This all time classic single was released by Prince 30 years ago in September 1982. Wow, 30 years ago...It was from the album of the same name. The song is somewhat apocalyptic but quite upbeat too. Back in 1982, 1999 seemed a long way away.
It is 30 years ago, but I swear this song does not age, but the same can be said of a lot of Prince's music, he is timeless and is (still) an amazing instrumentalist, writer and singer.
I was dreamin' when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astrayBut when I woke up this mornin', could've sworn it was judgment dayThe sky was all purple, there were people runnin' everywhereTryin' to run from the destruction, you know I didn't even care
Say say two thousand zero zero party over, oops, out of timeSo tonite I'm gonna party like it's nineteen ninety-nine
The song on release hit number 12 in the USA and number 25 in the UK. It was re-released in the UK in1985 and hit number 2. It remains one of Prince's best known songs.
It was also re-released at the end of 1998 to take advantage of the Millenium.
This very influential album was released by the band Yazoo just over 30 years ago. I know the band was called Yaz in the USA, for reasons I don't care to know, but in my world Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet are Yazoo!
This was the bands first album, coming a year after Vince had left Depeche Mode at a time when they had hit it big, and Vince was the main songwriter, but he didn't feel the direction the band wanted to go in was for him.
Yazoo only released two albums but this first album remains one of my all time favourites. I don't know what it is about cleverly constructed electronic music, but it obviously does it for me. This album reached number 2 in the UK and 92 in the USA and I think the combination of Vince's lyrics and superlative Synthesizer skills with Alison's (born Geneviève Alison Jane Moyet) fantastic vocals is a killer combination not bettered since in my opinion. Following the recent Brothers In Arms covered blog in my 1985 blog, and featured on Coverville, I now present to you this fantastic album in covered form(11 out of the 12 tracks)
1. "Don't Go" covered by Madhen
2. "Too Pieces covered by IAI6
3. "Bad Connection" covered by the Champagne Saints
4. "Midnight" by Cynthia Morehouse (just vocals - wow!)
5. "In My Room" covered by Inter-Connection
6. "Only You" covered by The Flying Pickets (Sorry, just had to!)
7. "Goodbye 70's" covered by Casm
8. "Tuesday" by Inter-Connection (again, sorry, limited choice!)
9. "Winter Kills" by Ray Fairhurst (with help from Alison...)
10. "Bring Your Love Down (Didn't I)" covered (brilliantly) by Westley
11. "The Other Side Of Love"covered by...sorry, could not find cover, hence original music video
This brilliant Steve Martin comedy was released in 1982. The movie is a parody of a film noir and pulp detective movie of the 1940's. It was directed by Carl Reiner, who was also involved in the equally brilliant The man With Two Brains (from 1983) and The Jerk (from 1979).
Steve Martin took the lead role as Rigby Reardon, a private investigator, who is hired by Juliet (played by Rachel Ward - who also starred in The Thorn Birds) to investigate the death of her father (played by George Gaynes...yep Commandant Lassard from Police Academy!).
The movie goes in all kinds of directions, royally parodying this type of movie, and the really clever thing is the way they incorporate a ton of old black and white movie footage with the black and white modern work, and incorporating the acting talents of 18 stars including James Cagney, Humprey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.
It's actually a really hard movie to describe plot-wise, but one things for certain, this makes you ache for the days when Steve Martin could do no wrong and was a genuinely funny and innovative performer. He plays a really mean Banjo these days, but really, when was his last good movie?
This hopefully reminds you though of the days when he was just brilliant.
The movie was scored by Miklós Rózsa, his last movie.
This fun cover version of a classic 1950's song was released by the band Bad Manners in July 1982. It was renamed My Girl Lollipop. The original song has been credited to Barbie Gaye as the first artist to record the song. Robert Spencer of the Doo wop group The Cadillacs write the song. Millie Small had the most popular version in 1964.
Bad Manners were a 2 Tone Ska band and were really successful in the early 80's, clocking up 111 weeks in the charts in the period 1980-83. This was a magical era for this type of music, with Madness, The Specials, The Beat and other bands all having great success with this type of music.
