75 Years of the Album: 35. 1983

Here are eight from 83. Before I begin, a few others that deserve a mention include The Hurting by Tears for Fears, Aztec Camera’s High Land Hard Rain, Yello’s You’ve Got to Say Yes to Another Excess, the Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Naughty Boys, Big Country’s The Crossing, Cabaret Voltaire’s The Crackdown, Bad Brains’ Rock for Light, Head Over Heels by the Cocteau Twins and Soul Mining by The The.

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – Dazzle Ships (Virgin March).

Slated on its release, and a commercial failure, Dazzle Ships has had a long and painful rehabilitation. The problems with it are easy to see. It’s quite short, especially when you take into account the experimental interludes, a few of which could have been fleshed out a bit, or trimmed right down, and the best song, “Romance of the Telescope”, had already been a B side. But it was daring for its time, and despite the overuse of the Fairlight Emulator, it doesn’t sound dated. Some of the bonus tracks added to subsequent reissues such as “4-Neu” and “66 and Fading” would have beefed it up a bit too. Still, with Architecture and Morality it remains the album of theirs I come back to most often.

REM – Murmur (IRS April).

Despite its blurry nature and complete lack of intelligibility, Murmur is still held up by many as the band’s finest album. It’s easy to see why. It has echoes of sixties jangly guitar bands, but exists in its own world. Perhaps the lack of sharpness is one of the reasons it’s always refreshing to return to compared to some of the bombast of later records. It’s not quite my favourite, though.

Cybotron – Enter (Fantasy April) / Planet Patrol (Tommy Boy November).

Juan Atkins and Rick Davis, a Vietnam veteran ten years his senior may have seemed an odd match, but with Enter they threw down the marker. This is undoubtedly the first Detroit techno album, even if it has a lot of electro influences about it. Its clean lines and skittish percussion point to a robotic future peopled by the likes of ‘Mad’ Mike Banks, Carl Craig, and the Belleville Three. New York was more of a party town, and Planet Patrol’s only album reflects this. Producer legends Arthur Baker and John Robie backed a quartet of vocalists, and the six tunes are eminently singable, as well as feet friendly. Electro was not a long lasting genre, and not one that left a lot of great albums. This is probably as near as it got.

New Order – Power, Corruption and Lies (Factory May).

Movement was a bit of a false start for New Order. The band were hesitant, and Martin Hannet’s production covered everything with a sonic fog that made everything sound the same. Eighteen months later, the first bar of “Age of Consent” tells you that everything has changed. Track seven, “Ecstasy”, may be one clue as to how. This was New Order fusing their post-punk background with New York electro. Not always successfully (“586”), but in places beautifully (the majestic “Your Silent Face”). And “Leave Me Alone” showed they could still do jangly pop full of pathos. It was typical (and refreshing) that the record had no place for “Blue Monday”, a huge worldwide hit issued just a couple of months earlier.

Brian Eno – Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks (EG July).

Eno’s moon project with his brother Roger and Daniel Lanois has a lot of eighties funky bass, echoes of country music, and a few hangovers from his project with David Byrne. Some of it does sound a little dated. At its best, though, it hangs in some kind of cosmic eternity. “Ascent (An Ending)” is a piece that should be familiar to everybody, even if they have no idea that they know it. It hangs in weightlessness, and could feasibly go on forever. I wrote about it back in 2007.

The Chameleons – Script of the Bridge (Statik August).

Uncut magazine recently issued a top 500 albums of the eighties special. Much of it was predictable, some refreshingly surprising, some a bit ‘really?’ (Felt have to be the most overrated band of the decade by a country mile). You’d think how influential they were on the guitar bands that came after there would have been room for the Chameleons, but no. It seems Middleton’s best kept secret remains under wraps. Script of the Bridge was the band’s first and finest album. Recordings for Epic from 1981 (a contract that resulted in just one single) and demos have all been issued to give an idea how they got here. From “Don’t Fall” to “View from a Hill” it is the perfect indie rock album. There’s not a song that doesn’t belong there. Some of it is quite dark, some mesmerisingly epic (“Second Skin”). A wonderful album by a truly great band.

