July 27, 2007
Friday Semi-Random Video 10: Strictly Eighties
Ten semi-random songs from everybody's least favorite decade, attached to videos or live performance. This is by far the ultimate and supreme development in the emerging academic field of Friday Random Musicology. Stick around for a music-related question to stimulate at least four to five comments, and remember to click on a corner of the tiny box in order to get a full-sized presentation:
1. (Forever) Live and Die by Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark (1986): There's no orchestra present, the only maneuvering appears to some gentle swaying, and most of the video is filmed during daylight hours. Still one of my favorite 80s songs... although I didn't realize that they needed like eleven people in the band to produce that thin sound.
2. Method of Modern Love by Hall & Oates (1984): Everything about this video radiates cheapness, as if they had just gotten their props from a high school production of West Side Story. Evidently Daryl Hall was feeling bold, wearing that bullseye T-shirt (with sportscoat) at the shoot.
3. Gone Daddy Gone by The Violent Femmes (1982): I wonder whether when the history of rock is finally written, these guys won't be seen as very stealthily influential. And the video is fantastic, it's like very low-budget David Lynch.
4. Go Wild in the Country by Bow Wow Wow (1982): Their first top 10 hit in the UK, before the monster cover of "I Want Candy," originally done by the Strangeloves.
5. Strange Little Girl by The Stranglers (1983): I feel this is one band that never had a problem casting off their punk roots and going slightly New Wave and even goth as the 80s marched on. Of course, this song ends up sounding like a bad Doors parody, even if Tori Amos ended up covering it. Great street footage, though.
6. Looking for the Perfect Beat by Afrika Bambataa (1983): Somebody needs to explain to me why this dude isn't in the Hall of Fame yet. Well, maybe it's this community access television-grade video. I don't think it samples Kraftwerk (like Planet Rock), but it's almost creates a lost Kraftwerk riff.
7. Why Can't I Be You? by The Cure (1987): Pretty subtle imagery in the first five seconds of the video. Also, I'm not sure who choreographed the particular dance steps, but they may no longer be in the industry. And did this anticipate the Furry Revolution? Oh well, it's still a kick-ass song.
8. Chains of Love by Erasure (1988): There sure are a lot of chains in this video.
9. Fashion by David Bowie (1980): Just made the chronological cut, as the single was released in October '80. As usual, he was light years ahead of everyone else in terms of conceptual videos (I don't even think there was an MTV yet). He also looks a bit bedraggled.
10. Selfish Heart by The Beat Farmers (1984): I was beginning to wonder about American roots rock representation on this list; thank God for the late, great Country Dick Montana (not to be confused with the Dictators' Handsome Dick Manitoba). To be fair, this is about half singing and half interviewing, but the readership needs to be apprised!
"BONUS": I usually don't believe in an added eleventh song, but this one came up on the jukebox right after the Beat Farmers. Click with extreme caution. The actor playing the kid in bed, from what I remember of such tales, is actually one of my alma mater university's more recognizable theater graduates.
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That wasn't a half-bad assortment of music (videos and bonus song aside). Now for part two: since I used up the hamster videos* earlier in the week, it's time for another music-related question for the masses. I was half-listening to the portable digital jukebox and heard what I thought was a previously unreleased Lauryn Hill song. Looking at the information, the artist was actually Phyllis Dillon (RIP, further interview here), who was dubbed the Queen of Rock Steady in Jamaica, recording mostly during the late 60s. The vocal resemblance was astounding.
So the exercise is: list your favorite or a few interesting sound-alikes, either vocally or instrumentally. Failing that, drop a few playlists or links to videos in the comments.
* check the extended entry
Yay Erasure! I love them, I even have their album "Abba-esque" which puts me high on the "pariah" list. I don't care!
Isn't the kid in the Quiet Riot video also a character actor? I seem to recall him being in a cheapie 80s horror movie.
Posted by: Stacia at July 26, 2007 10:11 PMThe Beat Farmers! I saw them a few times, had forgotten the Beat Farmers. Good times. He's dead now, you know.
Posted by: Ali at July 27, 2007 04:16 AMI weep for my lost youth!
Posted by: John at July 27, 2007 05:59 AMDone weeping.
Erasure. Yeesh. They were so popular in my college dorm when I was a freshman, my roommate declared our room an Erasure Free Zone.
