Best Female Recording Artist of the 80s

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Kate Bush, Sinead, Debbie Harry, Madonna, Tina Turner...
Who else was there?

― yoko0no, Sunday, 25 March 2007 02:15 (nineteen years ago)

Siouxsie Sioux? I'm no expert on New Wave, but I'm sure some would think she's up there.

― chap, Sunday, 25 March 2007 02:34 (nineteen years ago)

I'm almost tempted to defend Rosanne Cash.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Sunday, 25 March 2007 02:41 (nineteen years ago)

Annie Lennox/Eurythmics should be in this list somewhere.

― Johnny Fever, Sunday, 25 March 2007 03:06 (nineteen years ago)

martika

― gershy, Sunday, 25 March 2007 03:21 (nineteen years ago)

Susannah Hoffs, Natalie Merchant, Johnette Napolitano, Chrissie Amphlett, Belinda Carlisle, Yazz*

* = kidding about that one.

― SeekAltRoute, Sunday, 25 March 2007 04:25 (nineteen years ago)

off the top of my head:

1. Teena Marie
2. Stacey Q
3. Joan Jett
4. Girlschool
5. Laura Branigan

(for starters; there are others that belong on the list, too.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 25 March 2007 04:40 (nineteen years ago)

A few others not yet mentioned with at least one great album:

Pearl Harbor and the Explosions
Holly and the Italians
Charlene
Two Sisters
The Flirts
Salt N Pepa
The Cover Girls
Tiffany
Debbie Gibson
Real Roxanne
Roxanne Shante
Bananarama
Taylor Dayne
Company B
Gloria Estefan
Cyndi Lauper
L'Trimm
Seduction
Precious Metal

Never made a great album but still great:

Sequence
Sharrock (or however you spell it) from Funky Four Plus One

― xhuxk, Sunday, 25 March 2007 04:50 (nineteen years ago)

And Pat Benatar, Sheila E, Shannon, K.T. Oslin, Lacy J Dalton, Terri Gibbs, Fun Fun, Dimples D, Au Pairs, Delta 5, Bush Tetras, Raincoats....the list could go on forever if you wanted.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 25 March 2007 05:01 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.woebot.com/christianeF.jpg

― Stevie D, Sunday, 25 March 2007 14:53 (nineteen years ago)

the list could go on forever if you wanted.

Especially if the standards are kept low enough to include people like Roxanne Shante and the Bush Tetras.

― Rockist Scientist, Sunday, 25 March 2007 14:56 (nineteen years ago)

With Bush Tetras you may have a small point (though they made at least as much great music as Sinead or Natalie Merchant or Johnette Napolitano.)

With Shante, you're nuts.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 25 March 2007 15:11 (nineteen years ago)

Madonna or Kate Bush by MILES

― blueski, Sunday, 25 March 2007 15:12 (nineteen years ago)

Kristin Hersh in Throwing Muses

― tom, Sunday, 25 March 2007 21:34 (nineteen years ago)

I will see what Roxanne Shante songs I can find on youtube (or wherever). I have to admit it's been a while, and I may be remembering the Real Roxanne instead (although you like her too), or even some other person who jumped into the fray at that time.

If I had to pick one I'd probably go with Kate Bush. There are some other for art music sort of performers I like a lot at the time, but I don't necessarily listen to them much now (and yet I'm pretty sure I still like them): Meredith Monk, Laurie Spiegel (unless her working that I'm thinking of is from the late 70s), Diamanda Galás(who I definitely like, but realistically I don't go around listening to her 80s recordings).

The Puerto Rican singer Yolanda Rivera did a lot of good songs in the 80s too, but not as a solo artist.

― Rockist Scientist, Sunday, 25 March 2007 22:53 (nineteen years ago)

Roxanne Shante was one of the great voices of the decade.

But of the two, Real Roxanne made the better album. Which was great. (And better than any Kate Bush LP I've ever heard, easy. But to each one's own.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 25 March 2007 22:55 (nineteen years ago)

And if people are gonna nominate Meredith Monk (hey, Dolmen Music was sorta fun) and Diamanda Galas (ick) and Kate Bush for that matter, maybe somebody should nominate Laurie Anderson? (Not that I'm going to. Though I'm still happy to own my "O Superman"/"Walk The Dog" 12-inch.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 25 March 2007 22:59 (nineteen years ago)

Okay, just checked some Roxanne videos and I don't think I'm crazy. That choppy early rapping seems so clunky compared to what came just a few years later.

