Depeche Mode - New Life

I Love 1981 - pt. 13
It was thirty years ago this month that Depeche Mode's second single New Life was released, beginning it's steady progress into the charts and effectively becoming the Basildon band's breakthrough single. 'New life' and indeed new blood was effectively brought onto the music scene, which notwithstanding the odd post-punk quirk such as Adam Ant, Toyah, Ultravox or The Specials, was still very much dominated by Americano disco - Jacko, Smokey, Odyssey, Champagne et al or Radio-2 friendly MOR homegrown pop-pap such as Shakin' Steves, Bucks Fizz, Elaine Paige, Phil Collins and so on and so forth.
We may think of 1981 as the year of shiny new synth pop but save for The Human League's Sound of the Crowd, already slipping away, and, say, Landscape, the all electronic-pop genre was still pretty much in its infancy and had yet to be embraced by the general public or even the yoof of the day.

That said, Britain was slowly awakening from it's seventies tupor and pop culture was starting to become a little more colourful. "Funny clothes" weren't a problem as we'd already had Spandau Ballet. 'Poofy' haircuts too had already been broken in by Duran Duran, so enter the-even-more-poofily-named Depeche Mode who, like The Human League before them, confounded TOTP cameras with the no guitarist or drummer line-up and did their damn hardest to get the audience to dance along with them, clumsy as they were themselves.

Despite being catchy, danceable and inevitably chantable, the Mode's breakthough single was still very much an uphill struggle, and took a full 8 weeks to reach its peak in August, even then just failing to reach the Top 10. But it was still early days for what was to become one of Britain's biggest music exports. Little did they know that as they famously lugged their hefty keyboards around on London trains to reach the BBC studios (there would be two more TOTP appearances of New Life as well as other pop shows), the Basildon boys (save for Vince Clarke) would one day be playing to crowded stadia worldwide.

True to the band and producer Daniel Miller's innovative form, both New Life and the B side Shout! were among the first ever tracks to be given the extended remix treatment, and issued as a 12" single, a trademark which holds true to this day with their second triple CD remix compilation just out, thirty years on. Operating, generating....

scars are scars

Here are long-lost and quickly forgotten Scottish no-hopers The Scars on OGWT in 1981 introduced by a rather pasty and somewhat bloated Annie Nightingale, bless.
My thanks to Brian at Like Punk Never Happened for reminding me to forget them again.

The Beatles and “My Bonnie”: 23 June 1961

The Beatles and “My Bonnie”: 23 June 1961

By Gordon Thompson

Vangelis - Chariots of Fire / Jean Michel Jarre - Magnetic Fields/Les Chants Magnètiques

I Love 1981 - 12.1 / 12.2
Another double whammy in this week's installment of the popular I Love 1981 series. Not that we like to label artists or anything but here are 'contemporary' musicians and composers Jean Michel Jarre and Vangelis who both published instrumental albums around this time 30 years back.
Vangelis is perhaps the better known opus: the soundtrack to 1981 period flick Chariots of Fire, which went on to win four Oscars - including best 'picture' and original music score - as well as the all important BAFTA. The film's main theme has been used in a thousand parodies and slow-mo sports-related scenes throughout the years. The famous athletes-running-along-the beach scene was originally meant to feature another Vangelis track "L'Enfant" although the Greek composer had different ideas and wrote a whole new theme and film soundtrack.
What was so brill about it was that it set modern synthesiser style music to a period film set in post-Great War Britain, a juxtaposition which was fairly unique, effectively inverting Kubrick's similar trick of setting classical music to futuristic scenes in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Full marks and top prizes then to Vangelis (real name Ευάγγελος Οδυσσέας Παπαθανασίου), for his immortal theme from an album which remained in the Top 100 for an incredible 103 weeks, fact fans.

