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Speaker 2Now, Tim, you are our resident R.E.M. expert. Really? I've never knowingly listened through to a whole R.E.M. album. Again, another band that I know are amazing, I know are revered. Fables of the Reconstruction was their album from this year. Go to it.
Speaker 3I've probably only heard this about twice. I mean, I know, you know, God, I know. It's very poor. Automatic for people. I like that. No, you can't talk about that one. I really like that. You talked about them on another episode. You've got to talk about this one. Yeah, I like those. I don't really know it. Okay. So let's move on. I heard it at the time. I thought it was all right. I've heard it since. I was like, you know, I quite like Murmur. I thought Murmur kind of stuck with me a bit more. It's not this year. No, Murmur's 83. No, it's not this year. Murmur's got a kind of diaphanous quality.
Speaker 2You've got to talk about this album. You've got to talk about the one from 1985. Otherwise, we're moving on. Move on? We're moving on. Like Curtis Mayfield. People can review it in the comments of the social media and say that we're cloth-eared, that we should have. Anyway, the last album. I want to mention in the old souls is Neil Young's album from this year. Yeah. I love it. It's the closest Neil ever came to making a real, old-fashioned country and western album. Yeah. But it sounds like Neil Young. Everything did. Was this the album that got him? And look at that cover.
Speaker 3Yes, it's very sweet.
Speaker 2I don't know if this is the one where Geffen decided to sue him because there was a series of albums. Yeah. So like he made a rockabilly album. Yeah, he did. Then he made a country album. Neil and the Shocking Pinks. And then he made like an, an electronic album with Vokoda, Trans. Well, I like Trans. I think that's before this one. Yeah, Trans is earlier. Trans and Neil. So can you imagine he goes from Trans. Yeah. To the, to a country and western album. Okay. It's very Neil. Yeah. Which is to say that I really like it. The songwriting rigor is there as it always is with Neil. But if you don't like country music, you're not going to like it.
Speaker 3Well, I think this is the one that got kind of criticized at the time because his politics had gone quite rage.
Speaker 2He was a vegan.
Speaker 3Okay. So that wouldn't have endeared him to the- It didn't endear him to many, many people. Like you, I kind of like Trans. I thought Neil and the Shocking Pinks, he did the rock and roll really quite well. I could do without that. Also the Blue Note thing. Do you remember? I think it was- Yes. Yeah. Yeah. This note's for me.
Speaker 2This note's for you. This note's for you. Sorry. Yeah. This note's for you. This note's for you. This is pretty good. I mean, Neil, he's mad, isn't he? Let's face it. We've talked about this before, haven't we? How if you are that kind of artist, you are going to be very hit and miss. Yeah. In terms of the way you might not or may or may not appeal to your fan base.
Speaker 3Well, he does a year after. Isn't it landing on water? Yeah. The one which sounds almost- Since 80s. Yeah. Yeah. Very 80s. It's a real mid-80s processed album. And again, I'm really glad it's in his catalog. Yeah. A lot of people- Yeah. A lot of people hate it. I kind of liked it because it was him doing something so unlike his video album. Well, the 80s is just
Speaker 2bizarre for Neil Young. It's just bizarre. I mean, there's-
Speaker 3It ends on a high note though, doesn't it?
Speaker 2Well, it ends on freedom. Yeah. I think right at the end of '89, he puts out 'Freedom', and suddenly it's like Neil Young that we kind of knew and love is back. But you know what? Even as I'm saying that, I'm thinking to myself, "Well, why is that a good thing?" Mm-hmm. You know, because one of the things that frustrates me most these days is when old gits like us, right, have a new record by an artist that we love, you know, we've been listening to for 40, 50 years. And the best thing we can say about it is, "Oh, it's really good. It sounds like something they might've done 50 years ago." Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, "And that's a good thing?" Yeah, I'm not happy with that. So many people said that about the Stones album, Hackney Dunn. Yeah. "Oh, it sounds like ghost head soup." Why is that a good thing? Why is that a good thing? And it just shows you how old and stuck in the mud we are as listeners sometimes, you
Speaker 3know. Yeah. I mean, I don't like that personally. No. I'm really happy when an artist that I love suddenly comes up with something. You like it when Neil does a country. I loved it when he did "Landing on Water" or "The Country." Yeah. You know, because that was not what I was expecting. I like that.
