The mid-'802s were a haven of experimentation. New technology - sampling and sequencing - had appeared, which threw open the doors of possibility to those with the imagination to use them to their full potential. Oh, and had a spare £10,000 knocking about for a Fairlight . Here's the first three of a selection of six Electro-ish tunes. Well, sort of Electro. Art of Noise – Beat Box (Diversion One) Frankie Goes to Hollywood – Relax Liquid Liquid – Optimo The Art Of Noise were an electro-pop quartet from [...]
In the mid '802s, British Indie music woke up from its glum post-punk nightmare and started to produce music that was, if not out and out happy, at least willing to step outside its front door with something approaching a smile. Of course, this was largely due to the huge amounts of drugs it was consuming, but never mind. IndiePop sprung to life. All was sunny. Kind of. Cocteau Twins – Lorelei New Order – Bizarre Love Triangle Billy Bragg – A New England In 1984, Cocteau Twins were a [...]
The mid-'802s saw the UK Independent music scene reach another of its many high points. For a couple of years, the scene had been characterised by ramshackle amateurism, post-punk dourness and not a small amount of glumness (following on from the late '702s glories ). But as always in the ever-changing UK scene, like mushrooms growing from manure, some of the finest pop music known to man sprung from all over the UK. Others, like The Jesus And Mary Chain, found new ways to be angry and noisy and blew apart the hitherto moribund [...]
Noise. Anger. Rage. Being a bit drunk. Big dollops of "fuck you" attitude. All this, and more, feature in this instalment of The Pitchfork 500 1 . Cue guitar intro. The Replacements – Bastards of Young Big Black – Kerosene Scratch Acid – The Greatest Gift We last saw The Replacements singing about trying to hook up with some poor, unsuspecting lady in "I Will Dare" (off an album that also featured the charmingly titled "Gary's Got A Boner"). [...]
The '802s was the decade of bombast. Everything had to be loud, brash, obvious. Music pummelled you into submission. Music had something to tell you, and it told you with fervour, without respite. Two of the most brash, fervent bands are represented here, along with a third artist who wasn't exactly shy of making statements in her music. Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) U2 – New Year's Day Simple Minds – Don't You (Forget About Me) Following the huge success of "Wuthering Heights", Kate [...]
The next bunch of Pitchfork songs aren't quite grouped in the same way as previous sections, in an easily discussed theme. Instead, the thing that unites these songs is that pretty much everyone knows them, and by and large, they are pretty damn good. And yes, I know I promised this back in August 2009. I've been busy, alright? New Order – Blue Monday Prince and the Revolution – When Doves Cry Talking Heads – This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody) New Order's "Blue Monday" is one of those songs [...]
Authenticity is a funny old thing. In most musical genres you care to mention, there's always a die-hard bunch of fans who complain that these new artists aren't as good as the old ones, things were much better in the old days, blah de blah de blah. Of course, they are missing the whole point that the artists they so venerate were in fact reacting to the status quo of their own time, and were trying something new and revolutionary. Wanting new music to be like the old is just hypocrisy. Run-D.M.C. – It's Like [...]
For all the great songs on the Pitchfork 500 list, there are some right duffers. And there's some great, well-known, hugely loved songs missing. Following on from Part One , this covers the years 1980 to 1982. These are, of course, my own personal choice. If you can think of a band that the Pitchfork writers have missed, let me know by commenting or emailing me . Willie Nelson - On The Road Again (1980) The Stranglers - Golden Brown (1981) Of all the mainstream genres in the [...]
Goths! Black. Patchouli oil. Hair crimpers. More black. Dry ice. Being miserable. Yet more black. Ah, it was fun being a goth. Echo and the Bunnymen – The Killing Moon The Cure – Close to Me Siouxsie and the Banshees – Cities in Dust I was a teenage goth, you know. Well, more like a half-goth. A demi-goth. A part-time goth. I was far too much into The Fall, Cabaret Voltaire and New Order to ever really go down the road of [...]
So here's the second part of the Alt-Rock 101 article I started last week . We've had Sonic Youth, Hüsker Dü and The Meat Puppets, now it's time for these three: The Replacements – I Will Dare Minutemen – History Lesson (Part II) R.E.M. – So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry) The Replacements, like Hüsker Dü before them and The Hold Steady after them, hail from Minneapolis. There's a reason I mention The Hold Steady. In this great article, Craig Finn talks of how they saved his life. [...]