Bad Manners are best known for their amazing frontman, Buster Bloodvessel, real name Douglas Trendle, who was an amazing sight to behold. he was a pretty large guy, was bald (at a time when people were not!), had a disposition for sticking his tongue out and I recall wore a lot of dungarees (younger folks might need to look up what these are!). He was energetic to say the least but it really fit in with the anarchic and energetic sound. They were a firm TV favourite on Tiswas, Top Of The Pops, well at least until they got banned from the latter due to Buster's antics!
The band had been around since 1976 and, after a couple of hiccups, are back touring again.
The single reached number 9 in the UK charts. Still a great song!
Here is a great live version. They look great fun live!
And finally, here is that Millie Small song from 1964.
I was watching Lord of the Rings today (The Two Towers) and, watching Bernard Hill playing King Theodin reminded me that first prominent role was starring in this seminal early 80's TV drama. This 5 episode series was written by the well known Liverpudlian writer Alan Bleasdale and was set in Liverpool. It followed the lives of 5 unemployed men and each episode featured a story about an individual character.
The series was developed from a 1978 play for television called The Black Stuff (the men had a tarmac laying job at that time). to set this in context, in the early 80's in Liverpool, this was an era of high unemployment and a certain degree too of lawlessness (whether deserved, this has been a Liverpudlian trait portrayed a lot on TV). Quite simply, a lot of men were unemployed as the former large employers such as coal mines and large car manufacturers stopped production.
The series starred Bernard Hill, Michael Angelis, Alan Igbon, Peter Kerrigan and Tom Georgeson, most of them well known actors on British TV at the time. It also launched the career of Julie Walters, later to star in Educating Rita in 1983.
The most well remembered story of the series was Yosser's Story, named after Bernard Hill's character Yosser Hughes, as he faces losing his children due to his mental instability and violent reactions to his problems.
The two most well known aspects of Yosser's character, were,
1. Headbutting people who he disagreed with
2. Him saying "Gis a job".
For non (UK) English readers, Gis a Job was him saying Give me a job. It really was tragic as it seemed clear that his mental instability was due to him not having a job in order to provide for his children. All he wanted was a job and was absolutely desparate.
This famous scene features the classic "I'm Desperate, Dan" as Yosser goes to confession.
Asa you can see, the famous "Kirby Kiss" has been passed on to Yosser's Young Daughter as the Social Services take his children away.
The episode also starred famous Liverpool FC players Graeme Souness and Sammy Lee. This is a brilliant scene. Graeme Souness was a hard man of football but even he was worried about being sat next to Yosser.
Finally, Yosser's famous "Gis a job" catchphrase became so popular (because it expressed a common feeling at the time) a 7 inch single was released!
In the UK at least, the whole series is on YouTube. If you want to check out what a desperate place England was in the very early 80's, this is a good place to start.
England are doing pretty well these days at cricket, but even I can acknowledge this is partly due to a diminishing opposition. However there was a time 30 years ago when England not only had a GREAT test side, but the opposition was also first class. England hosted India in 1982 and the third test started at the Oval on 8th July 1982. In the first innings, the never-to-be-bettered and unconventional Ian Botham scored one of the fastest and most destructive test double-hundreds ever by scoring 208 off 226 balls, with 19 4's and 4 6's, which is insane at that level. The Indians simply could not bowl at him.
Now Sir Ian Terence Botham OBE, Ian Botham was England's greatest ever all rounder and still holds the record for the number of test wickets by an English bowler. His finest hour was the year before when he simply demolished the Aussies at Headingly and rescued England, scoring 149 with the bat whilst Bob Willis took 8-43
A year later in the third test in 1982 against India he was up to his old tricks again, driving the ball seeminly at will, including punching a hole in the Pavillion roof.
Enjoy a spot of magic from Englands greatest ever cricketer and who must be Englands best ever sportsman. Long live beefy!
208 vs India
As a bonus and for no other reason than reminding any Aussies out there how good Beefy was, here is that 1981 Headingly match too.
This classic 1982 hit was released in September 1982 and has to be one of the most successful one-hit wonders ever. Musical Youth really were a boy band and were aged 11-15 when this song was released. Could it happen even now that a group of black children could release an album, never mind be picked up by a label and have a 4 million selling song? Amazing, and a real sign of the times as there was so much great reggae and reggae inspired music around at that time, from The Specials, Madness, UB 40 of course, so really, the perfect time! Apart from Madness, all of the others were Midlands bands, which was the centre point for this type of sound back then here in the UK.
