Month: October 2021

Stereo Review In Review: October 1982

I don’t intentionally pick issues that feature the same artists over and again, but nonetheless there are several repeat appearances here from just the last few installments in this series, including Gary U.S. Bonds, Fleetwood Mac, Susannah McCorkle, and August Darnell (he’ll be back next month, too). C’est la vie.

This is one of the first SRs to come out after I went off to college. I have no specific memories of leafing through it, though I likely would have done so by the time of my first Thanksgiving break. It’s pretty heavy on reviews, so perhaps we should just dig in.

Article
A Guide to Hi-Fi Furniture, by Carl W. Spencer
An overview of the latest/greatest in consoles and cabinets of various sizes, shapes, and materials, from full-wall to modular to standalone, from solid oak to acrylic. The article starts on page 71; the pictures are definitely fun.

Our reviewers this month are a typical bunch: Chris Albertson, Noel Coppage, Phyl Garland, Paul Kresh, Mark Peel, Peter Reilly , Steve Simels, and Joel Vance.

Best of the Month
–Sippie Wallace, Sippie (JV) “It is rare today for a major label to release good—no, make that great—old-fashioned jazz lovingly performed in high style and recorded with excellent sound.” Wallace, eighty-three at the time of this recording, began singing professionally before World War I. Bonnie Raitt, who appears on Sippie, had been hanging with Wallace for about a decade at this point.
–Original Broadway Cast, Merrily We Roll Along (PR)  “…Sondheim’s music and lyrics again demonstrate his cool detachment from his characters, his generally dark and sorrowful view of the unsatisfying messes people can make of their lives.”

Recordings of Special Merit
Pop/Rock/R&B/Country:
–Gary U.S. Bonds, On the Line (JV) “The success of the Bonds/Springsteen association is based on their common experience as entertainers with years of boondocks one-nighters behind them.”
–The Gap Band, IV (PG) “The Gap Band promises to become the best vocal-instrumental group in Souldom since the Commodores were at their peak.”
–Genesis, Three Sides Live (MP) “Most of the songs are even more convincing here than in their original versions.”
–Juice Newton, Quiet Lies (NC) “She’s presented here roughly the same way that (Emmylou) Harris is, with vaguely country songs set to vaguely L.A.-rock arrangements, with evidence of good taste in both areas.”

Jazz:
–Dave Brubeck/Paul Desmond, S/T (CA) “…no serious lover of modern jazz should be without these historic sides.”
–Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, and Tony Williams, Third Plane (PG) “…a brilliant distillation of the music that these men, now recognized as among the main transmitters of the jazz tradition, once played as young Turks of the Sixties.”
–Al Cohn/Scott Hamilton/Buddy Tate, Tour de Force (JV) “The Tokyo crowd is enthusiastic, and understandably so. I hope this album sells as well as Toyotas do.”
–Earl Hines, Paris Session (JV) “…the greatest pianist in the history of jazz, bar none.”
–Thelonious Monk, The Thelonious Monk Memorial Album (CA) “…it is as much a parade of brilliant sidemen as it is a distillation of Monk’s own creativity during an important period in this career.”
–The New York-Montreux Connection, S/T (CA) “…offers lots of big names playing fine, even exciting jazz at the 1981 Montreux and Kool New York jazz festivals.”
–Muggsy Spanier, At Club Hangover, Volume 2 (JV) “Spanier was no genius, but he was surely special, gifted, and true to his own muse.”
–Phil Woods, Birds of a Feather (CA) “I have learned to expect fine things from the horn and imagination of Phil Woods, and…fine things are just what this album offers.”

Featured Reviews
–Rosemary Clooney, Sings the Music of Cole Porter (PR) “Rosemary Clooney, who has been demonstrating just how good a pop-jazz singer she is…now proves herself to be an elegant, easy stylist as well.”
–Randy Crawford, Windsong (PG) “For those who have been fortunate to follow her progress through the years, it should bring the warm glow of a promise fulfilled.”
–Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Wise Guy (CA) “This is urbanized island music full of sophisticated, thoroughly musical subtleties.”
–Epic’s Lost Soul, Volumes 1-3 (PG) “While this set does not satisfy the need for a comprehensive reissue of historic r-&-b recordings, it does serve to demonstrate how very much is lost each time a promising record is ignored.”
–Susannah McCorkle, The Music of Harry Warren (CA) “…McCorkle delivers the Warren material with tender loving care and respect.”