Speaker 2Come on, this album, Tim, it's got a track on it called, "Are There Any More Real Cowboys?" Are there? You want to hear that, don't you? Yeah. And, "Get Back to the Country." You want to hear that. "Where is the Highway Tonight?" It's a country record. Why not? Why not? There was always a country aspect to what he did. There was always.
Speaker 3I mean, comes a time that's got a country on the record. Love that record. Yeah. I think the thing is, he was quite adventurous during this period. And I do think, you know, again, freedom sort of reactivated him commercially and with the critics. But he still did some really. No, he did. You know, think of Ark Weld. He did. No, absolutely he did. Yeah. He continued to make some.
Speaker 2And actually. "Sleeps With Angels," I think is great. "Freedom" has got those noise tracks on it. "Don't Cry" and his version of "On Broadway." "On Broadway," I love. Which are amazing. And actually, yes, I'm contradicting myself here. They're completely different to anything he'd done before.
Speaker 3I mean, okay. I think. Do you know why it seems. One, it's because it has a few of his classic style songs. Two, it's got the shape of. Is it "Rust Never Sleeps" that's around that time?
Speaker 2Yeah, it starts with a live acoustic version of a song and then the same song ends at the end in electric.
Speaker 3And I think the cover and that conceit made people think, "Right." Yeah. And I think "Rust Never Sleeps" was always seen as a high point. Yeah. Absolutely. Deservedly so.
Speaker 2Yeah. Great album. And then after "Freedom," obviously he follows it very quickly with "Ragged Glory," with "Mirrorball," with "Sleeps." I mean, he's just on a run through the '90s, which in a way kind of makes the '80s even more fascinating. Yeah. I think you were amazing all the way through the '70s. You were amazing all the way through the '90s. And in the '80s, you weren't always amazing, but you were unpredictable. And it's like you say, you're happy that that exists in his catalog. Yeah. That it's not just this sort of predictable series of
Speaker 3refinements of what came before. This is it. If you think of Bob Dylan, he has made creative risks by God he has, especially in the '60s, where he appalled his audience. But he's not done a trance. He's not done a landing on water.
Speaker 2No. No. The closest he's probably got is confronting his audience with some of his more religious lyrical content. But you're right. Musically, it's. Yeah.
Speaker 3There's lots of Neil fans. If I'm going for what my favorite Neil is, it's when I hear Cortez the Killer. Yeah. I could listen to that track on loop for three days.
Speaker 2Yeah. And there's probably a version that is that long. Yeah. Let's move on, Tim, to a very short category this year. Usually when we talk about progressive rock or pomp and circumstance, as we call it, if we're talking about the '70s, there's a lot to get through. Even sometimes if we're talking about the 21st century, there's a fair bit to get through. Even in the '90s? There's not a lot to get through in '80s. There's not a lot to get through in '85, at least not that we're aware of. Merillion released their high watermark commercially and arguably artistically too, Misplaced Childhood. What a bold thing to do in 1985.
Speaker 3Yeah. I think the thing is with Misplaced Childhood, I personally think my favorite Merillion album is the one that follows this clutching. Me too. Me too. But I think with this, it's almost. You can hear where they've come from. The first two albums. You can hear the obvious lineage of classic Genesis, classic Peter Hamill, some Floyd. And partly because of the neurotic bedsit lyrics that are almost a more elaborate version of what Morrissey's doing in a different way, they've got their own identity. But I think by the time of Misplaced Childhood, they're their own band. Completely. This fits in with a kind of 1980s, very intelligent stadium rock band using a progressive rock concept conceit. Well, also, I would argue this is a great pop record.
Speaker 2Yeah? This is a great pop record full of great pop hooks. Now, if you think about all those classic progressive rock bands that Merillion supposedly are in the tradition of, it took them years to get. To get to that point. It took them. And some of them never. Some of them never wrote a good pop song. You know what I mean? Here they are, Merillion, three albums into their career, and Kay Lee is an irresistible piece of pop music. Yeah. Lavender. And then you see the more obscure corners of the album, like Milo. Beautiful melody. And I think Phish, very underestimated as a melodicist. And again, he's got that Morrissey thing where he's almost approaching music in a kind of idiot savant way. He's not a trained musician. Yeah. He's not a great singer even, but he is a great vocalist, and he is a great front man, and he's a great melodicist.
