Backtracking a bit from previously issued volumes of the series, Musik Music Musique 1979: The Roots of Synth Pop functions as a sort of prequel, mapping out the blueprint of the new wave revolution of the ’80s, from synth-heavy post-punk and art rock to some of synth pop’s earliest chart-toppers. It’s not as if electronic instruments weren’t prominent in popular music before 1979, but synthesizers were clearly well on their way to being a defining characteristic of the musical landscape. The set starts with the Buggles’ “Technopop,” proposing a name for the music of the future — Kraftwerk would later give a song a similar title on 1986’s Electric Café, which originally had the working title Techno Pop as well, and decades later, a reissue retroactively bore…
Category: new wave
CBGB’s was the center of the N.Y.C. punk explosion, as well as a welcoming place to play for all the artists and bands who followed in the wake. CBGB: A New York City Soundtrack 1975-1986 is a four-disc set that seeks to paint a picture of the original scene as it burst out into the open as well as detailing the various sounds and movements, like no wave and hardcore, that were born in the ensuing years. All the groups one would hope for are here, represented by slightly deeper cuts — Talking Heads’ sprightly live version of “A Clean Break” for one — along with a ton of lesser-known bands and a healthy dose of super-obscure ones. It’s the kind of collection where even someone with a healthy knowledge of the scene will be constantly surprised. One surprise element…
Cherry Red, longtime home for Howard Jones’ catalogue, release an unheard set from the beginning of his career.
Live at the Marquee, finds the inimitable singer-songwriter-keyboardist wowing a crowd at the late London venue just before his commercial breakthrough in 1983.
The wholly unreleased show, was unearthed from master tapes when the label began compiling bonus material for reissues of his former Warner catalogue in 2018, and remixed by Jones himself for this release. (It appears from the metadata that three of these Marquee tracks were originally released as B-sides to early singles.) The packaging includes rare and unreleased photos of Jones from the period.
When the then-28-year-old Jones took the stage…
The Necessaries came together in 1978 and in the too-brief lifespan of the band counted among their members, Ed Tomney (Rage to Live, Luka Bloom), Jesse Chamberlain (Red Crayola), Ernie Brooks (Modern Lovers), Arthur Russell (The Flying Hearts), Randy Gun (Love of Life Orchestra).
First championed by John Cale on the strength of Tomney’s songs, Cale produced their first single for Spy Records (under the I.R.S. umbrella) which was released in 1979. With the forward momentum brought about by the single, the band set about tracking demos intended for Warner Bros., but The Necessaries ultimately would sign to Seymour Stein’s Sire Records. These rough demo basic tracks lacked overdubs, mixes and any finishing touches that would have made them…
Part of Rhino’s annual “Start Your Ear Off Right” promotion is a very welcome surprise: a remastered and expanded edition of one of the most underrated albums by British pop/rock band Squeeze.
The release of Play found Squeeze at a crossroads. After a moderately successful reunion in the mid-’80s stalled with the under-promoted Frank in 1989, the band departed longtime label A&M Records, signing with Reprise for a new decade. The ever-changing line-up was once again different, though by subtraction instead of addition: singer/songwriter/guitarists and founders Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook were joined only by bassist Keith Wilkinson and drummer Gilson Lavis. (Keyboardist Jools Holland, whose big band…
By the end of 1980, after 10 years waiting for the world to catch up with them, things were looking bleak for Suicide. The pioneering New York electronic project of keyboardist Martin Rev and vocalist Alan Vega had released a sinister self-titled debut in 1977; the album was met by hostility from crowds and mocked as “puerile” by Rolling Stone. Playing on tour with Elvis Costello, the Clash, and the Cars, they’d been pelted with shoes, coins, and even knives. ZE Records had backed May 1980’s glitzier follow-up, Suicide: Alan Vega and Martin Rev, putting the duo in the expensive Power Station studios with the Cars’ Ric Ocasek on production. But the label had hoped for a dance-pop record, telling Ocasek to think of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” for reference, and Vega felt it…
1. The Soft Boys – I Wanna Destroy You
2. Doctors of Madness – Bulletin
3. Vic Godard – Malicious Love
4. Andy Partridge – Earn Enough for Us
5. John Cooper Clarke – Psycle Sluts (Parts 1 & 2)
6. Billy Bragg – Levi Stubbs’ Tears
7. Squeeze – Up the Junction
8. Nick Lowe – Cruel to Be Kind
9. Philip Rambow & Kirsty MacColl – There’s a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop… (Demo)
10. Deaf School – Capaldi’s Cafe
11. Graham Parker – Saturday Nite Is Dead (Live)
12. Madness – Friday Night, Saturday Morning
13. Radio Stars – Is It Really Necessary?
14. Wilko Johnson – Down By the Waterside
15. Wreckless Eric – Our Neck of the Woods
Vazz formed in Glasgow during the early ’80s, and initially consisted of vocalist/lyricist Anna Howson and multi-instrumentalist Hugh Small. With Howson’s ethereal harmonies floating over Small’s sparse drum machines and mysterious guitar hooks, the duo’s music fell somewhere between coldwave, post-punk, and dream pop. The five-song mini-album Your Lungs and Your Tongues (released in 1986 by Cathexis Recordings, also home to records by Fini Tribe and Pink Industry) was one of a handful of vinyl releases the pair made before splitting up near the end of the decade. As Small resurfaced during the 2010s with solo piano and ambient compositions, Vazz’s scant ’80s discography was rediscovered and revived in several different configurations…
The 12″ single redefined music and the way we move to it, something that’s celebrated on the fantastic new four-CD collection from Cherry Red Records, Extended Stimulation: 12″ Pop Adventures on the Dancefloor 1983-1988. While 12″ vinyl is generally associated with disco, electronic, and hip-hop, this box set explores just how revolutionary it could be for traditional pop music, featuring tracks from the likes of New Order, Simply Red, the Human League, Duran Duran, Talk Talk, Pet Shop Boys, and many others.
