This Is Art, Kids!

As I progressed to talking about the albums I’ve heard from 1983, there was a question of how I would do it. To make it easier to sort, I’ve chosen to go in chronological order by month. Here’s some of the records I heard from January of ’83 and what I thought about them.

Liquid Liquid-Optimo

Technicaly an EP, but so solid that I have to give it a shout out. The drum fills on this thing are out of this world and the lead singer has a kind of manic energy that is contagious. The title track is notable for being the basis of The Sugar Hill Gang’s “White Lines” and it’s a real shame that they never got the credit due to them.

Pylon-Chomp

There was really something in the water of Athens,GA in the 80’s. Pylon sounds like if you crossed the B52’s with Gang Of Four. Really dancey, bass heavy music. I wish dance clubs played stuff like this, I’d go more often.

Wipers-Over The Edge

I really like the dirty garage rock tone on this record. The guitars sound great and Sage’s vocals sound rough around the edges in a way that adds to that. The songs, however, sound too much alike for my taste(“Doom Town” ,”So Young” and “Over The Edge” are interchangeable to me. They also sound like “Wait A Minute” from their first record.) Worth checking out, for sure, but probably check out their other two records first.

Def Leppard-Pyromania

This is like all of your precious British New Wave Of Heavy Metal bands, but sanitized for a mass market. I like a few of these songs quite a bit(“Photograph” is the utter highlight.), but I’m probably not the target audience for this one. It’s not bad, but it really doesn’t stand out to me.

The Rods-In The Raw

What an unfortunate band name and album title combo. These guys sound like a dime store version of Judas Priest. The opening track(Hurricane)makes me want to pump my fist, the rest of this just makes me want to just listen to Priest.

Neil Young-Trans

Neil goes electric! Most of these songs are synthy, Kraftwerk sounding jams and it somehow works. This wouldn’t crack my top 5 for him, but that just speaks to the strength of his discography. The traditional Neil sounding songs are really good too(“Like An Inca” especially is a lost masterpiece from him.).

Randy Newman-Trouble In Paradise

Ah Randy Newman! You either love that voice or you hate it. I luckily am very fond of it. I am especially into the noir vibes of “Miami” and  the duet with Paul Simon is also tops(“The Blues”). I’m sure that this will only raise in my estimation as I read the lyrics, but I dig it a lot right now. 

Minutemen-What Makes A Man Start Fires

26 minutes of blistering rock and roll! Mike Watt’s bass playing on this record is so dynamic and forward in the mix. The songs are catchy as hell, and they put so many interesting ideas into such short bursts. One of the most tragic things to ever happen to rock was D. Boon’s early passing. I wish we had more Minutemen.

Husket Du-Everything Falls Apart

An acceptable debut. There are flashes of brilliance here and there(“Gravity”, “Everything Falls Apart”, “From The Gut”), but most of this just sounds like one of the many other hardcore bands on SST. You got to appreciate their passion though and “Everything Falls Apart”(The song) is just such a  good harbinger of things to come from the Huskers.  

Kenny G-G Force

I was so surprised by the opening track(The funk laden “Hi,How Ya’ Doin’ ”) ,that I thought that maybe we had judged Kenny too harshly as a society. The rest of this sucks though, really cornball white funk stuff and a real waste of a good bass player.

Normil Hawaiians-More Than Money

Overall, a mess of a record. It features four songs that are longer than 9 minutes, several looping experiments, and a few acceptable short post punk jams(“Yellow Rain” ,“British Warm”). They wear their influences on their sleeve(The Fall, This Heat, Joy Division), but why should I listen to pretenders when I can hear the real thing. I felt every single minute of this album’s 72 minute runtime.