Speaker 3I agree. And I think that both of them, I think. If I'm right here, I think to a certain extent, they used to write their lyrics before their release, which forces you to do strange things. Yeah, rhythmically, yes. And I think Joni Mitchell has done that sometimes. Yeah. I think if you listen to something like Hijira, there are a lot of words. Yeah. And so I think that partly defines it. But you're right, he's quite unusual, partly because of fitting those words into this melodic framework, and comes up with some quite peculiar melodies. But this is strong. You know, to me, it's almost like they've come. They're almost in a different dimension on this album. And Clutching the Straws, they've improved so much. And this isn't to denigrate the other albums, which I think have got a kind of weird gothic bed-sit intensity that I like. Completely. But on this, it's almost like they've become a different genre. band overnight there's more of a legato feel in the solos in the arpeggios there's if you know what i mean is it i do know you mean they're working with a different they're working with
Speaker 2chris kim's a different producer who's come from i mean he's been producing the rolling stones and it comes from a different very different kind of lineage and maybe there's a lot more of his influence in the terms of them paring things down getting rid of the sort of more you know old-fashioned archetypes of prog 70s prog rock i love his lyrics on this rock some of my favorite lyrics of of the whole era are fish lyrics on this album i can't remember that i can't quote them exactly so i'm not going to try but the the bit about the the primordial spider you know and and the cave and imagery and then this in milo there's the um i reach for the bottle and he reached for the door just you know kind of quite heartfelt pained pained um sentiments behind the lyrics i i mean
Speaker 3i'm guessing well also different influences come to play you know if you think about this of course there is an overarching progressive concept and there are certain influences from maybe floyd perhaps but you know i hear townsend and the who completely yeah i definitely hear joni mitchell and things like milo yeah totally and they master it you know they do suddenly they've become this really quite subtle musically sophisticated
Speaker 2band yeah so we're big fans of this album now what about this one tim iq the wake now that they wear their genesis influence very strongly i think on this record i i like iq very much um even to this day i think they're really really good band even as i recognize that they are very much still enthralled to 70s progressive archetypes um genesis particularly this record i remember really liking when it came out and i still like it now peter nichols has definitely got the gabriel dna in his voice bizarrely a
Speaker 3connection i made is that they are that link between genesis and the cardiacs because there's something really airless intense and relentless about especially the first couple of tracks on that album and it's almost like you've taken you know what was actually if you listen to the trick of the tale you listen to dance in a volcano when genesis are shifting and playing these time signatures there's a very airy sense of space there's actually quite a jazz sensibility it grooves it flows this is almost like you've taken that seven eight riff from dance in a volcano or something from trick of the tale or the lamb lights down and you are pummeling at that but we've we've
Speaker 2talked about this before haven't we that the generations of progressive rock bands um the first generation of progressive rock band the people that defined the genre had grown up listening to classical rock bands and classical music jazz music for the beatles yeah folk music the second generation the merrillians and iqs had grown up listening to genesis yes and pink floyd and camel and so it's necessarily reductive it's they don't have the same scope and same range but that's not to dismiss the music at all but there's something about it that's a little bit more vampiric in that sense that you're never far away from a genesis lick or a genesis cliche or a yes or steve howley or something like that and you know if you kind of go with that and you go with the fact that it does have a more kind of 80s diy aesthetic to it too i think you can really enjoy it i mean i was 14 15 years old when these albums were coming out so i was lapping it up because i'd grown up i was also listening to punk music and post-punk music and to me this is the sound of progressive rock that's come up through
Speaker 3post-punk well that's which is where i'm getting the cardiacs thing probably from the relentlessness i think twelfth night absolutely in a very big way more
Speaker 2overtly so yeah i think
Speaker 3the early twelfth night very much had kind of well you can hear the instruments of ultravox and things exactly a lot of electro pop a lot of post-punk love that love that love that love that and this doesn't have necessarily the post-punk influences but perhaps it has that diy i think it's the post-punk sound more than musical influence i think it's
Speaker 2there without the meaning for it to be there but it's what makes it actually it doesn't sound simply like a knockoff of an old genesis record no and i think
