A couple of years ago, Calvin Harris came out with ‘Acceptable in the 80s‘, a song that seemed to collate every single jaw-clenchingly bad cliche from that decade – flatulent bass, tacky synthetic synthesiser, a bad impersonation of Bowie vocals, drum machines – and turned it into something that was pretty good. In a knowing, ironic, aren’t I clever type way.

Well, who’d have known it? The ’80s appear to have become cool again. Critically esteemed (ahem) acts like Keane, The Killers and The Ting Tings have blasted away the prejudice against that most disdained of musical eras. I’d say David Cameron is rubbing his hands with glee.

It was bound to happen. After Franz Ferdinand, LCD Soundsystem, The Libertines, Bloc Party, The Rapture et al had mined the gold seam of post-punk, and !!! (pronounced “Chk Chk Chk”, I’m told) had brought us all the way up to 1981, there was nowhere else to go. So now, the ’80s are fashionable. And here is your prime exponent – Australian band Cut Copy.

Their album, In Ghost Colours, is getting very high ratings on MetaCritic, PitchFork, rateyourmusic and other places of interest to the taste-setters. Reviewers are saying things like “glossy optimism” (Prefix magazine), “a triumph of craftsmanship rather than vision” (Allmusic), and “shimmering retro-electro-disco” (Filter).

I first heard the song ‘Lights & Music’ on the soundtrack to the excellent FIFA 09, a frankly unputdownable soccer game that has had me hide my copy of Pro Evolution Soccer for the first time ever. While I have tried to build Tottenham into a Champions League-winning side, this song, along with MGMT’s ‘Kids’, has been the soundtrack to my inconsistent season, forming a backdrop to me shouting at Gareth Bale for not covering the left-back space like I just told him.

Anyway, back to ‘Lights & Music’. The song starts of in a very similar vein to the aforementioned ‘Kids’, before a nice little bassline bubbles in. A ghostly synthscape shimmers in the background, along with some trebly guitar. The rhythm section sounds like commercial Gang of Four with the volume turned down. A disembodied ‘Aaahh’ voice acts as harmony, as it builds up to the chorus.

And when you hit the chorus, it might as well be 1985. There is no Internet, only an Amstrad CPC 464; your hair appears to have gotten longer at the back, and shorter at the front; Liverpool are winning absolutely everything; and you’re trying to get this song taped off the radio before the schoolbus arrives.

The lyrics are throwaway, the keyboards whirl around and hit the right melody, and it’s all very poppy and hummable. You can imagine some guy in a terrible haircut and a leather waistcoat singing this on the Terry Wogan show.

In reality, the ’80s were a terrible decade for music, with only a few shining lights. The Fall, Tom Waits, The Smiths, Depeche Mode, New Order, Talk Talk, Spacemen 3, The Replacements, Sonic Youth…there are a few others, but the list isn’t that long at all. These bands ploughed a lonely furrow in a decade that swallowed, and spat out, Bowie, Weller, John Lydon, and quite a few other legends. Bad hair, bad economy, bad music…you’ve got to wonder if a revival is needed.

Well, maybe it’s the recession. Or maybe it’s just that, when music gets into revisiting the past (which it’s  been doing ever since The Stones went back to Robert Johnson), it’s got to be a linear thing.

Cut Copy’s album is a good listen, and worthy of a lot of the positive praise it’s receiving. And ‘Lights & Music’ is a good tune, poppy and hummable. Whether or not it’ll be remembered in 20 years time is another thing. But for the time being, pop it on, get out your air-synths, and dance away your job insecurity. And let’s hope the Stone Roses revival is just around the corner. Here’s the video for ‘Lights & Music’.

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After The Jam and The Style Council (the former the biggest band in England in their heyday, the latter an oft-misunderstood genre-hopping collective who released records to declining returns in the ’80s), Weller decided to go back to roots.

Roots for Paul Weller means the ’60s. Mining the guitar licks of The Small Faces and Traffic, and marrying it to lyrics about pastoral yearning and changing seasons (influenced strongly by Nick Drake), Weller created a career resurgence that broke the rules for aging ex-rock stars.