(I'm not going to nominate Laurie Anderson either.)

― Rockist Scientist, Sunday, 25 March 2007 23:21 (nineteen years ago)

I am. Jeez, how did it take this long to get to her? Big Science is a superb record.

― unfished business, Sunday, 25 March 2007 23:23 (nineteen years ago)

Company B

yes!!

― Curt1s Stephens, Sunday, 25 March 2007 23:24 (nineteen years ago)

That choppy early rapping seems so clunky compared to what came just a few years later

Bull-oney.

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=16037

― xhuxk, Sunday, 25 March 2007 23:26 (nineteen years ago)

Well it does to me. The rhythms of the rapping just hit you over the head, like you might miss it otherwise. (Hmmm. Kind of like that gated drum sound in rock.)

― Rockist Scientist, Sunday, 25 March 2007 23:30 (nineteen years ago)

I was listening to some of that music at the time, but didn't really get blown away until Public Enemy, and then lots of other things from around the same time. (And then I pretty much lost interest altogether not that long after, for reasons better left in the archives, since I don't feel like having those arguments.) I don't think discussion can really do much to change my mind on this point.

― Rockist Scientist, Sunday, 25 March 2007 23:34 (nineteen years ago)

Actually Run-DMC definitely had my attention to, but not in the same way Public Enemy eventually did.

(Sorry for the boring thread derailment.)

― Rockist Scientist, Sunday, 25 March 2007 23:35 (nineteen years ago)

How could you people forget Terri Nunn?! Berlin rules all.

― Jeff Treppel, Sunday, 25 March 2007 23:37 (nineteen years ago)

how you can just HEAR the genre being invented -- the rules just aren't THERE yet, so the rappers can do ANYTHING.

This (from your comments on that thread you linked to) to me is the main appeal, and it's not enough to carry it for me. It's almost like an intellectual thing for me now, like yes, it's interesting to hear this genre emerging historically. (At the time it was at least also new, so the novelty factor carried some weight as well.)

― Rockist Scientist, Sunday, 25 March 2007 23:39 (nineteen years ago)

Mmm, Chrissie Hynde. Wendy O. Williams. The Slits. Yoko Ono.

― souldesqueeze, Monday, 26 March 2007 01:38 (nineteen years ago)

Ooh, and Concrete Blonde.

― souldesqueeze, Monday, 26 March 2007 01:42 (nineteen years ago)

chuck, would you defend Debbie Gibson's Out of the Blue? The album tracks on the second side are kinda slushy.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, 26 March 2007 01:43 (nineteen years ago)

LiliPUT = best female band ever!!
and how 'bout Exene?

― outdoor_miner, Monday, 26 March 2007 16:02 (nineteen years ago)

Neneh Cherry! "Raw Like Sushi" is still one of my favorite albums from that era or any other.

― Ben Boyerrr, Monday, 26 March 2007 16:23 (nineteen years ago)

Yoko Ono, Laurie Anderson

― outdoor_miner, Monday, 26 March 2007 17:02 (nineteen years ago)

I'm thinking it's gotta be Madonna, just based on sheer quantity of great songs. Which I will list.
1. Cherish (yeah, I'm a wuss)
2. Til Death Do Us Part
3. Open Your Heart
4. Material Girl
5. Burning Up
6. La Isla Bonita
7. Like a Virgin
(we could also count "Like a Surgeon" here--Laurie Anderson's status would improve markedly with a Weird Al parody)
8. Like a Prayer
9. Physical Attraction
10. Papa Don't Preach
11. Crazy For You
12. Lucky Star
13. Borderline
14. Express Yourself
15. Live To Tell
All monuments. This doesn't even take into account the You Can Dance album, which people swear by and I think is pleasant. Also several album tracks I can't remember. Untouchable, including by most of the men that decade.

― dr. phil, Monday, 26 March 2007 17:26 (nineteen years ago)

of all the decades and all the genders, this is the easiest one to answer. dr. phil OTM, even though he failed to mention "into the groove" (or "holiday" or "dear jessie" or...)

― fact checking cuz, Monday, 26 March 2007 17:39 (nineteen years ago)

Throw in Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Naomi & Wynona Judd, Reba McEntire.