The boys were all from Duddleston Manor School in Birmingham and formed as a band in 1979.
An appearance on the John Peel show led to them being signed by MCA. Pass The Dutchie was their second single and the first off their first album with MCA called The Youth Of Today. The song entered the Uk charts at number 26, and then hit number 1 the following week. When it was released in the USA it eventually reached number 10 but hit number 1 in another 5 countries. 4 million in sales is amazing for a first hit!
The song is actually a cover version of Pass The Koutchie by The Mighty Diamonds, from the same year. I think there has been a certain amount of debate about what the lyrics mean on the Musical Youth version, but the Might Diamonds version is about cannabis and a koutchie is a cannabis pipe. Not surprisingly, the drug references were removed from the Musical Youth cover, such as the line "how does it feel when you got no food" being inserted instead of "how does it feel when you got no herb". Even with the references removed, I would be amazed if this could happen now, with our lovely PC brigade!
The video was directed by Don Letts and was filmed across the water from the Houses of Parliament in London. They were the first black artists to appear on MTV, some months ahead of Michael Jackson! Amazing!
In March this year they were in court (the surviving members) over a royalties battle. They lost, and it seems they may have been duped somewhat as minors when they signed deals in the 80's. The case related to the use of the song in the movie "The Wedding Singer". Sad, I hope they get some money.
Finally, here is the original version by The Mighty Diamonds.
Don't push it...or I'll give you a war you won't believe. Let it go!
The first of the Rambo movies was released in October 1982 and starred Sylvester Stallone, Brian Dennahy and Richard Crenna). I really think you need to set this movie completely aside from what followed in the series. Not that the subsequent movies were not entertaining, but they were pretty gory and fiercely pro-American. Whereas, this original movie is pretty anti what the state of life was for Vietnam vets in the USA in the early 80's and is the only movie to have the action all in the USA.
The film was adapted from the novel by David Morrell, from 1972, so the issues in this movie must have been very appropriate at that time especially. The screenplay was all over hollywood for years, with the movie only gaining any traction when Stallone was on board. Having said that, almost every main man of that era was offered the role and turned it down, mainly on the grounds of violence. Having said this, unlike the book, Rambo does not actually kill anyone, though he does injure them.
The movie was directed by Ted Kotcheff. The production team included the super team of Andrew Vajna and Mario Kassar, who would go on to do Total Recall, Cliffhanger (also starring Stallone) and Basic Instint amongst many others.
The basic plot of the movie is simple, but powerful. A troubled veteran is abused by an uncaring local sheriff (Teasle)) who wants him nowhere near his town and tries to force him out. When Rambo pushes back, the sheriff arrests him. Rambo is again assaulted in the police station and then escapes using his clearly deadly training to the local forest. Despite the efforts of Rambo's old commander (Trautman) to persuade him to give himself up, Rambo goes deep undercover and, when hunted down by Teasle and his men, he systematically takes out all of the local forces using his survival skills and goes after Teasle. Rambo is eventually arrested.
What I love about the movie is the way that you build up deep sympathy with Rambo's character and the powerful story of what war and the deadly training people go through can do to people when they are released into society.
Here is a great fan movie I came across, where a guy revisits the original locations (Hope, British Columbia) and Sly Stallone talks about the movie.
Great action sequences of course and Stallone in this movie starts a trend in subsequent movies of the main character hunting down someone on his own side or in authority who has wronged him as well as the character fighting what we would think of as the real enemy. One thing that I read that was odd was a scene that they tried out on test audiences, where Rambo takes his own life. They decided (correctly in my view) that this would run counter to the sympathy they had built up for the character and opted for the more hopeful ending.
The music from the movie was by the brilliant Jerry Goldsmith.
If you have been at all put off by the Rambo series, I would heartily recommend this movie, which still has a lot of credibility and was voted one of Empire Magazines Top 500 movies of all time.
It's a different type of blog post today, which marks the 30th anniversary of the Falklands conflict ending. I have considered whether it is even appropriate to do a blog post at all as conflicts like this evoke strong emotions and this particular one still does today. And, after all, 907 people died. I can't refer to this as a war as many people do as firstly we were not "at war" with Argentina for a few weeks in 1982, but we were in dispute over a remote set of Islands near Argentina.