Speaker 3you know peter went on i think after this album to do night him's ghost which is much more of an indie yeah rock band yeah i think weirdly you can hear more of what iq do with genesis in the contemporary prog scene than you can hear actual genesis because i think that this album in particular you know if ever i play at those prog festivals and so on a lot of the bands imitating this record it's this yeah i agree yeah actually so i can see how that neo prog in some ways especially something like iq were a massive influence on the bands that come after yeah and as you say iq
Speaker 2have carried on the road to bones
Speaker 3album i think is fantastic
Speaker 2especially the title track is and i think
Speaker 3yeah and i think the thing is they've really you know what's interesting is they mine a very similar field in terms of the influences but they've got so much better as musicians i think you know nichols was always a really interesting vocalist he's an even better vocalist than iq so i think it's a really interesting vocalist now and i think as instrumentalists you know they've got better
Speaker 2yeah as well i really like him a lot super tramp brother where you bound um now i think i'm right in saying that this is only half of the super tramp roger hodgson has gone yeah on this album so richard davis is the one
Speaker 3roger hodgson wrote a lot of the huge hits like dreamer logical song right breakfast in america and he's gone on this record and he's gone but and you'd think that would make them a lesser proposition i like this record i think it's really really good yeah um because actually richard davis did write some great stuff cannonball is a great you know yeah on breakfast in america and on crime of the century which i think were probably the two strongest albums before but this is a really strong album you know you would think that the guy you know missing the guy who'd written it's raining again logical song you're going to lose a lot but actually davis hones in it's probably some of his strongest material cannonball is a great single the rest of it really kind of feels like it's a great song and i think it's a great fit because he always had that kind of slightly randy newman-esque right ballad quality and also almost a kind of ray charles blues quality so the first side you've got a great single and then some strong richard davis songs second side there's a 16 minute epic and a kind of a three minute code with david gilmore on the guitar um really good i mean adventurous strong sounds as good as any super tramp album and i like the fact that this is it that you know you lose perhaps your most successful songwriter and a key part of the band's signature sound for the audience and then you make something that's as confident as that but lest we forget that he as
Speaker 2you say he did right i mean although roger hodgson maybe his voice is more synonymous with the big hits richard davis did right i mean weren't songs like goodbye stranger that was rich it was oh no that roger i can't remember but i know that there are some songs that were his so yeah he pulled it out of the bag with this record i think and i don't remember it being particularly successful at the time i think there probably was a sense i think cannonball was a hit on the continent i think it was huge everywhere other than here one more entry in the in the pomp and circumstance which is the magma album from this year which is a bit mad too isn't it i like it yeah i like it too um mercy it's christian vander sort of channeling his soul boy uh yeah you know again we talked about the mike's got the spiritual stream of consciousness there's a lot there's always some of that going on with magma but this is the least operatic album perhaps magma ever made and the more the most soulful spiritual album they ever made yeah yeah it's somewhere
Speaker 3between sort of minimal classical chamber jazz and then this constant repetition of say otis this kind of soul influence that's underpinning it it's one of the most accessible albums it's quite acoustic as well isn't it yeah if you wanted to play a magma album to your parents this would be perhaps or you wanted to play you
Speaker 2wanted to play a magma album to you to your best friend who only listens to al gore yeah that's your album curtis mayfield that's probably the one you'd it's probably the only one you'd have any chance
Speaker 3yeah it's a magma album apart and i like it for that final category
Speaker 2tim yeah we always leave these to last for some reason we we're talking about jazz minimalist neo-classical music they kind of you know all kind of get lumped together in a way so let's just go through some of these records philip glass sata graha it's one of his operas i've never been particularly fond of this i don't
Speaker 3yeah i mean i love you know kind of scartsy yes door north star music in 12 parts never quite on the beach on the beach brilliant but i think in the 80s the sound became a bit bloated i think
Speaker 2he had aspirations to be taken seriously as a serious composer of works yeah operatic works and personally i've never liked the style of operatic singing anyway so whereas einstein on the beach is essentially supposed to be an opera there's no operatic singing on it at all exactly
Speaker 3it's an opera at a tangent yes really isn't it
Speaker 2it's a it's a it's a piece of music that uses voice yeah this is a proper opera with proper operatic singing i can't be doing i'm with you
Speaker 3i mean a lot of things he's done since i think he's continued to make some absolutely work especially some soundtrack work yeah this wasn't my period no the operas i can do without yeah