― Pye Poudre, Monday, 26 March 2007 17:48 (nineteen years ago)

madonna is the obvious answer for "greatest" female recording artist, because the word by definition suggests magnitude, impact, significance, etc. "best" is a kind of narrower category more determined by tricky personal aesthetics. she's definitely a top candidate, but you can make a case for a lot of other people too. most of them have been mentioned, but JANET JACKSON belongs on the list too.

― tipsy mothra, Monday, 26 March 2007 17:51 (nineteen years ago)

wow, took a long time to get to janet! i'd throw in alison statton, too, along with tons of people already mentioned.

but the question asked for "best," not "some of the best" or "arguably the best," and i stand by madonna.

― fact checking cuz, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:00 (nineteen years ago)

madonna and janet aren't really contenders for "best", because the writing and production on their stuff isn't well, theirs. i mean some of it is, sure, but you know what i'm sayin.

"greatest", yeah maybe they could contend, even though they are confections. i'm a huge fan of both but when it comes to giving one woman the credit for greatest or best, certain things must be pointed out.

― Surmounter, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:00 (nineteen years ago)

unless you have someone else in mind who wrote all her own music, arranged it, played all the instruments, engineered it and produced it, i'm not sure what your point is. (actually, i still wouldn't get your point even then, but at least i'd sort of know what you were getting at.)

― fact checking cuz, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:05 (nineteen years ago)

kate bush and madonna could never really be nominated alongside each other in this category because they're too different - kate did everything from write to produce, madonna didn't. that's enough to make this 2 different questions: best original and best, i dunno, half-original?

― Surmounter, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:06 (nineteen years ago)

you don't have to play all your own instruments to be more original than madonna. you do have to write all your own melodies.

― Surmounter, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:07 (nineteen years ago)

i think it's safe to say that no American mainstream pop sensation could be dubbed the "Best" Female Recording Artist of the 80s.

― Surmounter, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:13 (nineteen years ago)

Umm, why not? This thread dies as soon as people start trying to splain how this best is better than that best. Singer-songwriter best is 65% better than just singer best. But singer-songwriter-musician best is the bestest best of all. Especially if there's finger-tapping involved. Fuck that.

― Pye Poudre, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:16 (nineteen years ago)

you do have to write all your own melodies

oy

― fact checking cuz, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:17 (nineteen years ago)

kate did everything from write to produce, madonna didn't

I guess you don't' spend much time reading record sleeves, do you, babe? Or maybe you just can't read.

i think it's safe to say that no American mainstream pop sensation could be dubbed the "Best" Female Recording Artist of the 80s.

Yes, you're too safe.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:17 (nineteen years ago)

I guess, then, the problem really is that the question leaves way too much open to interpretation. Best is wayyy to vague.

― Surmounter, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:17 (nineteen years ago)

You think Madonna wrote and produced all her stuff Alfred? Where you livin?

― Surmounter, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:18 (nineteen years ago)

And let's not start calling each other illiterate, we're not in junior high =P

― Surmounter, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:20 (nineteen years ago)

It's a very simple distinction - original vs. I-needed-help-writing-this.

― Surmounter, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:21 (nineteen years ago)

I'd advise you to consult the credits to her four eighties album on AllMusic, Surmounter, paying particularly close attention to Madonna, True Blue, and Like a Prayer.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, 26 March 2007 18:22 (nineteen years ago)

Skipping 173 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Who exactly is supposed to have made Madonna-style music before Madonna?

I think at the time I pegged her as fitting into the whole Brit synthpop line of stuff: Yaz, early Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, etc. Her early songs seemed to fit comfortably in that context, and I'm pretty sure I even thought she was British initially. (If I overstated the case about Kate being a departure, it's probably because her sound was a departure to my ears, but I can kind of hear a connection with Lene Lovich and the like.)

― sw00ds, Thursday, 29 March 2007 12:52 (nineteen years ago)

both kate and madonna were dancers and interested in using dance and theatrics in interesting ways. they definitely have some things in common.

― scott seward, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:01 (nineteen years ago)

wait, was kate a fan of Heart?

http://gaffa.org/wow/k33.jpg

― scott seward, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:05 (nineteen years ago)

woah--that photo's absolutely brilliant.

― sw00ds, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:07 (nineteen years ago)

young kate had kind of a paul kossoff thing going on:

http://gaffa.org/wow/k125.jpg

― scott seward, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:08 (nineteen years ago)

she was also viking metal before it was hip:

http://gaffa.org/wow/k132.jpg

― scott seward, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:10 (nineteen years ago)

love this one:

http://gaffa.org/wow/k338.jpg

― scott seward, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:15 (nineteen years ago)

wicked pics.

