A Forgotten Era
Purists will want to come af ter me with stakes and flaming torches like I am Frankenstein’s monster but I have no fear. I’m a lot tougher than I look and having worked in one of the most challenging environments, I have grown a very thick skin so bring it on!
Why am I setting this up like this? Simple. Today my column is about the Punk-New Wave-Alternative music period from between let’s say 1982 until maybe 1992.
I start in 1982 because that was when the Long Island FM Station switched from Progressive Rock to a Modern Music format.
WLIR was an unusual statio in so many ways. The DJ’s were freee to explore any version of Modern Music they wanted. The management was at times in love with the DJ’s and at times they would be at war. The station broke U2 in this country and had weekly rock shows that they would put on from places such as Malibu and My Father’s Place. It was freewheeling and beloved by every Rock fan on Long Island. The station made the mold for great radio and broke it multiple times. To get a better sense of this radio station I think everyone should find “Dare To Be Different” on whatever streaming service has it. It is an excellent documentary and it shows the true impact the station had on New Music/Punk/Alternative or whatever you want to call it.
Anyway, getting back to that despised era I think people have just failed to see that it wasn’t just Boy George or Culture Club. There were dozens or very talented artists who created a whole new sound in music. They mixed a lot of electronica with some dancable grooves. Plus, many of the artists during that era actually were actually very good singers.
Speaking of great singers, the first group that comes to mind is Simple Minds. As I have mentioned in a previous column, Simple Minds’ lead singer Jim Kerr may have one of the greatest rock voices in history. Powerful and intimate when needed, he was one of the few artist from this era that I believe would have succeeded in any other era as well. Digging into their catalog I would pick “Someone, Somewhere, In the Summertime” from their New Gold Dream album. It’s literally one of my favorite songs ever.
For some reason I really loved The Ramones. Every song is a kick ass two minutes forty eight seconds of mayhem and guitars. Who cares if not one of the band members was an actual Ramone. Who cares that the lyrics were simple, the guitars and drums were frenetic. These guys laid the foundation for a whole era and they could care less. I can’t pick any one song because whatever I liked in that song was in 30 other Ramones songs.
Next on my list is Big Audio Dynamite. Mick Jones, formerly of The Clash, formed this band after being tossed out of The Clash and worked with guys he knew from around England. They produced like 8 albums and most were unlistenable but This is Big Audio Dynamite, their debut album was hard to beat. If I were to pick one song for my Desert Island Playlist it would have to be “Sudden Impact”. Very Clash sounding but in a way, it’s much better.
New Order is another excellent band from that period. It was formed from the remnants of Joy Division after the lead singer committed suicide. I like to group the two groups together for a column like this but in reality, Joy Division was considered Industrial Punk (whatever that means) and had two songs that I really liked and the rest was not my taste at all. New Order morphed into a more stylish band that did away with some of the Industrial Punk nonsense and was pure Modern Music. I’ll throw in Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear us Apart”. Find the extended mix, it’s well worth it. New Order is a little easier to take and harder to decide which song should be included but I will go with their standard, “Blue Monday”. It exemplifies perfectly what this band was all about.
Hard to not include Ministry in that paragraph but I decided to separate them for this column. The last time I was at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I went looking for any displays they might have celebrating that era and sure there was Iggy Pop and The Clash but not much more. I did see that they had a sort of display with Joy Division and Ministry on it but it was basically two concert posters from some pubs in England. Not much thought went into that and I think my two paragraphs here are more that the Hall deemed appropriate. Ministry had some success in the UK and the aformentioned WLIR broke them in the US. There are actually three songs from them that I really love, “I Wanted to Tell Her”, “Work For Love” and “Everyday is Halloween”.
From the crumbles of The Sex Pistols came Public Image Limited. John Lydon is easily the angriest person in rock music. No matter what he does, it has a tinge of revenge and sour grapes so my choice of “Happy” is so out of character for him and the band it almost funny. The song has a great beat and if you listen to the lyrics, it’s anything but happy.
Putting the B-52’s in this genre’ definitly is a disservice to the band. The B-52’s were a staple of FM rock stations for years yet they started as a New Wave band because they were so different. I have always loved them and could watch them anytime day or night. Picking any one song for this column was hard but I will go with “Legal Tender”. A fun little love story about counterfitting.
Another odd band was The Brian Setzer Orchestra. Hailing from Long Island and doing a retro take on the Big Band sound of the 30’s and 40’s the Brian Setzer orchestra introduced the world to talented musicianship with a fun side. They could be comd=fortable playing a sock hop in the 50’s or a rave in the 90’s. I have listened to everyone of their albums over the years and I honestly think you can’t go wrong by just popping a couple of records on the record player and rolling down your white socks and tapping your toes to “Jump, Jive and Wail” or any other song.
I will end this segment by just mentioning The Clash and suggesting you find the extended version of “Magnificent Seven”. It could be life changing. A little story on this song. I love listening to Sirius radio and their New Wave station but they only play the single of this song. I became so incensed I contacted one of the DJ’s at the station and asked why? The guys response was “It’s the only version we have”. Huh? I hear six different versions of The Pet Shop Boys’ “West End Girls”, yet they don’t have the extended version of one of the best New Wave songs ever recorded? Dumb