ITT: /mu/ in 1982

HOLY SHIT

I just got 50,000 points on Donkey Kong the other day what's your best score, guys?

>>126960044 (OP)
BIG BAD BILL IS SWEET WILLIAM NOW....

Unemployment is still like 10%! Where's that recovery you promised us, Ronald McDonald?

ONE LIFE, I'M GONNA LIVE IT UP
I'M TAKIN' FLIGHT, I SAID I'LL NEVER GIVE IT UP

>>126960076
It's more important to increase military spending and reduce taxes for the rich

LET'S GET PHYSICAL, PHYSICAL

The breakthrough crossover fluke of the year has it all over his predecessors in REO Speedwagon. Bob Seger has been dreaming about riffs with this much melodic crunch ever since Night Moves and when I don't think too hard into the hows and whys, it more than satisfies my mainstream cravings. But the guy's a phony and not in a fun way, either. Anyone who has the gall to tell teen America that when you're past sixteen the thrill of living is gone has been slumping towards stardom for so long that he's forgotten what happened to Shaun Cassidy. C

>>126960091
it's another Western leftist to tell us of glories of system which his own country was never "blessed" with

>>126960123
uggh, the worst example of 80s radio rock on one album

This is virtually a hits-plus-filler job, but at such a high level it's almost classic anyway, with the three Michael-composed songs on top. "Beat It," in which Eddie Van Halen wends his night in the service of antimacho, is the triumph and the thriller. But while I'm for anything that will get interracial love on the radio, playing buddies with Paul McCartney is Michael's worst idea since "Ben," and I expect to bear more of "Wanna Be Startin' Something" and "Thriller" on the dancefloor than in my living room. A-

>>126960149
>if you don't suck corporate military cock you're a hardcore ussr loving commie

>>126960106
the album that was on actually came out in '81 though but yeah

>>126960172
like how the Thriller singles ruled all though '83 but the album came out late '82

>>126960149
They did ok despite decades of US embargo and CIA sabotage.

>>126960106
and she didn't even want to record this because she thought it was too explicit and didn't fit her squeaky clean image

>>126960076
the recession technically ended in August '82 but it wasn't for a year and a half that recovery really became apparent

They call Australia Oz because it's about as exotic as Kansas upside down, and these five sturdy-sounding, fragile-down-under blokes make the most of it. Ten thousand miles from the heart of darkness they're free to project honest, ordinary, low-level Anglo-Saxon anxiety, with enough transpositions of key and meter to establish that they've thought about it some. Call the music auxiliary Police, with more players and fewer dynamics. The words aspire to a bland compassion that sings its origins in the vaguely rebellious "Be Good Johnny," about a schoolboy who "only like[s] dreaming," and justifies its universalism by finding Australians everywhere from Brussels to Bombay. B+

For years Pete Townshend's operatic pretensions were so transparently obvious that I'd wagered his musical ideas would never catch up to his lyrical ones. And I was right--both became more prolix at the same rate. This isn't quite as dreadful as All The Blind Chinamen Have Western Eyes but between the synth noodling, winding song structures, and book-club poetry it's the nearest thing to classic awful English art rock since Genesis discovered funk. Best song--"Eminence Front" in which Pete Townshend discovers funk. Just in time. Bye. C-

Bizzers will no doubt rend their overpriced garments when this fails to follow Beauty and the Beat into Platinum City, but all its failure will prove is that you can't build a wall of sound (much less an empire) out of tissue paper. The uniform thinness of the non-Kathy Valentine songs here does clear up the mystery of why virtual non-writer Belinda Carlisle gets to play frontwoman--her voice fits the image. B-

SIX, SIX, SIX, THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST

>>126960419
when will this guy ever get over his butthurt at singers who look like the blonde Stacys that rejected him in high school?

this heavy metal stuff is turning our kids into cannibal serial killers we need to stop this thing naow

