Shreek of the Week of the Day Archive
Well, I Thought You'd Never Ask!“Drop Your Pants” by Hilary from the EP Kinetic
I say this because there is absolutely nothing “double” about any of Hilary’s “entendres” here. I can think of no legitimately clean-minded reading of any of the lyrics, nor spot any subtlety in the metaphor that might allow for alternative interpretation. To illustrate, let me quote the second verse in its entirety: You hold the key, please unlock it You heard correctly. That last bit again is: You play the cymbal on my fanny I ain’t makin’ this shit up, folks. And then there is the immortal chorus, repeated at least a dozen times: So drop your pants around your ankles Deliver? Deliver what? There are only three real possibilities requiring dress code as stated, and I will choose the least unnatural, thank you very much. Best Part: The synthesized sparkly/zippery/whooshy sting that somehow evokes Erection Surprise à la Sergio Valente. |
Swear? You Shouldn't Swear, Young Man.“Swear” by Tim Scott, from the EP Swear
That’s not to say that this track is unlistenable. It’s well-produced in a generic eighties manner. Mr. Scott has a decent tenor voice at his disposal when he cuts loose, and he proto-raps in a fast-paced, Right from the get-go, “Swear” establishes its one and only theme. It is a song about suspicion: I won’t bother asking you what you’ve done Fuzzy, unresolved suspicion, as it turns out: Though the rumors all point to some’n’ goin’ on And as the song continues, it begins to sound more and more like unfounded, jealous, drunken accusation: See, the past is the past, and I’m not gonna dwell Which eventually blossoms into full-blown needy ego-whining: From this point on, the lyric develops no further; the attention wanders, and one begins to wish for the arrival of Johnny Cash to introduce a plot development of some kind, preferably involving alcohol, proper names and one or more tragic bullets. Instead, Mr. Scott spends nearly four minutes alternately accusing and begging his significant other, who, if she has any sense at all, has by 1:18 packed her bags and left him to wallow in his paranoid misery. The unfortunate listener does not have this option, and is therefore forced to listen to him ramble on until he seems to pass out and fade away, leaving a group of confused musicians and backup singers to raid the refrigerator and stop up the toilet before finally finding their way out of his dark and filthy apartment. Best Part: Should I strap a lie detector to your heart? To your heart? |
Now That's Some Scary Shit“So Afraid of the Russians” a 7” inch single by Made for TV
But perhaps the greatest fear was the thought of nuclear Armageddon as a direct result of the Cold War, one that had reached a cultural zenith thanks to the American TV-movie The Day After (in which we learn that Germany will never successfully be united, the new epicenter of the world will be Lawrence, Kansas, and the ABC network doesn’t screen its programming for fact-checkers) and the British docudrama Threads (in which we learn that the BBC makes American attempts at socially conscious programming look like Morton Downey Jr. transcripts). Several tunesmiths of the era tried to allay public anxiety by reminding people of the two warring faction’s similarities, rather than their differences. Fishbone expressed both sides’ perspectives in “Party at Ground Zero” with the lines “Johnnie go get your gun, for the commies are in our hemisphere today/ Ivan go fly your MiG, ’cause the Yankee imperialists have come to play.” Sting sought to remind listeners that our so-called enemies, “The Russians,” were in truth no different than us, singing, “We share the same biology/ Regardless of ideology.” The Smiths hoped to spin the end as the ultimate form of peace in “Ask,” simply stating, “The bomb will bring us together.” But one group, Made for TV, chose instead to encourage the global disquietude with their song “So Afraid of the Russians,” reminding us of our Soviet counterparts that “They’ve got ships at sea/ Planes in the air/ Tanks on the border of Europe/ And spies everywhere.” Now, some people may point out that the song was actually addressing the culture of fear rather than emphasizing the fear itself. Others may state that, in fact, practically every nation in the world tends to locate their ships in the water, their planes above ground and their spies in countries other than their own. And a few may even state that the song “So Afraid of the Russians” doesn’t even qualify for one-hit status, that it’s almost impossible to even find the lyrics for the song online and it would have been far better to have used this space to talk about the similarly themed but far more memorable “Dancing with Tears in My Eyes” by Ultravox instead. But I fear that was never meant to be. And so the unease continues… —Ces Marcuiliano |
Enough with the Promises Already“Promise, Promises” by Naked Eyes from the album Burning Bridges
If you’ve actually listened to the lyric, you know it’s a song about a man who’s too prone to believing, and/or his girlfriend who’s too prone to lying. It’s kind of a he-said, she-said situation. If you’re not familiar with the song, all you really need to know is encapsulated in these four lines: You made me promises, promises And it sounds quite nice. That’s about all there is to it. I did run across an acoustic recording by the original artists, produced for an “80’s Hits Stripped” compilation CD, which drops the slick echo-chamber production and hip synthesixylophones and adds a healthy dollop of vocal sincerity. This version sounds quite nice also. But in the end, he’s still a gullible dweeb who buys anything she says, she’s a deceptive siren who makes pledges in bad faith, and that’s the compleat ass and teakettle. But it all sounds quite nice. Best Part: |
Damn, That's Hott“Sexy & 17” by The Stray Cats from the album Rant ‘n’ Rave with The Stray Cats The 1950s are seemingly always good for a comeback, whether it’s through the musical Grease, the nostalgia band Sha-na-na, or the Nixon administration. But the 1980s—what with Reagan in office and a certain pre–Brown v. Board of Education vibe permeating the whole land—were particularly ripe for nonsensical celebrations of the U.S.’s Leave-Us-Alone-and-Let-Us-Make-Babies-Who-Will-Eventually-Drive-Everyone-Crazy decade. Enter The Stray Cats, a rockabilly trio out of (seriously, now) Massapequa, Long Island: one Gretsch hollow-body (Brian Setzer), one acoustic bass, twirled liberally during performances (Lee Rocker, born Leon Drucker), and one snare drum plus hi-hat cymbal (Slim Jim Phantom, born James McDonnell). To call the Cats a deeply derivative band is simply to state the truth—they were nothing more than microwaved-to-room-temperature rockabilly for a new era. Yet—I gotta tell ya—compared to Madonna and Duran Duran they were a rockin’ breath of ’80s fresh air. “Sexy & 17” is straight-up twelve-bar blues in the Chuck Berry vein, complete with rants against school, taunts of the teacher, use of the word “Daddy-O” and references to a super-hot girlfriend who is “a little bit obscene.” To its eternal credit, the tune includes a lick-o-rific Setzer two-chorus guitar solo that hopefully taught a generation of kids about the blues. If some band were to cover this tune in a sweaty beach bar near you, you would be a lucky customer, indeed. The video, of course, is not to be missed. Setzer, Rocker and Phantom—pompadours all up on their greasy heads, hard-cases of Marlboros rolled up in the sleeves of their white T-shirts—bust out of a 1950s classroom (the other kids all wearing white button-down shirts and black-rimmed glasses) to meet Setzer’s “little Marie.” When the video cuts to Marie, however, she has plainly been transported through time machine from a time 30 years hence when New Wave babes in string-bikini panties and thigh-highs put on their make-up while standing topless in front of the bathroom mirror. Marie walks past her couch-bound parents in a pure 1950s living room wearing a pink polka-dotted strapless thing and major dangle earrings, not to mention those black lace, fingerless glove-thingies that were popular for, like, six weeks in 1983. Also, there is a large right shoulder blade skin appliqué of some kind that I believe was popular for about six days in late 1982. My theory: she arrived in the past using the DeLorean time-machine car from Back to the Future (1985 but, hey, close enough). There is a even a moment late in the video in which Marie, wearing a white corset, the aforementioned thigh highs, and black heels—and sitting on a stool in a corridor for some reason—lifts what appears to be a baby cougar to her lips and gives the cat (the STRAY Cat?) a smack on the lips. Best Moment: Just after the guitar solo (2:26), there is a Presley-esque bridge introduced by “Ah-wo-oh-wo-oh-wo-oh …” that offers just enough contrast (a) to demonstrate that the Stray Cats actually knew what they were doing, music-wise, and (b) to have you popping a serious boner when the I-IV-V of the blues finally comes back. Which, cats, is as it should be. |
