event in its own right. This dedication by myself and my high school friends got us to see shows by:
  • Yes (30 April for $11.50 and 10 September)
  • The Cars (16 July) - one of the dullest performances I've ever seen, you didn't miss anything OB1
  • Bruce Springsteen (17 September, Spectrum indoors $16)
  • Rush (6 November)
U2 wouldn't come around until April 1985, but I did see them then for the first time in The Unforgettable Fire tour. We had moved past needing parental transportation to a show at the Spectrum with driver's licenses in hand, so it was game on with seeing some iconic shows there.

Onto the shows and songs!


Well said, and I will go with that song from that album of the Summer of 1984 down at the Delaware beaches where everyone was playing this album. I think this album just really hit me on the beach that day trip with my friends where a focused listen and every track was a bona fide hit really was made apparent early into its release.

This album closing song always did it for me:

Last night me and Kate we laid in bed
Talking about getting out
Packing up our bags, maybe heading south
I'm thirty-five, we got a boy of our own now
Last night I sat him up behind the wheel
And said, "Son, take a good look around
This is your hometown"

"My Hometown" - Bruce Springsteen

30 songs and nearly 4 hours later, I was simply blown away for the first time:

www.setlist.fm

Bruce Springsteen Setlist at Spectrum, Philadelphia

Get the Bruce Springsteen Setlist of the concert at Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA, USA on September 17, 1984 from the Born in the U.S.A. Tour and other Bruce Springsteen Setlists for free on setlist.fm!
www.setlist.fm www.setlist.fm

I'm going with the non-single to close the album as you noted above. I think Rush is the band I've seen the most in concert of all time (I'm adding gigs to Setlist.fm, and I should have that tally soon), but this was the very first time I saw them in November of that year. Of course they played this song and more.

We can go from boom to bust
From dreams to a bowl of dust
We can fall from rockets' red glare
Down to "Brother, can you spare..."
Another war, another wasteland
And another lost generation

"Between The Wheels" - Rush

www.setlist.fm

Rush Setlist at Spectrum, Philadelphia

Get the Rush Setlist of the concert at Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA, USA on November 6, 1984 from the Grace Under Pressure Tour and other Rush Setlists for free on setlist.fm!
www.setlist.fm www.setlist.fm
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Pretty much anything from BITU is a great choice. “Between the Wheels” is a one of the best on Grace… If memory serves, it was one of the highlights of their 2007 tour.
 
Nick Heyward was pushed out of Haircut 100 in this year. He'd already thought about going solo, especially as the constant touring/ promotion of the last year had taken its toll mentally on him.

It's another 12" but for a reason. It's groovy! It has a sort of rap by Dee Sharp. There's an Alan Murphy solo on it.


Nick Heyward - Warning Sign 12"
 
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GoatersLeftShin said:
What a superb write-up @OB1, the effort you put in really shows and they are absolutely brilliant to read. You could quite easily put these into a book!

Wham - Last Christmas

One of the great songs that everyone knows and soundtracked every Christmas since it was written. It's timeless.

It's an absolutely superb pop song and one we'll hear plenty of times in the coming weeks. Personally, I'll never tire of hearing it - the lyrics, the singing, the melody, the production. It's simply one of the greatest Christmas songs ever written.

On and On - Jesse Saunders

As we've seen over the years, it sometimes takes a few years for the sounds of underground or counter culture to make an appearance.

The music of Kraftwerk, Krautrock, Electro, Disco and Euro-pop was starting to coalleasce into a new sound in the clubs of Chicago. Emphasising more of the beat, deliverately going for a more electronic sound with drum machines and basslines and featuring repetition, longer tracks and sounds rather than instruments. It also sounds very much like it's been made in a bedroom and has none of the lush production of Disco or Philly Soul. It's a marked move away from that towards a DIY sound that will be developed in the years to come.

Whilst it's never easy to say 'this song invented this genre', 1984 sees the arrival of what is certainly one of the first House music tracks. It features the iconic Roland 303 bass synth and the 808 drum machine as well as the Korg Poly-61 which come to be used in a lot of House/Acid House tracks to come.