If Willie and Merle, her equals as country artists, can turn into premier pop singers, why can't Dolly? Maybe because she's justifiably smitten with her physical gifts. Just as she can't resist pushup bras, she can't resist oversinging, showing off every curve of a gorgeous voice that's still developing new ones. On the other hand, maybe it has to do with why she wears wigs, which if I'm not mistaken is because she doesn't really like her hair. B-

Granted artistic freedom by idealist entrepreneur Chris Stein after three albums of hard-rock self-formulization for bad old Clive Davis, the Ig comes up with the most experimental record of his career. Which sucks. Don't blame music-meister Rob duPrey, whose settings maintain stylistic continuity yet generate a certain theoretical interest of their own. Blame the slogans, social theory, in-jokes, bad poetry, and vocal dramaturgy he had to work with. B-

This twenty-song mix-and-match isn't even monumental in theory, because two of these "kings and queens of country music" haven't earned their crowns--BL is a rock and roll princess who never really graduated, KK a frog ditto. But BL is also a pleasing bedroom-voiced journeywoman who turns in half of a surprisingly definitive "You're Gonna Love Yourself in the Morning." The other half comes from WN, who's on nine cuts and sounds like he's thinking even when he also sounds like he's asleep. DP teams with WN on a surprisingly definitive "Everything's Beautiful in Its Own Way," but sounds more at home on the album's two utter unlistenables--"Ping Pong," in which DP at her cutesiest is outdone by KK at his klutziest, and "Put It Off Until Tomorrow," in which DP kisses KK's warty little head and he croaks back. B-

Bros how is this country so fucking based its unreal. Why aren't more countries like them?

I was so sure Rick James didn't even want to top Street Songs--might give him the wrong idea and then he'd have to actually work for a living. So there's nothing on here as epochal as "Super Freak" but the fast ones are such bad fun and he's the nearest thing to a pop musician in the rock-and-roll sense that today's black charts as well as today's white charts has to offer. B+

>>126960371
>>126960286
>>126960106
AUSSIES RAUS

The UK punks really outdid themselves with this one, it can't get any better than this can it? I sure do wonder what musicians in the complete opposite scene think of this

Because their secret contempt for their cult receded once the cult gathered mass, moral impassivity that once seemed like a misanthropic cop-out (or worse) now has the feel of Brechtian strategy. They've never sounded wimpier, but they've never sounded catchier either, and with this band wimpiness has a comic purpose. "Time Out for Fun" is recommended as both text and music to leisure theorists who reject electropop as a matter of humanistic principle. B+

>>126960044 (OP)
Wang Chung bro, Dance Hall Days. Now this is proper pop music

>>126961143
too bad nobody except Brazilians cared about this one because it slaps

>expect the hardest music known to man
>it's some Elvis impersonator singing over shitty blues rock

I know why Belushi liked this band--Lee Ving sings like a Punk Brother. And in the tradition of Belushi, who was such a great actor he convinced me he really was a childish glutton, Ving convinces me that he really does hate (and fear) "queers," "sluts," etc. As a moralistic square, I protest--especially given music that at its most original echoes either Mars or the Dead Kennedys. Time: 26:36. C+

>>126960044 (OP)
Punk is coming back in a big way. This new wave crap is crap

Turn a fusion band into hardcore propheteers and you end up with fast heavy metal. The best kind for damn sure, especially since they turn their rage into Positive Mental Attitude. I like it fine. But great punks give up more than a salubrious blur. B+

McCartney has never solved the problem of eternal youth. Most rock-and-rollers look like simps or cynics by the time they hit 35. Others retain the irrepressible exuberance of a Stevie Wonder, or grasp it again in magic moments the way Carl Perkins does on this album's most affecting cut. A few rare ones age gracefully into fresh-eyed wisdom, like Neil Young and John Lennon. But no matter how serious and sensible he gets, McCartney's perpetual boyishness conveys the perpetual callowness of a musical Troy Donahue. I don't think this is intentional--in his personal life he seems at least as adult as anyone I've named, and he's put his hard-earned craft to mature use on this LP. But it might almost be dumb love songs. B

Now that they've copped to HM tempos they could last as long as Judas Priest, although since the HM hordes do demand chops Wendy O might well be advised to start singing with her nether lips. Not only can't she sing (ha!) she can't even yell. Inspirational verse scratched on the outgroove--"You were not made for this." D-

WTF is this cover about?