1993’s Wild Wood album brought Weller a whole new generation of fans, and as those fans travelled backwards (as was the style in the retro-worshipping mid-90s), they too discovered The Jam. And to a lesser extent The Style Council. Wild Wood‘’s themes of rural escape (mountains, sun, hayfields, etc.) struck a big chord with a generation raised on the ‘greed is good’ philosophy of Thatcherite England, and paved the way for the coming Britpop explosion.

‘Sunflower’, the first single off of the album, starts with a descending guitar arpeggio, which is a common theme of Weller openers. The theme is lost love and the quest to recapture what was once pure but now lost, as Weller remembers days of innocence:

I’d run my fingers through your hair,
Hair like a wheat field I’d run through

Musically, it’s a hundred light years away from the antiseptic karaoke soul that Weller was peddling in the late 80s. For a man so involved with the left wing of British politics, Weller’s music latter half of that decade was awful.

The Style Council started out promisingly, but albums like The Cost of Loving and Confessions of a Pop Group were out of step with what The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, The Smiths and other decent indie groups of the time were doing. Their last album, A Decade of Modernism, was just a collection of directionless acid house tracks with minimal involvement from Weller. The album was so bad that The Style Council were dropped by their label.

So Weller picked up the guitar again and went back to his old records for inspiration – and it shows. Everything is acoustic, organic, real. There is no synthesised drum machine, no twinkling little keyboard rinky-dink, no heavily processed guitar. Just Weller and his mates rocking out.

Whether as a reaction to the self-indulgent whingery of grunge, or as a reaction to the androgynous glam-racket stompings of Suede and their ilk, Weller’s comeback worked brilliantly, and paid off in spades. Always at his best when swimming against the tide or under some external pressure (see All Mod Cons), Weller delivered the goods.

Here’s the video to ‘Sunflower’, Weller’s soft crooning replaced by a gruff pleading voice that seems like the reminiscing of a man from the bottom of a bottle. If you like this song, check out the Wild Wood album, and also the Paul Weller solo album that came before it.

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I watched Stanley Kubrick’s classic Paths of Glory (the 43rd best movie of all time, according to the IMDb top 250) the other night, and was thinking of a good anti-war song that could be written for the blog. Then, yesterday at lunchtime I called into the National Museum of Ireland to see “Soldiers & Chiefs: The Irish at War at Home and Abroad from 1550″, and got thinking about it again.

Now, Des has already written a post on Edwin Starr’s ‘War’, so that’s out. I was thinking Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Goin’ On’, but then I thought of another classic Kubrick film, Dr. Strangelove… (IMDb’s 25th best film of all time). Then, of course, I thought of Vera Lynn’s ‘We’ll Meet Again’.

First off, let’s talk Strangelove. I first saw this movie when I was in college, and was shocked at how Kubrick could take the Cold War, the prospect of instant world annihilation over a clash of ideologies, and make such a funny film out of it.

As the Americans file into the “War Room” and start to talk about “acceptable casualty levels”, “nuclear combat toe to toe with the Rooskies” and suchlike, you can see parallels with how George Bush Jr might have handled the whole Iraq affair. You can certainly see Rumsfeld in George S. Scott’s ‘Buck’ Turgidson character.

As the accidental global standoff reaches its conclusion (I will say no more if you haven’t seen the film, other than that it’s simultaneously hilarious and thought-provoking), we hear probably the most ironic choice of song Kubrick could come up with.

‘We’ll Meet Again’ struck a strong chord with the soldiers marching off to fight another pointless war with origins in Central Europe. As the War began to drag on into the 1940s, and especially as Hitler took the bombing campaign to the heart of Britain, many began to see the overtones of “some sunny day” as being the afterlife.

The song has been covered by Johnny Cash, The Byrds, Pete Doherty and PJ Proby, is referenced by Pink Floyd in their song ‘Vera’, and has been featured in Dennis Potter’s 1986 BBC drama The Singing Detective.