The Cars - Drive

Personally, I cannot listen to this song without thinking of Live Aid. The images of those poor people in Ethiopia is etched into my mind when I hear this song. This song of the soundtrack of the footage of the famine.

The famine and Live Aid played such a huge part of this year that it's very hard to separate the two.
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“Last Christmas” is one of the best Xmas songs. I don’t like to hear Xmas songs outside of December but it is worthy of inclusion.
 
threespires said:
When you say your cousin Eric Miller, you don't mean the producer Eric Miller do you?
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No!
Just looked him up ,uncanny they share the same name tho.
My cousin Eric used to DJ at Rock City Nottingham on the old Jazz Fusion Friday nights
Mid 80s iirc
 
A couple of picks for me.
1984 is the year I finally got my musical mojo back. After some years looking back wistfully to the peak of the 60's and early 70's. Two things happened. Firstly I had saved enough cash to buy a decent hifi. I can still remember how diligently I researched each component pouring over endless copies of What Hi-Fi. I also spent a couple of days at the hifi exhibition in Edinburgh, taking time to visit all of the major listening rooms in search of the perfect kit. That is where the second thing happened. I heard amongst the old classics, new stuff that I fell in love with immediately.

These two albums are the two I remember listening to in the Mission and Linn exhibitions. I still love them and play them both pretty regularly.

Sade – Diamond Life (1984)​

Sade’s debut album Diamond Life arrived as a statement of elegance, restraint, and quiet sophistication.
A blend of jazz, soul, and pop, Sade Adu’s distinctive contralto voice became the anchor around which the band’s understated musicianship revolved. There was something about the cold precision and lack of emotion in her extraordinary voice that totally hooked me. Songs like “Smooth Operator,” “Your Love Is King,” and “Hang On to Your Love” shimmered with sleek saxophones, supple bass lines that made the high end equipment they were played through come alive.
Producer Robin Millar’s pristine sound gave every note space to breathe, making Diamond Life feel timeless. Sade, Like another of my favourites KB, is an artist who has always made music in her own terms and shuns the glitz of the celebrity world preferring to speak through her music when she had something to say.
Diamond Life was a stunning debut and she went on to make several albums that matched or even eclipsed it. This was the first album I played on my new HiFi. (For those geeks that are interested a Dual Cs505 turntable Mission Cyrus 1 amp and Mission 70 speakers (still working well in my study)).

The Blue Nile – A Walk Across the Rooftops (1984)​

I reviewed their second album Hats on the album review thread and from the moment I heard this album I was caught by the melancholic voice and sparse arrangements. From the sweeping opener “A Walk Across the Rooftops” to the intimacy of “Tinseltown in the Rain” and “Easter Parade,” the record captures the loneliness and beauty of the city (I always imagined Glasgow) after dark. The music moves at its own pace, unconcerned with pop convention, balancing digital precision with deep human feeling. Produced with obsessive attention to detail, it feels both expansive and intimate. A Walk Across the Rooftops didn’t sell in vast numbers, but its influence on artists from Peter Gabriel to Talk Talk is immense. It remains a haunting masterpiece of mood and restraint. A retrospective review hits the mark quite nicely, A Walk Across the Rooftops remains unique in its fusion of chilly technology and a pitch of confessional, romantic soul that 'alternative' types would usually shy away for fear it wasn't 'cool'. Not everyones cup of tea (its almost entirely devoid of hooks) and listening to the album as a whole is certainly more rewarding than picking out the odd track. But hey, when you are in the mood there is little that can match it.

Sade - Hang on to your love
Blue Nile - A Walk across the rooftops
 
BimboBob said:
My second pick is from a band who released their second album this year. The album was a slight detour away from their synth led offering from the previous year but it also nudged them in their future directions.