>>126961797
>>126960596
More classy commentary from a self-described male feminist.

>perfects and concludes new pop

Lita Ford owes me sex

In the great Woodstock tradition, this gift from a flower (or two) to a generation (or two) is also a corporate boondoggle--a classy way for Warner Bros. artist Simon to rerecord, rerelease, and resell the catalogue CBS is sitting on. Paul has forgotten Art enough to relax as a singer, which means that much of the S&G material has improved since 1971. But live doubles are live doubles, nostalgia is nostalgia, wimps are wimps, and who needs any of 'em? C+

If Gabriel can't resist orchestrating his rock and roll, better he should lay on third-world rhythms than simulate first-world themes. But self-conscious primitivism hasn't cured his grandiosity--lyrical protestations notwithstanding, the only time those rhythms are around him and inside him, in control and in his soul, is on "Shock the Monkey," which has a good old first-world hook. Only Gabriel probably doesn't want to be cured--bet he admires African music not because it flows like a stream but because it taps the divine, and while he may know in his head that animists can't have one without the other, he's not about to become a believer. C+

>>126962001
tl;dr he's only doing it because like George Harrison he had a hopeless case of exoticism boner

Less impressive, if only because hangloose covers like "Big Bad Bill" and "Happy Trails" are for more attractive bands. More attractive, if only because the Ray Davies and Roy Orbison covers are so carefully conceived. Attractive sexist original, unatttractive (hence unimpressive) sexist original, guitar as cathedral organ. And so it goes. B-

>>126962155
wild how massive VH was in their prime that even their subpar slapped together contractual obligation album still went quadruple platinum.

The art-rock Foreigner is a find--rare that a big new group is bad enough to sink your teeth into any more. John Wetton and Steve Howe added excitement to contexts as pretentious as King Crimson and Yes, but this is just pompous--schlock in the grand manner, with synthesizers John Williams would love. And after listening to two lyrics about why they like their girlfriends, three about "surviving," and four about why they don't like their girlfriends, I'm ready for brain salad surgery. Inspirational Verse: "So many lines/You've heard them all/A lie is every one/From men who never understand your personality." C-

Although women may disagree, I don't think the cartoon sincerity of Bootsy and the Ohio Players will ever evolve into romantic credibility. So while I'm not saying these total entertainers sound like Huey, Louie & Dewey on the slow ones, I insist that they don't sound like the Temptations either--vocally, they're mere professionals singing merely professional love songs. Which isn't to deny that the funk tunes burn rubber and the funktoons drop the bomb. B+

>>126962400
A literal cuck male feminist mansplaining romance to women. Now I've seen it all.

Makes sense that Don Henley's candid self-involvement would provide more intrinsic interest than Glen Frey's covert self-pity but nobody capable of making the distinction would have thought it could get this interesting. If there was anything to actually like about the guy his complaints and revelations might even be moving. As it is, we'll just call them interesting, like the smell of primo tequila or an old jock strap. B-

>>126962477
lol Dirty Laundry was about the tabloid pressing making fun of him for his statutory rape charge from 2 years earlier. he was this mad.