Tom Waits – Swordfishtrombones (Island October).

Wheezy pump organ, junkyard percussion, a selection of songs that seem to have been gathering dust in an antique emporium since Edwardian times. The reinvention of Tom Waits from bar room balladeer began here. Compared to Rain Dogs and Frank’s Wild Years, it’s a gentle introduction to this carnivalesque world. Underneath the dust and rust, there are always gems of songs awaiting discovery. He can’t help himself. “Johnsburg, Illinois” is a breathtakingly beautiful ninety seconds, but is by no means alone here.

75 Years of the Album: 33. 1981

Without further ado…

Television Personalities – …And Don’t The Kids Just Love It (Rough Trade January).

The 1980s peculiar obsession with swinging sixties London began here. The sleeve featuring Patrick MacNee and Twiggy couldn’t be more sixties. The grooves contained fourteen slices of literate, clever mod-pop from the pen of Dan Treacy, a troubled, but sporadically brilliant soul. Cultural references abound in the titles (“La Grande Illusion”, “A Picture of Dorian Grey”. “Look Back In Anger”), and of course there is the timeless “I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives”. Without Treacy, no Creation records.

Brian Eno & David Byrne – My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (Polydor February) / Tom Tom Club (Sire October).

Following on from the superb Remain in Light, Byrne and its producer Eno continued on the polyrhythmic path set on that album’s first side. Instead of vocals, there were samples of radio preachers, exorcists, phone ins, and middle eastern singers. The track “Qu’ran” featuring the voices of Muslims reciting the book was quietly dropped at the behest of the Muslim Council of Great Britain, but in a grown-up way as opposed to the whipped up hysteria that would happen now from both sides of the debate. All told, it’s a hugely influential record. As is Frantz and Weymouth’s first Tom Tom Club LP. Taking hip hop and electro as a base, tracks like “Genius of Love” became hugely influential on the influencers. And more than forty years on it still sounds like a load of fun.

Kraftwerk – Computer World (EMI May).

Before Computer World it could be argued that Kraftwerk were usually too far ahead of their time to have as great an impact as they could. But sample based synth and electronic pop was now becoming mainstream. And a concept album about computers was not a particularly radical idea. Paradoxically, the fact that the mainstream had caught up, made this one of the most influential Kraftwerk albums. The NYC electro scene of the Peech Boys, Jonzun Crew, Planet Patrol et al latched on straight away, as did the nascent UK synth-pop outfits. And years later Coldplay borrowed the melody from “Computer Love” for “Talk”.

Grace Jones – Nightclubbing (Island October).

Jones’s haughty speak-sing vocal style is not to everyone’s taste, but you can’t deny the funk! Of all her albums, Nightclubbing is probably the best. All but three of the nine tracks are covers, from sources as disparate as Vanda and Young, Astor Piazzolla, Bowie and Bill Withers. It was NME’s album of the year in ‘81 at a time when the paper was briefly trying to escape its indie rock straitjacket.

Black Flag – Damaged (SST November).

For all their huge influence on the hardcore scene, there was only a brief window where the band was a truly exciting proposition. Before Damaged they weren’t quite the finished product with singers Dez Cadena and Keith Morris. Henry Rollins, fresh from DC’s State of Alert, provided that intense focus, anger and self-loathing. It was three years before a follow up full length. My War was influential, too, on sludge-rockers like the Melvins, but quite frankly pretty tedious for the most part.

ABBA – The Visitors (Polar December).

Inescapable during the seventies, ABBA’s pop crown began to slip a little during the eighties. The Visitors turned out to be their last LP until Voyage was unexpectedly unleashed forty years later. It’s a restless, serious work. The title track is a protest against the treatment of political dissidents in the eastern bloc, and “Slipping Through My Fingers” a moving piece about how the relationship between parent and child changes as the latter grows up. Not exactly “Ring Ring Ring”. ‘Maturity’ often makes dull pop, but The Visitors is still packed with great melodies, and instantly recognisable harmonies.