However, these may not be the songs as most people remember them. That’s because everything here is either a remix (or extended mix) of some kind, originally released on 12″ vinyl. A little history lesson may be in order. Before the 12″…
…remastered & with 5 bonus tracks.
“Even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day”, maintains Paul McGann’s character near the start of Withnail and I. He plays Marwood – the ‘I’ of the title – in a drunken and druggy but decidedly unpsychedelic cinematic glimpse into the late 1960s. The film initially flopped in cinemas at the height of 1980s yuppiedom, only to find cult adoration (and over quotation) via subsequent release on video. Everything has its right time in the end. And so it is with Henry Badowski’s one and only album Life Is a Grand, which is finally getting the reissue it justly deserves after all but disappearing, along with its creator, to near complete indifference following its release in 1981. Indeed Badowski himself seems more…
…remastered by Geoff Pesche at Abbey Road.
After breaking through to massive U.K. fame with his 1979 album The Pleasure Principle, and its chart-topping new wave isolationist anthem “Cars,” Gary Numan got darker, more intense, and more solemn on his second proper solo album, 1980’s Telekon. The shifts in his work were happening quickly, with both Replicas (the last of two albums Numan made with his punkier group Tubeway Army) and The Pleasure Principle being released in 1979, and the songs for Telekon being written and recorded by the end of that year, but held back for a release in September of 1980 as not to flood the market. Telekon was, in part, Numan’s response to overnight success, with songs that alluded cryptically to conclusions and…
…deluxe 3CD set include 19 extra tracks – focusing on lesser-known B-sides, late ’80s and early ’90s albums, and even material that Tom Bailey and Alannah Currie released in the ’90s under the name Babble – along with the premiere CD release of ‘Into the Gap Live’, the audio of a longform video release from 1984 that was recently issued on vinyl for Record Store Day.
The 1980s were heady times for synthesizers and drum machines. Ushering out the distorted three-chord guitars and traditional drum/bass/guitar lineups of the punk and stadium era rock of the decade that preceded it.
New Wave bands like OMD, Human League, and The Pet Shop Boys created a dance-friendly genre that was light on sneers and anger but…
Formed in North London, Madness have grown into one of Britain’s most successful and best-loved bands, selling millions of records worldwide and inspiring generations of artists. More than four decades on, their music, spirit, and style are woven into the fabric of British culture.
Madness released their latest record Theatre of the Absurd Presents C’est La Vie in 2023, which was the band’s first ever No.1 studio album in their 45 year career. The band have also had two No.1 compilation albums, 10 UK Top 10 albums, 15 Top 10 singles and have won a multitude of awards including a prestigious Ivor Novello.
Hit Parade celebrates that remarkable legacy, a career-spanning anthology, the band have chosen 45 singles from 45 years from…
Ultravox’s 1984 best-of compilation The Collection sold over 2 million copies worldwide after its release and went triple platinum in the UK. It includes the band’s first 14 singles released between 1980 and 1984. The best-known tracks include the cult song “Vienna”, the anti-nuclear war anthem “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes”, the new wave classic “All Stood Still” as well as “Hymn”, “The Voice” and “Reap The Wild Wind”.
Now “The Collection” is being re-released remastered in various formats with different bonus material. This newly remastered compilation has been expanded into a 4CD/2Blu-ray Deluxe Edition. The set includes a second volume of “The Collection” with a further 14 singles from 1986 to 2024, alternative and unreleased versions.
Coming off the less-than-classic Shake It Up, the Cars decided again to change things up, this time moving from their home studio in Boston to London to record with Mutt Lange. The producer was coming off a string of sleek modern hits, most recently Def Leppard’s Pyromania, and the Cars put themselves in Lange’s capable and demanding hands. They spent six months in the studio painstakingly putting the album together, sometimes spending days getting the right bass sound or vocal take. The bandmembers were rarely in the room at the same time and instead of using live drums on the record, Lange and David Robinson put together drum tracks using samples of Robinson’s playing. This sounds a bit like the recipe for a airless, stale album,…
Toyah’s 1994 studio album was recorded with Salisbury band Friday Forever and includes eight re-recordings of classic Toyah material and six original compositions. CD1 adds four tracks of which three are previously unreleased. This includes demos of album tracks Invisible Love and Lu$t For Love, first recorded in 1992 with Kiss Of Reality.
CD2 contains 16 rarities with seven of these previously unreleased. CD2 features the long-awaited release of original material Toyah wrote with members of Girlschool for their ‘supergroup’ project Strange Girls, who played live UK gigs and supported The Beach Boys in Germany. Long desired by fans who saw the Strange Girls live gigs; these three studio demos were recorded in 1991 but have remained unheard until their…