Talk Talk - Such A Shame 12"

(got to be the 12" as I love the languid start!)
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Saddleworth2 said:
A couple of picks for me.
1984 is the year I finally got my musical mojo back. After some years looking back wistfully to the peak of the 60's and early 70's. Two things happened. Firstly I had saved enough cash to buy a decent hifi. I can still remember how diligently I researched each component pouring over endless copies of What Hi-Fi. I also spent a couple of days at the hifi exhibition in Edinburgh, taking time to visit all of the major listening rooms in search of the perfect kit. That is where the second thing happened. I heard amongst the old classics, new stuff that I fell in love with immediately.

These two albums are the two I remember listening to in the Mission and Linn exhibitions. I still love them and play them both pretty regularly.

Sade – Diamond Life (1984)​

Sade’s debut album Diamond Life arrived as a statement of elegance, restraint, and quiet sophistication.
A blend of jazz, soul, and pop, Sade Adu’s distinctive contralto voice became the anchor around which the band’s understated musicianship revolved. There was something about the cold precision and lack of emotion in her extraordinary voice that totally hooked me. Songs like “Smooth Operator,” “Your Love Is King,” and “Hang On to Your Love” shimmered with sleek saxophones, supple bass lines that made the high end equipment they were played through come alive.
Producer Robin Millar’s pristine sound gave every note space to breathe, making Diamond Life feel timeless. Sade, Like another of my favourites KB, is an artist who has always made music in her own terms and shuns the glitz of the celebrity world preferring to speak through her music when she had something to say.
Diamond Life was a stunning debut and she went on to make several albums that matched or even eclipsed it. This was the first album I played on my new HiFi. (For those geeks that are interested a Dual Cs505 turntable Mission Cyrus 1 amp and Mission 70 speakers (still working well in my study)).

The Blue Nile – A Walk Across the Rooftops (1984)​

I reviewed their second album Hats on the album review thread and from the moment I heard this album I was caught by the melancholic voice and sparse arrangements. From the sweeping opener “A Walk Across the Rooftops” to the intimacy of “Tinseltown in the Rain” and “Easter Parade,” the record captures the loneliness and beauty of the city (I always imagined Glasgow) after dark. The music moves at its own pace, unconcerned with pop convention, balancing digital precision with deep human feeling. Produced with obsessive attention to detail, it feels both expansive and intimate. A Walk Across the Rooftops didn’t sell in vast numbers, but its influence on artists from Peter Gabriel to Talk Talk is immense. It remains a haunting masterpiece of mood and restraint. A retrospective review hits the mark quite nicely, A Walk Across the Rooftops remains unique in its fusion of chilly technology and a pitch of confessional, romantic soul that 'alternative' types would usually shy away for fear it wasn't 'cool'. Not everyones cup of tea (its almost entirely devoid of hooks) and listening to the album as a whole is certainly more rewarding than picking out the odd track. But hey, when you are in the mood there is little that can match it.

Sade - Hang on to your love
Blue Nile - A Walk across the rooftops
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Thought I'd wait a day or two to see if Bimbo did a Talk Talk and Sadds a Blue Nile - :-)

Despite me probably not having played it since they were born, both of my kids can sing most of Diamond Life so for all it's very 80's sounding, it's obviously endured.

There should be a dedicated speaker thread where you fancy types can discuss Monitor Audio and Mission and scutters like me can argue about the virtues of Kef Codas vs Wharfedale Diamonds ;-)
 
threespires said:
Thought I'd wait a day or two to see if Bimbo did a Talk Talk and Sadds a Blue Nile - :-)

Despite me probably not having played it since they were born, both of my kids can sing most of Diamond Life so for all it's very 80's sounding, it's obviously endured.

There should be a dedicated speaker thread where you fancy types can discuss Monitor Audio and Mission and scutters like me can argue about the virtues of Kef Codas vs Wharfedale Diamonds ;-)
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Funnily enough, I have MA floorstanders in my media room with a MA sound bar and rear speakers with a REL subwoofer. Since I went deaf in one ear they are somewhat wasted on me but I couldn't bear to part with any of my HiFi kit. Btw I always thought KEF over Wharfedale.
 
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