“If you think the ‘80s were dumber than the ’70s, either you weren't there or you weren't paying attention.”
- James Lileks
There's a Substack site called Songletter. All it does is to daily ask a question about music that people give responses to. For those who care, it's a fun little dialogue with similarly interested folks.
Yesterday the question was “You're making an 80s rock playlist. What are the first THREE songs you're adding?”
You could go a couple of ways on this. You could name the three songs that you think are universally representative of the decade. Or, you could give the three that remind you personally of the ten years. I'm going with the latter.
- The Pretenders/Brass in Pocket: I got out of the Marine Corps on April 20th, 1981. Taking the scenic route home to the midwest, I was driving through beautiful Idaho. On the radio came a song that was wholly distinctive. Saying it was distinctive is an inadequate word, but I don't have a better one. The hypnotic beat, the singer's voice and delivery, the way she stretched out and fluctuated the pitch of words like imagination and notice - and what was she singing about, anyway? It was captivating then and still is to me. Or as Chrissie would sing, Spess-shull, so spess-shull.
- Bryan Adams/Lonely Nights: After the Corps I started college at Southwest MO State in Springfield. In addition to classes, what with the need for food and shelter, I worked 34 hours a week for the Brown Derby Liquor Store chain. 24 stores in the Queen City area. You had to take a polygraph to get the job. I passed. For a couple of years I was the night manager of a store at Kansas and College Streets. It's no longer there. Sometimes I'd also work Saturday mornings. There was a radio station in Greenfield, MO, a small town outside of Springfield. KRFG played progressive rock, alternative music (before alternative was a category) that you wouldn't hear on mainstream radio. Every Saturday morning at 9:00 there was an hour and a half show called “The Top-20 Album Countdown.” They would play a cut from each of the albums currently charting in the progressive world. It's where I first heard the Tubes song, Talk to Ya Later, which would be a worthy choice of mine for this exercise, but I'm going with another. One morning the DJ gave a little intro about this kid out of Canada that was making some noise with his debut album, “You Want It, You Got It.” I loved the straight ahead rocker and the guy's raspy vocals. I bought his album ricky-tick. Let's just say he had a pretty good decade.
- U2/Wire: I was familiar with these guys. I'd heard some cuts off their first three albums, but I can't say I'd paid proper attention. In late ‘84 I bought their “Unforgettable Fire” album and I came to think of it as a masterpiece. It also reminds me of a pretty good time in life. Isn’t it nice to have music to help preserve fine memories?