Really, Who Doesn't Like Balloons?“99 Luftballons” by Nena from the album 99 Luftballons What does it say about the state of geopolitics when the Germans are the ones pleading for military restraint? Such was the peculiar case in 1983. President Ronald Reagan had just proposed his “Star Wars” defense plan and declared the Soviet Union “the evil empire,” leading one to suspect that he had become gravely concerned with the security of Endor (whose own precarious situation was to be made abundantly clear that very summer). The Soviet Union had just shot down Korean Air Flight 007 (after mistaking it for a military craft) and put its entire nuclear forces on full alert (after mistaking a NATO war game exercise to be preparations for a genuine first strike), leading one to believe that few nations govern effectively when the median age of its rulers are “unofficially deceased.” And the very first non-American Disney theme park had just opened in Tokyo, Japan, leading one to conclude that no one, nowhere, was ever to be safe from malevolence again. And then, just when all hope seemed lost and all reason abandoned (1983, after all, had just been declared “The Year of the Bible” by the United States), a lone voice spoke up to give words to Americans’ deepest fears about inadvertent nuclear annihilation—words that few Americans, alas, could understand because they were sung in German. But thanks to constant airplay—and an English version that translated the original lyrics “If you have some time for me” and “Perhaps you think of me a bit” into “You and I in a little toy shop” and “Back at base, bugs in the software”—two things became abundantly clear. One, the other nations of the world (of which there were some during the Cold War) sincerely believed that both the United States and the Soviet Union were far too belligerent and blundering to be trusted with weapons of mass destruction. And two, William Shatner was destined to never, ever fall off the cultural radar. True, today the song’s narrative—about 99 red balloons being mistaken for an attack and triggering the end of life as we know it—may seem naïve at best. But you have to remember, this was a far different time. The U.S. President was constantly dividing the world into “Us versus Them.” He was repeatedly calling on American citizens and soldiers to fight an ill-defined sense of “evil.” And he was routinely playing to the beliefs and bigotry of Fundamentalist Christians to further his party’s own self-serving and indefensible agenda. My, how the times have changed. —Ces Marcuiliano |
Come On Down and Wear Your Influences on Your Sleeve“The Stand” by the Alaram, from the EP The Alarm Ahhhh, nostalgia. There is nothing like it. Opening with dramatic guitar strums and a wailing harmonica, then kicking into a solidly rocking beat with a United Kingdom–accented Clash-meets–Soft Cell vocal style, the Alarm’s “The Stand” sounds very energetic and vaguely political. Just like … well, yes, just like U2. A great band that released some great music, with a lead singer who has leveraged rock stardom into an honest platform for public service. U2, I mean. Not The Alarm. Sorry, I digress. The lyrics are full of interesting imagery, with “the walking dude, religious, in his worn down cowboy boots” who “had no name” just like … just like Clint Eastwood? Or maybe that other mysterious cowboy character, from a novel I read around this same time, with a darkly prophetic and mythological storyline. What book am I thinking of? “The black book in my hand” and “the seven vials open”? “The plague claimed man and son”? Oh, yeah! It was by Stephen King, and also, by some strange coincidence, entitled The Stand. Hmmmmm. Well, then there’s the chorus, which—dang it. More than half of the lyric is borrowed from longtime The Price Is Right announcer Johnny Olson: Come on down and meet your maker You remember The Price is Right, don’t you? It was a really great game show if you were an adolescent male in the 80s, because tube tops and strapless half-blouses were popular, and female contestants used to get all excited and bound on down to the stage in imminent danger of F.C.C. violation. Plus, they had that cool mountain climber game, where a strange little cartoon guy in short pants would yodel his way up the Alps and, if you were luckier than the contestant, fall off the peak to his bloody, frozen doom. Sorry, I digress again. Where was I? What, exactly, are they making “the Stand” for? What sort of stand is it? Like, a lemonade stand? I kind of doubt that. I remember playing that great Apple ][ Lemonade Stand game in the early 80s, though. When the street was closed for construction on a hot day, you wouldn’t get any of your regular business, BUT the miserable simulated construction workers would willingly pay the maximum $99 for each glass of life-giving lemonade, while you laughed at their desperation and cashed in like a motherfucker. Sorry, where was I? Never mind, the song is over. What’s for lunch? Best Part: Following up on this Shreek by revisiting the complete masterworks of U2, Stephen King, Bob Barker and Steve Wozniak. |
He Wrote the Book Which Makes Him ... Well ... Awesome“Everyday I Write the Book” by Elvis Costello from the album Punch the Clock
Here Elvis is a grand novelist of some kind, “a man with a mission in two or three editions.” In his creepy way, he lords his artistic prowess over this lady, endlessly noting that their relationship is little more than source material for him. He’s the man: “Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal / I’d still own the film rights and be working on the sequel.” She, of course, is a cutting slut: “Don’t tell me you don’t know what love is / When you’re old enough to know better / When you find strange hands in your sweater.” Then: “You said you’d stand by me in the middle of Chapter Three / But you were up to your old tricks in Chapters Four, Five, and Six.” Well, at least he doesn’t shoot her like in “Allison.” Musically, Elvis is cunningly over-produced here with his usual snappy power-pop (punching basslines, hooks a-plenty) decked out with a bevy of Raylette-esque gospel background singers, some hideously reverb-happy keyboards that jump from the left channel to right channel of your stereo like they were a pair of knockers at a burlesque show, plus this odd, brittle digital clavinet riff that just won’t leave your head. The song’s production sheen really hasn’t aged that well but, like the fashion choices evident in the John Cusack movie Say Anything, you excuse them because (a) the basic craft on display is fabulous, and (b) the way you felt about this piece of art when you were a teenager is just not going to allow you to seriously criticize it. That said, you probably should at least wag your finger in this tune’s general direction. Lazy Elvis, trying to — “everyday, … everyday” — write himself a hit song, just reshuffled his pop-song-deck and you lapped it up. (Punch the Clock, indeed.) Shame on you for not saying shame on him. But: why isn’t there anything this good on the radio right now? Best Moment: The out-chorus starting at 2:58, with the keyboard figure, several overdubbed versions of the Raylettes, Elvis on lead (including his howling hound dog bit toward the end) and the whole band, all gloriously overlapped, just bopping their way through the fade. —Will Layman |
Major Tom, Shootin' Star“Major Tom” by Peter Schilling from the album Error in the System
Earth below us, Whatever training Major Tom may have undergone, it apparently taught him precious little about the extreme heat of atmospheric friction. Presumably, Major Tom’s philosophical ruminations occur prior to his vaporization during re-entry, although in reviewing the available literature on fictional rock spacefarers, there’s a remote possibility he lands safely in a field driving a parachute-equipped vintage automobile, as portrayed in Dan O’Bannon’s famous Heavy Metal magazine story and its animated counterpart. None of this matters as much to me personally as the fact that, in researching this Shreek, I was able to track down the original German version, entitled “Major Tom (Voellig Losgeloest)”. It sounds very much like the English-language version aired here in the states, with the same New Wave Berlin Wall of Sound instrumentation and Schilling’s clipped vocal style. But I am partial to 1980s German pop music for three reasons. 1) Nena’s original “99 Luftballons” sounds a lot cooler than “99 Red Balloons”, because “Luft” sounds intense and meaningful and profane, even though all it means is “air.” 2) Taco was a German artist, and if you don’t think it takes massive balls to prance around on MTV singing Irving Berlin songs in the feyest possible manner, you’re a braver man than I am, Charlie Brown. 3) My most significant 80s memories are of my German friend Simone, though I did not meet her until 1990. She could wear a raspberry beret and get away with it, and many of my retro pop music memories are colored by her accented sing-alongs. She was beautiful, talented, and slightly insane, and she opened my head to a world of emotional and creative possibility in the brief time we had together stateside. Simone, this chorus is for you: Vollig losgelost Best Part: When Major Tom, national hero and center of worldwide media attention, starts to wonder if his data-gathering mission has any practical value at all. |
Call for Shreek Writers!