In the end, I decided that it would be crazy to do a blog all about
1982 and ignore completely a major event like this. I am sure many
non-UK readers won't be that aware of this conflict or even aware at all
if they are young. If you want to read about it, in General, here is the Wikipedia article.
No videos today, just a few images. Normal service in the next blog post.
This brilliant single by Duran Duran was released in May 1982 and was the third single off the Rio album of the same year. The previous two singles, "My own way" and "the chauffeur" were released in 1981 actually, before the album was recorded and were stop-gap singles to keep up the momentum of the first album.
I'll cover the whole Rio album later on, but I would like to make a general comment about this single in particular and more generally the album. It had an energy about it that is not easy to explain, it just jumped at you out of the speakers in 1982 as a completely fresh sound. I don't think the band have been hotter than they were then and so in line with the exciting era they were heralding. It certainly opened up the door to the USA for the band. OK, opinion over!
This single is also pretty unusual in that it was written and recorded on one day, with various band members coming into the basement studio of EMI's London headquarters. Great days work!
Dark in the city night is a wire
Steam in the subway earth is afire
Do do do do do do do dodo dododo dodo
Woman you want me give me a sign
And catch my breathing even closer behind
Do do do do do do do dodo dododo dodo
In touch with the ground
I'm on the hunt down I'm after you
Smell like I sound I'm lost in a crowd.
And I'm hungry like the wolf.
Straddle the line in discord and rhyme
I'm on the hunt down I'm after you.
Mouth is alive with juices like wine
And I'm hungry like the wolf
The lyrics were inspired by Little red Riding Hood and, as you can see from the title of this blog, contain some brilliant verses. Just another little note, the laugh at the beginning and the screams at the fade out were recorded by Nick Rhodes girlfriend at the time live in the studio.
The song was actually re-recorded a few months later for the Rio album, with mostly the vocals being re-recorded.
The song became really popular in the USA in particular after MTV started showing their video. remember, this was THE era for hot music videos. The video was produced, as Planet Earth had been by Russell Mulcahy. Russell has produced a lot of video's for the band including the great "Rio", "The Reflex" and "Wild Boys" video's, none of them small productions! Of course Russell also hit it REALLY big in 1986 with the Highlander movie, which I think many people would say had an air of the pop video about it at times!
The video was filmed in Sri Lanka and had an Indiana Jones feel to it.
Worth checking out this hilarious commercial with Bruce Campbell too, for Old Spice. Lounge style!
Finally, here is a brilliant cover of this classic hit by After How. Great job girls and long live 1982!!
This classic track from the German band Kraftwerk hit the top spot in the UK charts in 1982, but was recorded and originally released in 1978 with German lyrics of course on the album Man Machine and as a single in Germany in 1978 before being included in the UK (with English lyrics) as a B side to Computer Love in July 1981. It was was re-released in the UK in December 1981 by EMI with The Model as the A side, apparently against the bands wishes. Wonder what they think now every year when the big royalty cheque arrives! I wonder how many other songs have taken that long to hit it big?
The lyrics are not complex or hard to understand. Pretty damning view on the life and morals of models! Actually, I recently saw a better analysis in the Men In Black 3 - all models are aliens!
She's a model and she's looking good I'd like to take her home that's understood She plays hard to get, she smiles from time to time It only takes a camera to change her mind
She's going out tonight, loves drinking just champagne And she has been checking nearly all the men She's playing her game and you can hear them say She is looking good, for beauty we will pay
She's posing for consumer products now and then For every camera she gives the best she can I saw her on the cover of a magazine Now she's a big success, I want to meet her again
Kraftwerk (this means Power Station in English) had been around since 1970 and were early pioneers of electronic music. They often used home-developed vocoders or computers for the vocals. The band was extremely influential and their sound can be heard in early Human League, Joy Division, New Order and OMD albums. The band are extremely secretive and rarely give interviews.
Here is another great version, with the German lyrics, from German TV in 1980.
And it would not be a surprise for me to include a cover too! Wel. sort of. This is a brilliant mashup of The Model and I'm Too Sexy by Right Said Fred!