Random 80's:
1. 1963 - New Order (1987)
2. Whine and Grine/Stand Down Margaret - The English Beat (1980)
3. The Key to her Ferrari - Thomas Dolby (1988)
4. King for a Day - XTC (1989)
5. Forgive Her Anything - Elvis Costello and the Attractions (1986)
6. Armagideon Time - The Clash (1980)
7. Mighty Long Way - Fishbone (1988)
8. Mothers Talk - Tears for Fears (1986)
9. When You Come - Crowded House (1988)
10. Eye of a Needle - Art of Noise (1986)
Sound-alikes: I think the lead singer of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (at least on the first album) sounds like Gordon Gano of the Violent Femmes.
Posted by: John at July 27, 2007 07:52 AMFall, 1989: My freshman roommate had a mix-tape that was all Depeche Mode, Erasure, and whoever did "Warm Leatherette" that he played over and over again. I tried responding with a Dead Milkmen/Butthole Surfers mix, but my boombox was overmatched.
We were all outdone, however, by the guy at the end of the hall (our floor was one long corridor with rooms on either side) who would play the Andrew Dice Clay album through Infinity speakers at ear-crushing levels.
Posted by: norbizness at July 27, 2007 08:01 AMMy favorite part of that Hall & Oates song is the way it makes me spell out random things I see. M-E-T-H-O-D O-F B-L-O-G
It's the Method of Blog (dun dunnn, baboop dun dunnnnnn)
Posted by: ChrisV82 at July 27, 2007 08:06 AMGoing with the '80s theme, how about everyone's favorite one-hit-wonder Bryan Ferry sound-alike? (I actually bought the album at the time. The rest of it sucked. I can still sort of tolerate this song, though.)
Posted by: Tom Hilton at July 27, 2007 10:17 AMHere are a few I just dumped in a post on my own blog. [KK-FZ alert: I was never one of the Kewl Kids, so that post is a "Kewl Kid-Free Zone":
The Pointer Sisters, “Jump”
Van Halen, “Jump”
Men Without Hats’s “Safety Dance”
Posted by: CJS at July 27, 2007 11:05 AM
probly just me (and the resemblance is stronger on the more recent albums) but my first thought on hearing Carol Van Dyck's voice is hey, Gwen Stefani is getting better.
Posted by: paperpusher at July 27, 2007 11:33 AMBy the way, Warm Leatherette was Robert Rental & the Normal. Flip side was TVOD, IIRC.
Posted by: Tom Hilton at July 27, 2007 12:37 PMOh no, Norbiz is an Erasure-Hater?! I came to love them after the fact, although I always did like A Little Respect. I would've thought that OMD was on a continuum with Erasure, Depeche, Cure, and Smiths.
I used the Buzzcocks' "Ever Fallen in Love" to duel with a suitemate's friend's wishy-washy musical taste. But I forget what the offending single was.
My college music memory (1988-92) is the guy who would blast Motley Crue's "Home Sweet Home" ritualistically, just about every morning.
Posted by: FlipYrWhig at July 27, 2007 01:21 PMI can't very well be a hater if it's on my random playlist! More of an "Erasure every goddamned morning, noon and night" hater. And, to be frank, a little Erasure can go a long way.
My sophomore musical memory: my roommate was another guy with Infinity speakers, except his tastes were more Skinny Puppy and Sinead O'Connor (!). I think he killed the Merle the First (a rescued teddy bear lab-hamster) with Revolting Cocks at 125db sound waves.
Posted by: norbizness at July 27, 2007 01:34 PMextreme caution
I guess.
A Slade cover from a band started by the late Randy Rhoads. Jeebus, the shit you learn in grade school.
Posted by: evilchemistry at July 27, 2007 01:34 PMWell, you could have it on the playlist for kitsch value rather than for earnest sonic appreciation. Good to know...
I spent most of college mocking Depeche Mode and their fans, to the point where I could sing a hammily plangent version of "Enjoy the Silence." Then it became nostalgia, and from nostalgia came embrace, about 5 years later.
I've been hearing all kinds of sound-alikes lately, but I'm blanking...
Posted by: FlipYrWhig at July 27, 2007 01:54 PMSpeaking of sound-alikes, I'm so unhep that I don't know the names of the bands, but lately singers have been directly imitating such varied artists as Erasure, Dead or Alive, Nirvana and Peter Gabriel with alarming frequency. I even heard a band imitate The Black Crowes, but my husband thinks it really is The Black Crowes who now sound like poor imitations of themselves.
Posted by: Stacia at July 27, 2007 03:42 PM