Folks, I need some recommendations on obscure tracks released in 1980. This is for the next Viva playlist. I'm not looking for "That Was The Year That Was"-type stuff, just good, somewhat obscure songs or pieces of music released in the year 1980. The deadline is this Thursday at midnight. Please send your recommendations early and often!
Your friend,
Emmett
*produced by Mike "Fingers" Howlett
Some of my favorites released in 1980:
ReplyDeleteHeart and Soul - Joy Division
Mystery Achievement - The Pretenders
Secondary Modern - Elvis Costello & the Attractions
Wurlitzer Jukebox - Young Marble Giants
India - The Psychedelic Furs
Diamonds, Fur Coat, Champagne - Suicide
I Know What Boys Like - The Waitresses
ReplyDeleteRing Ring - Urban Verbs
ReplyDeleteHigh Pressure Days - The Units
ReplyDeleteTearproof - Undertones (or pick your fave off _Hypnotized_ LP)
ReplyDeleteWorld of Pauline Lewis - Television Personalities (or pick your fave off _...And Don't The Kids Just Love It_ LP)
ReplyDeleteTwo Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please - Splodgenessabounds
ReplyDeleteCircus Games - Skids
ReplyDeleteLiquid Talk - Rudolph Dietrich
ReplyDeleteBasement 5 - White Christmas
ReplyDeleteDead Kennedys- Holiday In Cambodia
Wah! Heat - Seven Minutes To Midnight
Wah! Heat- Better Scream
The Fall - How I Wrote Elastic Man
Oops, forgot these great 7's:
ReplyDeleteLiliput - Die Matrosen
The Prats - Disco Pope
Bush Tetras - Too Many Creeps
Judy Mowatt - Black Woman
ReplyDeleteFrançoise Hardy - Gin Tonic
Roxy Music - Flesh & Blood
Many thanks for the suggestions, everyone. I'm going to listen to all of these right now. Keep 'em coming...
ReplyDeleteBTW there seems to be a post-punk theme emerging, but any genre is fair game...
Sightly less post-punk:
ReplyDeleteTalk in '79 - Phil Lynott
Thanks! I'm coming up with a January '81 release date on that TVP's LP, unfortunately. But I'm still going to listen to the album in private :)
ReplyDeleteAlso slightly less post-punk:
ReplyDeleteSo Weit, So Gut - Harald Grosskopf
Good calls, everyone. We may need to go to two volumes here...
ReplyDeleteNot sure that any of these are obscure enough for you (and some of these may have been released in 1979 in some places), but here goes:
ReplyDeleteThe Aircrash Bureau, Gary Numan
Miles Away, Holly and the Italians
Warm Leatherette, Grace Jones
Colossal Youth, Young Marble Giants
Euthenics, Modern Eon
Army Dreamers, Kate Bush
Ieya, Toyah Wilcox
Song from Under the Floorboards, Magazine (One of the greatest songs ever written!)
Shark Attack;I Hope I never, Split Enz
Underpass, John Foxx
Messerschmidt Twin; Statues; Stanlow, OMD (2 albums worth of goodies from them that year really - their kookiest track, Dancing, from their first album might be worth a listen)
Being Boiled; Crow and a Baby, Human League
Kant-Kino, Simple Minds (a nifty instrumental)
Requiem, Killing Joke
A Woman in Winter, The Skids
Herb Alpert - 1980 (this may have been released in '79, but c'mon)
ReplyDeleteSpace Art - Welcome To Love
Susan Jacks - Ghosts In Your Mind
Eric Stewart - Girls
Robert Wyatt - At Last I Am Free
Bobby Caldwell - Open Your Eyes
The Particles - Apricots Dream
Monocrhrome set - 405 Lines
Desperate Bicycles - Obstructive
The Balls - I Love The Balls
Hope I could help mane
ESG 'Dance' of course!
ReplyDeleteLori & The Chameleons - The Lonely Spy (Dave Balfe, Bill Drummond, et al)
ReplyDeleteThanks once again, all. I'm halfway through Plague's tracks now... great stuff.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous: Funny, I happened to stumble upon "The Lonely Spy" just yesterday, and it's definitely going on the playlist!
Cool - the Lonely Spy is a great track. You should also checkout an alternate version of When I Dream (www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpLGEEASKZk)and the compilation it's taken from (To the Shores of Lake Placid).
ReplyDeleteyou wannit funky, man?
ReplyDeleteTaana Gardner- Heartbeat
Kurtis Blow - The Breaks
Change - The Glow of Love
Adoniran Barbosa com Elis Regina - Tiro ao Álvaro
Gladys Knight - Bourgie Bourgie (though the John Davis Orch Vers. from 77 is slightly better.....)
Azoto - San Salvador (what a bassline!)
The rest of the best (not necessarily obscure, but who the fog cares):
Associates - Even dogs in the wild
George Jones - He stopped lovin' her today
Abwärts - Computerstaat
Japan - Nightporter
Passions - I'm in love with a german filmstar (not so sure bout that; it was probably not released b4 Jan. 81...)