At least Jeffrey Osborne wants to sing like Peabo Bryson or somebody; no sooner does Richie split off from his unnecessarily successful funk group than he starts making like Andy Williams. Not that this comes as a surprise to those who know the funk group. But there are better ways to integrate this great nation of ours. C+

Like almost everybody, I thought this was his dumbest gaffe since Journey Through the Past at first--his Devo buddies at least figured out that robots sound more lifelike if you program in some funkbeats. Granted, good old Joe Lala does add the occasional kerplunkety, but down beneath the vocodered quaver in which Young sings most of these silly sci-fi ditties they belong rhythmically to Billy Talbot, who could no more get on the one than lead a gamelan ensemble. Gradually, however, I figured out that robots also sound more lifelike if they're singing those grade-A elegiac folk melodies Young makes up when he's in the mood, because this is as tuneful as Comes a Time. Also realized that although Young's sci-fi may be simple, it's not silly--or maybe I realized that although it may be silly it's also charming. I'm sure you'll be pleased to learn that his unending search for romantic perfection is under study by an android company. A-

>>126960044 (OP)
Linn drums have no place in rock n roll man!!!!!

>>126962512
>On November 17, 1980, Los Angeles police visited Henley's home while searching for a teenage runaway. The 15 year old was found in the house; the officers also discovered a 16 year old girl passed out naked on the living room floor. Henley pled guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor and paid a fine.[3]

>>126962663
>yfw whenever the LAPD got reports of a missing teenage girl back then they knew Henley's house was a good place to start looking

>>126961457
>>126961606
yeah they got a good scene going in the Big Apple just make sure you got a switchblade in your coat in case a homeless guy tries to rob you. shit's dangerous, man.

Their belated first album tries to be commercial, to touch a lot of bases with a broad demographic, but it's anything but formulaic. On the contrary, it's an act of self-expression--they do consider Rick James a hero--and thus experimental like albums used to be. The only instant killer is the opener, a borrowed funk showpiece featuring calisthenic bassist Doug Wimbish and three-handed drummer Keith LeBlanc. But in the end every experiment justifies itself, from the one Rahiem wrote for and performs like Stevie Wonder (he can actually sing, thus distinguishing himself from Kurtis Blow, Joseph Bowie, and the entire population of the United Kingdom) to the vocoder number to the idealistic Spinners-cum-Edwin-Starr impression to the one Rahiem wrote for God and performs like a believer. A-

Country legend or no, Haggard has no more business doing an album about broken relationships than Public Image Ltd. As a result, material that might be touching from a more austere singer is barely credible, and the three songs that open side two--one by Merle and Jimmy Dickens, one by Merle's off-and-on wife Leona Williams, and one by the austere Willie Nelson--ooze with the kind of moist self-pity ordinarily encountered only in leaders of the men's liberation movement. C

>>126962842
>The only instant killer is the opener
yeah that was NYC in this era all the way

>>126962842
>>126961457
imagine in '82 you could have gay baiting lyrics on an album and not get cancelled. a better time it was.

Punk is dead

I admit that Mark Knopfler is a classy enough guitarist and producer to entice me into his nostalgic obsessions: at its best "Telegraph Road" sounds like supernal Mark-Almond, and the cheesy organ on "Industrial Disease" betrays a sense of humor. But the portentous arrangements on the other three cuts (right, that makes five, mean length 8:24) suggest nothing so much as ELP with blues roots. And Knopfler's sarcastic impression of a Harley Street M.D. on the very same "Industrial Disease" leaves no doubt that even his sense of humor is pompous. C+

Literary worth is established with the title tune, in which Springsteen's Charlie Starkweather becomes the first mass murderer in the history of socially relevant singer-songwriting to entertain a revealing thought--wants his pretty baby to sit in his lap when he gets the chair. Good thing he didn't turn that one into a rousing rocker, wouldn't you say, though (Hüsker Dü please note) I grant that some hardcore atonality might also produce the appropriate alienation effect. But the music is a problem here--unlike, er, Dylan, or Robert Johnson, or Johnny Shines or Si Kahn or Kevin Coyne, Springsteen isn't imaginative enough vocally or melodically to enrich these bitter tales of late capitalism with nothing but a guitar, a harmonica, and a few brave arrangements. Still, this is a conceptual coup, especially since it's selling. What better way to set right the misleading premise that rock and roll equals liberation? A-