― sw00ds, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:17 (nineteen years ago)

kate and madonna are the same age too.

"Hounds of Love ultimately topped the charts in the UK, knocking Madonna's "Like A Virgin" from the number one position."

― scott seward, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:19 (nineteen years ago)

by the way, I wouldn't expect anyone to mention Valerie Day on this thread, but considering nu shooz released two or three of my favourite songs of the entire decade I guess I will.

― sw00ds, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:21 (nineteen years ago)

I'm familiar with what Madonna brought to pop in regards to dancing (insofar as I understand dancing to begin with), but what about Kate? My guess is that she was doing something much more theatre-based? I really have no clue--didn't know dancing was part of her thing at all.

― sw00ds, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:23 (nineteen years ago)

her live thing - when she had a live thing - was very theatrical/theatre/dance-oriented. she trained as a dancer. like madonna.

― scott seward, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:25 (nineteen years ago)

and mime. her and bowie have that in common.

― scott seward, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:26 (nineteen years ago)

her and bowie had the same dance teacher:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsay_Kemp

― scott seward, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:27 (nineteen years ago)

as far as madonna's thing goes, and i love madonna, kate had been there and done that:

http://gaffa.org/wow/k290.jpg

― scott seward, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:29 (nineteen years ago)

scott, definitely check out the wealth of kate bush youtube material. there is tons of great stuff.

― scott seward, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:30 (nineteen years ago)

i will--my interest is well piqued!

― sw00ds, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:38 (nineteen years ago)

the only thing I remember about kate bush, before finally discovering her somewhat through "running up that hill" in the mid-80s, is seeing her perform on SNL (in a leopard suit?) and not connecting to it or getting it at all.

― sw00ds, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:39 (nineteen years ago)

there was actually a kate/madonna thing in the u.k. telegraph newspaper:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2005/11/16/bacromp16.xml

"Both albums have a kind of confidence that seems rare in pop today. And when I think back, I am struck by how many original female voices pop spawned at around that time: not only Bush and Madonna, but Annie Lennox, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Siouxsie Sioux, Chrissie Hynde and others stood centre stage and claimed the right to be heard on their own terms.

I might be missing something but today's female pop stars seem manufactured and bland in comparison. Kylie, Gwen Stefani, even Alison Goldfrapp just don't seem to have the originality or the blazing conviction that Madonna and Kate Bush have always displayed. They continue to shine, but their legacy has, in pop terms at least, simply not been fulfilled."

― scott seward, Thursday, 29 March 2007 13:54 (nineteen years ago)

thank you scott.

― Surmounter, Thursday, 29 March 2007 14:27 (nineteen years ago)

yah the dancing + miming on youtube is a treat. even more of a treat to watch her talk about her music. lovely woman, and beautiful.

well it's funny cuz the last 2 albums came out in nov. 2005, i mean Confessions and Aerial. what a great few weeks. they both make me really happy.

― Surmounter, Thursday, 29 March 2007 14:33 (nineteen years ago)

Who exactly is supposed to have made Madonna-style music before Madonna?

Musically, Donna Summer.

Vocally, she was unique though, in that she came considerably less from the gospel/R&B/soul school of vocals than any female disco singer before her. (well, OK, there's always Bananarama....)

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 29 March 2007 20:35 (nineteen years ago)

Who exactly is supposed to have made Madonna-style music before Madonna? (I mean, I guess you could make connections between, say, "Borderline" and "Let The Music Play" by Shannon [were they both 1983? I don't have a reference book handy...],

madonna's initial sound was derived 100% from the post-disco NYC scene of the early 80s, the larry levan/paradise garage - frankie crocker/WBLS continuum. while dance music faded a bit from the nat'l charts after 1979 it continued to rule new york not only in clubs but on radios and boomboxes thru the city. there was literally no escaping it -- basically the Prelude Records catalogue predicts all madonna's early moves.

i bet madonna might even cop to some of this if you asked her nicely.