Version 2.0 will relaunch the week of July 4th. What better way to celebrate independence and freedom than by celebrating sometimes catchy, sometimes moldy music? Interested in Shreeking? Drop us an email and we’ll make it happen. I mean, if we don’t tell the world how lovely and sickening early 80s British synth-pop was, who will? |
Wolfman Taps ... Or Something“Wolfman Tap” by Electric Guitars
I was forced to this fruitless extreme because Wolfman Tap has not, as of this writing, been released on CD, and pirates are by nature too lazy to actually hook up a turntable, digitize an analog recording in real time, and edit the resulting mass into track form. In order for this song to exist in readily downloadable MP3 format, there would have had to be a pirate willing to utter such embarrassing phrases as, “Arrrrrrh! I be the bloody scourge of signal degradation!” or “Hoist ye noise filter and sample ye background, me bucko!” Such a privateer would surely be a rarer creature than the album itself. And so I am left with a handful of vague, marginally informative Internet references, which I will now immediately discard in favor of wild, clueless speculation: “Wolfman Tap” is a 1983 pop song about a dancing werewolf who tends bar while working his way through the Arthur Murray/Bob Fosse joint studio program. It was recorded by Electric Guitars, though in fact various people actually play the electric guitars. And drums. And a synthesizer, since New Wave is where it’s at. The werewolf has a frustrating go of it, because all he really wants to do is tap-dance, but his agent keeps sending him out to audition for Breakin’ sequels. But then he meets Cirque du Soleil Moon Frye, an acrobatic punk dancing vampire who helps him achieve his true calling as a bloodthirsty creature of the night. In the touching closing verse, he hangs his former idol upside down from a tree with a “lupus” of rope (get it?), “taps” the “man“‘s neck with a spigot, and shares a hot glass of Gregory Hines ’83 with his newfound love. If you listen really carefully to the howling tap solo starting at 2:44 (3:18 in the extended 12” dance version), you can hear the chimey glass-breaking sound from the popular 1982 Midway arcade game Tapper buried in the mix, along with a low-frequency vocoder modulation of the famous “Even a man who is pure of heart…” rhyme from The Wolf Man, backwards. And snippets of horror host Zacherle’s “Dinner with Drac” and Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s “Monster Mash” too, because sampling was just starting to take off. And an organ intro at the end, just to be retro-radical. Wolfman Tap rocks! It’s a real toe-tapper, with a monster beat you can dance to! Best Part: Having no fucking idea what the hell I’m talking about.
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Dear Diary ... You Stink“Nobody’s Diary” by Yaz from the album You and Me Both
Please note that this is coming from a guy who carries eighty Gary Numan tracks around on his iPod; I have even been known to listen to Commodore 64 remixes. In the interest of full disclosure, I will also stipulate that I somehow dodged this lamentable effort when it débuted during my high school years. But this cultural deficit enables me to approach “Nobody’s Diary” with fresh ears, free of any nostalgic banging-the-outsider-chick glow that might have disguised its New Wave shitemeistery. I press “play,” listen, and am horrified to discover that the primary melody line is carried by a naked synthesizer. And it is not just naked; it is naked and wholly unattractive, pervaded by a Casio CZ-101 vibe that undermines its Erasure-esque ambitions. You can hear it struggling to be all Korg-y and stuff, but it ultimately comes off like early Nintendo background music, albeit with better percussion samples. If its ASDR envelope were to somehow morph into a real one, it would have no prepaid postage, and you’d have to slather on the Elmer’s your own self. I will also state that I have enjoyed the vocal stylings of Alison Moyet under more favorable circumstances. But here, her voice is as flat and unappealing as the instrumentation. Worse, her enunciation is poor, and as syllables drop out of the mix briefly and without apparent reason, one is tempted to fill in the gaps with profanity, as if watching a badly-edited, undubbed R-rated movie on local syndicated television. For example, during the bridge that goes “Ahhhh haaaa [pause] (an)d anyway,” the “and” is barely heard, facilitating endless speculation of the “fuck it anyway” variety. As for the lyrics that can be heard, what do they mean? The basic message appears to be that the singer is upset that her lover is moving on, and wishes she could win him back; she does not wish to become part of his past. But was the lyricist commenting on the creative process in real time when writing “My head was so full of things to say/But as I opened my lips all my words slipped away”? Was there a clever twist intended in the chorus’s final rendering, wherein the “be/see/be” rhyme scheme is suddenly replaced by the innovatively brain-dead “be/be/be”? Was allowing the backing vocal (“A page in your diary, babe”) to finish the lead singer’s train of thought an ironic commentary on the text’s blatant neglect of its own title? Does “You can change the chapter / you can change the book / but the story remains the same / if you take a look” mean anything coherent whatsoever, even in a symbolic sense? I believe the evidence points to one and only one conclusion—the lyrics simply suck just as much as the rest of the package. If you missed this track back in the day when it might have had a marginal shot at being played on the radio, you may want to check it out for curiosity’s sake. But after listening to it numerous times, I believe the band’s name was changed from Yazoo to Yaz for the U.S. release with good reason. While the alias fooled no one, at least it could not be made to rhyme with Wazoo. Best Part: Three delicious moments of anticipation when you think the tempo is about to shift gears, just before it doesn’t |
Doctor... WHOOP, WHOOP... Detroit“Theme from Doctor Detroit” by Devo from the soundtrack, Doctor Detroit
So it seemed reasonable to me that when I met my wife’s family for the first time, that this was on repeat in my subconscious. I was after all in a suburb of Detroit. I didn’t quite shake my future father-in-law’s hand and say “Oh sir, I really love your city, the work you’ve done with the auto industry and oh, that Doctor Detroit, now that’s cinema” but it was close. In the course of the weekend, I managed to bring up Doctor Detroit to every member of her family under the age of 40. Every single time I got an uncomfortable stare that read, “Who the hell is this weird Armenian kid and why is he here?” Then of course, they’d make me sing it and I’d oblige. It was an initiation of sorts except they didn’t laugh or join in the fun. I’d simply sing the song, do a little dance and then wait for a glimmer of recognition which never came. Somehow, I think they admired my ability to make a complete maroon out of myself in any situation. Either that or they felt bad because they weren’t quite sure if I was a ward of the state. Meanwhile, you want to talk about real maroons, check out a svelte Dan Akroyd speedwalking in the Doctor Detroit video. Best Part: The happiest song ever made about Detroit. —N.J. |
No Whammies, No Whammies, No Whammies, STOP!“Whammy Kiss” by the B-52’s from the album WHAMMY!
“Come on mammy and throw me that whammy.” That’s right. He rhymed mammy with whammy. You try that. On second thought, you better not. That’s too much kitsch for a mere mortal. Genius. —Wayne Gladstone |
Do I Smell Something Burning?“Burning Down the House” by the Talking Heads from the album Speaking in Tongues
The song’s asinine lyrics and tinny, Eurotrash whine were bad enough. The baffling thing to me was that, as far as I knew, Roger’s friends all had nice houses in Lakepoint and Sunnyside Park overlooking clear-water ponds where frog families and baby ducks splashed around. Roger had the entire basement to himself, not to mention a wet bar, wide screen TV, and laser-disc player that froze every five seconds. Why was “Burning down the house” their rebel yell? Was Mom sleeping with the tennis instructor again? The following year, when Roger’s class graduated, I’d think fondly of those “Burning Down the House” parties and wish I hadn’t been so critical. The new senior class was a clan of preppie loons who stunk of perm solution. Their party anthem was that other “house” tune: “Our House.” Now that song was really miserable. — Elizabeth Koch |
Next Time, Maybe I'll Knock“Every Breath You Take” by the Police, from the album Synchronicity
Then one night last year, my roommate and I turned on my PS2 to play Karaoke Revolution, an awesome karaoke-style video game that judges how well you sing. We were drunk and happy, and he decided we should duet the Police’s song. I didn’t have a reaction, the sexcapades relating to the song were a thing of the past. Minutes after singing, for literally no reason I can imagine, Warren told me about how his girlfriend liked to remove his penis from her vagina during coitus, then kindly slide it inside her anus. I was pleasantly stunned. The whole of it was so pornographically savvy, it played in my head, along with the song, on repeat for the rest of the night. Best Part: Um, the climax? Hiyooooooo. —Todd Zuniga |
Fear Not, Shreeks Aren't Dead, They're ... RestingDear Readers, Thank you for your patience while we wait to post our next Shreek of the Week of the Day. Unfortunately, we are stuck on the Police and their tune “Every Breath You Take”. We’re hanging on to this song for our beloved and very skinny friend, Todd Zuniga. He is on planet Boron right now fighting the intergalactic Dolemites who trying to import a form of celestial fascism on the tiny planet. Todd is a real saint to take on their protection. If he doesn’t make it back by Wednesday, we’ll assume the Dolemites annihilated him or that the Borons committed a mutiny and shanked him in the showers. Till next tune! - The Editors |
Tomato and Black-Capped Chickadees Love“Song for a Future Generation” by the B-52s from the album Whammy!