"People my age, 25 to 40, who grew up as Cold War babies, we don't have anybody writing music for us. There's a lot of formula rock aimed at the 11-year-old market, and there's a lot of MOR for people over 50. But this is an album dealing with us, and our American experience--guilt, pressures, relationships, and the whole Vietnam syndrome." Imagine--in a world where formula rock, MOR, and most of the in between is guilty of association with Billy's (and my) demographic, he talked that shit. OK, you say, so he's no sociologist, and though sociological aptitude does tend to clarify "experience," I'll let it pass. What shocks me is the realization that this consummate rock professional is working on instinct. The basic belief of Cold War babies is that anything less than everything is a cheat, and their piano man agrees. Sure, "Allentown" digs into the rust belt. Right, "Goodnight Saigon" ain't Rambo. And in the relationship songs, sexual politics rads like me were fretting about a decade ago come home to haunt guys who thought they were a crock. But always this music feeds off a sense of deprivation that transcends specifics--it's built into the psyche of the singer and his audience. Does it help that the John Lennon impression (signifying seriousness) vies with the Paul McCartney impression (signifying entertainment value)? You bet. But he's no less deluded than his audience. B

>>126963061
>at its best "Telegraph Road" sounds like supernal Mark-Almond
>14 minute track
no thanks

>>126962842
Too bad his rapping is so boring.

>>126963226
LET'S GET DOWN TO ALLENTOWN
WHERE THE FACTORIES ARE CLOSING DOWN

Computers? Pfft, those are for weirdo nerds like my cousin who's always playing video game shit on his Apple II.

only 7 years until Taylor Swift is born. enjoy it while it lasts.

>>126963226
>Am I a serious artist yet? Critics please give me an award.

I've feuded for years with moralists who accused the band of abandoning a lowbrow purity they never claimed in the first place, but this is a lousy record by any standard--the pop, the eclectic, even the arty. That Debbie is writing all the lyrics is only symptomatic--the tragedy is that of an absorptive, synthetic talent trying to find its essence, a doomed project that's doubly disorienting because she's canny enough not to believe in "self-expression" per se. Instead she galumphs about in search of referents, referents she seemed to locate naturally back when she could walk the Bowery without a disguise. C

Luther Vandross is a great singer, and he's gotten a great singer's album out of Aretha. But he's not a great songwriter, and great singers do their greatest work with great songs. Sometimes great singers don't even know what a great song is, which is why we get to hear Aretha perform artificial respiration on Sam Dee's "If She Don't Want Your Lovin'" and the Isleys' hoary "It's Your Thing." And sometimes great singers are also great songwriters, which is why Aretha and Luther thank their stars for Smokey's "Just My Daydream." B+

F

>>126963728
Turning the Isley Brothers into James Brown just doesn't work. This cover leaves me cold. Also the production sounded 5 years out of date.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeNumGy0w-E

Well, depends on what you mean by love--like any studio habitue Vandross is a sensualist at heart, an aural libertine who revels in sheer sound at the expense of any but the most received sense. His voice is so luxuriant I can understand why fans go all the way with him. But only on "She Loves Me Back" (set apart by the hard K at the end of the title phrase) do I really love him back myself. B+

>>126963671
The "we don't know how to adapt to the MTV era" album

>>126961457
Fear was a brilliant troll band. Critics took their bait even when they thought they were above it.

>>126962155
>>>>>>126960070

>>126962187
there are some real gems on there tho...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd6mSLI0-wY

>>126963960
yeah they were done. they had a couple top 15 hits so there was no place to go from there. what about it?

>>126963226
The retarded and corrupt idiot Allentown, PA mayor at the time Joe Dadonna actually wanted to make "Allentown" the official song of the city and invited Joel there and gave him the key to the city and he was like "the fuck am I doing there?"

>>126962881
I didn't know MRA tards existed that far back.