"borderline" and "let the music play" are roughly contemporaneous and for that matter the shannon classic is a pop/major label approx of the nyc last-days-of-disco street sound, a mix of synths and trad instrumentation, soon to be replaced by pure electro grooves like "hip hop be bop" in 1984/85

― m coleman, Friday, 30 March 2007 10:01 (nineteen years ago)

I don't doubt that Madonna was somehow inspired by the Prelude stuff (among other early '80s disco-that-wasn't-being-called-disco-anymore), but I don't buy at all that it "predicts all her early moves"; sounds like a gross oversimplification. Compared to, I dunno, D-Train or the Strikers or Sharon Redd or Secret Weapon or Unlimited Touch or even France Joli (or at least to the several singles and couple LPs I'm aware of by those acts) (ditto Taana Gardner or similar contemporarenous non-Prelude acts), she just feels more Top 40, more new wave, more concise, more suburban I guess, and -- as Geir suggests -- less r&b. "Material Girl" is basically a ska song; "Burning Up" has metal guitars. What are the Prelude equivalents of those moves?

And yeah, I can obviously hear connections between 1982-era electro stuff (and sundry other early '80s street sounds) and "Let The Music Play." But the latter still sounds to me more like the beginning of something (Latin freestyle) than the end of something. Or okay...it's a bridge. I'm not denying these acts had their influences, of couse. So does everybody--Kate Bush included, which was my point. But they are still departures in important ways.

(I was in Germany at the time myself, where non-r&b-oriented dance music was pretty common, at it no doubt had been since the mid/late '80s; I bought both "Borderline" and "Let the Music Play" as 12-inch singles. I'm don't doubt they both have Europop-dance antecedents, in some ways, as well. But I also don't think either of them really sound a whole lot like Europop.) (When do historians say "Italodisco" really kicked in? For some reason 1985 sticks in my head, though obviously Italians made lots of disco before that.)

One guy who I'm pretty sure would have writing brilliantly about both Bush and Madonna (both of whom I'm pretty sure he worshipped) at the time would have been Michael Freedberg, at the Boston Phoenix. I'd love to dig up old clips to find out who he would have been comparing them to.

― xhuxk, Friday, 30 March 2007 11:01 (nineteen years ago)

Speaking of non-"disco" early '80s disco, there was also the big (medium sized? small?) circa-1982 British funk boom: Linx, Junior, the Quick, Nick Straker Band I guess (the latter of which was released on Prelude in the States, wasn't it?) Which often had a certain light Jamaican lilt. So maybe that's one root of "Material Girl" etc? Or maybe there's no connection..

― xhuxk, Friday, 30 March 2007 11:08 (nineteen years ago)

"Material Girl" is basically a ska song

Is it? I'll have to listen again. I can't think of that song without remembering a niece dancing around to it while soiling her diaper, which put an interesting spin on it.

― Rockist Scientist, Friday, 30 March 2007 11:08 (nineteen years ago)

taana gardner's "heartbeat" has a bubbling-under wah-wah guitar just for starters. and I don't know about ska but reggae was a huge influence on the post-disco scene -- "walking on sunshine" -- along with euro-disco which flavored singers like france joli as much as R&B. I actually think we agree here xhuxk!

I wrote about kate bush in 84/85 and then got postal-stalked by her crazed devotees, similar to what happened when I wrote about new order/joy division a few years before.

― m coleman, Friday, 30 March 2007 11:13 (nineteen years ago)

non-r&b-oriented dance music was pretty common, at it no doubt had been since the mid/late '80s

mid/late '70s, I mean (when there was plenty of non-blatanly-r&b-vocaled Eurodisco, no matter what Geir says.)

― xhuxk, Friday, 30 March 2007 11:13 (nineteen years ago)

the best of those british funk bands was Imagination esp. In The Heat Of The Night w/the great hit "Just An Illusion"

― m coleman, Friday, 30 March 2007 11:14 (nineteen years ago)

Maybe August Darnell/Kid Creole/Ze/Antilles influened Madonna some.

― QuantumNoise, Friday, 30 March 2007 11:17 (nineteen years ago)

reggae was a huge influence on the post-disco scene -- "walking on sunshine"

Good point. And also a fairly noticeable influence on early '80s MTV new wave: Musical Youth, Eddy Grant, even Culture Club. So there's that, too. (Though I don't want to overstate reggae's influence on Madonna, either! Now I'm even having slight second thoughts about calling "Material Girl" "basically ska." Though I've always sort of heard it that way.)

France Joli was sort of Irene Cara for French Canadians, I just realized (assuming she was actually from Quebec, which I think she was.)

