Rock and Roll Hair-Story: The 80's!! (Part 2)

[ABlairican Pie]

Here we are back in the second half of 1985!!

And we begin the thread on a tragic note...


Previous Rock and Roll History threads:

Rock and Roll: 1980-1985
Rock and Roll: The 70s
Rock and Roll History: The 60s
Rock and Roll: The 50s

[ABlairican Pie]

The guitarist for the B-52's, Ricky Wilson died of AIDS ten days after Rock Hudson's death, on October 12th, 1985.
The tragedy sent the band into a tailspin. The band was all about a celebration of fun, and sex was an underlying theme of that celebration. It was party music, the kind of dance music you could meet chicks to, or guys. It was the house music of Take-your-mind-off-your-problems-zone, the ultimate Happy Hour toonage.

But now it was all over. The party was no longer fun--the grim spectre of death lingered in the air as intimacy and pleasure now equalled death. The sexual revolution was now officially over. Who were going to be the next victims of the new Masque of the Red Death?

[Steve M.]

Several of American television's most legendary music presenters had faded from the scene by 1985. Jimmy O'Neil ended his series Shindig in 1966. Ed Sullivan retired in 1971. Now, in 1985, it was Dick Clark's turn to go gently into that good night.



America's oldest teenager ended his 28-year run on American Bandstand. Clark had presented America's hottest pop acts for twenty-eight years, starting in Philadelphia on ABC affiliate WFIL-TV (now WPVI-TV) and continuing nationally from Los Angeles. In 1985, with MTV a success and VH-1 starting up, cable television was providing 24-hour popular music programming, and a Saturday afternoon pop show like American Bandstand seemed hopelessly out of date.

Dick Clark would continue as a television producer and remain a pre-eminent pop-music historian, but the show that made him a legend was now, ironically, history.

[Steve M.]

As mentioned in the previous post, VH-1 started in 1985.



Meant as a more adult, sophisticated cousin to MTV, VH-1 played more vintage rock and roll video footage from the sixties and seventies, plus artists who usually didn't appear on MTV - James Taylor, for example. It soon became a kind of MTV for baby boomers, the oldest of whom were now pushing forty.

Originally featuring on-camera hosts like Rosie O'Donnell and Don Imus, VH-1 eventually dropped them in favor of videos introduced by voice-overs, and - later - special music programming like Behind The Music. While MTV would always try to stay hip, VH-1 would, as Ian Anderson would put it, keep on living in the past.

[ABlairican Pie]

Now that 1985 was officially the year of Safe Music ("Hip to be Square"), the P.M.R.C. making dance-pop safe for impressionable kiddies, hair metal safer than spandex, and Live Aid making it safe to cure the world's crises from the comfort of one's living room recliner, there was one safe-ness that seemed more necessary: safe sex.

The rock world realized it could not play as recklessly as before. Condoms were presented--and debated--as a necessary deterrent to the AIDS crisis. Even born-again Surgeon General C. Everett Coop urged the use of condoms. But the church brigades reveled in the thought of sex=death, the recipients of the HIV virus "got what they deserved"; God was "punishing them" for sin. To intervene with possible cures was to obstruct "God's judgement." But many good, kind, loving souls were dying of the disease, now in its fourth year of receiving major attention. And even many who had not had unprotected sex, such as youngster Ryan White, who had received it from a blood transfusion, were not immune. It was a health crisis that was threatening all. And the rock world began to raise awareness of the dreaded disease with ads and spokespersons such as Madonna.

It did not mean the end to sex. It just meant, be careful. Or as one condom ad announced, Don't jump without a parachute, genius.

To the rescue came a new iconic hero in the fight against the plague and other STD's: Trojan Man!!

[ABlairican Pie]

Aphaville was one of the New Romantics bands of Britain who had a big hit with "Forever Young".

Forever Young

Let’s dance in style, lets dance for a while
Heaven can wait we’re only watching the skies
Hoping for the best but expecting the worst
Are you going to drop the bomb or not?

Let us die young or let us live forever
We don’t have the power but we never say never
Sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip
The music’s for the sad men

Can you imagine when this race is won
Turn our golden faces into the sun
Praising our leaders we’re getting in tune
The music’s played by the madmen

Forever young, I want to be forever young
Do you really want to live forever, forever and ever

Some are like water, some are like the heat
Some are a melody and some are the beat
Sooner or later they all will be gone
Why don’t they stay young

It’s so hard to get old without a cause
I don’t want to perish like a fading horse
Youth is like diamonds in the sun
And dimonds are forever

So many adventures couldn’t happen today
So many songs we forgot to play
So many dreams are swinging out of the blue
We let them come true

[Steve M.]

Originally posted by Captain ABlairica
Aphaville was one of the New Romantics bands of Britain.

Ah, they got their name from a classic Jean-Luc Godard flm!

[ABlairican Pie]

On the opposite end of the rock and roll spectrum was...a rock and roll band, The Del Fuegos, a straight up traditional rocking band whose 1985 album, Boston, Mass. featured a college radio hit that crept its way to mainstream, "Don't Run Wild." The band took its name from the southernmost region of the globe excluding Antarctica, the Tierra del Fuego, on the southern tip of South America. This was to indicate the band was "down low", so low in fact that their lead singer admitted on MTV that he acquired his cap by stealing it off a policeman's head!

Don't Run Wild

Oh baby whats gone wrong
You don't laugh on the phone like you used too
Have I been gone too long
Wheres the love that I've gotten used too

All the good times we had
Our dreams might take a while
So baby don't you run
Don't run wild

Trees fly by in a far away car
Wondering when I'll see you again

The tv's on the sound turned down
All the letters that I've tried to send

All the good times we had
Seems our dreams might take a while
So baby don't you run
Don't run wild, don't run wild, don't run wild
Don't run, don't run wild

Don't run wild, don't run wild, don't run wild
Don't run, don't run wild
Don't run wild, don't run wild, don't run wild
Don't run wild, don't run wild, don't run wild
Don't run, don't leave me child

[ABlairican Pie]

Originally posted by Steve M.
Ah, they got their name from a classic Jean-Luc Godard flm!