Speaker 2john adams harmony i never know how you say it we love we love harmonium but this is a piece it's like a follow-up to that piece it's great it's a great piece isn't it yeah john adams always always the most traditional sounding of the minimalists in a way he had again he had this symphonic sweep you could always imagine you can
Speaker 3hear that he's kind of coming out of philip glass steve reich terry riley all of this but you can also hear that he's got kind of marla orchestration in there okay yeah there's something more vast and older yeah yeah yeah steve reich or reich we
Speaker 2can never figure out what is my
Speaker 3steve reich steve
Speaker 2reich steve reich the desert music now i know you love this one tim i love it too but i think it's if i'm right listen to hillam are your favorites
Speaker 3no to hillam oh you hate this one tim you hate the test i did test it no i really like it obviously i do i mean i've got everything he's ever done and i've not disliked anything right i can't dislike it this is one of those that kind of fits in and i like you know obviously by the time of different trains and electric counterpoint that's another favorite and because the thing obviously with him you know he's got a lot of things that he's got to do and he's got a lot of things that he's got to do and he's got a lot of things that he's got to do and he's got a lot of things that he's got to do is that he's got a particular set sound as we know and then occasionally you'll do something that comes up from nowhere which totally redefines his sound as i think different trains did an electric counterpoint and this is a great stopgap album before that but
Speaker 2it's kind of a it's kind of a steve reich album isn't it yeah it's exactly that it feels like it's cut very much from the same cloth as as music for 18 musicians yeah which for me is the definitive great album steve reich steve reich album composition or composition piece yeah yeah but the desert music definitely definitely holds up that quality doesn't it sure eberhard weber's chorus i've got that record here i really like that one that was an interesting little um change for little change for eberhard weber because it's more use of synthesizer um so he's essentially playing um bass and synthesizer on this record and the only other two people on the record are a drummer and jan garberick on soprano and tenor saxophone
Speaker 3it's very spartan quite different for him actually um i mean some of his albums have been spartan obviously he's done the loop bass albums that um oh even more spartan um i like this i remember seeing garberick live this year and it was disappointing because david torn who played on it's okay to listen to great voice wasn't there so i saw it blue coat in liverpool um it was great but again it was primarily just seeing eberhard weber
Speaker 2flesh play you
Speaker 3know amazing what a what
Speaker 2a truly distinctive sound he has as a bass yeah and of
Speaker 3course he was on hounds of love by kate bush is he on hounds of love i know he's on censor world um he's on i think it's mother stands
Speaker 2for comfort oh yeah amazing track amazing track andrew poppy is an interesting one isn't it because we talked earlier about ztt now ztt run a role in 1985 they've been the most successful label of the previous two years three years with frankie goes to hollywood art of noise propaganda everyone felt like they raised the bar in terms of production and they started signing a lot of other acts and they made a few interesting signings around this time and andrew poppy is interesting because he was a young classic serious classical composer one almost feels like he was ahead of his time because if he came out now he'd fit right in with your max richter's and your nils froms yeah but at the time i don't think people were quite ready for ztt launching a classical composer and i have to say i don't think the record the beating of wings was the name of the record it was a minimalist record created in a high production design aesthetic studio environment yeah i don't really love it but what i do love are the 12 inch mixes that came out on the singles particularly this one the impossible net uh which has an eight minute mix of 32 frames and the the album but with much more use of sampling and electronics and i particularly love this record the album itself tends to be more purist it tries to come more like a serious classical record and to be honest it was never going to be up there with
Speaker 3the philip glasses or no i like it and i liked the fact that ztt signed him and also at the time andrew poppy was doing arrangements for matt johnson and the verse so i was kind of and and he was doing some really interesting arrangements you know for a rock band he could you know pull in some very very well like i say i think if he was
Speaker 2operating now he'd probably fit straight in with your craig armstrongs and you max the people that kind of work in the world of electronic music or the john metcalf's people who work in the world of electronic music then go off and arrange strings for someone else and then do a you know appear at the proms you
Speaker 3think john and newsome or something yeah exactly yeah but i liked it i mean i
