Hi there…still off work and my head feels like it’s overworked…
Anyway…*sigh* here are a few songs, consider this a double post as I didn’t post yesterday.
There is no linking theme here, other than all this stuff came out in the eighties. It really is that tenuous.
One day I am going to do a post on the Ozzy-era Sabbath. Forget the TV show for the moment (though I’d much rather watch that than any other fly-on-the-wall thing), Ozzy has been responsible for some fantastic stuff. This is (obviously) from his solo career, and was later covered by none other than Pat Boone, as heard on the credits to The Osbournes
Ozzy Osbourne -‘Crazy Train.’ mp3
Guns ‘n’ Roses were lumped in with the hair metal lot, but they had more to them, which was probably why they crossed over. It would later all go horribly wrong, but this is where they managed to show you can write a love song that’s got balls. Later covered by Luna (will have to post that some day).
Guns ‘N’ Roses -‘Sweet Child O’ Mine.’ mp3
Utterly different sylistically from either of the above, The Specials and their later incarnation Special AKA wrote fantastic songs, and in some ways were the early eighties version of Massive Attack (if you stop to think about it). Anyway, ‘Ghost Town’ sums up not so much urban paranoia as urban fears coming true, while ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ helped to do exactly that. Where’s the 2000s’ equivalent, dammit?
Specials -‘Ghost Town.’ mp3
Special AKA -‘Free Nelson Mandela.’ mp3
This song’s african drum beats were later sampled for a rather cheesy dance number called ‘Sunchyne’ by Dario G (I think. I’ve not really spent the last ten years paying much attention to it). If this doesn’t move you, at least a little bit, then there’s no hope.
Dream Academy -‘Life In A Northern Town’ mp3
This song was banned by the BBC in 1986 because it was ‘obviously’ about heroin. What with Grange Hill -Zammo especially- telling us just to say no, and Boy George apparently having only eight weeks to live, it was getting a pretty scarey time to be a nine year old. (years later, when I sang in a band called She Will Destroy You, we opened our first gig with a cover of this).
Jesus and Mary Chain -‘Some Candy Talking.’ mp3
Weird, wonderful, and heartbreakingly sad, this must have been one of the most unusual records ever to make the Top 5.
Japan-‘Ghosts.’ mp3
Finally, another case of me having to eat my words. I hated this song in 1988, for some reason I didn’t get house music. Never mind, that 303 will get anyone in the end.
S-Express -‘Theme From S-Express.’ mp3
These links will be up for a week only. May my head and brain start to feel like normal soon, please…