Reifenstahl - Je t'air (Ich dich luft)
Specials - Enjoy yourself
Ian Matthews - I survived the seventies
and the greatest hits of all - Oh Yeah, Roxy and:
gracias por la musica - Abba
El anonymo numero dos
The Plateaux of Mirror - Brian Eno & Harold Budd on Ambient 2.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSeen and Not Seen, Talking Heads (Remain in Light was pretty much the critics' album of the year in 1980 so perhaps this track is too obvious for your show. Still, it's a great track that for the most part has been forgotten).
ReplyDeleteTime - Alan Parsons Project
ReplyDeleteAffectionate Punch - Associates
Flight - A Certain Ratio
& Jury - Colin Newman
It's No Game (1 or 2) - David Bowie
Johnny, Johnny - Edith Nylon
That's Entertainment - The Jam
Weird Caravan - Klaus Schulze
Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime - The Korgis
Funky Stuff - Lizzie Mercier Descloux
Lou Reed - My Old Man
I'm A Party - Magazine
Blue Sway - Paul McCartney
Time Out Of Mind - Steely Dan
The Angry Silence - Television Personalities
Not surprising there's a post-punk bias - 1980 was a pivotal year. My vote would be for key selections already suggested - Young Marble Giants, The Fall, Joy Division, OMD, Human league, Modern Eon (check out the Hicks from the Sticks compilation album), Orange Juice (Blue Boy), Blue Orchids (The Flood), Josef K (Kinda Funny), A Certain Ratio (Flight), Echo & The Bunnymen (Rescue, 1st album), Teardrop Explodes, Cabaret Voltaire (Seconds too late), Pere Ubu (Art of Walking LP), also check out the "From Brussels With Love" compilation, and Durutti Column (Lips that would kiss).
ReplyDelete@ wharf99, you missed out 'Sketch for Summer' (Durutti Column), post punk which fits for the season....
ReplyDelete@ the black snake
weird caravan and time - these drugs work!
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Desmond Dekker - please don't bend
ReplyDeleteThanks again, all, and keep 'em coming! I think we'll do a Volume 2, "Readers' Choice edition" to accommodate all these great picks...
ReplyDeleteA few more:
ReplyDeleteComsat Angels, Independence Day (7" single version much better than album version)
Swell Maps, Jane From Occupied Europe (whole album's up on youtube - genuinely obscure and challenging)
Cure, Play for Today (solid follow-up to the hit A Forest, mostly forgotten these days)
Siouxsie and the Banshees, Red Light/Happy House/Israel (Uniformly excellent)
Ultravox, Astradyne (schlocky but fun instrumental)
The Fire Engines, Get up and Use Me (influential first single)
Silicon Teens, Music for Parties (album of naive synth covers of classics, best of which might me You Really Got Me)
Also, Tom Ewing's Popular web-site has a review of 1980 here. The comments include all the various critics and fans polls for the year etc, which might give you a few ideas.
Lastly, thanks for that brilliant Teardrop Explodes track! I'd forgotten all about that one. Julian Cope was a mad pop genius.
Hey, what about this little cubic zirconia in the rough? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyWE5b2FMDM
ReplyDeleteI think this one fits the bill:
ReplyDelete...and the Native Hipsters "There goes Concorde again"
Phil
Althea - Grateful Dead
ReplyDeleteI mean, really anything off of Go To Heaven...
Great call, Sheridan! Sorry folks, the playlist is now going to be the entire Go To Heaven LP, in sequence, with certain tracks repeated as necessary to fill one hour.
ReplyDeleteyesterday I heard INDISCREET I (1.47)/INDUCTIVE RESONANCE (4.35) by the league of gentlemen on the late night radio.
ReplyDeleteand I was thinking by myself this could be heaven or nineteenhundered eight(y). i was right.
you didn't expect 38 comments, did u?
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Cheap Trick - Everything works if you let it
ReplyDeleteLo Borges - voa, bicho , a tasty Brazilian psych pop hangover in 1980
ReplyDeleteDevil Of The Fire - Magic Mail
ReplyDeleteWarp Factor One - Air
Autostrada - Aura
Dreiklangs Dimensionen - Rheingold
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gf_Hko_UsA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znZvOo2S69Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq2Bkraoszs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLjYDK8ARUo
your lookin for an obscure classic - here it is: the first '39 clocks 7'': DNS
ReplyDeleteano 2
I would also suggest something from The Members album, "The Choice is Yours." Maybe the Ayatollah Harmony (great instrumental).
ReplyDeleteThe Pere Ubu suggestion above is GREAT.
A little late I know but I can heartily recommend Love To Hate You by The Corvettes
ReplyDeleteHi - to the person who told me I'd left out Durutti Column's "Sketch for Summer", the album "Retrun Of..." was released in 1979. (A 7" version was released, but only in Australia, in 1980...)
ReplyDeletehey wharf, on my copy (italian pressing) of 'The Return...' is written '1980', but you're right, according to the always reliable Discogs it's from 1979.
ReplyDeletenevermind, it's a great track...
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