On then to Jean Michel Jarre's brand spanking new bilingually titled Magnetic Fields/Les Chants Magnetiques (get the pun?) album. Having made loadsa money with previous albums Oxygène and Equinoxe a few years previous, Jean Michel had invested the cash in loadsa new technology including the new-fangled sampling synthesisers, creating, compared to Vangelis' Chariots, a much more modern and bouncy style for the shiny new eighties. Magnetic Fields Part 1 (all of side one) is a mostly up-beat affair split into three movements with just a slower middle bit to let you take a breather amongst all this new technology, and on side two you're straight into the clattering electro clap-trap of Magnetic Fields Part 2, also released as a single, which brings Frenchy style folk music into the Euro-disco synth-pop age. Gènial! The closing Magnetic Fields Part 5 (The Last Rumba) is just what it says on the packet - a straightfoward rumba rhythm again set to a tradtional-style tune updated to the modern age. Cheesy but it works.
Much is made of the sounds of trains and boats and planes, a nod to musique concrète as well as initial experiments in sampling. As for the pop-beats, I'm pretty sure Vince Clarke and pals must have listened to this while working on Speak & Spell. "It remains a rare case of an electronic composer exercising his sense of humor and humanity," says this review of the album and that's just about right. It even got a good review in pop-mag Smash Hits. World domination starts here.

Imagine Lennon

The BBC's flagship arts show Imagine returns to BBC One at the end of this month with a couple of interesting episodes for John Lennon fans.
On Tuesday 12th July, Imagine: Lennon In Limbo delves into Lennon's life following his move to New York City, as well as his relationship with Yoko Ono. Featuring never-before-heard studio recordings from the Double Fantasy sessions in 1980 and never-before-seen outtakes from Lennon in concert and his home movies, the film reveals a wealth of new insights.
The following week on the 17th Imagine: Harry Nilsson – The Missing Beatle, focusses on the story of the riotous life and music of Harry Nilsson. Nilsson, a friend and hero of Lennon's, was one of the most successful, influential, but least known, songwriters of his generation (it says 'ere). They had a, er, few beers and laughs together during Lennon's time in LA when he had a bit of a "lost weekend", being separated from Yoko for 18 months in 1973-74.

Lennon & Nilsson in LA : just 'avin a laff.

Imagine starts on BBCOne on 28th June

Martin Rushent RIP

Seem to be doing a few too many 'RIP's lately but unfortunately there goes another.. Producer Martin Rushent has died aged 63.
Us electro-poppers know him best for his work wuth The Human League on 1981's ground-breaking Dare and a year later with the innovative 'Love & Dancing', effectively one of the first albums based on 12" mixes.
He totally transformed The League of course in 1981 when he picked them out, shook them up ..and turned them into someone new. His first work with the band 'Sound of the Crowd' was in the charts 30 years ago. He was their George Martin, giving the band a distinctive musical style, perfectly reflecting Phil Oakey's visual ideas, transforming them from sci-fi geekdom into stars of TOTP. He eventually fell out with the band during the making of a Dare follow-up although still gave us the very wonderful single (Keep Feeling) Fascination.

Apart from his work with the League he also produced many bands in the late 70s such as The Stranglers, XTC, French band Téléphone and The Buzzocks. Indie band Altered Images, were also given a sound and style makeover by Rushent, similar to the Human League's, with their Pinky Blue album. He also assisted Buzzcocks' vocalist Pete Shelley in making a noteworthy 'electro' album Homo Sapien in 1981.
Continuing to work through the eighties he also returned with The Human League with two tracks on their ill-fated 1989 album Romantic?: Heart Like a Wheel and Get It Right This Time. There had recently been talk of a special re-issue of Dare! featuring, bizarrely, drums and guitars.

Here's a few of his better known recordings for your listening pleasure. Rest in peace Martin, and thank you.

Total joy and order

As if Substance, the best of, the rest of, International, Singles and God knows what else weren't enough, New Order are publishing another 'greatest hits' package next month.
This time (oh let's make it a bit more original this time) they've also chucked in a few Joy Division tracks too just to get back to their roots...yeah. Total takes us from the very wonderful Transmission to 2005's Krafty in 17 easy moves and then (note subtle marketing ploy) tags a previously unreleased track Hellbent on at the end. Crafty.

