Ivan Doroschuk and the rest of Men Without Hats grabbed the #157 ("I Like") and #52 ("The Safety Dance") spots on my Top 200. Another great song by the Montreal new wavers is "Antarctica", off their 1980 EP Folk Of The 80s. A simplistic yet bouncy synth line propels this track, which caught the attention of the Canadian public and music press (though it failed to chart) and led to their debut album, Rhythm Of Youth. That album went multi-platinum in 1982.
More hits followed, including the two songs mentioned above, and:
"Pop Goes The World", from the album of the same name (released in 1987).
"Moonbeam", from the same album:
Feminist-man anthem "Hey Men" (1989):
And of course the song Nirvana ripped off for "Smells Like Teen Spirit", "Sideways" (1991):
Oh and what about Ivan's solo career?! When I saw him perform in Montreal on a frigid December night in 1997, he opened with his then-current single, "SuperBadGirls":
Be back next week with another great (non-Ivan) song that almost made it onto my list.
Like several other artists who weren’t organically New Wave but dabbled in it, Joan Armatrading was a very successful UK adult easy listening songstress with a long career that touched the worlds of pop, jazz, folk, blues and reggae. She had ten (!) albums under her belt by the time she dropped a heavily synthesized and edgy quasi-New Wave release called “The Key” in 1983. The best song on the album (and likely of her entire 45 year career) was featured on it - a real earworm of a love tune with a great hook and wildly weird lyrics that gave Joan’s superb voice a workout. “Drop The Pilot” isn't heard often these days but it’s a wonderful song from a multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter lady who I wished spent more time doing New Wave! It’s our Awesome Song Of The Week, and the video is great too!
Wait a minute - we can't stop Ladies Night that quickly!
Ladies Night Bonus:
Although we all know the UK was New Wave Central for both genders, and Marc has shown us that Canada was very well-represented -- the US had it’s share of New Wave ladies too! Interestingly, one of the sub-genres of New Wave featured many ladies… that weird & wonderful world where punk, rockabilly and New Wave blended together with a 1950s twist!
Ground zero of the movement was at NYC club CBGB, which was well-known as one of the incubators of punk and new wave (even though the club’s name stood for “Country BlueGrass & Blues”). Blondie and Cyndi Lauper (and the Stray Cats & Robert Gordon amongst males) played - all had a definite 50s influence, whether through look, sound or attitude. In fact, Cyndi’s first album was with a band named “Blue Angel” which was definite 50’s material with a New Wave twist!
Out on the Left Coast, radio station KROQ, the LA club scene and the movie "Valley Girl” all contributed to the West Coast New Wave movement which had a weird distinctive flavor of it’s own, with many 50s music influences prevalent, like in the music of the Go-Gos and Toni Basil. And let’s not forget that New Wave movie classic “Valley Girl” featured the acting debut of 50s-style acting impresario (& Elvis impersonator) Nicholas Cage! Seeing a trend here ?
Our bonus artist Josie Cotton hailed from Texas but made her name in LA in that 80s California scene … she is sometimes viewed as a one-hit wonder because of her novelty tune “Johnny, Are You Queer?” but her talent was much greater than that. In my view her best song was “He Could Be The One”, an old-school 50s style rave up with great instrumentation, backing vocals and Josie’s inimitable baby-doll singing. Although she looks like a cast member of “Grease” and sings like a doo-wopper, her songs were featured on the “New Wave Hit of the 80s” CDs as well as on the “Valley Girl” soundtrack - so her New Wave pedigree is not in doubt. And Josie’s 1983 tune "He Could Be The One" is still a classic today!
And let’s finish with one more she-bopping classic …. a second Ladies Night Bonus:
Blue Angel, featuring Cyndi Lauper, doing “Maybe He’ll Know".
Billy Idol week continues! WAS featured Billy's great song "White Wedding" in his last Awesome New Wave Song of the Week entry. Here in my Just Missed It! series I'm going to spotlight another great Idol song, "Blue Highway", from his 1983 album Rebel Yell.
"Blue Highway" was never released as a single, due to the general cluelessness of record label A&R personnel. It could have (and probably would have) been a smash hit if released. I considered the song for my Top 200 list, but in the end it didn't make it on.
Also from Rebel Yell, here's the title track.
Be back next week with another (non-Billy) song that just missed.
Taking their name from the brief record shop scene in “A Clockwork Orange”, Heaven 17 were one of those New Wave bands that I always respected and found intriguing … but never really loved. In my world they were kinda like the Boston of New Wave … a moment or two of greatness in a career of output that generally all sounded the same. That said, the first two songs I ever heard from H17 amazed me and I listen to them with joy to this day. Both were from their second album “The Luxury Gap” released in 1981. “Let Me Go” was a slow-burning masterpiece of unrequited love, with a spectacular slow groove and wonderful vocal work. It was voted “Screamer of the Week” by listeners on trend-setting FM radio pioneer WDRE on December 3, 1982.
H17’s “We Live So Fast” on the other hand is a paean to the manic pace of today’s life with wonderfully tense drumming ... the very appropriate video has the lads jet-setting and working the phones on a private jet… it was good to be an up & coming New Waver back in the Big 80s! To me, the rest of the H17 catalog is all very similar … odd songs about politics & economics … with basically the same rhythm track and overly aggressive vocals. Meh.