Needless to say, I have grown up and I look nothing like Kate Pierson, I don’t have go-go boots, the machines are not coming to rescue me from the office any time soon and my friends and I never meet at the third pyramid after work. Sometimes, my computer makes blippy noises, but that is usually a bad sign. Still, hearing “Song for a Future Generation” takes me back to that time of optimism, and now I can better appreciate the sly wit that’s going on in this song. The idea is that all the offspring born of matches made in the personal ads would grow up and wonder how mommy and daddy met—so the B-52’s recite ridiculous two-line personals for themselves and chant the chorus, “Let’s meet and have a baby now. La la la la la la la!” When it’s Kate’s turn, she says “Hi! I’m Kate, and I looooooove tomatoes and black-capped chickadees,” and in case you don’t know, the black-capped chickadee is the state bird of Maine, my home state. Whoa. Maybe I did turn out to be Kate Pierson after all? Maybe I am her and she is me? I love tomatoes too! Perhaps we both fell through a magic wormhole sometime in 1982. Where is my hovercraft? Anyway, this song is fantastic, and I really think some smart band should cover or otherwise revisit it for the kids of today. Except instead of reciting personal ad clichés, the band members could just announce their MySpace page addresses. Best part: There is no denying the la-la-la-las. |
The Sad Clown of Death Sings“Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” by Eurhythmics from the album Sweet Dreams My mother took me to a hair salon for the first time when I was eight. “Three inches,” she said to the shortest, fattest woman I’d ever seen. The hairdresser nodded and sat me down in front of a mirror. She smelled like egg yolk and wore a black painter’s shirt spotted with silver bugs. I didn’t know what to say to this woman who was ordered to do something terrifying to my three-foot-long hair, so I looked at the television reflected in the mirror. On the screen was Annie Lennox.
My understanding of human psychology and self-sabotage wasn’t so nuanced at that pre-adolescent state. I didn’t get why anyone would want to be abused, or ‘used’ for that matter. Used for what—to mop the floor? She looked so skinny and sad up there, just a head and shoulders floating in the middle of a screen. Maybe if she grew her hair to a normal length and ate something, or sang about happy things, like roller skating and New Coke—people would ‘use’ her like she wanted them to. I’d never been attached to my seat-grazing hair—my mother’s braiding technique regularly gave me migraines. But the longer I stared at this orange-haired skeleton woman, the more I wanted to run out of the salon screaming. I held perfectly still, afraid that if I moved a muscle the hairdresser’s fingers might slip and I’d end up looking like the sad clown of death: the sexless Annie Lennox. I left the salon smelling like flowers but looking pretty much the same as before. “The ‘Sweet Dreams” lyrics haunted me. Hold your head up—Keep your head up—MOVIN’ ON. When we got home I begged my mom to call the salon and ask the name of the orange-haired lady on TV. She made the call and told me the name of the band: the “Arithmetics.” Made sense to me. A few days later I found the scissors in my father’s study. I stood in front of the window, took a last look at my long, boring brown hair, and got rid of it. When I was finished, I looked as ugly as Annie, which put me in the mood to abuse someone. My squash-faced little brother was sitting on the floor, sucking his thumb, waiting for me. — Elizabeth Koch |
Fascinating, That Fascination Is“Fascination” by Human League from the EP Fascination
Here were the rules of Fascination: You rolled a rubber ball up a slanted plane toward a bunch of holes, each accorded a different amount of points. These points were worth a certain amount of tickets, and the tickets were exchangeable for an array of worthless pieces of junk masquerading as prizes, which were hanging from the walls and ceiling, or displayed from behind theft-proof plastic cases. Come to think of it, this seems a lot like skeeball. But it wasn’t skeeball. Skeeball was fun, and Fascination wasn’t, though I can’t remember quite what the difference was. They sure sound similar. Perhaps the reason that I can’t quite remember the exact mechanics of this game were because they are eclipsed by a more salient aspect of game play: the never-ending loop of Human League’s New Wave-ish hit song “Fascination” that was amplified loudly throughout the arcade. While I don’t know whether the game or the arcade came before the other, I’m almost positive that both came before the song. The owner of the arcade must have been thrilled when an upbeat synth-heavy pop song emerged on the radio with the name of his baby. So thrilled in fact, that he decided to bash it into the brains of everybody who came into his establishment, forever consigning that tune to the boring stupid game it featured. My aunt, for some reason, loved the game. While vacationing every summer, she spent a lot of time in Fascination, playing Fascination, listening to “Fascination.” And since I spent a lot of time with my cousins in those days, it meant I spent a lot of time with my aunt and her Fascination habit. The arcade, unlike so many others, did not feature many quality video games of the time. There was no Spyhunter or Dragon’s Lair. The owner was throwing most of his stake into that weird unfun skeeball rip-off. So, that left little for me to do but wander around the pinball machines, staring at the worthless prizes, listening to that song. Again. And again. And again. And again. |
Doot Doot ... Doody!“Doot Doot” by Freur from the album Doot Doot Sophomoric headlines aside, Freur is really a difficult band to get behind. The opening music is enouraging and the little “Doot, Doot” is kind of fun and gets you ready to rock. Not Rock per se but rock in that goofy but feel-good “God Gave Rock N Roll to Us” kind of way at the end Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. Unfortunately for Freur, however, at about the height of the song’s promise, the front man starts singing and the lead guitarist starts feeling himself and all musical hell breaks loose (in a bad way). That, my friends, is when the realization sets in. This song sucks hard…. see for yourself. Best Part: When I was seven years old and this song didn’t exist yet but I got to have a birthday party at McDonald’s. —N.J. |
Love. Sweet!“Modern Love” by David Bowie from the album Let’s Dance “It’s not really work …” —Wayne Gladstone |
We're Gonna Rock Down to Psychosis“Electric Avenue” by Eddy Grant from the album Killer on the Rampage
So, there I was, a little idiot, sitting on a pillow in my living room, watching Eddy Grant’s pseudo-psychedelic motorcycle-fetish/funky-reggae music video on Video Rocks — a half-hour local daily UHF (remember UHF? any channel above 13 that was on the second knob back when TVs still had knobs and got to play interesting shows because nobody was watching?) show that still managed to play more videos than MTV does today—and then Eddie stands up and slips wetly through the floor. Why did he have to do that? I’d never before considered the possibility of my home spontaneously changing forms of matter. But I did now. And now that the thought was inside my brain, it meant it was bound to happen eventually. Maybe right around the time that I would stand up so straight that my knees would bend forward and I’d smash my face into the ground, which, for all I knew, was going to turn out to be water. And how could I be expected to swim with my knees bent backwards? And I’ve never been a good swimmer to begin with. I would drown for sure. Years later, I would learn that most horrible things that happen to you in life happen to you completely out of the blue. Things you never expect. Such as when a friend tips your canoe on a lake in Vermont while you’ve got several percocets and beers in you and you’re still a pretty bad swimmer and you come this close to deciding you’ve had a pretty good life and just letting yourself sink beneath the surface where all the rest of the bad swimming idiots and forgotten reggae singers live. |
Church of the Musical Clusterf*ck“Church of the Poisoned Mind” by Culture Club from the album Colour by Numbers
The major problem with this song is that Culture Club doesn’t drop those too-tight New Wave synthy beats, so the Southern Baptist backup business doesn’t rouse me like it should—in this context, a Turns out Boy George was having a secret and tumultuous affair with his drummer Jon Moss during the recording of Colour by Numbers, a fact that was probably well known to Culture Club fans, but not known to me. (I may not be able to dance, but I prefer Duran Duran, or Wham!, for that matter.) Knowing this trivia sheds a whole new light on “Church of the Poisoned Mind”–-the second verse begins “Watch me clinging to the beat / I had to fight to make it mine.” Oh ho! Poor George. I appreciate his attempt at confession, but in the end, I think I’d rather hear “On Eagles’ Wings” one more time. Best part: when the harmonica goes away. |
That's An Excellent Question. Let Me Get Back To You.“Is There Something I Should Know?” by Duran Duran included on the rerelease of their début album Duran Duran
