I Love 1980 - appendix 4

Looking through the BBC archives (as you do) I came across this Tomorrow's World 'review of 1980' which was broadcast "before the summer break" not actuallt at the end of the year. Tomorrow's World was a kind of science and technology for non-geeks programme (and you had to be a geek in those days if you had anything to do with technology) which was always on before TOTP on a Thursday night, which is probably why I only ever used to see the end of it.

Anyways here's the aformentioned review which is a tad boring but bear with it until the end (17:00 mins in..) for the seminal feature where our man Prendiville (usually had the 'funny' bits) demonstrates some "electronically created sounds"...fascinating!

(click pic for link .. BBC vids don't embed . boooo!)



Dog barking sounds aside, TW also had a pretty cool electro-theme tune as from the beginning of 1980 too..thoise guys were always so ahead of their time.

Listen:
Tomorrows World - 1980s Theme Song

Christmas is coming..?

Good Lord .. hardly time to put the deck chairs away and some folks are already talking about Christmas. That Annie Lennox for one!
The former Tourists & Eurythmics singer has gone and left Sony and will release her next album, “A Christmas Cornucopia” a collection of "dark" covers of Christmas carols, through Island Records on 22nd November. "I want to make timeless music that people will love in many years to come...and I’d like to think that “A Christmas Cornucopia” is going to be of those recordings,” says Ms Lennox on her official website. The album will also feature an original composition entitled, “Universal Child.” Ho ho ho!
Lim asks: But wasn't she a Buddist at some point?








Annie Lennox looks for inspiration as to what to get for her Granny this year.



























sorry, no Annie Lennox music available atm ..

Mirror men

Brighton band Mirrors release their new single Ways To An End this week, their first on their label, Skint of Brighton. Tracks can be downloaded via usual i-tunes etc. and even 7" vinyl (yes, seven inch vinyl!) can be purchased in good record shops or here.
Mirrors will be supporting OMD on their European live History of Modern tour dates. Not surprising really as their tough yet melodic electro-sound often out-OMDs even OMD: listen to Look at Me or Fear of Drowning for the proof. They even do experimental type 'B sides' in the style of I Betray My Friends or 66 & Fading. Check out Of The Night And The Light And The Half-Light below.
For those who won't be at an OMD European "gig" the band's newsletter has informed that Mirrors will be also be "gracing the stages" of Camden's KoKo, and Brighton's Audio this Friday and Saturday respectfully. "Please join them for two splendid evenings of loud pulsing synthesizer-based sound and song." We wish!




Mirrors: "do we look like Kraftwerk in this? Good!"













Listen: Mirrors - Of the Night and the Light and the Half Light

Bon Anniversaire

..that's French for Happy Birthday as it's Jean Michel Jarre's reaches 62 years of age today. (and still annoying good looking in a French kind of way..)

Good old (ooops) Jean Michel has been active on the popular music front for over 30 years now since shooting to fame with the pioneering all electronic instrumental suite "Oxygène" which entered the album charts this week in 1977.

Despite being largely ignored by the press as being unfashionable, eccentric and (probably) French over the years Monsieur Jarre recently received the Lifetime Achievement award from UK music monthly Mojo.
A mammoth European tour continues into 2010



that was then...

OMD - If You Want It - Official Video

to be honest, not as bad as we thought (although sonically LiM prefers the Villa Nah mix... )

I Love 1980 - 20

David Bowie - Ashes to Ashes

Over half way into 1980 and we've had new wave, new music....then we had David Bowie with Ashes to Ashes....


Smash Hits described it as "a strange choice for a single", understandably perhaps on first listening.
But just as there's no-one else like David Bowie there's nothing else quite like Ashes to Ashes. No you can't dance to it, you can't whistle it and you can't really seriously sing along to it, but that's where the beauty lies in this monumental single. It's originality, it's uniqueness...and it's David Bowie-ness

After the heady 70s, the Berlin trilogy and all the rest of it, Bowie was effectively reinventing himself, celebrating the funeral of Major Tom (a guy that's been in such an early song) and his recent past (I've never good things, I've never done bad things..), and his desire to get away from his past (want an axe to break the ice, wanna come down right now), with the famous closing hook-line "My mamma said..." effectively cutting all ties with the Major Tom character.
This is Bowie learning from the past (as a person and as a musician) and clearing it away with his big Scary Monster bulldozer, opening up the road for ...new sounds, new styles, new shapes.... It's no coincidence that Steve Strange and Darla Jane Gilroy are among the mysterious black-clad cohorts in the video..


