As we moved into the later 1980s the music world was getting away from me. We had Whitney Houston, Tiffany, Debbie Gibson, Richard Marx, Miami Sound Machine....not my cup of tea. Some of the tunes today were big enough hits and some...well you have to dig a little but there's always good music, somewhere!
I didn't know that! A couple of guys from Bauhaus formed this group, Love and Rockets. Look at that hairdo! I gotta get me one of those.
Here's a much beloved tune. These fellows seem like nice lads, don't they? There are 11 of them in the group. UB stands for "unemployment benefits". This particular tune, a classic, is a Neil Diamond song. Everyone knew that, right? One of my favorite albums is this old Neil Diamond thing with Red Red Wine, I'm a Believer (you knew he wrote lots of Monkees hits, right?) and a bunch of other goodies. I saw an album that was Neil Diamond's biggies from the early years, like 1966 and 1967. I also saw one that encompassed the years 1966 through 1990, which is 23 years too many.
Oh boy! Well I like the Pet Shop Boys just fine but combine them with Dusty Springfield!! Here they are at some kind of awards show, doing this big hit. My bass player and I wrote Dusty's management a letter in the 70s, offering to write for her. Nothing came of it and it wasn't until this song here that she had a comeback of any sort.
When we were in Los Angeles there was this guy named Kim Fowley who liked to put projects together. One of his projects was the Runaways, which worked out pretty well! Joan grew up a little and ten years later recorded this gem.
Also from the L.A. area, Jane's Addiction strikes me as a group of guys I don't want over for dinner. I don't know why. I just get the feeling crockery would get broken.
From Australia, this was a huge hit. Peter Garrett, the singer, got into politics and became Australia's Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. That's a nice sounding gig.
Joy Division was a popular British band but the lead singer, Ian Curtis, was awfully messed up, an epileptic who got depressed. There's a pretty good movie about him and the group, called Control. Anyway, he killed himself and the rest of the group reformed as New Order. This is my favorite of theirs.
I admit I've never really been a Morrissey fan, thinking that the Smiths sounded as good as they did because of guitarist Johnny Marr's great tone. Lately I've paid more attention to the lyrics, though, and am appreciating the group.
The New Zealand band Split Enz was one group I did like. The key to their sound, for me, was the pop sound that the Finn brothers brought to the group. When the Finns left to form their own band they had their biggest success.