Other Disks Reviewed
–Air Supply, Now and Forever (PK) “…the music conveys a certain Outback innocence, even in its more urbane moments, that is rather appealing.”
–Blondie, The Hunter (NC) “It’s not always good, but at least it isn’t conservative.”
–Rosanne Cash, Somewhere in the Stars (NC) “There aren’t many veterans of three albums who have committed to vinyl as few clunkers as Rosanne Cash.”
–The Dukes of Hazzard (NC) “My kids—who have, thank God, just about outgrown the show—think the album is a bad joke. Much of it is.”
–Roberta Flack, I’m the One (CA) “This is Flack at her heavy-hearted best.”
–Fleetwood Mac, Mirage (SS) “I hasten to add, however, that this album’s lapses are not cases of the usual superstar indulgence. Fleetwood Mac remains of the few ensembles currently selling records in large quantities that doesn’t insult your intelligence…”
–Heart, Private Audition (JV) “The principal defect of the new album is their vocal stridency on the hard rockers; they sound like they’re having a tantrum.”
–Kansas, Vinyl Confessions (NC) “Most of this album is tuneless, inarticulate, repetitive, and boring. Apart from that…”
–Chuck Mangione, Love Notes (PK) “The sturdy, good-humored playing, full of repetition, is sometimes more numbing than entertaining.”
–Men At Work, Business As Usual (MP) “Men at Work would do well to take a vacation from the burden of ‘art’ and relax a bit.”
–The Steve Miller Band, Abracadabra (JV) “There’s no substance to it, but it is cleverly crafted pop…”
–The Alan Parsons Project, Eye in the Sky (NC) “…seems more than ever a poor man’s Pink Floyd. The style is grandiose, but the more you listen, the less you hear…”
–Queen, Hot Space (MP) “…apparently supposed to be Queen’s ‘funk’ album, but I don’t think that’s an adequate excuse for this whack over the head.”
–Kenny Rogers, Love Will Turn You Around (NC) “Since Rogers already had the middle of the performing road covered…I don’t see what’s to be gained by his taking up with middle-of-the-road material.”
–Patrice Rushen, Straight from the Heart (PG) “…makes it clear that Patrice Rushen’s real range is much greater than she has yet displayed.”
–Richard Simmons, Reach (PR) “I know that I’d have to become as huge as Orson Welles before I would even vaguely consider listening to Simmons’s hysteria-flecked whimsey again.”
–Donna Summer, S/T (Irv Cohn) “Three of the songs rank just behind her classics—a small percentage, perhaps, compared with her hit-packed albums of the past, but nothing to sneeze at.”
–Survivor, Eye of the Tiger (JV) “There’s nothing wrong with Survivor except that you’ve heard all their stuff before…”
–Thompson Twins, In the Name of Love (SS) “Nowhere on this album is there a detectable trace of emotion, sweat, or any human quality whatsoever.”
–X, Under the Big Black Sun (SS) “This band enjoys being miserable far too much for their own good, which makes them spiritually closer to the Eagles than to the Jefferson Airplane, and at least in my house that’s not a compliment.”

Songs Casey Never Played, 10/20/84

The 10/20/84 countdown is plenty familiar to me, as it’s one I’d assembled for an iPod playlist in the mid-aughts. Instead of waxing eloquent about that show or one of its songs, though, we’ll look at some tunes that were lurking below. A quick count reveals that exactly half of the lower 60 tracks on the week’s Hot 100 didn’t get as high as #40 (you got me if that’s a typical number or not for the 80s); here’s a little bit about six of them.

