we listen so fast: forgotten/unkown/unloved 80s we are listening to.

chicago guys going to the clubs and listening to italo-disco imports, madonna, electro and early freestyle, new wave, all feeding into what became house music.

love it, thanks Dan

i can't remember if i posted a link to my hardcore punk playlist on youtube. 1980 to 1984 only. 228 videos. if you need to put a little pep in your step.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE1-7P1reTFgTJcv2kWOAoUr3t4distfZ

and in case you missed it, my Volume playlist. over 2500 tracks/albums. some from the 70s though. more than a few from the 70s. its a quirky book.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE1-7P1reTFh-exzT4SJc8A6fHI1msnJo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt0CqAeyqzE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAq75yyPfos

dug up the rolling stone "best albums of the 80s" article that was pretty big for me when i read it as a 16 year old kansas dork and gosh, these reviews are so long. anyway the one on was not was mentioned one of them slumming during their off years, "producing 'sexual deviants' like transvestite singer Marilyn" and my interest was piqued. I wasn't super into their clanger-winstanly hit from '83 or the Don Was produced tracks from '85, but misfiled on their spotify page was this unrelated LA-based "Marilyn and the Movie Stars" record from 1981 that is pretty great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsbaOboHHaQ

looking at this other marilyn's discogs history, her first record was a 1979 trash-synth cover of the 60s nugget talk talk, while in a band called kongress, which at one time included australian performer Geoff Krozier, a.k.a. Krozier the Great, who was a sort of punk magic-act performer at Max's in the 70s. I had never heard of this guy but the videos of him performing tickle my firesign theatre / forbidden zone / bongwater funny-weird bone. he died young after cutting a private press record in 1981 and it is maybe more oingo boingo than forbidden zone but you should check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sa3GZPRcSs

Tommy Victor from Prong/Danzig plays on that Marilyn record. She still posts stuff online last time I checked.

the 80s were really real for me.

https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.18169-9/1926834_10152890372112137_546564131_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=9b3078&_nc_ohc=s8kFN7p1b0QAX_U9hoE&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-2.xx&oh=00_AfCBePCEkhs0iB07Jx_blRh4wE0GN_CYzIESfCW5_8P7Qw&oe=66055B72

i am totally listening to the first Easterhouse album in my store right now very loudly. it is 8:56 AM. thank you very much.

An article about an 80s song that has either been forgotten or cannot be identified:

Everyone Knows That: can you identify the lost 80s hit baffling the internet?

I found this 1981 comp in the wild on Tuesday, and it's great:
https://i.discogs.com/W1CyAarXyIPO-n8vcAx2vCkaLX1j08zpLj9y4HdlQu8/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:596/w:590/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTM2MTg3/NC0xMzAwNjYyNTAy/LmpwZWc.jpeg

Mostly draws from the woozier end of New Romantic... it looks like one song is by the Blitz Club DJ. And another has a guy yelling about Deutschland over some proto-industrial bass. It's fun.

Though it seems like EMI tried to intentionally bury it by naming it "(Silly Not To) Terpsichore". I almost passed it up because of the air-brushed Yanni-assed cover art, but I'm glad I didn't.

Great comp, love that Logic System tune!

great cover

maxfield parrish's new age van art

Singer sounds like Kate Bush if she had Eurodisco earworms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCLsfJ7OrV0

i love this so much. i have her album and its not all disco. its interesting. but this is by far the best thing on it. the label is a recording studio in hartford, ct. she was from springfield, ma.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQre3aOpBpg

That Plustwo track wasn’t doing much for me and I was about to hit skip, and then the Kate Bush-y vocal kicked in. Fun. xp

oh man i want one! just came out. sounds awesome even on my computer speakers on Youtube Music so that's a good sign. love them. well, i mean, the first album and first singles are all-time for me. but i dig the rest as well. the underrated/underheard (never came out in the U.S.) 2nd album is awesome. even comes with one of those probably superfluous 5th discs that you might listen to once.

https://www.discogs.com/release/29958979-Kissing-The-Pink-Anthology-1982-2024

I realize I don't even know the second album...probably because it never came out here, while the first and third are both relatively common and had some impact on dance scenes, american or otherwise (the first album's Big Man Restless is a sort of balearic/cosmic fave and the third album's Certain Things Are Likely, I don't know if it was an american hit in the clubs, but that's what they were going for, with it's "Garage" mix)

i never say this. i will say this. i think their first album is perfect. i love every song. every song sounds different. everything fits on every song. there. i said it.

i don't like to say that something is perfect because it offends god. but fuck that doofus. the cover is perfect too.