Architecture and Morality was Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s commercial highpoint, packed full of pop nuggets, but balanced with more experimental pieces. Japan bowed out with the superb Tin Drum and one of the most radical top ten singles ever in “Ghosts”. There were a slew of great post-punk LPs. On the more experimental side you had Cabaret Voltaire’s Red Mecca, This Heat’s Deceit and Clock DVA’s Thirst. Then there were more commercially inclined sets such as The Cure’s gloom-fest Faith and Simple Minds’ Sons and Fascination / Sister Feelings Call package. Yello’s Claro que si and Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Technodelic were very different takes on synthesised pop, and producer Craig Leon’s Nommos proved an influential work on future generations of electronic musicians. The first of Bobby Womack’s two The Poet albums brought him back into the first rank of soul singers. Finally there were New Age Steppers’ brilliant self-titled dub-punk debut and The Birthday Party’s first for 4AD, Prayers on Fire.

75 Years of the Album: 29. 1977

1977 may have been the year when punk hit the headlines, but it’s remembered largely for its great singles rather than (with a few exceptions) its albums. Its influence was palpable everywhere, though, not least in the sheer speed in which acts were issuing albums. Here’s a selection of the best.

David Bowie – Low (RCA January) / David Bowie – ‘Heroes’ (RCA October) / Brian Eno – Before and After Science (Island December).

Not only was Eno all over these three records, but all are structured in the same way: a ‘rock’ side one and an ‘electronic’ side two. Both Bowie and Eno’s debt to German acts such as Cluster and Neu! was obvious. Even so, all three of these albums are remarkable, and all still sound completely contemporary.

Ultravox! (Island February) / Ha! Ha! Ha! (Island October).

John Foxx and co. were heavily in debt to both Bowie and Roxy, but with a dash of punk urgency, and a splash of Kraftwerkian mechanics they came up with something unique. For me, each of their first three albums is a couple of songs short of what they could have been, but at their best they were the equal of any of their peers.

Peter Gabriel (Charisma March).

For his first solo album, Gabriel turned his back on prog with a set of songs as wildly eclectic as any he’s ever done. There is Bob Ezrin bombast, barbershop, ballads and big orchestral epics. And to cap it all, the timeless “Solsbury Hill”. His old muckers Genesis began the year with Wind and Wuthering, and ended it with the live double Seconds Out. Both showed that they remained an adventurous band, with Phil Collins an able replacement. That seemed to really change with Steve Hackett’s departure.

Television – Marquee Moon (Elektra March).

Voted by Uncut writers as the greatest album of the seventies, Marquee Moon is a record whose reputation has never faltered over the years. It’s hard to see now how strikingly different it sounded at the time, but the guitar interplay between Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd had no precedent in rock. The solos are structured like jazz, but tightly scored like a classical piece. But somehow they still sound nothing like a dry academic exercise, and much more like a head rush. Like any artwork that arrives fully-formed from nowhere, it proved unrepeatable.

Iggy Pop – The Idiot (RCA March) / Lust for Life (RCA September).

Both produced in collaboration with a very busy David Bowie, Iggy’s greatest two solo records arrived in the space of six months. They are inseparable as a pair and can be seen almost as a double album that never was.

Culture – Two Sevens Clash (Joe Gibbs May) / Bob Marley and the Wailers – Exodus (Island June).

Exodus was Marley’s commercial zenith, packed as it was with hits. The title track, and longest studio piece he ever released, caps off a first side of harder edged Rasta anthems, whilst the more pop stuff follows on the flip. Joseph Hill’s magnum opus stuck to the message all the way through. It’s one of the very best roots reggae albums ever made.

Hawkwind – Quark, Strangeness and Charm (Charisma July).

Hawkwind’s interstellar psychedelic rock was less evident on this album. Singer Robert Calvert dominated in a way that he never had before ( or did subsequently), and the music is cut to service his gripping sci-fi tales. “Spirit of the Age” is the standout.

Steely Dan – Aja (ABC October).