#92. Ralph McDonald with Bill Withers, “In the Name of Love”
McDonald has co-writing credit for “Where Is the Love?” and “Just the Two of Us.” This song has more than a little of the latter’s vibe–Bill Withers’ voice will do that for you–but I sorta get why it couldn’t fight past a #58 peak.

#79. Frankie Goes to Hollywood, “Two Tribes”
This video, featuring a battle royale between Reagan and Chernenko pseudo-lookalikes, could only have been created in 1984. Frankie say he’s disappointed “Two Tribes” would make it only to #43 in the states (it went #1 all over Europe, and was the #2 song for 1984 in the UK and Belgium). Maybe it paved the way for the decent success that “Relax” had when it was re-released a few months later, though.

True story: My wife was in Moscow on March 10, 1985, the day Konstantin Chernenko died. She spent her first year after college studying in Hamburg, and she and a couple of friends had flown to the Soviet Union on a tour over spring break. Letters sent home to her parents reported that the group’s trip to the Kremlin got moved up a day (it would be closed to the public when originally scheduled due to funeral preparations), and included an eyewitness account of standing along Gorky Street while dignitary-filled vehicles sped into Red Square on March 13, the day of the funeral.

#76. Roger Hodgson, “Had a Dream (Sleeping with the Enemy)”
Hodgson and Supertramp had gone Splitsville following …Famous Last Words…, and neither was the same afterwards. The group did manage a Top 40 hit with “Cannonball” in the late spring of 1985, but Hodgson could only muster a climb to #48 with this semi-sequel to “The Logical Song,” from In the Eye of the Storm.

#69. Scandal featuring Patty Smyth, “Hands Tied”
Smyth and company had tough luck following up “The Warrior.” Both the second and third singles from Warrior–“Hands Tied” and “Beat of a Heart”–flamed out at #41. Neither is as good as “Goodbye to You” or “Love’s Got a Line on You,” mind you, but that’s still a mighty fine quartet of songs that missed on making it to Casey-land.

#60. The Everly Brothers, “On the Wings of a Nightingale”
I was dimly aware of this attempted comeback at the time, though I’m doubting I heard it on the radio. Written by Paul McCartney, “On the Wings of a Nightingale” is a thorough delight. Listening now, it’s deeply disappointing it didn’t climb higher than #50.

#48. Maria Vidal, “Body Rock”
Vidal occupies a mildly interesting niche in 80s rock history, at least according to Wikipedia. She’d been a member of Desmond Child and Rouge, and somewhere along the way had acquired the nickname Gina, ostensibly based on a resemblance to Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida. When Child got to hanging with the members of Bon Jovi later on to bang out lyrics for some new tunes, he remembered what he’d called Maria and included that name as one of the primary characters in a huge hit.

As for this track, it’s the title song to a bad, bad movie. This is as high as it got, perhaps better than it deserved.

American Top 40 PastBlast, 10/10/87: The Other Ones, “Holiday”

There is a very large yet finite number of ways that English words can be combined to form song titles (though one could make a strong argument that the combinations songwriters select aren’t always sensical). Thus, over time one might expect there to be multiple hits having the same title but different lyrics. I don’t know if it’s still the case, but back in the early 80s, the most frequently occurring title for songs reaching the Top 40 since 1955 was “Call Me”–I’d guess “Hold On” or something else has overtaken it by now.

I got to thinking about repeat titles after looking over the first few songs played on the 10/10/87 show, as two of the debut tunes have titles making at least their second trip to the Top 40 (and aren’t remakes, of course). After a little research on the Ultimate Music Database, I could count five such rock-era song titles on this show (no promises I didn’t overlook something). Here’s a quick rundown, including info about the titles’ previous tours of duty:

“Here I Go Again.” Whitesnake, with a little help from the late Tawny Kitaen, is sitting at #1. But the title appeared first on a #37 hit for Smokey Robinson and the Miracles in October 1969. (Plenty of Smokey-related action on this show: “When Smokey Sings” is at #20, and the man himself has “One Heartbeat” at #14.)