Those who (claim to) expect them to improve on Gramsci maintain that this is where they turn bozo once and for all. I counter that they're well ahead of a lot of respectable competition--the babble surrounding Robert De Niro on "Red Angel Dragnet," for instance, may well be the first evidence ever that Taxi Driver has something real to say about urban oppression. Neither their funk nor their tone-poem dub has gained much pizzazz since Sandinista!, where both were easier to avoid. But I guarantee that they're not sinking into the pop slime--they're evolving, and here's hoping that someday they write songs as terse and clear as "Janie Jones" at this higher level of verbal, musical, and political density. B

With music drily electronic enough to pass for new wave and pop moistly textural enough to go over as pop, lyrics that rearrange received language from several levels of discourse into a noncommital private doggerel, and a limitless supply of Bowie clones to handle the vocal chores, this is Anglodisco at its most solemnly expedient. It lacks even the forced cheerfulness of (whatever happened to?) Haircut 100 (wait, I don't really want to know), as if it had as many hooks as A Flock of Seagulls (not bloody likely) it still wouldn't be silly enough to be any fun. C-

>>126964258
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x30qcqhMJOM

why is every version on Youtube some remaster and why was this the only video that had the original mix on it?

Even in punk's heyday he obviously wanted to be a teen idol, but back then he couldn't very well admit that his hero was Elton John. Yet here he is with Kiss's manager and an album that rocks as hard as the first side of Caribou--for three cuts, including a hit single and "White Wedding," a call to innocence regained as desperate and persuasive as "Start Me Up." If he could keep it going I'd be happy to buy my pop from a phony, but neither Burundi beats nor overzealous voice practice do anything but accentuate the jaded professionalism that takes over. B

They sound very professional, they also sound big and rough and raunchy, and with Charlie driving and Keith making dirty noises they transform "Let Me Go" from an emotional vacuum to a ready-made classic. But "Twenty Flight Rock" has been done better by Robert Gordon (also Eddie Cochran) and the two Motown covers are disgraceful, primarily because of Mick, who has progressed from aging self-parody to old roué--"Satisfaction" sounded more worldly-wise in 1965 (also fresher), and the same goes for every other remake here. B-

>>126964258
Yeah yeah shopping malls needed music too.

>>126962842
https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/cg/cgv8-82.php

Oh god, the commentary he puts at the end of this thing.

Funkateers think this is "new wave" not just because the title hit sounds like the B-52's but because secret virtuoso Larry Blackmon keeps the groove stripped down and off balance. Unfortunately, the hooks are few, the humor is forced, and the ballads suck. For theoreticians mostly. B

>>126964258
one of my most unfavorite and overplayed 80s albums

For a while I was afraid they were going to get encrusted in their own snot, but they really are an ordinary dance band from Athens, Georgia, which turns out to be no ordinary thing. David Byrne isn't the secret, just the secret ingredient--one more semipopulist with his own bag of tricks, like fellow ingredient Ralph Carney except his bag's bigger. A "party" record that never invokes that pooped word, this six-cut mini lists for $5.98, as good a deal as onion dip. A-

You say you don't care that it's his best album in seven years? I swear, you young people have no respect. This little guy was a giant, helped keep us sane back then, and though it's true he hasn't come up with a "Honky Cat" or "Bennie and the Jets" ("I Am Your Robot" might qualify if there were still AM radio), it's gratifying enough that after all these faithful years he's started to get good songs out of Gary Osborne (gunning for a Frank Sinatra cover on "Blue Eyes") as well as Bernie Taupin (who really shouldn't ever write about politics). B

The bristling hookcraft and fussy funk of their crossover has never been more unmistakable, and neither has its small-mindedness. Only "One on One," the album's sole seduction song, breaks the waspish music into something bigger, and while their dispatches from the sex wars might gain heart if gender-reversed (women get partial lyric credit on no less than five of them) I just don't believe "Maneater" was conceived with Nona Hendryx in mind. B-

>>126964831
first actual 80s album of theirs while the one before this still sounded like the 70s

>>126964892
Private Eyes? That came out in '81 so doesn't count for the purposes of this thread although the singles were charting mainly in '82.