The antithesis of punk, all angles polished away until it gleamed, not a note out of place, not a hint of sweat or toil. Smooth. Everything I detest in a rock band. But somehow the antiseptic sheen services the band’s finest set of songs very well indeed.

There were a slew of punk albums in 1977, none of which I’ve covered above. Most were rushed or just inept. The best ones were The Ramones Leave Home and Rocket to Russia, The Clash’s eponymous debut, The Saints’ I’m Stranded, and Wire’s Pink Flag. Talking Heads and Blondie both produced credible debuts, as did Ian Dury (New Boots an Panties) and Elvis Costello (My Aim Is True). Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours was huge. It still is (in the last top ten I looked at). Jackson Browne’s Running on Empty was a great collection of new material and covers recorded in concert, on the tour bus, and in motel rooms. Roy Harper came up with his most ambitious album, Bullinamingvase, and Sandy Denny’s last, Rendezvous, was uneven, but still magical. Blue Oyster Cult issued another strong set in Spectres, and Pink Floyd’s Animals was a last great album before Roger Waters’ megalomania destroyed them as a band. Finally, there was Trans-Europe Express. In a year of great and highly influential albums, none was greater, or more influential than Kraftwerk’s first of three straight masterpieces.

75 Years of the Album: 26. 1974

1974 saw an IRA mainland bombing campaign, the three-day-week, an oil crisis, inflation and recessions. But there were also some good records out.

Brian Eno – Here Come the Warm Jets (Island February) / Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) (Island November).

Eno began his post-Roxy career with a brace of records of brilliantly skewed rock music that straddled glam, prog, the avant-garde and his own weird take on pop. Lyrically there was plenty of oddball Dada-esque ramblings, but the music (especially on the second record) was muscular. Only “On some faraway beach” and “Taking Tiger Mountain” itself were their hints of his ambient direction.

Tangerine Dream – Phaedra (Virgin April).

Tangerine Dream signed to Virgin, jettisoned some of their more extreme spaced out tendencies in favour of burbling sequencer riffs, and pretty much defined their sound. They also bagged a surprising top twenty album. Its possibly the definitive Tangerine Dream album, although Rubycon (1975) hones their sound even more. Cluster’s Moebius and Roedelius teamed up with Michael Rother of Neu! to create Harmonia. Musik from Harmonia (Brain) is the best of their records. Can’s Soon Over Babaluma (United Artists) was the last of the classic United Artists Can records. The move to Virgin in ‘75 began their decline. And Tangerine Dream leader Edgar Froese’s solo album Aqua (Virgin) is one to hear.

Blue Oyster Cult – Secret Treaties (Columbia April).

Eight tracks of perfect rock from the connoisseur’s metal band. Having Richard Meltzer, Sandy Pearlman and Patti Smith write the lyrics meant that there is an intellectual bent to the band lacking in any of their peers (with the exception of Hawkwind). And Secret Treaties has some of their very best tunes, such as “Career of evil”, “Flaming telepaths” and “Astronomy”.

Richard and Linda Thompson – I Want to See The Bright Lights Tonight (Island April).

April ‘74 was a pretty good month for albums. Richard Thompson and Linda Peters married in 1972, and this was their first (and best) record together. It’s also one of Richard’s darkest set of songs, with “End of the rainbow” giving a particularly bleak view of life. There are brighter points (the title track, for instance), and “The Great Valerio” sees the world pushed away in a dream-like concentration on the art of a tightrope walker. It reminds me of the Blue Nile’s “Easter Parade” in the way that a scene of excitement and celebration can be frozen into something so still.

Neil Young – On The Beach (Reprise July).

Harvest this definitely isn’t, and the sixties dream dissolves into a post-Nixon fug of alienation. The mood is sombre – almost more down and out than downbeat. For years contrary Young left it out of print before a CD finally arrived in 2003. I would argue its his best record, especially the trio of songs on the second side: the title track, “Motion Pictures” and the cynical “Ambulance Blues”. Neil’s fellow Canadian Joni Mitchell was a bit more upbeat with Court and Spark (Asylum), the perfect balance between the old singer-songwriter Joni and the new jazz Joni.