Speaker 2liked it one last record one last record to him before we do our roundup of 1985 and it's one of my favorite records of the year go on it's another guy that nominally fits into the minimalist category except his music a bit like john adams in that way is much more lyrical much more melodic than that would suggest it's not reductive in the way that philip glass music is reductive or steve wright music yeah vim mertens okay the belgian composer maximizing the audience which is his first album actually it's a double album what i love about vim mertens is that the music the fabric of the music is essentially minimalist in the sense it's constantly repeating ostinato figures sometimes played by woodwinds sometimes often played by piano or strings but over the top of these he's not afraid to put these incredibly beautiful haunting melodic lines which to me give the music much much much less of a sense of the academic they become much more emotionally engaging this is a masterpiece this record for me it's a double album three of the sides have just one long track and the other side has two tracks there's only five tracks on the whole record so they are very extended compositions they're very minimalist the the sound of the record is beautiful there's no 80sness really to the record it sounds very organic very timeless the first track on the record circles which takes up the whole of the first side starts with just a two-note woodwind figure every two or three seconds do do do do and then gradually i mean you know yeah you know the record gradually he adds in third note and a fourth note and he's gradually building up this kind of snaking woodwind line and then finally once this line has established itself he adds this most beautiful haunting i mean he has this kind of falsetto um voice which he uses to great effect he adds these beautiful melodies over the top what's your take of this album tim did you did you know it at the
Speaker 3time i think you probably played it to me and i've always liked what you've done and i've always liked what i've heard of vin mertens it's never been you know in my favorite list you know if you've got your favorite minimalists but i really liked it you know obviously i was naturally inclined to that type of music but what is interesting is that you know arvo pair who was also gaining traction around this period was immediately a kind of a radio three regular and as spacious and sometimes simplistic as some of his music could be he was resolutely a classical composer vin mertens i don't know what label was he signed well that's interesting
Speaker 2i was just going to say because he actually comes from a post-punk kind of background he was on the disc de crepe school and which was affiliated with factory records and yes and he's working with and he began i think i'm right saying he began in a post-punk rock band so he's come from a completely different direction yeah possibly in a different direction but he's come from a completely different direction he's never been classically trained and he he he really had aspirations to be a serious classical composer some of his later works are massively far too there's one piece i think which takes up 37 cds and he a few years later he was making 12 cd sets for solo bassoon yeah and i just couldn't get in with it but here there is a pop sensibility there is a and i think it is something to do with what i said which is that he will put these beautiful melodies over the top of what is music so he is quite unique in that respect and at the time he would have been really on his own
Speaker 3yeah well it's like in my mind i kind of put him in there with people um from tuxedo moment yes same label right it's that that it's this kind of it's flirting with post-punk flirting with minimalism classical ideas so strangely i see it as being a more rarefied version of what 4ad were doing or what dead can dance could easily
Speaker 2have been on 4ad yeah yeah could easily be on 4ad it is it would have been probably the most organic and least reverb heavy thing ever released on 4ad but yes i know what you mean yes he's a fascinating fascinating character and i think possibly because of where he came from you're absolutely right in saying he's never been taken as seriously by the classical cognoscenti as perhaps he should have been yeah he should have been and he does seem to appeal more to people that like rock pop crossover yeah than people that listen to chamber music or classical music and i think
Speaker 3i think it is all about label all about marketing in certain cases so much is isn't it so much is so much is about perception if max richter had come up through that would we be seeing max richter as the classical composer because you know obviously max richter um in some ways i see him as directly coming out of a you know more than i do shostakovich you know
Speaker 2yeah and much like i was saying you know with with um andrew poppy i think if vim mertens came out today he would fit straight in yeah yeah And he'd be doing movie soundtracks. He'd be doing soundtracks for shows on Netflix and what have you. And maybe he is doing that in Belgium, I don't know. But this album at this time would have been a real anomaly, a real square peg in a round hole. And I think I discovered it because I found it for 49p in Record and Tapes Exchange, you know, and a double album. I thought, oh, that's good value. Three side long pieces, I wonder what that's like. But I absolutely would recommend it wholeheartedly to almost anyone that loves good music. Okay, Tim, 1985, that's it. That is it, 1985. What a year, the year of Live Aid, the year that the compact disc becomes the dominant physical format, at least that's the way in my memory. And a year of fantastic, you know, music, particularly from the kind of art pop, you know, scene. The same question as always, Tim. Your favourites, your favourites, and the records you feel the most, or the record you feel is the most influential in the long term.