Best part? Right at the start, with the drums where Simon Le Bon implored listeners, “Please, please tell me now!” — Mick Stingley |
Scooby Dooby Kajagoogoo“Too Shy” by Kajagoogoo from the album White Feathers
Maybe it’s the song’s sheer simplicity, with lyrics read like a come-hither Dr. Suess Beginner Book and feature a mere 41 different words, nine less than The Cat in the Hat. Or that a full 50% of the song is taken up by a chorus so catchy that hundreds of years from now when the planet has fallen into the hands of apes Dr. Zaius will be sitting at his desk, poring over some ancient scrolls, when out of the blue he’ll find himself muttering “Hush hush, eye to eye.” Or that the video for the song stars a woman wearing more make-up than Tim Curry in Legend serving drinks at the only 1940s U.S.O. show to prominently feature a Casio synthesizer. Or perhaps it’s that the song contains the line “modern medicine falls short of your complaints,” bringing up the possibility that the woman in question is emotionally unstable or at the very least a stalker and thus adding a level of dramatic tension one does not expect to find in a song penned by someone named “Limahl.” Or maybe, just maybe, the answer is that it’s a simple pop song, and simple pop songs—like poorly animated Saturday morning cartoons, sitcoms built around three-hour boat tours gone horribly awry and candy that actually detonates in your mouth—are pleasures that define description. They don’t imbue your life with any great significance. They won’t enhance your C.V. or impress people who foolishly believe it’s their role in life to be impressed. They just are, end of story. Which is great, because otherwise I’d have to spend the rest of this article saying something like, “You see, there’s this woman likes this guy … but she’s shy … perhaps too shy, if you will … plus she thinks love is to pray … although that might have been ‘Tainted Love’ …” |
So? So, Let's Dance!“If you say run … “
But what about the music? Unlike Bowie’s largely craptastic ’85 and ’87 pop albums, “Let’s Dance” holds up. At this point, he hadn’t yet become the full blown whore, dancing with Tina Turner in Pepsi commercials. He was a just a coffee achiever who loved pastel suits. “Let’s Dance” had a great mix of heavy bass, sax, and searing guitar. And four years before Midnight Oil, he had a video bringing attention to the plight of the Australian Aborigines. Who cared if it had nothing to do with the lyrics? The video also contains Bowie’s greatest sin: not only does he pretend to be playing Stevie Ray Vaughn’s guitar solo, he does so while wearing white gloves. White gloves? (O.K., maybe he didn’t look that straight.) After this commercial success it would take twelve more years before Bowie would find his artistic bearings again, but even now, “Let’s Dance” is sensational shake your ass, ear candy. Best part: “Tremble like a flower … “ — Wayne Gladstone |
I'll Do Whatever I Damned Well Please“The Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats, from the album “Rhythm of Youth”
There you have it. Men Without Hats, laying down the law. You either dance or you’re out. It’s a similar approach to dance that the Violent Femmes’ adopted with their tune, “Dance Motherfucker, Dance”. Men Without Hats are just telling people how it is. Listen buddy, I like to dance and you can dance with me if you want to but your friends, they pretty much suck because they don’t dance. Are they wrong, though? Defiant as they may be, “The Safety Dance” is not a song about ultimatums but rather about living life without compromise. The demonic and lightly robotic singers of Men Without Hats were open arms to all if you think about, with few conditions. Dance if you want to, don’t wear hats, it’s all good. Perhaps though, their crowning moment in illustrating their desire to just seize the moment and enjoy life was fully displayed in their video for this song. I mean a guy dressed up like Jack (pre-beanstalk) and a midget dressed in a court jester’s outfit walking through a cornfield. Then they attack a peaceful village and lead a dancing riot in the streets of said village. Huh? Yeah, it’s kind of like Footloose but a midget stars as Kevin Bacon and it’s not Footloose, it’s “The Safety Dance,” dude. Yeah, I know, just roll with it. Best Moment: “The Safety Dance” midget’s cameo appearance in Bio-Dome when he, Pauly Shore, and Stephen Baldwin all happily prance through the Dome. —N.J. |
How Looooooooong?“Sunday, Bloody Sunday” by U2 from the album War
It is, arguably, the essential U2 song: on the one hand, it is loud and angry and full of outrage and, on the other hand, it is chime-y and pleading and full of hope-for-the-future-of-mankind-type Biblical allusion. Put another way, “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” — or more specifically the exact middle of “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” — is the precise moment that U2 pivoted from being a punk band (“Broken bottles under children’s feet / Bodies strewn across the dead end street”) into something that many people could begin to resent. Man, the tune starts with a sloppy, martial beat from Mullen on snare and hi-hat, then the Edge shoots long sparkler streaks of guitar across it all. Adam Clayton’s bass is almost awkwardly unfunky, coming long before the band’s complicated embrace of US funk music. And good ol’ Bobo Vox gets to royally oversing this mother, turning a two-word phrase like “How long?” into an “Aria for Shades-Wearing Irish Lad with a Jesus Complex.” He’s aided by an engineer who slathered on the reverb like a permissive mom going overboard with the grape jelly on her favorite kid’s brown bag. By song’s end, Bono actually sings, “The real battle yet begun / To claim the victory Jesus won.” Hey! All that cool anger is gone, U2! Blink and Bono will be feting Frank Sinatra before a Lifetime Grammy award. Eventually, the band’s signal achievement will be saying the phrase “really, really fucking brilliant” during a prime time Golden Globes and having the F.C.C. declare it A-O.K. What “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” wrought: a world in which it’s respectable to say “fuck.” Best Moment: The guitar break starting at 2:40, exploded into with some really vicious drumming by Larry Mullen that would have been edited out of The Joshua Tree so fast it would make your head twirl like a cheap harlot on Percodan. — Will Layman |
Culture Club: Not Just a Bad 80s Bar“Time (Clock of the Heart)” by Culture Club, from the album Kissing to Be Clever
The music of Culture Club was never anything more than O.K. The songs are catchy and reasonably eclectic (if only within their own pop definition). This one’s got some funky stuff going on in the background, synthesizers and noise making machines. The music and lyrics are ballad-y, if not an actual ballad. But there’s something funny. Boy George’s singing is actually good when its untouched and unaffected. He’s got a good voice. The problem is I’ve always felts as though something was missing with “Time (Clock of My Heat).” In doing some background research for this song, I came across someone that said that this song’s production stopped just short of “cheesy,” unlike Spandau Ballet’s “True.” That’s fine to say, but if it’s actually the case, why do I find myself asking why I enjoy “True” more than this song? The fact is that I do like “True” more than this song, whether it’s overproduced or not. —G.W. |
Tears for Fears... and Good Charlotte's Relevance“Change” by Tears for Fears from the album The Hurting
Sooner or later every generation experiences that moment when references to the popular songs, TV shows, movies and Monchhichi jingles of their youth are no longer conversational touchstones. Such is the case with Tears for Fears. As little as ten years ago just saying the band’s name instantly tapped a collective wellspring of images—the “bloopers montage” near the end of the video for “Head Over Heels”; the utter shock when the group pulled out of Live Aid the very day of the concert; the first-year psychology students who wouldn’t shut the fuck up about how the band’s name was derived from primal scream therapy. Ten years ago all of these were greeted with the same quick nod of recognition now saved for Simpsons quotes. But ten more years of relevance is a lot to ask of a pop memory. And 23 years is an eon in terms of cultural significance. Back in 1983, when the song “Change” was released, a handful of people found a new group that they could call their own. Back in 1985, when the single “Shout” hit #1, the entire world knew of the band’s name. Now it’s 2006 and I find myself having to give lengthy footnotes to yet another recollection, like a grandfather who casually mentions “diphtheria” only to be met with stone-cold silence. Tears for Fears once more belongs to a handful of people, but this time it feels less like a group of hipsters and more like a pack of survivors. At least I can take comfort in the knowledge that it’ll only be another ten months before everyone forgets who the hell Good Charlotte was. —Francesco Marciuliano |
Don't Let the Door Hit You in the Ass on the Way OUt, Duffy!“Kiss Me” by Stephen Duffy (a.k.a Tintin), from the album The Ups and Downs