The next two Pitchfork articles feature the flowering of US Alt-Rock; these are the bands that your favourite bands love. From early '90's staples like The Pixies and Nirvana, to more recent bands like The Hold Steady and even the likes of Fleet Foxes, they were hugely influenced by the next six bands. I've split this article in two, so that you don't have a 2,000 word behemoth to trawl through 1 . Sonic Youth – Death Valley '69 Hüsker Dü – Pink Turns to Blue Meat Puppets – Plateau Of the [...]
Some bands take a few years to really get their sound right. Listen to early Joy Division or The Pixies and you'll hear hints of what they'd become, but it's rare for a truly revolutionary band to appear pretty much fully formed. But The Smiths weren't like other bands. In Morrissey, they had a stunning lyricist and a frontman who understood exactly what the point of a frontman was. In Marr, they had the best guitar player of his generation, stunningly accomplished, always willing to experiment, with a fantastic ear for a melody. His [...]
The last set of songs on the Pitchfork 500 list for 1980-1982 takes us back to the States, with music that was in many ways similar to that discussed in my last couple of posts. Shambolic, rumbunctuous, with a definite amateur feel to them, and three of these four bands won't be known to your average man on the street 1 . The other would go on to be one of the biggest bands in the world, selling some 35 million records. Not The Feelies, obviously. The Feelies – The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness [...]
This post is all about the jangly, amateur sounds of shambolic Indie-Pop. It's a sound that would go on to heavily influence everyone from REM and The Smiths, the C86 movement, Pavement to Brit Pop and beyond. Not that they realised it at the time of course. This lot were just wanting to make a sound their own on often rather limited funds. $60 in one case. Orange Juice – Blue Boy The Television Personalities – This Angry Silence The Fall – The Classical The Clean – Tally Ho! [...]
METAL! Skulls. Cider. Screaming. Donington. Long hair. Longer guitar solos. Ludicrous lyrics. Bottles of piss. Dungeons and Dragons. Right, that's the clichés out of the way. Flipper – Sex Bomb Motorhead – Ace of Spades Iron Maiden – Run to the Hills First off, it's Flipper with "Sex Bomb". Who, I hear you ask? I dunno, I reply. After listening to this a few times, reading the book, doing a bit of background work, I still have no idea. [...]
These songs remind me of dark, hot sweaty underground clubs, filled with teenage men, hot sweaty and lithe, writhing against each other, limbs flailing, reaching a state of ecstasy. Ah, the mosh pit. What the hell did you think I was talking about? Bad Brains – Pay to Cum Minor Threat – Minor Threat Dead Kennedys – Holiday in Cambodia Black Flag – Rise Above Wipers – Youth of America Bad Brains started off as a jazz fusion act, until deciding to become a hardcore punk band. And that's [...]
These five songs on the Pitchfork 500 are the kind of thing you'd expect to hear on drivetime radio anywhere from California to Krakow. Mixing both European and American bands, all of these bands (aside one) were enormous in the 1970's, making their fortunes in the great commercial explosion of popular music. Fascinating people too, from Abba's intertwined romances, through Roxy Music's son-of-a-coal-miner glamour, Queen's flamboyant Zanzibari singer, to Bruce Springsteen's Noo Joisey working class boy made good from hard, hard work. Oh, and Journey. You just had to go and spoil it, [...]
So far, listening to the Pitchfork 500 list has been great fun. In each group of four to eight songs, there have always been personal favourites that I love to talk about, or songs I've never heard before and loved, and some songs that I'd forgotten were so good. Sure, there's been some duffers, but that's in the nature of a list like this. But this next part, I've got to say, was something of a chore. The Go-Go's – Our Lips Are Sealed Tom Tom Club – Genius of Love [...]
So, the last part of The Brits Are Coming starts with the 100th song on the list, and the most important band of the Brits series. Who they? New Order, of course. New Order – Temptation The Jam – Town Called Malice Duran Duran – The Chauffeur The English Beat – Save It for Later What do you do when, on the eve of your first American tour that might well propel you to stardom 1 , your talismanic, troubled lead singer commits suicide? As [...]
The early 80's saw an explosion in electronic pop music from the UK. All around the UK, bands were messing around with primitive synthesisers, sequencers and drum machines. With a good ear for a tune and the ability to fiddle around with these new bits of technology, you could create something unique. These bands, along with others like Duran Duran and The Eurythmics, are often called "New Pop" for their marriage of pop sensibilites to the new sounds being made available through technology. The next four songs are: The Human League – Don't You [...]
Loft And Lost
![Niki & The Dove - The Fox [OFFICIAL VIDEO]](http://cdn.elbo.ws/youtube/l2f6UbMnlq4_130.jpg)
Whitney! ♥
The Twilight Sad cover The Smiths
Chromatics: “Into The Black”
Download: The Violet Lights - "Sex and Sound"