Speaker 3Well, I think one of the things that's kind of interesting here is that we're going through this year, and I always remember, certain mid-'80s productions being very, very similar. And yet when we're going through these albums, you couldn't get more different than Vim Mertens, The Smiths, The Hounds of Love. And Robert Plant's Shaken and Stirred. Yeah, and Shaken and Stirred, or what have you. So actually, it's surprisingly diverse. And certainly when I like why here in this era, it's that thing where I kind of, I still feel very close to it, if you will. That this was music that I remember being really excited when it came out, whether it's Spleen and Ideal or Hounds of Love, or even, you know, Walk Away by Sisters of Mercy. This was music that immediately gripped me, excited me. And when I listened to it, there's almost kind of a sense of, you know, coming home. It's like, oh God, I remember this was an era that felt good, despite the fact, as I've said, my initial perception being that 1985 was perhaps more staid than 84 and 83 and 82. I'm surprised. Yeah, I am surprised.
Speaker 2Because as I say, I always had in my mind, I think I said right at the beginning of this recording, these episodes about 1985, I always had in my mind that Live Aid was the watershed moment when everything went to shit. And of course, now going through this list, you see it was just as fascinating a year as any. Maybe it was the following year that The Rock began to set in. I don't know if we've done 86. We have done 86, yeah. Colour of Spring. Colour of Spring. You see, there you go, straight away, an argument for the defence. But in my mind, I was surprised. I was surprised.
Speaker 3Yeah, no, same here. I guess in terms of sort of overall album that I've probably played more than any other and will play again, I guess it's got to be Hounds of Love as a favourite. But, you know, equally though, ZTT releases, Slave to the Rhythm and A Secret Wish Propaganda, you know, expansive, beautiful pieces of work. There are so many diverse albums from this year I could have picked. And as we said before, The Smiths album, you know, striking album in its own way.
Speaker 2What's that most influential, would you say?
Speaker 3I think this one's really, really difficult because you can only talk about Kate Bush having a curious afterlife with her use in the soundtrack of Stranger Things and that suddenly becoming one of the pieces of 2023 because of that.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think that's an anomaly, isn't it? And it is an anomaly.
Speaker 3And I think that because of that, it's possible that, you know, the likes of Taylor Swift or the likes of Lana Del Rey listened and heard something. So there's been a curiosity, there's been a curiosity, there's been a curious afterlife with Hounds of Love and perhaps in some of the quirkier American singer-songwriters or even, you know, Wise Blood or what have you, you know, perhaps there's a curious afterlife of Kate Bush in.
Speaker 2I don't really hear it, but yeah. No, I don't. I'm speculating because of this exact. I get fed up with every quirky female singer-songwriter being compared to Kate Bush, you know. Yeah, yeah. And I love Kate Bush and I love a lot of these singer-songwriters, but I think it's lazy. I think it's lazy.
Speaker 3It is and I don't necessarily hear it. I'm just wondering. I'm just wondering that because of its ubiquity last year, you know, maybe some producers are listening because even now it's a shockingly innovative production. It is, no doubt, yeah. And would have sounded, you know.
Speaker 2So you wouldn't pick that and I agree with your reasoning for not picking that as influential. What is influential?
Speaker 3This I'm not quite sure because I think it's, you know, unless we're missing quite a lot. I mean, there might be a lot of sort of industrial metal albums and sort of hip-hop progenitors where they're producing a sound that you can still hear in contemporary music.