I LOVE ROCK AND ROLL
SO PUTTANOTHER DIME IN THE JUKEBOX BABY

>>126960419
BATB took a long time to chart, it was a summer '81 release but took until early next year to make the top 10. This follow up was hammered out quickly and went to the top of the chart immediately but was a lot more rushed than the first album and sold off hype.

SO CALL JENNY AT EIGHT SIX SEVEN EIGHT THREE OH NINEEEEE

"Man, we're like the Beach Middle Aged Men. Imagine if in 43 years we were still doing this and half the band was dead imagine crazy that would be LOL."

>>126964294
The US mix was included on the greatest hits CD

>>126960286
This is the album the Police should’ve made after Zenyatta Mondatta. 10/10 no skips.

>>126960356
yep, wrapper for a hit single

>>126960356

These fags played yesterday in my club and it was like a band of heavy metal trying to play punk.
Are you laughing? Well, they sounded worse than you think.

>>126964696
>This little guy was a giant, helped keep us sane back then
Funny since Bobby didn't seem to have a lot of patience for Elton when he was on top of the world. I guess time and absence heals all wounds.

Like every black pop auteur, Prince commands his own personal groove, and by stretching his flat funk forcebeat onto two discs worth of deeply useful dance tracks he makes his most convincing political statement to date--about race, the one subject where his instincts always serve him reliably. I mean, you don't hang on his every word in re sex or the end of the world, now do you? A-

Greg Graffin's vocals fall into a naturally musical off-key drone that make him sound at times like a mullah in mourning, which is appropriate--he's not as arrogant about his nihilism as most hardcore kids. On the other hand, he's not as funny about it as the best ones, either. B

That "Third Rate Romance" is the least impressive thing here is proof enough of Cash's continuing growth--"Third Rate Romance" is damn near impossible to ruin, and she doesn't come close. But since I was never much of a Ronstadtian myself, I can't quite make the leap from admiring the assured warmth and easy precision of Linda's de facto successor to inviting her over. B+

Wish I could claim this millionaire Grammy-rock was totally pleasureless, but professionalism is rarely that neat. The fattest of all studio bands is almost as hooky as Shoes or the Ramones, and their production excesses at times betray verve, delight, even (though I must be mistaken) a sense of humor. But the lyrics are utterly forgettable, and the tone and spirit have nothing to do with rock and roll--unlike Thom Bell, to whom they've been rapturously compared in Billboard, they don't know the difference between slick and smooth, between hedonism and conspicuous consumption. At least Michael McDonald learned his shit from the real thing; Bobby Kimball and Steve Lukather learned theirs from McDonald. Still, for a band that crosses Chicago, Asia, and the Doobie Brothers, they have their glitzy moments. B-

the best year of the decade, everything was still fresh and 80s styles had not yet become self parody

Nothing on this mature work of art will tear the roof off any mothersucker--Dr. Funkenstein's earthshaking jams are past. But that's hardly to suggest that he's lost his sense of rhythm or hermeneutics. In other words, if your ears say you've heard some of these grooves before, don't tell your ass about it and your mind'll never be the wiser. Clinton has deepened in the wake of his failure to turn the planet upside-down, and this is his most flawless album, paced and orchestrated without a dead spot and thought through like a mothersucker. Even the earthshaking jams of the past are accounted for, and in two or three different ways. Man's best friend spelled backwards is? And why would anyone want to spell it backwards? A

On The Glow the present-day female interpreter refused to die, and now she does even better by the suspect notion of good ol' you-know-what. The strength of this album runs too deep to rise up and grab you all at once, so you might begin with "Me and the Boys," arch as usual from NRBQ but formally advanced pull-out-the-stops (with all postfeminist peculiarities accounted for) when Bonnie and the boys get down on it. Other starting points: "I Can't Help Myself," in which she takes more helpings than she can count, and "River of Tears," in which Eric Kaz rocks one more once. A-

>>126965748
how many Italopop songs did they translate and get hits out of anyway?