[ABlairican Pie]

Back in Britain, one band hitting the charts was Dead Or Alive, whose androgynous frontman Pete Burns sang the hit "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)". As much of the 80's was all about the triumph of style over substance, so was the short-lived stardom of a frontman who was known more for his looks than his actual talent. Was Burns gay? Possibly, which would explain his success to the eager gay dance crowd who relished disposable pop (in much the way disco had done ten years earlier).

You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)

If I, I get to know your name
Well if I, could trace your private number, baby

All I know is that to me
You look like you're lots of fun
Open up your loving arms
I want some,want some

I set my sights on you
(and no one else will do)
And I, I've got to have my way now, baby

All I know is that to me
You look like you're having fun
Open up your loving arms
Watch,out here I come

You spin me right round, baby
Right round like a record, baby
Right round round round

You spin me right round, baby
Right round like a record, baby
Right round round round

I got to be your friend now, baby
And I would like to move in a little bit closer

All I know is that to me
You look like you're lots of fun
Open up your loving arms
Watch out, here I come

You spin me right round, baby
Right round like a record, baby
Right round round round

You spin me right round, baby
Right round like a record, baby
Right round round round...

[ABlairican Pie]

Pete Burns from a Dead Or Alive video:

[ABlairican Pie]

One British singer/songwriter, Robyn Hitchcock, formed a band called The Egyptians and released a series of albums with bizarre lyrics, including 1985's Fegmania! One pop hit stands out from the album:

Heaven

You've got heaven
Heaven in your hand
You've got heaven
Running through your land
Why don't you fight for it?
You're right for it, you know
Why don't you kill for it
Get ill for it also?

You've got heaven
You've got heaven
You've got arms and you've got legs and you've got heaven

Heaven in your eyes
You've got heaven
Don't you recognize?
And when you wake for it
You'll ache for it all night
And when you dream for it
You'll scream for it all right

You've got heaven
You've got heaven
You've got arms and you've got legs and you've got heaven

You've got heaven
Every single time
You've got heaven
Every single climb
And when you seek for it
You peak for it all day
And when you choose for it
You'll ooze for it, I'll say

You've got heaven
You're just heaven
You're just heaven
You've got arms and you've got legs and you've got heaven
You've got arms and you've got legs and you've got heaven
You've got arms, legs, heaven
You've got arms, you've got legs, you've got heaven
You've got arms
You've got legs, and you've got heaven
Arms, use your legs, and you've got heaven

[ABlairican Pie]

As a former member of 70's British band The Soft Boys, Robyn Hitchcock went solo in the early 80's with a Beatlesque style of singing and songwriting--with a difference: His songs took on this bizarre twisted quality, and often he would preface his songs in concert with a laughably macabre monologue.
His warped sense of humor made him a favorite among alternative fans everywhere.

[ABlairican Pie]

The Dream Academy were one British band that incorporated traditional Celtic music in their tunes, most notably
"Life In a Northern Town".

Life In a Northern Town

A Salvation Army Band played
And Children drunk lemonade
And the morning lasted all day,
All day
And through an open window came
Like Sinatra in a younger day,
Pushing the town away
Ah-

(chant)
Ah hey ma ma ma
Life in a northern town.

They sat on the stoney ground
And he took out a cigarette out
And everyone else came down
To listen.
He said "In winter 1963
It felt like the world would freeze
With John F. Kennedy
And The Beatles."

(Chant)
Ah- hey ma ma ma
Life in a northern town.
Ah hey ma ma ma
All the work shut down.

The evening had turned to rain
Watch the water roll down the drain,
As we followed him down
To the station
And though he never would wave goodbye,
You could see it written in his eyes
As the train pulled out of sight
Bye-bye

(Chant)
Ah hey ma ma ma
Life in a northern town.
Ah hey ma ma ma
Life in a northern town.

[ABlairican Pie]

Another Irish band contributing to a sort of Celtic folk revival in alternative music was The Waterboys, led by lead vocalist Mike Scott. Their 1985 album This Is the Sea featured the hit, "The Whole of the Moon".

The Whole of the Moon

I pictured a rainbow
you held in your hands
I had flashes
but you saw then plan
I wondered out in the world for years
while you just stayed in your room
I saw the crescent
you saw the whole of the moon!
The whole of the moon!

You were there at the turnstiles
with the wind at your heels
You stretched for the stars
and you know how it feels
To reach too high
too far
Too soon
you saw the whole of the moon!

I was grounded
while you filled the skies
I was dumbfounded by truths
you cut through lies
I saw the rain-dirty valley
you saw Brigadoon
I saw the crescent
you saw the whole of the moon!

I spoke about wings
you just flew
I wondered, I guessed, and I tried
you just knew
I sighed
but you swooned
I saw the crescent
you saw the whole of the moon!
The whole of the moon!

With a torch in your pocket
and the wind at your heels
You climbed on the ladder
and you know how it feels
To reach too high
too far
Too soon
you saw the whole of the moon!
The whole of the moon!

Unicorns and cannonballs,
palaces and piers,
Trumpets, towers, and tenements,
wide oceans full of tears,
Flag, rags, ferry boats,
scimitars and scarves,
Every precious dream and vision
underneath the stars

You climbed on the ladder
with the wind in your sails
You came like a comet
blazing your trail
Too high
too far
Too soon
you saw the whole of the moon!