My memories of this song are limited, so I’ll just wax poetic a little about what it was like being a ’DRE listener in a ’PLJ world. I had to hunch over the one crappy little radio in my house that could actually get ’DRE (I grew up in Rockland County which, though not far from Long Island, might as well have been in Alaska with respect to receiving radio signals from the Island) with my ear to the small speaker, so I could get my Joy Division/U2 fix. I was wildly out of place among most of the people that went to my elementary school and junior high (I seem to remember the Jets’ “Crush on You” being huge in like 5th or 6th grade), until The Joshua Tree brought U2 back into the mainstream and I had to keep explaining to everyone that War and Boy were just as good, if not superior. —G.W. |
It's Electric!“Make a Circuit with Me” by the Polecats, from the album Polecats Are Go
Best Part: “… diode, cathode, electrode, overload, generator, oscillator …” (@ 0:31) —N.J. |
I Wanna Be Kinetic and I Want a Web Shooter Too!“Kinetic” by Hilary, from the album Kinetic
Best part: The end when the tingling ensues. —N.J. |
Nothing Changes on New Year's Day“New Year’s Day” by U2, from the album War
—N.J. |
You'll Always Be a Part of Me“Always Something There to Remind Me” by Naked Eyes from the album Burning Bridges Something that I didn’t know (until about a year ago): The song was written by Burt Bacharach in the 1960s and was performed by LaBelle, Dionne Warwick and R.B. Greaves, among others. The Dionne Warwick version is particularly interesting. It sounds a lot like “Do You Know the Way to San José,” but with different lyrics. It feels a bit surreal having heard the Naked Eyes version first. It’s a little like the time I was sitting in a diner with a friend of mine and a Mariah Carey cover version of Journey’s “Open Arms” came on the little jukebox thing that they have at the booths in a diner. You find yourself singing along, wondering how you know the words to any song by Mariah Carey (or Dionne Warwick), and then you realize that the song isn’t the song you thought it was. It’s a song you know. And then you go back to drinking your coffee that the guy left in the pot too long and now it tastes burnt. Something that I did know: Naked Eyes had one other hit (“Promises, Promises”), but this is really their signature piece. And it also has the benefit of being a really awesome song. Really, I defy you to come up with 5 other songs that are more quintessentially 1980s than this one. You’d be hard pressed to do so. Lead singer Pete Byrne’s (I did have to look his name up) voice is perfect for this song. And maybe this is intuitive, but the idea that there’s always something there to remind the guy and the actual repetition of the phrase always seemed like a pretty nice associative metaphor to me. But what the hell do I know? I sing along with Mariah Carey. — G.W. |
Hale and Hearty“Party Party” by Elvis Costello and the Attractions from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Party Party This is title track that no one’s heard from a movie that no one’s seen. In fact, information is so scarce on this song/film that I’m going to put a review of the movie in this space. This review comes from Geoff Snazel of England and appears courtesy of IMDb.com:
Well put. — G.W. |
Once There Was a Day“Let Me Go” by Heaven 17 from the album The Luxury Gap These little passages that we attach to these Shreek generally either invoke a memory or some interpretation of the song or even something specifically technical about the song. However, there are times that I’ll come across a song that I have no specific recollection of at all. I’ll search my brain and come up with bupkes. So, let this Shreek serve you with a look into the process of putting them together. The first thing that I’ll generally do is go to allmusic, to verify the album information and song title. If there’s a review on allmusic (generally unlikely), I’ll read through that to get a sense of what the song is about. My next step is to go to God: Google. I’ll query the artist and the song name and look for any pertinent information. Finally, I’ll check Amazon for the CD’s availability (whether the discs are even still in print) and for the reviews of the people that enjoy the music (the zealots tend to come out in there). And it’ll render something like this (I’ll keep it short): It’s difficult to call this song a classic, as someone that works for allmusic feels the need to. Though information abounds about the members of Heaven 17 (there appears to be a good deal of crossbreeding with Human League), the general consensus seems to be that calling any song that Heaven 17 released “a classic” would be misguided. I have no recollection of this song, and putting that aside for the moment, it seems outrageous that the general web population has little recollection either. A classic would surely have more notoriety (good or bad) than the audio tape of Billy Joel’s “Temptation” that I recorded in the 5th grade. Classics tend to hold up over time. And while “Let Me Go” provides us with further insight into, and nostalgia for, the synthesized music of the early-1980s, it seems quaint to listen to now, almost like a relic. This song does not hold up. It sounds ridiculous, or more accurately, like every other song released in Britain from 1980-1984. It takes a lot to stand out above Depeche Mode and Joy Division and this song doesn’t. But don’t despair, Heaven 17, not many do. |
Don't Turn Around“Der Kommisar” by After the Fire, from the album “After the Fire”
Did I really think those thoughts in ’82? Not sure. I might have. Or I might have been watching Bosom Buddies instead. But it sounds right now. You know what else sounds right? People who don’t know the words to this song singing along anyway. There’s just something satisfying about hearing people fake it while rhythmically gurgling Eurotrash fricatives. Zsaa, Zsaa. Interesting side note. When I first heard MC Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This” I thought he was sampling “Der Komissar.” Yes, you guessed it. I’m white and grew up in suburbia. I had never heard Rick James’s “Super Freak” until later, and, damn, those hooks are similar. And you know what else binds these songs? You bring neither “Der Kommissar” nor kinky girls home to mother. —Wayne Gladstone |
The Other Side of Yuck“The Other Side of Love” by Yazoo, from (we think) the single, “The Other Side of Love” Imagine the sweetly infectious synth beat of Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough”, except instead of Martin Gore’s evocative vocals you’ve got the annoying lady from Erasure hollering at you. Awful, right? Ex-D.M.er Vince Clarke completely rips off his own melody here—the opening notes could really fool any Name That Tune player—and the longer the song goes on, the less your tolerance for Yaz(oo) will stand. It’s completely aurally offensive. Download only if you hate music. Best moment: the part that sounds like a different, better song (@ 0:00 — 0:05) —J.A. |
Father Wears His Sunday Best“Our House” by Madness, from the album Presents the Rise & Fall Elbows pumping, horns a-blarin’, this song is like a nostalgia march. It makes you homesick for a house you never had — the one in the middle of the street, the one in which there’s always something happening and it’s usually quite loud. In just its opening notes, it instantly activates the rose-colored memories of a bustling family and a well kept house and a childhood free of trauma, even if those memories all come from TV. I grew up in an apartment—and as a kid you can’t really pine for your faded youth anyway—so for me this song always recalled images of the Brady kids descending the stairs in their three-bedroom house. “Our House” is the only thing for which Madness will ever be remembered, but perpetual TV commercials selling home and garden supplies will keep this song alive forever. And it’s a much better song than that other “Our House” (the very, very fine one, with two cats in the yard). Yuck. —J.A. |
Everybody's Just Like You“That’s Good” by Devo from the album Oh, No! It’s Devo I don’t know how Mark Motherbaugh feels about the fact that every song that he’s ever sung is compared to the only one that ever charted. “Whip It” is a good song, but it certainly isn’t transcendent. In fact, Devo (an underrated band if there ever was one) has a number of really good albums to their credit, including the vastly critically underacclaimed effort Duty Now for the Future. But where “Whip It” seems a little overproduced, “That’s Good” seems to be a little cleaner. It’s got a similar meter and even has a similar snapping sound in the background, but the overall net result comes out less “synth-y” than “Whip It.” I don’t know how else to describe it. The lyrics are a pretty sharp critique of the early-80s materialism that gripped the U.S. (and pales in comparison to today’s consumer-driven society). All told, Devo have put out better songs through their quarter-century of music making, but this one’s all right. It’s got a good chorus and some catchy lyrics and I really don’t ask for much more than that out of the music that I play on my iPod. —G.W. |
Poetry in Motion“She Blinded Me with Science” by Thomas Dolby from the album The Golden Age of Wireless |
I am struck semi-speechless by this Shreek, which is a rare occurrence indeed. “Drop Your Pants” has got to be the most single-mindedly risqué recording ever broadcast over the public airwaves.