All the better known tracks are included of course: Love Will Tear Us Apart, Blue Monday, True Faith, etc. etc., although of course punters will miss out on finer JD/NO moments such as Shadowplay, Your Silent Face and Everything's Gone Green. Tough.

Best thing about it would seem to be the Peter Saville sleeve design which makes good use of the letter 'O' (as in jOy and Order) making ghood use of primary colours which seem to be very fashionable these days. Total is available from June 6th - the kind of thing you might like to get your 17 year old nephew as a present, just to show hime how ace music used to be.

Here's the new track anyway:
New Order - Hellbent (Previously Unreleased) by Rhino UK

New Order: just havin' a laff

Kraftwerk - Pocket Calculator / Computer World

I Love 1981 - pt. 11

Two birds with one Stein here as Kraftwerk's new single and album were published at more or less the same time in May, 1981. Although neither failed to make a massive impact in terms of (initial) sales, their impact would be much farther reaching both in terms of the minimal electronic sound and their 'computer world'. prophecy. Back then, Pocket Calculator barely scraped into the charts at no. 39 despite it being the group's comeback single, after being so heavily cited by many of pop's new artists - see Duran Duran, Human League, Ultravox, OMD et al - as such a huge influence.
Be that as it may, the pop charts were obviously still not ready for the minimal electronic sound, and the single was taken more as a Sparky's Magic Piano type novelty song rather than a pioneering musical form. Smash Hits scathingly called it a "silly song" stating that Kraftwerk had been "surpassed by technology". Mmmm, obviously missing the point there, Mr Silverton.

The parent album Computer World was similarly dimissed in the same issue as "a bunch of non-songs..as irritatingly gimmicky as "'Tomorrow's World'". Non-songs? Maybe..... Duesseldorf boys Kraftwerk were never ones for the 3-minute verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus to fade numbers, save for, say, The Model, which would in fact become a number one single within a few months. That said, Pocket Calculator did try so hard to be a proper song, without betraying the Kraftwerk ethic.

But tomorrow's world indeed it was: Kraftwerk brought us into a world where computers would control everything from entertainment to money and from business to travel. Data greedily collected by police forces and banks alike. Ring any bells?
Kraftwerk's prophecy would take some time yet to materialise, yet sure enough tracks such as Home Computer weren't far wrong.

Sorry Smash Hits, but sonically it was way ahead of it's time (as Autobahn and Showroom Dummies had been in the 70s). The short 'non-song' Numbers was a key track in shaping dance music in the eighties and beyond. Planet Rock would build on it's rapid tickety-tick rhythym, mix it with Trans Europe Express and, Bob's yer Onkel... hip-hop was born. True, Computer World may have seemed weak at the time, as pure electronic music to be presented in a pop form was still fairly primitive, drum sounds for example were still a problem, but just witness the 'Werk's innovative electronic percusssion to see how far ahead they were. This is 1981, folks, where 'computer science' was something that was studied only by A level maths geeks with big clunky machines spewing huge 'print-outs' of gobbledy-gook computer "language", and electronic music was still by and large that stuff made by the likes of Jean Michel Jarre and Tangerine Dream.

When technology finally did catch up, much of the album would a decade or so later be heavily upgraded to fit in with the new electronica dance 'scene'. 1991's The Mix relies heavily on Computer World tracks - It's More Fun.. and Home Computer mixed into a single 'unit', Pocket Calculator united with its Japanese counterpart Dentaku, and Computer Love 'sexed up' into something new. Perhaps not surprisingly Numbers would become a live favourite, again hugely enhanced compared to its original form.

Computer World: prophecy of an imminent future or sci-fi geekiness translated into music? However you took it in 1981, Kraftwerk's compu-conceptual opus remains an icon and at just over half an hour long it's an economical excercise in a minimalist art-form which would shape the future as much as forseeing it. Fact!