But it will always be remembered as the song that plays as the curtain falls (in all senses of the phrase) on Dr. Strangelove. [SPOILER]: Here is the ending of Dr. Strangelove with ‘We’ll Meet Again’, but if you have yet to see this amazing movie, watch this video of the song instead.

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I’m drinking a lot of coffee this weather, and was thinking about songs about coffee. ‘One More Cup of Coffee’ by Dylan is an obvious one I guess, but we’ve got a couple of posts about old Bob already. Ahm, apart from that, it’s the easy option of Google to discover other songs about coffee. Then I thought about Blur, and Graham Coxon’s charming little ditty from 1999’s 13 album. In between all of Damon Albarn’s wallowing in lost love, comes a great song about giving up booze and overdosing on something else, something that’s probably not a whole lot healthier.

When I was a lad of seventeen (we’re talking ‘93/’94 here), Blur came from the arse-end of the Stone Roses and rose to be Britain’s Best Band™. With albums like Modern Life Is Rubbish and Parklife, they brought working-class English culture into the 1990s with an ironic wink and a “how’s your sister” type humour, while also poking fun at binge drinking, group holidays, the lottery and commuter towns. Kind of like a funnier version of The Jam.

Then came The Great Escape, and it was poor. Hyped up by the brilliant-but-severely-dated ‘Country House’ single, it was indulgent, smarmy, arrogant, egocentric, overlong, and quite low on quality (’The Universal’ aside). There are only so many songs about wife swapping and meeting Morrissey that anyone can handle. Oasis won the media and sales war, and Blur headed ‘to the ditch’ (as Neil Young might say) with 1997’s Yankee-alternative-influenced Blur album.

‘Coffee & TV’ shows the influence of Graham Coxon. Trebly, ringing Kinks-y guitars are out, as are lyrics cocking a snoot at the Mr. Cleans, service stations and the like. Albarn does backing vocals and batters an old acoustic guitar while Coxon sings about ‘black gold’ and the idiot box, doubling up with searing guitar runs that push excitedly into feedback, like the brain of a man who’s watched too much Lost (terrible show) or Coronation Street.

Coxon’s lyrics speak of a life of grinding boredom, where the days just pass by in a haze of caffeine and the couch potato lifestyle. Ironically, because the song is so upbeat you get the feeling he’s enjoying it, compared to the alternative, which he doesn’t really outline.

The video to this song deserves special mention – a cute little milk carton dancing around to the music, and getting into some strange situations. Leaving the safeness of home, the milk carton (seriously) nearly gets shredded by a lawnmower, is chased by children, finds and loses love in a second, and eventually ends up crashing a Blur rehearsal. A great video and a great song.

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It’s hard to believe The Beatles graduated from wanting to hold your hand in 1963 to this just four years later. No matter what is written about career progression and evolution, nothing beats this metamorphosis.

As much a product of the times as the synth and mullet was to the ’80s, ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ (Wikipedia page) was nonetheless revolutionary. The Beatles were always slightly outside the whole ‘hippie’ developments of the 1960s, and yet they led the trend for all other bands to follow.

Obviously based on concepts and ideas developed by Lennon in the midst of an LSD trip, the song juxtaposes Olde Englishe whimsy with a surrealism that rivals Picasso and Dali, and was to be taken to its logical conclusion with ‘I Am The Walrus’. In Strawberry Fields (in reality a Salvation Army house in Liverpool), reality is just another side of the the illusion, yet there’s “nothing to get hung about”. The lyrics resemble the random, idiosyncratic conversation that takes place on such drugs. On a couple of occasions, Lennon tries to make a point about growing up, togetherness and society, but then backs away with a carefree “It doesn’t matter much to me”.

Musically, ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ is a revelation, quite unlike anything the Beatles had heretofore recorded. Although 1966’s Revolver album had given us songs like ‘I’m Only Sleeping’ and ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, with ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ Lennon left us in no doubt as to what he’d been taking.