This classic rock song was released 30 years ago yesterday and was from an album of the same name. The song will forever be synonymous with the Rocky movies, starring Sylvester Stallone and the track was actually specially written at the request of Sylvester for his forthcoming movie Rocky III (you know, the one with Mr T as the incredibly angry "Clubber" Lang). Plot spoiler: Rocky takes him down!
The song was requested after Sylvester failed to get the rights to Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust". I think Queen made a good choice as what he ended up with was more fitting.
The song was written by Frankie Sullivan and Jim Peterik, from the band Survivor. The bands other big hit was Burning Heart, from Rocky 4 (the one where he drops the Russian!), so both they and Sly Stallone have a lot to thank each other about as the songs definitely added to the movie and the band enjoyed great success with Eye Of The Tiger.
The song was amazingly successful and hit the number 1 spot in a number of countries including the UK and the USA (top spot for 6 weeks). It won a Grammy award and was nominated for an Oscar. The band never reached these heights again, but this will go down in history as one of the ll time 80's rock songs.
The Poltergeist movie was released in early June 1982, about a week apart from ET. Both movies involved Steven Spielberg, this one was produced and co written by Stephen and it was directed and co written by Tobe Hooper. In fact this fact is controversial as it appears most people say that Spielberg was the de facto director and was only not credited as such due to a clause in the contract for ET that prevented him directing two movies at once.
The basic plot of the movie is that a young girl called Carol Anne is kidnapped by a poltergeist that communicates with the girl through the TV set. It emerges the house had been built on the site of a cemetery (isn't this always the problem in horror movies!) and in fact there are a number of poltergeists at work, but a dominant one called The Beast has taken Carol Anne to try to control the rest and to feed off her life force.
The family call in the services of a medium called Tangina Barrons and Carol Anne is freed. Not surprisingly the family decide to move (if it were me it would have been after 2 mins of rescuing her!) but The Beast has a second attempt at kidnapping Carol Anne, before the family escapes and the house disappears into another dimension.
I thought the movie was scary when I first saw it and still do now. Something about children being taken probably and the scenes with the tree coming alive. There are some lighter points in the movie and a few Spielberg trademarks, such as the bicycle scene near the start, when the kids make the guy on his bike drop his beer. That looked like it was filmed on the same streets as used in ET!
This is the famous "They're here" scene
And this is the scene where Carol Anne is taken.
There were two sequels and number 2 was OK. I hear a remake is being planned but would ask why?!
Even after 30 years, this movie still holds up completely and is worthy of a look.
The music was by Jerry Goldsmith and really helped to add to the atmosphere of the movie, especially the creepy song used here.
I'll finish with a trailer and a reminder to TURN OFF THE TV SET. I know I will!
This classic track was released on 29 June 1982 and was the second number one hit for the band, after 1980's "Geno". It was the best selling song in the UK in 1982. The song was from the album Too-Rye-Ay. It was written by the lead singer of the band, Kevin Rowland plus fellow band members Jim Patterson and Billy Adams.
The album and this track was a big departure from their former sound and had a big celtic influence, with lots of fiddles.
The album is about a girl that Kevin knew when he was 13. The lyrics must be the most mis-sung in history as they are hard to hear clearly, but the song is basically about the transition from child to adult and specifically about Kevin trying to convince Eileen to have sex with him.
The song references right at the start the 50's (and very popular at the time) Johnny Ray, who had a thing about crying on stage as he sang.
Poor old Johnny Ray
Sounded sad upon the radio
Moved a million hearts in mono
Our mothers cried
Sang along, who'd blame them
Now you're grown, so grown, now I must say more than ever
Go toora loora toora loo rye aye
And we can sing just like our fathers
I have been told by my mother that it was incredibly common for men in pubs (bars, Americans) to basically take turns having a sing stood on a box on a Saturday night.
The girl in the video that Kevin puts his arm round was Máire Fahey, sister of Siobhan Fahey, former singer with Bananarama and Shakespears Sister. The dance that they perform in the video was very popular at the time. In particular, this was (and still is) a classic Wedding Song, a song they would play in the and since the 80's to really get people up on the dancefloor (right before "The Only Way Is Up" by Yazz!! I'll admit I have attempted this dance myself after a few drinks - would have looked horrible!
The band never achieved anything like as much success again, but what a hit to have!