Tim Scott’s “Swear” is one of those songs that goes unrecalled for years until by some odd chance it is heard again. My theory is that it gets bypassed in the mental hit parade because its basic electric guitar hook is so repetitive and familiar-sounding that, even the first time around, it sounds like you’ve already heard it and grown tired of it.
The early to mid-eighties was a period of unease, no better expressed than in the hits of the day. There was the fear of being monitored or followed, superbly conveyed in Men at Work’s “Who Can It Be Now?” and Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me.” There was the fear of personal dislocation, perfectly captured in the Motels’ “Suddenly, Last Summer” and Lindsey Buckingham’s “Holiday Road.” And there was the fear of total human degeneration in the face of technological omnipotence, exquisitely evoked in the ballad “Pac Man Fever.” 
Naked Eyes had a major Top 40 hit with “Promises, Promises”, so you’ve likely heard it if you’ve been near a Big Awesome 80s radio station, Still Lovin’ Those 80s CD box set, Here’s Your Goddamn 80s XM Channel, or any thirtysomething’s stuck-in-the-past iPod recently.
By 1983, Elvis Costello — once a New Wave punk who combined anger with Woody Allen glasses—had already turned hopelessly pretentious in all the ways that count. Not that we all didn’t still dig him, but we had to dig him while knowing that he knew that he was incredibly talented, a regular pop-song Shakespeare worthy of comparison to Paul McCartney, Cole Porter, and several of the lesser Bachs. God, you wanted to just smack the guy, except the music was really great. “Everyday I Write the Book” was Elvis’s first Top 40 U.S. hit in a while, and it combined two vintage Costello obsessions: hot women who betray him and his general awesome-osity.
The documented life of astronaut Major Tom could not have been an easy one. Launched into orbit by David Bowie’s 1969 “Space Oddity”, decried as a junkie in Bowie’s followup “Ashes to Ashes” in 1982, Major Tom also suffered the indignity of this 1983 bit of unauthorized biographical speculation. In “Major Tom (Coming Home)”, German artist Peter Schilling suggests that Major Tom signs off, sending love to his wife as in the original, but then somehow survives the failure of his space capsule and sings about coming home:
Have you been reading and following the Shreek of the Week of the Day? No? My goodness, go wash your eyes out with soap this instant. Then come back and be prepared for Shreek of the Week of the Day 2.0. We’re looking to make the Shreeks something that actually happens on a daily basis and we’re looking for writers who would like to sponsor a week of Shreeks. 
Electric Guitars’ “Wolfman Tap” appears to be vanishing from the face of the earth. For your sake, faithful Y.P.R. Shreek reader, I have sought its hairy 80s vibe in legitimate venues from Amazon to Apple. I have scoured flea markets, thrift stores, and random rummage sales in search of an original copy. But neither the 7” nor 12” release has surfaced in my travels, and my dreams are now haunted by endless copies of Herb Alpert’s Whipped Cream and Other Delights and the complete works of Ferrante & Teicher.
There is no worse kind of pop than bad 80s Brit-pop. And Yaz’s “Nobody’s Diary” is very, very bad 80s Brit-pop.
I’d seen this film when I was about 10 years old. To my pre-pubescent dismay, there wasn’t nearly the gratuitous nudity you’d expect from a movie about a goofy college professor turned flamboyant pimp. The aforementioned pimp, played by Dan Akroyd, had an absurdly strong pimp hand; I believe it was metal, in fact. Pimp hand aside though, the most memorable part of the movie is Dan Akroyd speedwalking in short shorts and rearview mirrors on his eyeglasses – this was of course, before he was pimpified. The theme song, performed by Devo is fun and bouncy but not the sound bite I remember most from the film which is “DOC-TOR … whoo, whoo, DE-TROIT.” That little chorus from I can’t remember where in the movie is burned mercilessly into my mind’s soundtrack.
“I need your kiss”
I really wanted to like the Talking Heads. I tried damn hard to like them, if only to get in good with Roger Gibble, the high school ingrate and Talking Heads devotee whom I loved very much, mainly for his gorilla eyebrows and for calling Mrs. Stonger a “colostomy pillow.” I also enjoyed reading the suggestive Post-it notes he stuck to his girlfriend’s locker, but I wasn’t alone on that one. What Roger did for fun was throw Everclear parties in his basement with “Burning Down the House” playing on interminable repeat. His friends jumped up and down like a herd of cracked-out kangaroos and Billy Reever crouched in the corner drawing pictures of leading man Byrne in a wizard costume. I pressed up against the human-sized speaker, desperate for my body to feel something my mind didn’t get. 
For the listening public, it’s “Every Breath You Take.” But for me, it’s more like “Every Time I Catch People Fucking”. The first time I heard the Police’s sweet, heartbreaking song about over-possessiveness and criminal stalking, I opened my sister’s bedroom door without knocking to find her being relentlessly stabbed by her boyfriend’s dong (she was on top, and, as memory serves, loving it). Still, I was mortified. But not too mortified to open a second doorway nine years later without knocking to find one of my best girl friends getting side-saddled by this dude she’d been stupidly pining over for months, even though he had a crew cut. 
The B-52’s were one of the first bands I ever really loved, and I think it was because I hoped the future would turn out to be like one of their songs. As a kid in the 80s, I wanted my adult self to live in a world that had time travel and machines that made awesome blippy noises; a world where everyone wore awesome outfits and go-go boots and spent their days dancing because the machines were doing all the work for us. I wanted to look exactly like Kate Pierson, and I wanted to go to Mesopotamia. I wanted a pink overcraft.
The year was 1983, and New Wave music videos were rocking households of every political persuasion, offending the hell out of parents, English professors, and American Bandstand devotees alike. As for my third grade self, I was just confused. The person on TV was pale as glue with pumpkin-colored hair that stuck out in clumps and a mouth wide enough to swallow a small child—preferably the one my mother had recently given birth to. From what I could gather, her song was about traveling the seven seas in search of fellow freaks with abuse fetishes. Her voice left a funny feeling in my throat, like I’d eaten mashed potatoes too fast; it made me want to cry.
On the boardwalk of seaside resort town North Wildwood, in the early-to-mid 80s, there was an arcade by the name of Fascination. It featured a game that was also called Fascination. In retrospect, it’s hard to tease out which was the chicken and which was the egg. I never saw Fascination, the game, at any other arcade along the boardwalk, and in that day, arcades were legion in Wildwood. (These were the days when the best things going at home were Atari 2600s with their less-than-detailed renderings of “things,” most of which only resembled “things” if you squinted your eyes and also lowered your expectations. So, arcades with video games that featured “things” that looked like “things” were basilican destinations and not just places to waste time.)
This pop ditty was the second smash single from the new healthy, poppy, and straight David Bowie. For this video his hair went from blonde to yellow. His suit went from white to blue. And his demeanor went from coldly detached to shake your booty freestylin’ fun. 