Kraftwerk – Autobahn (Vertigo November).

The first album that Ralf Hutter appears to own up to, Autobahn still has more in common with the three Philips albums than it does with, say, The Man Machine four years later. An edit of the 22 minute title track was a hit, of course. The second side is instrumental ranging from the gorgeous “Telstar”-esque “Kometenmelodie 2” to Florian’s flute-led, bucolic “Morgenspaziergang”.

Here are seven other records of note, in no particular order. Diamond Dogs (RCA) is heavier than Bowie’s previous few albums which maybe why it’s not as widely loved. Gil Scott-Heron teamed up with multi-instrumentalist Brian Jackson for the first time for Winter In America (Strata-East). Stevie Wonder’s Fulfillingness’ First Finale (Tamla) ditched the Moogs for a more organic, and reflective sound. Jackson Browne’s Late for the Sky and Tom Waits’ The Heart of Saturday Night (both Asylum) looked at two sides of seventies California: Browne’s fading sixties dream and Waits’ world of working class diners, bars and flop houses. Bob Marley’s first album without Tosh and Livingstone Natty Dread (Island) gave the world “No woman no cry”. Finally, Peter Gabriel’s last hurrah with Genesis was the patchily brilliant concept alum with a barely intelligible plot The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (Charisma).

Song of the day: BRIAN ENO – An Ending (Ascent) (1983)

One of the odd things about instrumental music is that it can trigger off different moods in different people, even when they agree on its merits. “An Ending (Ascent)” is one piece that some find desolate and depressing where others see rhapsody. It appears on the 1983 album Apollo – Atmospheres and Soundtracks, an ambient collaboration between Brian Eno, his younger brother Roger and producer Daniel Lanois. The record is loosely inspired by the Apollo moon missions. As an album it has its moments, but it’s not particularly exceptional. Apart from the 4 minutes 20 of this track, that is.

“An Ending (Ascent)” has an astonishing psychological resonance with a lot of people. Out there in webworld you’ll find a surprising number of passionate testaments acclaiming it as the greatest, most moving piece of music of all time, and many folk who want it played at their funeral. It’s difficult to work out how it has the immense power that it undoubtedly does possess. On the face of it, it’s just a series of chords (mainly in a minor key) that ebb and flow. There’s no dramatic progression, no changes of structure, nor any conventionally repetitive melody. And yet it is so much more than a chilled out ambient wash of sound. I think its secret is in the way that it uses a series of ‘dissolves’ for each chord change. If you think of a computer slide show, the dissolve setting makes each picture fade into the next so that, for a large part of the process, there are a series of ever changing composite images in between each focussed shot. Eno does the same with this track. Rather than a clang and fade that would be achieved with the percussive action used on an acoustic instrument, each chord fades in, climaxes and then fades away, bleeding into the next one in the process. It sounds totally different to most music we hear, and have been conditioned to hear over centuries, and this, I think, gives it its other-worldly quality.

Other-worldly music is, by its very nature, suited to outer space (an other-worldly place!). Thus “An Ending” is so effective at conjuring up some pretty cosmic resonances. With closed eyes, it really is possible to drift into a state that borders on blissful rapture listening to it. And that may be the key why different people have such polarised responses of mood to it. It can unlock emotions and memories that can be moving in very different ways. It can release inhibited grief, but also can induce a kind of mesmeric joy not a million miles away from the effects produced by mild dosages of hallucinogens or other dissociative narcotics. It’s a stunning piece of music, whichever way you look at it.

There are a few home-made videos to the track on YouTube. One is a beautifully shot slideshow of images of cemeteries. No, no, no! That’s just completely wrong on every conceivable level. The one I’ve linked to consists of heavily filtered footage of rippling, ebbing and cascading water. The dancing lights on the surface look like stars. The film-maker’s budget obviously didn’t stretch to a trip on the space-shuttle, but he’s done a good job of evoking the cosmos right here on earth. The film was made by someone going by the name of Tracerprod.