“Carrie.” Europe is way up there as well, at its peak of #3. Back in the spring of 1980, Cliff Richard had a haunting song of the same name reach #34.

“Victim of Love.” The other three duplicate titles on this show didn’t get anywhere near the rarified air of the Top 10. Bryan Adams is the victim this time, stuck at #32; almost eight years earlier, Elton John had managed to climb only one spot higher than that.

“Holiday.” The Australian-German sextet known as the Other Ones embarks on their one and only trip to the forty, starting at #36; they’d peak at #29 the following week. No slight to Smokey, but this title has the most star power behind its previous incarnations: both the Bee Gees (November 1967) and Madonna (January/February 1984) reached #16 on their own “Holiday.”

“Notorious.” Loverboy’s at #39 and was destined to advance only one position. Duran Duran had been on less than a year earlier with the biggest–by far–of the earlier hits, having gotten to #2 in January.

—

I’m not overly inclined to do much research to see if five recycled titles is high or low; logic dictates that the number of such titles should increase over time. Just as a sanity check, though, I checked out the chart from one year later. The 10/8/88 chart has–I believe–six such titles (“I’ll Always Love You,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” “Fallen Angel,” “True Love,” “Chains of Love,” and “Desire”)–and a seventh, “It Takes Two,” is at #41 and would join them the following week. Unlike what happened a year earlier, three of those ’88 titles date back to the ’50s.

—

The Aussies in the Other Ones were two brothers and a sister (the female was a twin of the younger male); they all had made their way to Berlin by 1984. Earlier in 1987, they’d hit the U.S. charts with the #53 “We Are What We Are.” (I heard it a few times back then; listening to it again now, it’s better than I remembered.) “Holiday” made a much more favorable–and lasting–impression, even if it also disappeared pretty quickly. In 1992 I ripped it from a CD in Greg’s collection to a mixtape.

American Top 40 PastBlast, 10/9/82: Crosby, Stills & Nash, “Southern Cross”

I’m often aware of the date when it rolls around each October, but this year it was more front and center in my mind than usual, likely because it was on Thursday.

She and I had met back in May over dinner, seated at the same table with our parents, another family, and a college administrator, the three high school seniors recipients of a generous scholarship. Come fall, we had chemistry together and were both in the Tuesday afternoon lab, assigned adjacent stations. We began hanging out some at lunch and dinner and otherwise, and on a Thursday evening about a month after classes started, acknowledged our mutual interest in each other. It was the first serious dating experience for both of us.

—

The other night I was rummaging through my bin of 80s correspondence for letters from my college roommate and came across a thank-you note she had written me just a few days before we started dating. (The previous Saturday I had driven her to a nearby cross-country meet where my sister and some of her HS friends were running.) I flipped the note over and noticed that the paper on the back was a little thinner in the upper left corner—I must have placed a square of adhesive there and stuck it to the wall of my dorm room. When I opened it, on the face opposite her handwriting and under a small circle of clear contact paper, there was a four-leaf clover. I’m certain that hadn’t come with the note, but I can’t remember for the life of me now how it came to be placed there. I’m guessing I’d come across it that autumn and considered it a portent.

—

That wasn’t the only change in my life at the time. The weekend immediately following was the first that I didn’t make a formal accounting of the songs on AT40 in six years. I still have notes that extend into early March of 1983, but none of them were ever converted into a chart.

Debuting at #36 on the show that kicked off this new era (and sailing toward a #18 peak) was “Southern Cross,” the second single from CS&N’s Daylight Again. My recollection is that the summer’s “Wasted on the Way” was a song she particularly liked; I had a more favorable reaction to this follow-up.

—

We lasted as a couple for fifteen months. We were compatible in many respects, and I could recount to you several ways in which she’s had a lasting, positive impact on me. In the end, though, my immaturity doomed us. It’s one thing to look back and acknowledge you had a lot of growing to do; it’s another entirely to understand that someone else had to pay that cost as well.

That note is the only item remaining from the letters we exchanged over breaks while dating–I’d tossed them all sometime before I left home for grad school. I imagine the note had been separate from the rest.