― xhuxk, Friday, 30 March 2007 11:20 (nineteen years ago)

And right, Imagination were great, I agree. (And yeah, August Darnell does figure here, disco-reggae-wise, as well. I was even thinking of Cory Daye as a possible proto-Madonna a couple days ago, but I didn't say anything.) (There's also, Ze-wise, Material's work with Nona Hendryx, I suppose.)

― xhuxk, Friday, 30 March 2007 11:22 (nineteen years ago)

"Material Girl" grabs the bassline from "Can You Feel It" by The Jacksons, but other than that it isn't much of a typical dance song really.

Another point about "Material Girl" is that vocally and image-wise, it is the closest Madonna has ever come to the style of Cyndi Lauper.

― Geir Hongro, Friday, 30 March 2007 11:28 (nineteen years ago)

madonna did vocals for italo-disco dudes before she made her own music. she was also a dancer for patrick fernandez at the end of the 70's. obviously all roads lead to "born to be alive".

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 12:08 (nineteen years ago)

and hey give credit where credit is due: early madonna = jellybean

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 12:16 (nineteen years ago)

Right. And "Sidewalk Talk" is totally "Wordy Rappinghood," so Tom Tom Club deserve a mention on the proto-Madonna list as well (and "Genius of Love" was of course yet another reggae-infused early '80s danceclub hit too.)

― xhuxk, Friday, 30 March 2007 12:21 (nineteen years ago)

IIRC jellybean came into the picture after/around madonna's debut. he was like the next wave of DJ after larry levan, his home club was the funhouse in chelsea, a hispanic teenagers' hangout where the pure electro sound -- Man Parrish, Mantronix, Planet Patrol, Arthur Baker John Robie -- ruled the roost.

― m coleman, Friday, 30 March 2007 12:27 (nineteen years ago)

jellybean had a hand in EVERYTHING on madonna's debut. and he produced lucky star and burning up!

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 12:29 (nineteen years ago)

three of teenage scott's very favorite things in 1983:

madonna's debut album

new order's confusion 12-inch

freeez's "i.o.u." 12-inch

ALL Jellybean-related!

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 12:31 (nineteen years ago)

all electro/freestyle madonna action came from him.

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 12:34 (nineteen years ago)

if you want a true old skool/new skool meeting of the minds though in 1983: get irene cara's flashdance 12-inch. moroder production. jellybean remix. all roads lead to giorgio.

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 12:37 (nineteen years ago)

Doesn't all synth oriented early 80s disco lead back to Giorgio anyway?

― Geir Hongro, Friday, 30 March 2007 12:40 (nineteen years ago)

I didn't mean to slight Jellybean, he was def a playa back in the day. but his remixes were never my faves :-/

those 1983 things scott mentioned all made me very happy in my mid-20s too. but I think of NO's "confusion" as more arthur baker related than jellybean but hey IT'S ALL GOOD as they say

― m coleman, Friday, 30 March 2007 12:42 (nineteen years ago)

the best of those british funk bands was Imagination esp. In The Heat Of The Night w/the great hit "Just An Illusio

One of my favorite songs ever.

And "Sidewalk Talk" is totally "Wordy Rappinghood,"

My God, you're right; I never noticed this. Then again, "Sidewalk Talk" is often ignored.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, 30 March 2007 12:49 (nineteen years ago)

"but I think of NO's "confusion" as more arthur baker related than jellybean"

well, it is(and robey-related like i.o.u.). but jellybean mixed it with baker. just pointing out that he had a hand in three of my very favorite things from 1983.

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 12:53 (nineteen years ago)

you know who is on madonna's debut who made really good disco is norma jean wright. she made records with bernard edwards and nile rogers in the late 70's. (gwen guthrie and tina b also sing back-up on madonna's record. i like them too.)

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 13:06 (nineteen years ago)

Norma Jean made a Chic Organization-helmed solo record.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, 30 March 2007 13:08 (nineteen years ago)

certainly miss nicky trax for the "acid in the house" track alone.

what about liz fraser and lisa gerrard, were they mentioned? kate is on there without even a hesitation.

so glad someone mentioned sheila e. lisa lisa surely, even as pop as she was, she certainly resonated with a lot of people.

― ebenoit, Friday, 30 March 2007 13:14 (nineteen years ago)

what about jade 4 u?

― ebenoit, Friday, 30 March 2007 13:21 (nineteen years ago)

this thread keeps going and going. it's fantasmagoric.

it should have been called Madonna And Other Things.

― Surmounter, Friday, 30 March 2007 14:03 (nineteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.