The intro starts with a mellotron, and the song is composed in an unusual key with some unorthodox chords – quite difficult to play on the guitar. Certain chord progressions are avoided, leaving the listener with a sense that things really are not quite what they seem. Several elements of the song – the softly-played guitar, Ringo’s phased drums, vari-speeded multiple takes and Lennon’s breathy vocal – all contribute to a feeling of time slowing down slightly…

‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ has, of course, long since become a standard. I think I first heard it sung in a playground when I was four or five. It says a lot about the Fab Four that such a subsersive song can be accepted so readily into popular culture. But listening to this song with fresh ears is a real revelation, and if you’re one of those people who say they’re “not that gone on The Beatles”, then maybe it’s time you had a fresh listen to this (nice video too).

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Now fifties music isn’t my “bag” at all, but having recently re-visited David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, I found myself cheerfully humming this unsettling Roy Orbison piece on a regular basis. Released in a time before JFK regretted a visit to Dallas, and pretty much pre-Beatles, this is one of the few American pop songs of the era that I rate.

And I’m not sure if I’d have listened as closely had I not seen the disturbing and brilliant Blue Velvet, had not watched the villainous Frank Booth (the frankly crazy Dennis Hopper) clench his teeth and contort his face while listening to this song.

Blue Velvet focuses on the dark side of a suburbia that could have been set in the ’50s or the ’80s (it came out in 1986). Cars show off their chrome, and the music is decidedly doo-wop, but there’s a cynicism there that could only have come from “the mullet decade”. It’s like an America that has gone backwards, and the cultural reference points are beehive hairdos, oversized Buicks and Roy Orbison.

For its time, the song’s structure is very innovative. It comes together in two or three pieces that are not repeated, giving the piece an orchestral feel that is made more apparent by the gushing strings. Yet there’s something very restrained about it. Orbison cannot have the woman he wants in his waking hours – but wait until the “candy-coloured clown they call the Sandman” sends him to sleep, and then he can possess her.

The use of the song in the film is a famous moment in indie film, and one that was pretty much improvised by Dean Stockwell: karaoke to the song with a torch as a microphone, giving Stockwell’s face a ghostly glow. It’s a bravura performance, and one that obviously affects Frank deeply, while Kyle MacLachlan wonders how he got invited to the house party from hell.

Here’s the video of the complete scene, culminating in the abovementioned performance of ‘Blue Velvet’. Listen closely at the start of the video – it’s a great ad for obscure American beer Pabst Blue Ribbon, and one of those silly scenes from movies that always gets me chuckling.

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I always liked ‘Psycho Killer’ and ‘Once In A Lifetime’, probably Talking Head’s signature tunes. Being into Bowie, and especially his “Berlin trilogy”, I was bound to check out Brian Eno. While I can take or leave Eno, his production touches on Talking Heads’ Remain In Light album is something else. I was going to write about the album opener, ‘Born Under Punches’, but my brother recently got me into ‘The Great Curve’, which is even more danceable.

Remain In Light has been called a “white funk” or a “minimalist funk” album, and a lot of it was very out of step with what the new wave and post-punk groups were doing in 1980. Wikipedia refers to “funky African polyrhythms”, which to me is an extremely pretentious way of describing it. Either way, it’s a very dance-friendly album, but in a very arty, self-conscious way.

This affected, ironic knowingness is abetted by David Byrne’s lyrics, which throughout the album conjure up images of distance, ill communication, powerlessness in the face of grand schemes, systems out of sync…in short, a world that isn’t working quite right, with ghosts in the machine.

‘The Great Curve’ is a great example of Byrne’s worldview circa 1980:

“The world is here but it’s out of reach
Some people touch it…but they can’t hold on”

Behind lyrics that describe one woman’s effect on this esoteric world – the gyration of her hips causes it to spin on its orbit – is some of the best late-70s/early-80s music you’ll ever hear. With lots of “mickey guitar” (def: very low-slung, with chords played at the higher end of the register, in a very funky way), a propelling tribal drumbeat, and lots of shouting and harmonising.

Yes, another one of those tracks that are better heard than read about. Here’s the studio verion on YouTube and here’s a blistering live version from 1980, also on YouTube. If you like it, check out the Remain In Light album – a really good listen.

