The early 80s except 1981
What do nuclear energy, synthesisers and social media have in common? Like many inventions they have been usefully used and atrociously abused; but more than most inventions the results have been at polar extremes. Synthesisers epitomise the 80s as much as men with hairstyles like their mums', the only difference being that synths weren't always quite as shit. Successful bands who embraced the synth as a primary instrument were capable of knocking out a few great singles, but never enough to rescue an LP from the concrete shoes of its more average album tracks. Thus, you won't find any Tears for Fears or Depeche Mode or Eurythmics albums on my 80s lists of top tens. What you will find are albums by my usual favourites who either (a) mastered the benefits of the synth as a primary instrument, (b) used it as secondary instrument to complement their music or (c) avoided it as you might well cross the road to ensure you don't step in a dog turd.
Category (a) includes Bowie's "Scary Monsters... and Super Creeps" (7/10) in 1980. Top track 'Ashes to Ashes' pretty much invents the 80s, as a song and video. It's not just that Bowie changed his entire image as often as I change my pants (once a year), it's the fact that whatever new style he immersed himself in, he pulled it off better than anyone else. Almost. Roxy Music can also take some credit for blueprinting the 80s sound in the first year of the decade with "Flesh and Blood" (8/10), an even better LP than Bowie's. Bowie lacked the consistency on "Scary Monsters...", as he did on 1983's "Let's Dance" (5/10), despite the title track being damn near perfect. Roxy Music again score better with 1982's "Avalon" (7/10). In each case, the tone of these albums was very much in keeping with the sunny side of the 80s: Upbeat, glossy and optimistic. In contrast, Joy Division's second and final album "Closer" (8/10) reflected the darker, industrial northern gloom that also characterised the decade, like 'Boys from the Blackstuff' did. Sadly and poignantly it proved an appropriate epitaph to Ian Curtis who took his own life 2 months before the LP's release.
Category (b) is a strange mix. Kate Bush was too much of a restless artistic genius to ignore the benefits of a synth (and a fairlight) and embraced both on 1980's commercially accessible "Never for Ever" (9/10) and '82's more interesting, but less poppy "The Dreaming" (9/10). The latter featured Rolf Harris on didgeridoo. Yes, I know. But it could've been worse. Gary Glitter on backing vocals for instance. Saville on synth. OK, I'll stop there.
Jethro Tull, whose response to punk had been to release albums you could Morris Dance to, shocked many by adding synths to their usual folk-rock-band-with-flute approach and did so to tremendous effect on "The Broadsword and the Beast" (8/10) in 1982.
The Police were initially well known for play-fighting on camera and using French phrases for album titles in the late 70s, whilst musically they relied on their 3 instruments of bass, drums and guitar, played with extraordinary skill. In 1980, they were still playfighting, but they started to use synths; and what sounded like another French LP title - "Zenyatta Mondatta" (9/10) - was actually just made-up words meaning absolutely nothing at all. In 1983, they signed off with an even better LP, with even more synths and a synthy 80s sounding not-French-at-all title, "Synchronicity" (10/10).
I'll sub-divide Category (c). (If that's not the nerdiest sentence that I've used so far across 9 super geeky blog posts, then I don't what is.) Firstly, there are those bands who used a lot of electronic keyboards, but not synths. The Cure's 1982 "Pornography" (7/10) features, as does Marillion's debut "Script for a Jester's Tear" (8/10) the following year. I might even lump Dire Straits in there for company, simply for increasing keyboard use on 1980's "Making Movies"(7/10) and '82's "Love over Gold" (8/10).
Then there is a whole host of artists who stuck with traditional instruments, ducking modern means of performing music, even if the production methods or their choice of personal attire was unmistakably '80s. In some order of preference:
There was always more to Madness than jaunty dance-along singles with obvious comic panache, but their development from "Absolutely" (10/10) in 1980 to "The Rise and Fall" (10/10) in 1982 did represent a long journey to a more serious place, even if the album covers travelled a mere half mile from Chalk Farm tube station to the top of Primrose Hill.
Fun Boy Three might not have had the cultural impact of the band they spawned from, but I've always enjoyed them FAR more than The Specials ('Ghost Town' notwithstanding) and they proved to be another band with a two-(classic)-album career: their eponymous debut LP (8/10) in '82 and the remarkable "Waiting" (10/10) in '83, on which every single song could have charted in the top ten had they all been released as singles.
U2 in the '80s hadn't yet evolved into unbearable wankers. They were merely bearable wankers, and I've retained enough residual teenage adulation for them to still really enjoy "Boy" (8/10) and "War" (9/10) from 1980 and '83. Dylan slowly toned down the Christian fundamentalism from "Saved" (8/10) to "Infidels" (9/10) in the same years, even though he was still singing about Jesus without necessarily sounding like he'd collaborated on the lyrics with St John the Evangelist. And retaining a devotion to good old fashioned ways of doing things with minimal decoration from the age were Richard and Linda Thompson ("Shoot out the Lights" 7/10 1982), Bruce Springsteen ("The River" 9/10 1980), The Waterboys' self-titled debut (6/10 1983), Dexy's Midnight Runners ("Too Rye Ay" 7/10 1982) and the first of many LPs from R.E.M, ("Murmur" 6/10 1983).
That leaves a few LPs that don't fit into categories with any others, so I'll stick ZZ Top's "Eliminator" (5/10 1983) into its own group of bands with long-bearded guitarists not called Beard and unbearded drummers called Beard; I'll put "The Gift" (7/10 1982) by The Jam into the category of albums with 'A Town Called Malice' on them; and Pink Floyd's "The Final Cut" (7/10 1983) in with all the other albums of off-cuts from a previous album by bands who were collapsing in a mire of hatred towards each other.
1981
This year proved to be a bogey in the trifle. On average, I own 14 albums from each year of the 80's, but only 8 from 1981 and absolutely no classics in there. The best of a relatively not-too-bad bunch is Madness's "7" (9/10), the very first album I bought for myself, but distinctly the weakest of their first five. Dylan's "Shot of Love" (8/10) is a close second alongside the first solo outing for someone I discovered much later in life, who took his inspiration from Dylan, The Beatles and early Pink Floyd - so I'm not sure why I overlooked him for so long - and that is Robyn Hitchcock. Incidentally, I am writing this just days after he played a very small intimate venue local to me, where my daughter worked for several years. To be stood at the front just a metre from a musical hero in such familiar surroundings is quite surreal. (His lyrics are equally surreal.) His debut, incidentally is called "Black Snake Diamond Role" (8/10), and no, I don't understand why either.
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