My most cogent memory of Eddy Grant’s “Electric Avenue” music video was the part where he’s sitting in his living room, watching television, and then he goes to stand up, but falls right through the floor, as though it were made of water. As a child, this image frightened me, in part, because I had a minor case of what some psychologists might refer to as “magical thinking,” in which, so long as I didn’t think of something as a possibility, it wouldn’t happen. (Non-psychologists might call this “being a little idiot.” Both terms are equally apt in my case.)
For this one Boy George & Co. brought in a gospel-esque backup singer,
New Wave was the pop synthesis of post-punk and the new romantics. Johnny Rotten was now John Lydon, Adam had shed his Ants for horns, Boy George brought gender-bending to Middle America, and by 1983 Duran Duran was fucking everywhere. 
Like an adult trying to describe an episode of Scooby Doo 20 years after the fact (“The Mystery Machine drove by some trees … then the gang came upon a haunted hotel … I think someone was shot, although that might have been in McMillan & Wife … and then Phyllis Diller showed up … man, we five-year-olds loved our Phyllis Diller …”), it’s almost impossible to recount the sheer enjoyment that was “Too Shy.”
For many die hard Bowie fans, this album was the beginning of the end. Suddenly, daring, experimental, brilliant David Bowie was making pop music. Really poppy pop music. “Let’s Dance” had a good beat. It was produced by Disco Legend Nile Rodgers. Even the lyrics were about dancing. But perhaps most shocking was Bowie himself. He looked fit. He looked happy. He looked straight. Really straight. Homophobic, even. Of course, even at ten years old I knew better, having seen the back of my big brother’s Ziggy Stardust album only months earlier. Luckily, none of the other fourth graders knew about Bowie’s glam rock past, and they haphazardly lumped him in with Billy Idol. In 1983, loving Bowie’s infectious pop was very safe. Indeed, it would take seven more years before I would be called a fag for liking David Bowie music. 
As their name implies, I can’t imagine Men Without Hats ever really beating around the bush. Rather, I picture them leaning towards blunt assessments without all the hootenanny. “Who am I you ask? Why I am a man without a hat.” Pretty straightforward. Much like their song, “The Safety Dance”. You can dance if you want to … but your friends don’t dance so they’re no friends of mine.
Today, we think of U2 as a classic rock band made up of Irish guys who record crystalline anthems, appear in iPod commercials and, now and again, badger the world’s leaders about Third World debt over $1,000-a-plate dinners. There was a time, however, when U2 was just a bunch of Irish guys who were pissed at the British like Irish guys ought to be. “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” may be the only rock song ever written about the “troubles” between Ireland and England. (On January 30, 1972, British paratroopers killed 14 marchers during a Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association protest in Derry.) Good times.
What to make of Boy George? I don’t know if there’s another music figure in the last 50 years that made more of an effort to self-mythologize himself with such ultimately horrible results. (Maybe the lead singer of ? and the Mysterians, who actually renamed himself “?,” long before Prince took a symbol as his name.) I mean, it’s one thing to wear make-up and feathers in your hair (like he did in the 1980s). It’s quite another to shave your head and paint your entire face, including long black lines all around your head, presumably to represent your hair (like he did when his short-lived musical Taboo opened on Broadway). 
Press “I’m Feeling Lucky” when Googling “Change + lyrics” and you’ll find yourself staring at the words to “Change” by the band Good Charlotte. Mention how the Smurfs had a higher “sausage to hot-dog bun” ratio than the Southern Baptist leadership and you’ll now find few able to back your assertion. Go on and on about that Brady Bunch episode where the kids meet Don Ho and Vincent Price and you’ll find a pack of twentysomethings staring at you as if you were wearing only a colander and screaming at your fingertips. 
What do you do when you’re a founding member of Duran Duran and aren’t named Simon Le Bon or have the last name “Taylor”? Easy. You drop out of the band right before their popularity explodes and they get more money, fame and women than the five of you could have possibly imagined when you were sitting around the table at that shitty London pub and speculating over a room temperature lager what life would be like after you all hit it big. After that, you record a mildly popular, but niche synth-pop hit and then fade into obscurity. 
There was a time in my life when I wanted to grow up with a full head of hair just so I could own obscene amounts of product and grease my mane up rockabilly style. Then I’d slip on a white T-shirt and roll up a box of fake bubblegum cigarettes in my shirtsleeve to reveal my pasty arm. That’s rockabilly. Then my delusions of rockabilly grandeur got mashed up slightly when I listened to the Polecats. I always considered rockabilly to be jalopies and pure rock-n-roll and motorcycles jumpin’ and jivin’ and girls with poodle skirts that were innocent until proven guilty, not TRS-80s and Commodore 64s. Yet, the Polecats are a rockabilly band and their song “Make a Circuit with Me” was all about electricity and currents and electrical connections, it’s like Buddy Holly meets Johnny 5. What gives? Maybe it’s just some kind of romantic code I didn’t understand at the time. Perhaps I shouldn’t question things and instead endeavor to add the following lines to my bag of romantic sweet nothings I can whisper—“I’m an AC/DC man, check out my circuit diagram” or “Just plug me in and I’ll go-go-go”. It’s difficult to say if my lover would find me exciting or just confuse me for a vibrator. Either way, I suppose I win. Meanwhile, I’m bopping and beeping while this song plays over the speakers. What’s that sound? Oh yes, now that I think about it, I can hear the Polecats influence in the Stray Cats, maybe a little “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” sound too. Who am I kidding—I can’t connect these guys to Wham! This is catchier than syphilis on a naval base. Bring it on, Polecats! Go, cats, go!
Listening once again to Hilary’s “Kinetic”, I’m reminded of the time my cousin introduced me to his programmable keyboard. This was the instrument that blazed the trail for musical wannabes that steered clear of the blood, sweat and tears it took to become a competent guitarist or a bearable drummer. Simply create a catchy two or three key loop, throw in some lyrics and repeat it until your ears start to bleed. So I can relate to Hilary and her style of song. Her big hit was “Kinetic”. Mine was “I Want a Spider Man Web-Shooter Gun”. Both of our songs employed that same skill less and repetitive synth beat and a chorus that just wouldn’t quit. Quit repeating itself that is. I mean, we’d vary the lyrics in our respective songs, both Hilary and I, but the chorus was the real draw. She spoke of her preference to be kinetic and the underlying feelings driving her to that conclusion and my song extolled the virtues of my mother purchasing me a Spiderman web-shooter gun. Likewise, when our tedious cycle of beats were over, the listener is slightly sad. It’s like when someone runs their fingers through your hair and you don’t realize how good it feels until they stop. The tingling goes away but it takes a few minutes. 
I like U2. I don’t love them but I like them. My inner soul train just doesn’t really get on with them quite right. I’ll grant this at the very least, U2 is a solid, respectable band. Perhaps it’s blasphemy, perhaps not. I do have some feelings about “New Year’s Day” though, thanks to a friend of mine clever enough to play said refrain at precisely 12:01 on New Year’s Day 1994. I know what you’re thinking: that’s really flipping clever, this mastermind had to have gone on to cure cancer and discover alternate forms of energy. That said, and being the sentimental chap I was (a.k.a. a moron), I rocked out intently, singing along with the words and mixing in the odd “Auld Lang Syne”. Bringin’ in the New Year in style. Bono brings words of hope! It was the New Year after all, the girl I had a crush on was pounding wine coolers like they could save the world and Bono was on the mic. Holla! Then I realized, Bono was telling me to just chill: “Nothing changes on New Year’s Day”. Well thanks for the update, Slim. Unfortunately, the man was correct. Despite my best intentions, I was still a lonely virgin with no weed and an anxiety disorder, albeit on New Year’s Day. So was this song about unrequited love or a political statement about a tyrannical government Bono had issue with that drove him to action, that drove him to song? Well, I just don’t know the answer to that. Ask Bono, I’m sure he knows. He knows the answer to everything, doesn’t he? He’s such a smart ass.
“Mr. Dolby loses faith in Science and all things Scientific.”