Speaker 2Well, see, I'm going to I'm going to posit something to you here that actually the most influential record of this year, possibly not for reasons of the music, but in terms of the industry, is Brothers in Arms. Because it's much like, as you pointed out, Dark Side of the Moon did for stereo hi-fi, what this record did for compact disc. That's not to be underestimated because compact disc was the dominant format. It still is, actually, for all the people that say that vinyl is, compact disc still is the dominant format, just about, I think. It became the dominant format and, this is the most significant thing, changed the way people thought about albums. And changed the album itself. Changed the format. So, for me, I'm going to say Brothers in Arms, nothing to do with the music, but just the fact that it popularised a format which influenced the way people thought about albums, the way people thought about music.
Speaker 3Okay, I'm going to go then for that. I'm going to go for Thirsty After, because it was created specifically for CD. Also a good one. And again, popularised the format amongst people like me. You know, I would have wanted that album and therefore wanted the format. But also, I think you can still hear echoes of, you know, what Mertens, Poppy and Eno were doing in soundtrack music now. You know, that's something that hasn't necessarily dated. If there's a quality Netflix or Amazon Prime production, you're going to hear music that has that lineage. For sure, but I don't think that's something
Speaker 2peculiar to 1985. That's something. No, no. Pick any year. Pick any year between 1970 and 1985 and you'll probably find out. I suppose the thing is,
Speaker 3you're not going to hear the sound of Hounds of Love or songs from The Big Chair in anything that's popular now. As great and revolutionary and successful as those albums.
Speaker 2Birdie is, you know, in terms of a soundtrack album, it's very much like the way we think about soundtracks. To Netflix shows now. Birdie, there's a lot of that in that album, 40 years ago, you know.
Speaker 3Again, his sense of sound design on that album is great.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. I'm going to go, for my favourite albums of the year, I'm going to be very, very scattershot here. Hounds of Love, Songs from the Big Chair, Steve McQueen, Cupid and Syke, Love Them All, Secret Wish, Adore It. Actually, Steve McQueen might be my most played album. Yeah, me too, actually. Spleen and Ideal. Spleen and Ideal. Dead Can Dance. Yeah, great. Meet His Murder. And Vin Mertens, Maximising the Audience is my favourite minimalist album from the year. And I love it and I still listen to it very regularly. So there we go. What a year. How many episodes do you think we've got there, Tim?
Speaker 3I think we've probably got about 10 episodes out of this one. And we've got to remember as well to say, if you like this, please like it because apparently it improves algorithms. God, that's the most apologetic demand. Please. If you like it.
Speaker 2Come on, you've got to be a bit more American about this, Tim. Yeah? If you've got to demand the listener go and give us a five-star review, not like, oh, if you like it.
Speaker 3I wish I could do that Rick Beato thing. He does it with such style and confidence. Go leave us a five-star review. Yeah. Leave a five-star review. Say like. Yeah, or give us a one-star review. This is what keeps it, you know, you've got to listen to the bonus ear for listening book. The bonus bonus. Yeah, the bonus bonus ear for listening book, which we will be selling if
Speaker 2you look under the credit. That's more like it. Yeah. Now, what innovations are coming, Tim? Well, we're going to try and, we're obviously videoing this again today. The next innovation, we haven't done reader's letters for ages.
Speaker 3We've not done reader's letters. Let's not do it now
Speaker 2because we've already gone on for 37 days on this. Yeah. But we're going to have to bring that back next episode. And also we want to, we want to try and implement the, the listeners 15 second soundbite review, don't they? Yeah, yeah. So what we could do is we could publish a list of some albums we're going to discuss and then they could send in their own little. Indeed. Pre-empts. And then we could feature them, feature them in the episodes. In the episode. Yeah. That sounds like fun, doesn't it? We could do that. Yeah. So we could, somebody could send in a really glowing review of an album that we're about to completely trash or vice versa. Or vice versa. Or vice versa. Of course. Anyway, thank you so much for listening. As always, myself and Tim will be back with another year very soon. Thanks for now and goodbye.
Speaker 4Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. during our annual fall blowout sale.
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