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Now that I’ve finally got mobile broadband in my apartment in Dublin, I can write some posts in the evening, as opposed to just lunchtime. ‘Computer World’ seems an apt choice. Taken from the Computer World album (or, as we Kraftwerk fanatics like to call it, Computerwelt, before slugging down a stein of Paulaner), this song is eerily prophetic and great music to robot-dance to (I’m just assuming).

In any case, need I say it one more time? Okay. Kraftwerk at Electric Picnic 2005 was my. Favourite. Gig. Ever.

The song kicks in with a driving, insistent drumpad percussion, as synthetic as you like. All sounds are made by plugged-in things, and the melody instantly makes an entrance. Kraftwerk songs are built like lab creations, a product of the very best German engineering, an ironic take on the creative songwriting process. While all of this is true, they also make, in their own scientific way, timeless melodies.

After the music has set the scene, the lead singer drily intones, in an extremely efficient voice:

“Interpol and Deutsche Bank, FBI and Scotland Yard”
“Business, numbers, money, people”

For anything even pretending to be a pop song, these lyrics break all convention, reading like a cross between Forbes and a business motivational speech. But the lyrics are, retrospectively, disingenuous. Kraftwerk are presaging the Internet, and the “computer world” is a logged-in network to which all of the above agencies subscribed back in 1981.

“Time, travel, communication, entertainment”

The internet has freed up time for many people (it’s also a bit of a time-waster sometimes, let’s face it); booking online is now an integral part of travel; e-mail has revolutionised communication; and anyone can find entertainment in any form on the Web.

Here’s a great user-generated (cheers ‘Dosswerks’!) video of the song here. If you like it, check out probably their best albums, The Man Machine and Trans Europe Express. There’s another thishereboogie post by another classic Kraftwerk song here.

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Between playing Latka on Taxi, sending up Italian stereotypes with his hideous Tony Clifton persona, wrestling women and getting slapped on the face by a famous wrestler on Letterman, Kaufman divided audiences across America. Those who got it thought of him as a genius of improvisational comedy, a Lenny Bruce for the ’70s and ’80s. Those who didn’t get it thought he was a dangerous nut.

‘I Trusted You’ is the best example of this comedy (although check out his famous ‘Mighty Mouse’ song, which is done very well by Jim Carrey in the Man On The Moon biopic). Set over an imbecilically simple guitar riff (A-Ab-G-Ab-A) and a bass line that echoes the main riff, Kaufman repeats the words over and over: “I trusted you, I trusted you/I trusted you, I trusted you” to the excited amusement of the crowd.

After about a minute of this comes the chorus, with the same “I trusted you” lines, this time shouted and screamed. It’s a tough one to describe how this comes across as funny – best just watch the video. If you don’t crack a grin, it’s time to have a little talk with yourself My favourite part is when he gets out into the crowd, shouting “I trusted you” and pointing at individual members of the audience. And what a great dance.

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Go on, admit it. Pete Townshend’s a legend. I mean, you only need look at the photo below to know that.

Sure, Roger Daltrey may be lead singer of The Who, but Townshend’s the main man. He wrote all the songs, handled all the interviews, and took centre stage (with Keith Moon) in his instrument destruction while Daltrey and the imperceptible Entwistle (Des has a post of one of his songs here) looked on, almost aghast.

‘Keep On Working’ is one of the songs taken from Pete’s 1979 album Empty Glass. Apparently he was going through a rough time (as the video will show), questioning his relevance in the current generation of punksters, grieving over the recently-deceased Moon, and with a heroin and alcohol problem going on too.

In the current climate (current favourite phrase on thishereboogie and the rest of Ireland) ‘Keep On Working’ is a humourous take on the British stiff upper lip and work ethic. The video shows Townshend looking terribly dishevelled in some decrepid old house, writing on a chalkboard, singing songs, trying to be productive.

The rest of this album is nothing to write home about – ‘Rough Boys’ should be heard if only out of morbid curiousity, and the rest of it can be left to gather dust. But ‘Keep On Working’ is a great tune, showing that Townshend could write winsome little-Englandness as well as any young upstart named Paul Weller. Here’s the video.

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