And yes, the video. Almost as complex as the song itself, costing a fortune and using all the latest techniques and again showing the way for the new decade, with the costumes, the make-up, loud new colour combinations.

Goodbye seventies. With Ashes to Ashes the 80s may now officially begin.

Ashes to Ashes chart stats
Scarey Monsters on Unmann Wittering

Listen: David Bowie - Ashes to Ashes
(and sing-along if you can)

thanks to Brian Damage for Smash Hits pages

Ashes to Ashes was first released on 08.08.80 - this post will be published on 08.08.2010 at 08:00.

...my mama said...

..a bulldozer is coming...

I Love 1980 - 19

Abba - The Winner Takes It All

Number One thirty years ago folks....amazingly moving song in Abba's already vast repertoire. Always incredibly unfashionable in the face of new wave, new this and new that but I'd loved Abba since Waterloo and in fact they were secretly loved by many, and were an important part of the DNA of the new pop of the 80's, as well as being totally re-discovered, re-visited and re-purposed more recently with the various multi-million selling "Abba Gold"s, the "Mamma Mia" musical/movie (which features an excellent versh of Winner by Meryl Streep BTW..) and all that.

A cracking song though, and perhaps one of their last decent ones. Oddly they hadn't had a no. 1 in th UK since Take A Chance on Me in early 78 and popularity had waned a bit, but they managed it twice in 1980 with this one and Super Trouper towards Christmas.
Still manages to give me the shivers to this day when Agnetha sings.. "and I understand, you've come to shake my hand.." .. No Agnetha! No! Marry me please!
I'm posting the video this time as well as the mp3 cos you just gotta love Agnetha's expressions through all of this, plus the smart Abba-clobba..

Abba - The Winner Takes It All

Listen: Abba - The Winner Takes It All

Gimme some re-masters

The John Lennon 70th birthday tribute will get started after the summer with the issue eight of Lennon’s classic solo albums and other recordings digitally remastered from his original mixes for a global catalogue initiative commemorating the music legend’s birthday, on October 9th 2010.
Overseen by Yoko Ono, John Lennon’s “Gimme Some Truth” campaign will launch on 4 October with the worldwide release of eight remastered studio albums and several newly-compiled titles.
The albums have been digitally remastered from Lennon’s original mixes by Yoko Ono and a team of engineers led by Allan Rouse at EMI Music’s Abbey Road Studios in London and by George Marino at Avatar Studios in New York. All of the remastered titles will be packaged in digisleeves with replicated original album art and booklets with photos and new liner notes by noted British music journalist Paul Du Noyer. The albums to be reissued are:

· John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970)
· Imagine (1971)
· Some Time In New York City (1972)
· Mind Games (1973)
· Walls and Bridges (1974)
· Rock ‘n’ Roll (1975)
· Double Fantasy Stripped Down (2010) / Double Fantasy (1980)
· Milk and Honey (1984)

The 'Stripped Down' version of Double Fantasy is a newly produced and remixed version of Lennon's 1980 album. Says Yoko: “Double Fantasy Stripped Down really allows us to focus our attention on John’s amazing vocals. By stripping down some of the instrumentation the power of the songs shines through with an enhanced clarity. It was whilst working on the new version of this album that I was hit hardest emotionally, as this was the last album John released before his passing." Aww bless.

..and there's more... Power To The People: The Hits gathers 15 of Lennon’s most popular songs, and will be available as a 15-track single-disc and digital package, and as an Experience Edition with additional content.

info source: johnlennon.com, The Beatles facebook






John Lennon: " do I look like Jesus Christ in this?"

Nudity & the NME

1982: Siouxise ... yes.


































2007: beth Ditto .... no.


























See what I mean about the kids today!!?!?