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 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.
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.
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.