Hard Day's Werk . .Kraftwerk knuckle down in 1981.

As with previous albums, Kraftwerk continued to produce lyrics in English and in German (Computerwelt was the Teutonic twin album issue) and Calculator was also done in French and Japanese. Here's a rare treat however: the Italian version which has only ever been done live or on Ital-telly. So here are the 'Werk with 'Mini-Calcolatore' which also nicely showcases their minimalist, robotic live performance style of the time, to a no doubt bemused studio audience. It's more fun to compute!

Essential rarities

Frenchy synth-maestro and guru Jean Michel Jarre has a new compilation out next week called Essentials and Rarities, ie. a disc of 'essentials' (better known stuff) and - more interestingly - a second disc of rare never-heard-before-pre-Oxygène stuff. Tracklist as follows:

from cool Jarre-blog - here's some stuff and mastering and that ....

cool n'est-ce pas?

Posted via email from Lost in Music

heaven is closer, heaven is closer....

Posted via email from Lost in Music

Luxury and Distinction

The British Electric Foundation (B.E.F. to friends) will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of their 'Music of Quality & Distinction' album with a special weekend of performances at London's Roundhouse in October.

The two day festival will feature a major concert each night. Friday 14th October will include the world premiere of Heaven 17's 1983 album The Luxury Gap performed live for the first time, while Saturday 15th October will be the first ever live show by B.E.F. featuring collaborative tracks from the two Music of Quality and Distinction albums, and featuring guest vocals from Elly Jackson (LaRoux), Green Gartside (Scritti Politti), Shingai Shoniwa (Noisettes), Boy George (Culture Club), Midge Ure (Ultravox), Andy Bell (Erasure), Glenn Gregory (Heaven 17), Sandie Shaw, Polly Scattergood and Kim Wilde...
Tickets & info here. Thanks to 80s Empire for the tip-off

The celebration does in fact come slightly ahead of the anniversary of the first volume of Music of Quality and Distinction which was released for the first time in 1982. The fairly unusual format of various poular singers covering classic songs didn't really fare too well at the time although Tina Turner's version of Ball of Confusion did revive her career as an 80's star-lette leading to her enjoy hit singles such as Let's Stay Together, also produced by BEF's Martyn Ware. Yes, that's who we've got to thank for that.

That aside, better MoQ&D tracks including the late Billy Mackenzie singing Bowie's The Secret Life of Arabia, Glenn Gregory doing Wichita Lineman and Sandie Shaw with Anyone Who Had a Heart. The album was also released a a special 5 x 7" collectors box set fact fans (although LiM distinctly remembers seeing the single singles in many a bargain bin..ehem)
MoQ&D came back for a second volume in 1991, again without much success.



As far as we know the BEF will sadly not be celebrating the 30th anniversary of Hot Gossip's Geisha Boys & Temple Girls album. Now, that might have been a laugh.

Nighthawks down

The ever prolific John Foxx returns with his 'ambient' hat on and a new album's worth of music recorded with old mate Harold Budd and his mate Ruben Garcia.
Nighthawks is out on June 27th next, although to get it on CD you'll have to cop a remastered version of Foxx 'n' Budd's Transluscence/Drift Music, first issued in August 2003, as well.
The 3 CD set can be pre-ordered for now at Townsend, with instant download of the track 'Now That I've Forgotten You'.

Although we are familiar with the Foxx/Budd output, Ruben Garcia will a newcomer to these ears. Our ignorance is hardly to be forgiven however as, according to Close Tolerance Music, he is "self-taught pianist, engineer, and producer, with six CDs to his credit"..and what's more "Garcia creates simple instrumental music that is poised on the razor's edge between ambient and new age styles. His compositions possess a superior sense of spaciousness and dream-like soundscapes of delight."
Sounds like the right man for the job then.

Here's a picture of Harold Budd, cos we couldn't find one of the right Ruben Garcia and you know what John Foxx looks like.