Music Gourmets Presents 60 Years of Great Music - 1980

[Zeeba Neighba]

Another Friday, another year in our Great Music series. Whoa! But wait! We've hit the 1980s

Here's the rules:

Each Friday, we'll introduce a new year from 1957 through 2016. Each member selects an album released in that year with a few lines (or more) on why you picked it/enjoy it. Your selection does not have to be the most important release or the most admired release of that year (though it certainly can be), simply an album that grabs you and that you really love.

However, once an album is selected by a member, you must choose a different album.

Together we will compile quite the canon of "Great Music" and, who knows, maybe inspire each other to check out some new artists (or to revisit old forgotten classics).

This week - the albums of 1980

 

[Unsomnambulist]

XTC - Black Sea



Part of a "trilogy" of albums, along with Drums and Wires and English Settlement, that I love. I have never cared for anything else they released, they went too soft.

 

[Mattafett]

Judas Priest - British Steel

I haven't listened to this in a long time. I need to. it kicks ass.

 

[JazzyRandy]

David Murray Octet - Ming

This, to me, is sort of a guiding light and anchor for Jazz at the start of a new decade. Not to say this album was regarded as such by reviewers or listeners at the time, or has been retroactively acknowledged as such. But looking back, I think it should have been.

Murray's band displayed a love and command of the groove, but didn't hop onto the fusion/funk/soon-to-be-joined-by-Smooth Jazz bandwagon. Murray didn't stick extremely close to past Jazz forms, so close as to be a cypher or even a (high-quality) mimic, like the soon-to-come Wynton Marsalis and his ilk. Murray's group plays loose and glancing, but never quite drifts into full-frontal Free Jazz like the AACM, Don Pullen or Threadgill. Murray paints around the edges, he blurs a lot of lines, but he never drifts far or long from the heart and soul of what is Jazz.

This is an extremely talented band that is adventurous enough to excite, but never careless enough to bewilder. Great stuff!

 

[Postalboy]

Rockpile- Seconds of Pleasure
Sure wish they made more than one album!

 

[patrikc325]

Dire Straits - Making Movies

 

[LeslieC]

Squeeze - Argybargy

 

[Gasoline Daydreams]

X- Los Angeles




Edited by JazzyRandy to correct RYM link.

 

[axolotl]

^^^ For Postalboy, but delivered late:



^ For Gasoline Daydreams, and "Howdy, New Member!":



For most others, including me:

https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/1980

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

^^
Hey a new member, and with a good pick!

 

[lpfreak1170]

Prince - Dirty Mind


Raw, dirty, and funky as all hell.

 

[lpfreak1170]

Dire Straits - Making Movies

I always have to play that one side 2 first.

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

I always have to play that one side 2 first.

Don't leave us hanging! There's gotta be a story/reason there

 

[Unsomnambulist]

Don't leave us hanging! There's gotta be a story/reason there

Yeah, it's for the same reason he puts on one sock and shoe at a time.

 

[lpfreak1170]

Don't leave us hanging! There's gotta be a story/reason there

Not an exciting story...side 1 is so amazing that side 2 is a let down for me after it, so...

 

[lpfreak1170]

Yeah, it's for the same reason he puts on one sock and shoe at a time.

Have you been looking in my window?

 

[Unsomnambulist]

Have you been looking in my window?

 

[Old Uncle Toe]

Really only about three releases this year that do much for me. Dire Straits' Making Movies has already been mentioned, the other one seems to have slipped under the radar so far and then there's the obvious choice...

Talking Heads - Remain In Light

New Wave didn't hold a ton of appeal for me. In 1980 I still had a lot of Grateful Dead echoing in my brain and New Wave was enough of a shift to require double-clutching. So it was hard to get much momentum going for the genre. But there were a few bands that stood out from the pack. The biggest one for me was Talking Heads. Though the music in general was inventive and interesting, I think it was more about the rhythms. It seems like they were written to be more than just background and beat. They were arranged and played well and were often equally as interesting as the melodies and lyrics.

In this album, take as an example Born Under Punches. The lead guitar is all staccato and is more of a percussion instrument holding up a jumpy rhythm, doubling the drum beat. In The Great Curve, there isn't a melody instrument in sight -- well, in earshot. All instruments are driving this frenetic rhythm, even faster than the vocals. Seen and Not Seen is similarly 90% rhythm, with bits of pads laid over from the keyboard and a few frills from the guitar.

I like rhythms. And of the Heads' releases, this one is very interesting rhythm-wise. And I liked it.

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

Oh, jeez - it's Friday isn't it! Gotta get my pick in - will post in just a bit

 

[axolotl]

Oh, jeez - it's Friday isn't it! Gotta get my pick in - will post in just a bit

We sit; we wait. We drum our fingers on the desk.

Yikes! I gotta do the same.....