In a similar vein at the same time, a fellow named William Michael Albert Broad released his own second LP, a self-titled one, also in 1982 - one you may be more familiar with when it’s called “Billy Idol”. Similar to H17, in my opinion the bulk of Mr. Broad’s work was not very listenable, basically consisting of low-IQ, arena-ready anthems for drunken frat boys. Not a big fan of his work, although I will admit that as a guilty pleasure I do sneak in a listen of “Dancing With Myself” on occasion… but that one I give more credit to the golden touch of Tony James of Gen X (and later Sigue Sigue Sputnik) fame. The one big exception in the Idol catalog was strangely found in between the mindless "Mony Mony" of his first LP and the even more emetic “Hot in the City" of his second. “White Wedding (Part 1)” was a dark, gothic near-dirge with a driving beat and an equally intense video … that quite possibly features the debut of Goth Twerking, decades ahead of its time! The song is totally unlike the rest of his catalog in that it was both interesting and listenable…. it’s an outlier song that remains a great pioneering New Wave classic that has stood the test of time.
Christina Amphlett's band Divinyls formed in 1982 in Sydney, Australia, and went on to release five studio albums. "Science Fiction", their biggest early hit, was released as the second single off their debut LP, Desperate, in early 1983. Reaching #13 on the Australian charts, the song served as a springboard to the band's later international success.
More hits followed, including 1990's "I Touch Myself", their biggest chart success, which hit #1 down under and #4 on the US Hot 100.
Later, in 1993, the band contributed the song "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" to the Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie soundtrack. The band then broke up in 1996 and Amphlett died in 2013 after a long battle with cancer.
"Science Fiction" is my favorite track by Divinyls and I did consider it for my Top 200.
Be back next week with another song that didn't quite make the list.
This week’s awesome song is a gem from 1981 that features an all-star
line-up … yet it’s a song that hardly anyone has ever heard of !
Produced by “Manchester Sound” creator Martin Hannett… featuring Bernard Sumner of New Order … AND The Mission UK frontman Wayne Hussey on guitars… no wonder this song is Awesome!
Along
with this team, Pauline Murray and the Invisible Girls released the
last of three singles they made (in addition to one album) in April 1981
before calling it a day. “Searching For Heaven” is a glorious New Wave
gem, with sweet vocals and that lovely sense of romantic urgency that
makes songs like this so great. Although the song was short-lived in
popularity even in its day, thanks to the internet it lives on - on
YouTube and wonderful stations like SOMA-FM’s Underground 80s, where I
heard it recently.
But we don't have to search for heaven - we live it twice weekly on Marc’s Top 200 - The Extended Edition!
Kon Kan (a play on the term "Can Con" which stands for Canadian content) hit it big in 1988 with "I Beg Your Pardon", a song I've never really cared for. The band, composed of Barry Harris and Kevin Wynne, rode their first single's success (#19 in Canada, #15 in the USA) to stardom with their Pet-Shop-Boys-like musical sensibilities. Other songs followed, like "Harry Houdini", "Move To Move", "Sinful Wishes", and "Liberty", which was the first single from Kon Kan's 1990 album Syntonic. "Liberty" was a failure on the pop charts, peaking at a lowly #91 and marking the beginning of the end for Kon Kan. The band released one more unsuccessful album in 1993, then broke up, with both members going on to mediocre solo careers. I've always loved "Liberty", however, and its failure was mostly due to the changing tastes of a fickle music-buying public, not any fault of the band. More Kon Kan below!
Be back next week with another song that almost made my list.
The Awesome Song this week comes as a pair of songs with the similarity that they both start off with a bang !
Echo & The Bunnymen hit Top 200 paydirt at #121 with “The Killing Moon”. A great song off what is likely their best album, "Ocean Rain". However, the first song of theirs I ever heard, and also my favorite by the the band, is “The Cutter” - off their 1983 album “Porcupine”. "The Cutter" is one of those songs that grabbed me from the moment it begins, with that whirling dervish of an intro reminiscent of what you would hear in a New Wave club located in a hidden corner of a distant Moroccan casbah. Love how it kicks off the song, which is a manic rant with opaque lyrics and odd references. Lead singer Ian has a field day with the tune, and I never get tired of hearing it. Epic 80s New Wave at its finest.
Around the same time "The Cutter" came out, a Welsh band named the
Alarm released their own song that opens with a harmonica and drum
blast! When I first heard "The Stand” I loved the explosiveness of the
opening and how it grabs your attention. The song is anthemic and
enduring and once again, we have a situation where the band’s first
release is likely their best work. It was voted “Screamer of the Week”
by listeners on legendary radio station WDRE on July 2, 1983, and 3 more
songs off the first Alarm album also got that honor over the following
months. But to me “The Stand” was the best of the lot by far.
As
a DJ at the time, I used to play both “The Cutter” and “The Stand”,
often on the same show - or even back to back! And still love both of
them today!
The La's were formed by Mike Badger, John Power, and Lee Mavers in Liverpool in the early eighties. Because of lineup changes, record label switches, and a hodgepodge of other factors, their debut self-titled album wasn't released until 1990. "There She Goes" peaked just inside the top 60 in the UK, a relatively disappointing result. The band soldiered on into the late-90s, but never achieved a big breakthrough on the pop charts.
"There She Goes" was covered by US Christian-pop band Sixpence None The Richer in 1999, getting the song to #32 in the States and a surprising #14 in Britain.
In my opinion, the La's version of the song is better than the Sixpence version, though I must admit, I like that one too. Not bad for a track that's 90% chorus and 10% bridge with no real verses at all.
Be back next week with another song that almost made it.
