Sunday, March 15, 2009

Music Meme: 1984

Continuing my list of favorite albums from every year I've been alive.

1984

Prince and the Revolution: Purple Rain



This isn't the album from 1984 that I still listen to the most (that would be Unforgettable Fire), but it is the album I wore out. Twice.

Yes, kids, back in the '80s when state-of-the-art music recording technology was cassette tapes you could actually wear out an album just by playing it over and over again every single day. Which is certainly what I did with this one.

I was a late adapter with Prince as I usually am in general. All of my friends were already nutso for him thanks to 1999, but I had to be dragged to his movie in order to fall in love with his stuff. I can't say that I'm still a fan, but I followed him up through Sign o' the Times and was crazy about him during that time. Even though I liked Sign o' the Times, by the time Lovesexy came out I'd figured out that I was mostly a fan of the Revolution-era Prince and didn't so much want to follow the rest of his career.

As usual, I can't embed any video from my top pick, so here are a couple of songs from one of the runner up albums.





Man, my runners up and singles lists are getting long for this period. I was good and truly into music by now. I also had a job and could afford to buy my own stuff. My first stop after cashing my paycheck every week was usually the K-Mart next door to the grocery store where I worked. I'd buy at least one album a week.

Runners up:
The Cars: Heartbeat City
Eurythmics: 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother)
A Flock of Seagulls: The Story of a Young Heart
Frankie Goes to Hollywood: Welcome to the Pleasuredome
Howard Jones: Human's Lib
Cyndi Lauper: She's So Unusual
Talk Talk: It's My Life
Twisted Sister: Stay Hungry
Van Halen: 1984
"Weird Al" Yankovic: "Weird Al" Yankovic in 3D
Wham!: Make It Big
U2: The Unforgettable Fire

Singles:
Bananarama: "Cruel Summer"
Band Aid: "Do They Know It's Christmas"
David Bowie: "Blue Jean"
Depeche Mode: "People are People"
Foreigner: "I Want to Know What Love Is"
The Go-Gos: "Head Over Heels"
Murray Head: "One Night in Bangkok"
Icicle Works: "Whisper to a Scream"
Nik Kershaw: "Wouldn't It be Good"
Billy Ocean: "Caribbean Queen"
The Pretenders: "Back on the Chain Gang"
Ratt: "Round and Round"
Rockwell: "Somebody's Watching Me"
Sade: "Smooth Operator"
Slade: "Run Runaway"
Thompson Twins: "Hold Me Now"
Thompson Twins: "Doctor! Doctor!"
Matthew Wilder: "Break My Stride"

5 comments:

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

How sad is my life that I look so forward to your weekly trip down musical memory...

Talk Talk - won many an air guitar contest with me and my mates with ITS MY LIFE...we even smoked out the college theatre with our pyrotechnics...

Thompson Twins - We would sing HOLD ME NOW while working at Cadet Camp..its was like our anthem..hey is was the eighties..we were ignorant but beautiful

Prince - Purple Rain..I wish I could send you the picture of our camp air guitar group...in fact you can see it on my blog here

http://calvinscanadiancaveofcool.blogspot.com/2008/11/was-i-ever-so-young-part-1.html

Paul and the Chesterfields...those were out album photos...we won of course...we were a mashup of Adam Ant and Prince

Thanks again for the memories

Michael May said...

Ha! I replied over there about the photo. That's fantastic!

I know what you mean about being a little embarrassed over how seriously we took certain songs. I don't know that "Hold Me Now" was one of them for me, but "I Want to Know What Love Is" certainly was. It's such a generic love ballad, but I used to crank that puppy up and belt out the lyrics with complete sincerity.

Sigh.

By the way, I'm sure I look forward to your comments as much as you look forward to these posts. You're reminding me of a lot of stuff I'd forgotten too. :)

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

Thanks for all that...but what will happen when we reach a time when we no longer know every song that came out...because we both know that day is coming - like my mother who only knows "Achy Breakie Heart" When I reach that point I hope that as a brother you would do the right thing and put me down like the dog I will have become...

Michael May said...

Yeah, there are dark days coming. Once I graduated from college, I had a hard time adjusting to Life After New Wave and finding stuff to listen to in the Grunge-filled '90s.

It'll be interesting (to me, anyway) to remind myself of what few gems I was able to find during that time.

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

don't say just you...I will be interested to see how our lives went parallel with the music...I am already missing it

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