There is quite a popular cover that has been featured loads on Coverville by Save Ferris, who of course were named after the movie character in Ferris Buellers Day Off.
The ZX Spectrum was released to the World on 23 April 1982. It followed on from the success of the ZX 80 and the ZX81. All 3 computers were designed by a British guy called Clive Sinclair, later Sir Clive and released by Sinclair Research Ltd. The new Spectrum ("Speccy") was in colour though and it was a massive success story and really opened up home computing for the masses, along with the later Commodore 64. Sir Clive popped up again in 1985, with less success!!
By todays standards, the Speccy was pretty under powered, with 16kb (yes, kilobytes) of RAM, however a 48kb version was also available. A distinguishing feature of the original Speccy was the rubberised keyboard, with the keys set in a membrane. These keyboards were not known for their long life and later on the keyboard was changed.
I had an original ZX Spectrum and in fact bought one again recently on ebay. One thing I forgot is how complicated the keyboard was. Almost impossible to use! The programming language was Sinclair BASIC, which I seemed to be able to understand more aged about 13 than now! It is fair to say that my iPad has completely nullified any knowledge I had in creating content in favour of consuming it! The keyboard had a massive amount of shortcuts for some of the BASIC commands, such as a G in programming mode would produce GOTO on the screen.
One of the things most people remember about these machines was the storage and gaming, which was via cassette tape (yes, cassette...) and the noise that the machine made when uploading or downloading games and programs.
So, the Speccy has just turned 30. It got a lot of major developers into computers, software is still produced for it and recently an updated emulator app with 100 games was released on iPad (with iCade support - yesssss). Google did a very nice thing on 23 April 2012 (St George's Day in the UK).
Finally, here is Stephen fry waxing lyrical about the Speccy.
Do You Really Want To Hurt Me was the third UK single release by Culture Club in September 1982, but it was the first US single. It reached number 1 in the UK and number 2 in the USA (though, to be fair, Billie Jean was number one, off the Thriller album!). This was the song that really launched the band and was a song on their first album, Kissing To Be Clever.
Culture Club were led by George O'Dowd, or Boy George as he was known as, who had developed a very androgynous and unique look. Even after the Ziggy Stardust and Glam era, I had never seen anyone who looked like George before, totally unique.
Even now, 30 years later, I distinctly recall a playground conversation after the previous evenings Top Of The Pops show, when the band made their first major UK appearance, on the subject of whether the lead singer was a boy or a girl! Remember, in the UK in 1982, the way George looked and sang was completely unique. I am pretty sure it was this actual performance we discussed in the playground.
I read somewhere that George was uncomfortable about the song being released as a single as it was a very personal song, as so many were on that album and the song itself is about George's (secret at the time) relationship with the bands drummer Jon Moss, pictured below (centre bottom).
And how could I not include this great scene from The Wedding Singer. Set in 1985 of course!
Finally, another great cover version. I think these guys nail it completely and show what a timeless classic it is.
This was released as a single in September of 1982 and was the penultimate single by The Jam. The band was Paul Weller plus Bruce Foxton and Rick Butler and they must rank as one of the most consistent bands of the late 70's and early 80's with a string of hits and so, so British too. So much so that none of their singles was released in the USA.
I've always been a big fan of this song and I actually find it really sad, and it is likely to induce a tear or two. Part of this I am sure is that I always feel it is the end of an era with The Jam, and I regard this as their swansong rather than Beat Surrender a few months later.
Fantastic lyrics too, the song is basically about a guy who has fallen for a girl only to find himself standing watching as she marries another.Paul Weller deserves so much credit for his lyrics, and for a guy who arose out of punk, he writes a really from the heart love song as well as anyone.
"In your white lace and your wedding bells
You look the picture of contented new wealth
But from the on-looking fool who believed your lies
I wish this grave would open up and swallow me alive
For the bitterest pill is hard to swallow
The love I gave hangs in sad coloured, mocking shadows"
The song title was also adopted by one of my favourite podcasters, Dan Klass from The Bitterest Pill podcast, who is a massive Jam and Weller fan. This first post is for you Dan!
As you can see, no big production on the video!
Here is the original version. This is nice too.
Not too many decent covers out there strangely, but I did like this.
So there we are, a great memory from 1982. Many, many more to come