Obviously, I didn’t fail all the time, and failing certainly wasn’t the easiest thing to do. However, at ages 18 and 19, it was all too easy.

Modern Rock Tracks, 10/5/91

My fall of 1991 was a mix of work and play. By October, my advisor had assured me the results I had in hand were sufficiently novel and substantial to comprise a dissertation; still, I was investigating additional cases and beginning to accumulate other bits of new knowledge. Academic job postings for the 1992-93 year had begun showing up in the Director of Graduate Studies’ office, so efforts at constructing teaching and research statements for applications were underway, too. I was also playing a ton of bridge, having made trips to tournaments in St. Louis and Ft. Wayne since the school year had started.

And there was music to listen to at Greg’s and my apartment. Much of it was hitting the Modern Rock Tracks chart of the day, so it’s natural to take our usual gander at bits and pieces of that. (About a third of the songs written up below didn’t register with me at the time.)

30. Gary Clail On-U Sound System, “Human Nature”
Starting off this month with a sermon, almost literally: this club hit is channeling parts of a Billy Graham speech (according to Wikipedia, anyway). Current mood: Clail’s thesis isn’t incorrect, at least across too-wide swaths of the population.

26. The Blue Aeroplanes, “Yr Own World”
I don’t recall having seen a group list a dancer as one of its official members before, but thirty years on, Vojtek Dmochowski is still with the band. Vocalist Gerard Langley’s sing-speak is a cross between the Godfathers’ “Birth, School, Work, Death” and the Nails’ “88 Lines about 44 Women.”

24. Mary’s Danish, “Julie’s Blanket”
Circa came out a couple of years after MD’s debut There Goes the Wondertruck… and produced this gem, undoubtedly the only song in recorded history with the parenthetic subtitle pigsheadsnakeface. After one more album in 1992, the band chose to pack it in.

It’s the month for interesting (?) covers. Circa includes a take on “Foxey Lady.”

22. The Golden Palominos, “Alive and Living Now”
Drunk with Passion mostly features collaborations between head Palomino Anton Fier and ex-Information Society member Amanda Kramer. It also includes songs co-written with Bob Mould and Michael Stipe; “Alive and Living Now” is sung by the latter.

19. Big Audio Dynamite II, “The Globe”
Mick decides to sample a song from his old band, and makes it work. Sure seems like I heard this a lot more than “Rush” back in the day.

15. Siouxsie and the Banshees, “Shadowtime”
If there’s fault to find with “Peek-a-Boo” and “Kiss Them for Me,” it’s that each has a whiff of novelty to them. Maybe that’s enough to push the utterly delightful, elliptic “Shadowtime” into the conversation about Siouxsie’s best song?

13. Voice of the Beehive, “Monsters and Angels”
Honey Lingers, the Beehive’s second album, produced their first song to make the pop charts here in the U.S.; “Monsters and Angels” would reach #74 in November. (The album also contains an overhaul of “I Think I Love You,” with melody and chorus you expect, but musical backing that could have only been created in 1991 Britain.)

Edward Hopper fans may or may not enjoy this video.

12. Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Give It Away”
RHCP’s ascension had begun with Mother’s Milk and their cover of “Higher Ground,” but Blood Sugar Sex Magik is the album put them on almost everyone’s radar. Wouldn’t object if “Give It Away” were about a minute shorter, though.

11. Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
Welcome to the grunge era. I’ll admit that I found “SLTS” revolutionary; to me, it’s the closest thing I’d know to hearing “Satisfaction” in the mid-60s.

8. Lloyd Cole, “She’s a Girl and I’m a Man”
One of two songs in this Top 10 on a mix tape I made in early 1992 (#5 is the other). I’ve not liked its title for some time, but a fair reading of the lyrics leads one to conclude Cole isn’t necessarily on the side of the “man.”

7. Squeeze, “Satisfied”
Play was the fourth post-reunion album from Difford, Tilbrook et. al., the first after Jools Holland’s second departure, and the final with Gilson Lavis on drums. “Satisfied” would be their last song to garner chart action of any sort outside of the UK.