And, Dan, you would really like the 2nd album!

i'm actually excited for you to hear it. i remember finding a copy in the 90s and initially i thought it was an obscure 1st album that i didn't know about! its a new wave gem.

this might be my fave track from that album. if i had to choose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOmfJGR9JZA

just shy of and too arty for "sophistipop". John Cale fronting Blue Nile?

a picture of my mom - she's on the right - as a teenager in the early 1950s. she looks like she's ready to start a post-punk band in Berlin.

https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/430824659_10161743960937137_1011600804641060223_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=nOvwrMpLeO4AX9IQXW0&_nc_ht=scontent-bos5-1.xx&oh=00_AfDl4FtJ7R2LAqxMEJ9jQgMUUx7Eq6UfDjzq9d0jRg-2qg&oe=65ECA47F

Excellent.

that is wonderful, thx

you could remix the hell out of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_ata4-rT_g

and it goes a little something like this. hit it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ-0a3lvxPY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f9_3Dn5TGg

I don’t know if I shared this one before. Heard it on a dj set a couple of years ago and everytime I play it with friends everyone asks which song is it. It’s probably one of my most played songs of the 80’s at this point:

Cube - Concert Boy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF_z1CsYJCY

that totally would have been on my hit parade in the 80s if i had known about it.

Trivia: produced by Mauro Malavasi who was one of the founding members and main writers of Change and supposedly the one who invited Luther Vandross to sing two of his songs on their debut album.

Oh yeah also co-written by him.

wow. i love Change.

Oh that Jaffa Cakes song is great!

you may well know this already, but one of my favourite things along the same lines as change is high fashion who were another petrus project. first album is half malavasi tunes and half kashif ones and it is glorious:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNdyZmN0ZGE
High Fashion - Feelin' Lucky Lately

I did not know that and it sounds great!

Never heard/heard of Innocence in Danger. Guitar by Carlos Alomar and Jimmy Rip. Produced by Ivan Ivan. Cool.

Cube is known in italo/italo-adjacent circles.

i just listened to three woodentops 12-inch singles in a row. getting all this 80s stuff has reminded me why i liked a lot of stuff way back when. not everything they did worked and their production was insanely in your face loud in a way that doesn't always sound pleasant. uh, so i turn it down. but when they get their thing going like the side-long 12-inch version of "well well well" and some of their other rhythms-and-acoustic guitar-driven stuff they were on to something! some of their b-sides were right fucked up as well. "Cold Inside" is a good example. i couldn't find the studio version on Youtube. anyway, "move me" still moves me. their third album was a live album. not everybody does something like that.

Fabulous band, they have a BBC Sessions album that kills.

hi just wanna add to the Woodentops love, when they were on they were ON

I f’in love this edit of woodentops giant by Tom of England (aka Thomas bullock)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6OXb3EyLOk

nobody ever told me about Endgames. my kinda synth-pop! u.s. cover and u.k. cover of their debut. take your pick.

https://i.discogs.com/Qcr2Qz0lC568pu25SqVuu54zcjZv6isrx7UYCDVE99M/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:591/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTEzNDYz/NjQtMTM5NTE3OTc4/MC04ODAwLmpwZWc.jpeg

https://i.discogs.com/fAcKpA4VzonCE8zdz4gnWcwjfMvu6XBeTBksxh59l5c/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:500/w:500/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTExNjEw/NzctMTY1OTUyNDA5/Ny0zMDMxLmpwZWc.jpeg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDVXqq9tJIA

and they were spawned from another band that i've never heard and now i need to hear them...

https://i.discogs.com/jJIz9RXqow-lq40sZcjd0TAc58kCrpgh32Ig5baCTzY/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTgzOTcz/OS0xMTk3ODM3MjIx/LmpwZWc.jpeg

more gary numan and more 1980.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du202YLeYXM

whoa that album cover is so of its time its way beyond it

i meant the berlin blondes one.

the endgames ones are endlessly trapped in the venus flytrap of their times, as they are slowly digested

bad metaphor theater is closed for the day