>>126961457
fuck this blatantly fascist band

hey guys i got aids hows the weather today

>>126965889
Goo goo gaa gaa

>raw crispy vocals
>loud kick ass guitar
>best drumming since The Who and Deep Purple
Hard Rock is saved

heard they're working on a new album, how can they possibly top this?

>>126960106
/mu/tards can't stop watching the video when it pops up on MTV

>>126960044 (OP)
It was a great year for pop singles. Arguably one of the best.

Men at Work - Who Can It Be Now?
A Flock of Seagulls - I Ran (So Far Away)
Roxy Music - More Than This
Men at Work - Down Under
Yazoo - Only You
Toto – Rosanna
Madness - House of Fun
The Human League - Don't You Want Me
The J. Geils Band – Centerfold
Toni Basil – Mickey
Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - I Love Rock ‘N Roll
Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf
Roxy Music – Avalon
Dexy's Midnight Runners - Come on Eileen
Madness - Our House
Asia - Heat of the Moment
Toto – Africa
Survivor - Eye of the Tiger
Culture Club - Do You Really Want to Hurt Me
Frida - I Know There's Something Going On
Dionne Warwick – Heartbreaker
Marvin Gaye - Sexual Healing
Duran Duran – Rio
Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes - Up Where We Belong
Vangelis - Chariots of Fire
Soft Cell - Tainted Love
The Alan Parsons Project - Eye in the Sky
Icehouse - Great Southern Land
The Jam - Town Called Malice

>>126969342
Possibly outdone by 1983

Michael Jackson - Beat It
Michael Jackson - Billie Jean
The Police - Every Breath You Take
The Police – King of Pain
Eddy Grant - Electric Avenue
Irene Cara – Flashdance What a Feeling
KC and the Sunshine Band - Give It Up
Thompson Twins - Hold Me Now
Michael Jackson - Human Nature
Gazebo - I Like Chopin
Elton John - I'm Still Standing
Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton - Islands in the Stream
Elton John - I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues
Culture Club - Karma Chameleon
David Bowie - Let's Dance
Prince - Little Red Corvette
Prince – 1999
Pat Benatar - Love Is a Battlefield
Yes - Owner of a Lonely Heart
Journey - Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)
Michael Sembello – Maniac
Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
Michael Jackson – Thriller
Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart
Spandau Ballet – True
Michael Jackson - Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
Men At Work - Overkill
99 Luftballons
ZZ top – Gimmie All Your Lovin
Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Def Leppard – Photograph

>>126960969
This album sucks.
The music is great, but th production quality is shit.
The guitars sound tinny, and the rummer sounds like he's pounding on cardboard boxes.

>>126961608
Why couldn't they use the original version of Pay to Cum on this release?
It's much better than the version here.
Otherwise a great cassette.

>>126965364
It's about time America had it's own version of Venom or Motorhead.
They just got to get rid of that drunk guitar player.
He's trouble, and too violent.

>>126965537
This is some great fast, loud, thrashy hardcore punk from L.A.
I hope they don't try to experiment with hippy dippy drippy prog rock.

Looks like The Jam are changing musical direction while still trying to keep their Mod following.
It's not bad for northern soul, but I think I still prefer the crashing fake Pete Townsend guitars stuff.

>>126960969
Stop listening to a second rate Motorhead rip off, and listen to some REAL PUNK!

>>126969506
The Exploited rules !

>>126960059
I wish I could somehow type you suck at games homo while you are playing and it pops up on the side of the screen. Such a shit score.

I fapped to Olivia Newton John's exercise video and I'm loving it.

Hex Enduction Hour is the best record of the year

Heh this rap crap will never catch on.