5. Northside, “Take Five”
One huge advantage Katie had over Greg after she moved to Maryland was access to mighty fine alternative radio. WHFS, 99.1, was the absolute bomb compared to anything we had in the hinterlands of Urbana-Champaign. “Take Five” is one of the songs she passed on to Greg (and hence me) that fall/winter. Yes, it’s goofy, but I way dig it.

4. Billy Bragg, “Sexuality”
Can’t say much for Bragg’s voice, but he does have a way with a tune. Kirsty MacColl does her usual bang-up job on backup vocals, as well as hamming it up behind Billy’s back.

2. The Smithereens, “Top of the Pops”
Greg brought Blow Up back to the apartment pretty much immediately after its release. Overall I wasn’t as impressed as with previous efforts, particularly “Too Much Passion.” I worry they were a wee bit too passionate about reaching the top of the pops.

1. Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians, “So You Think You’re in Love”
Cult favorite enjoying his last relatively decent commercial success, Perspex Island. These days he’s hanging out in Nashville with Australia native Emma Swift, who released an album of Dylan covers last year.

American Top 40 PastBlast, 10/6/79: Jennifer Warnes, “I Know a Heartache When I See One”

About two-and-a-half years ago, I did a post on trivia associated with the songs and artists on an April 1974 show. It was fun enough, so I’m going to take another whack at that sort of thing, this time on this weekend’s featured 10/6/79 countdown. I’ll repeat some categories I used then but introduce a few new ones, as well.

Song with the longest AT40 run: M, “Pop Muzik,” 20 weeks

Song with the shortest AT40 run: Mary MacGregor, “Good Friend,” 2 weeks

Acts in their final week ever on AT40:
Chic, Maxine Nightengale, Maureen McGovern

One-hit wonders:
Ian Gomm, France Joli, Moon Martin, Patrick Hernandez, Sniff ‘n the Tears, Nick Lowe, M

Two-hit wonders:
MacGregor^, Nightengale^, McGovern^, Bonnie Pointer
(^ = second appearance)

Other acts making their final AT40 appearance:
Bob Dylan (ignoring his turn in U.S.A. for Africa), K.C. and the Sunshine Band (though not for K.C. himself), Michael Johnson, Wings (looks to me it was just McCartney after this), Lobo, Gerry Rafferty

Acts with more than five years since their previous AT40 appearance:
McGovern, Herb Alpert, Robert John (Dionne Warwick was at #3 with the Sprinners on the 10/5/74 chart)

Act with more than five years until his next AT40 appearance:
Robert Palmer

Acts who wrote another song on the show besides their own:
Gomm (co-wrote “Cruel to Be Kind” with Lowe), Martin (wrote “Bad Case of Lovin’ You”)
[Note: Ashford & Simpson were at #41 and would be on the 10/13/79 show–they wrote “The Boss.”]

Acts with a #40-peaking song in their future:
Stephanie Mills (a duet with Teddy Pendergrass), Diana Ross, Pointer, Donna Summer

Acts with a #1 duet in their future:
Jennifer Warnes, Kenny Rogers, Ross, Summer, Michael Jackson (McCartney, Michael McDonald, and Lionel Richie are on the show with their groups; Barbra Streisand had just fallen off)

—

Warnes, McCartney, and (I guess) Jackson all had two duets make it to the top in the 80s, but only Warnes took home Grammy hardware–both times, even–for her collaborations. I wasn’t a huge fan of either duet, but found other songs of hers more to my taste. In grad school I picked up Famous Blue Raincoat, her collection of Leonard Cohen songs, not long after it came out in late 1986. And I certainly liked her two 70s AC/country/pop solo hits, particularly “I Know a Heartache When I See One,” which is sitting at #33 this week, heading toward its destiny of topping out at #19 a month later. It’s great to sing along with; maybe I should put it on my karaoke to-do list. Wikipedia informs me that we’re hearing Andrew Gold on backup vocals–I should have sussed that out a long time ago.