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Speaker 2Tim, from synth pop. Let's talk about the mainstream albums this year. There are some massive albums this year. Let's tick a few boxes here. These are not albums I personally particularly like, but Culture Club were at their sort of commercial zenith here. Kissing To Be Clever came out this year. Phil Collins, Hello I Must Be Going, the second album came out this year. We like Phil, don't we? We've talked about Face Value.
Speaker 3I think this is a good album. This is a really good consolidation of Face Value.
Speaker 2Yeah. When we talked about Face Value, we're fans of Phil on this show. I think we also talked about No Jacket Required, didn't we, too? We did. Yeah. But this one I like. You know, first of two albums.
Speaker 3Sodio. Yeah. Haircut 100, Pelican West came out this year. Really good album. Well, it's an important year for me, actually, because it's the first year in which I started playing music. Right. So for me, I was aware of almost everything that was around.
Speaker 2What were you playing before that?
Speaker 3Football. Football. Yeah. Of course. And I think, you know, we were rehearsing, in the Latchford Brass Band Hall, or Scout Hall. I could never work out which it was, but it was one of the two. I think it was the Brass Band Hall. And we had a stage to ourselves. And I remember all of these influences being around. And a couple of us were school friends. About three of us were school friends, then a couple of other people drawn in. And it was that point when you were just in a band with people because they had instruments, or they wanted to be in a band. Yeah, yeah. And so you had a drummer who wanted to be in weather report.
Speaker 2You're my best mate. You're going to be the bass player, because no one else wants to play the bass.
Speaker 3So the drummer wants to be in weather report. Yeah. You know, Alfonso Mango, whatever. That's what he is. Then you've got the bass player wants to be in the Stranglers. Then you've got the guitarist who wants to be in Russian Genesis. And I'm listening to everything around. But then there's also the keyboard player who likes the Stranglers and Haircut 100. So I was very aware of them. Great singles band. Yeah. Great sound. They were kind of a boy band in their own way, weren't they? They were. I mean, they looked fantastic.
Speaker 2They looked very young and bushy-tailed and bright-eyed.
Speaker 3They had the jumpers, the nice jumpers. Put it this way. Well, they had cricket shirts, didn't they, often? Nick Hayward was a great songwriter, though, wasn't he? He was a great songwriter and really nice voice. And I think one of my friends did indeed look like Nick Hayward, had the dyed blonde hair at that point. I had an old Yorkshire Cricket Club jumper that I occasionally wore during that era, though my hair was closer to Robert Platt. Channeling Haircut 100. Channeling Haircut. But I liked them. I really, I think there's something about them that was. The House Martins had it later. It was vivacious, playful, intelligent pop. It was, in some ways, nothing more, nothing less. But it was great. It was always a joy to see them on Top of the Pops or see them on the kids' programmes because there was an intelligence behind this vivacious pop and that kind of light funk sound that also Orange Juice were producing and early Aztec camera to an extent as well, that postcard Scottish scene.
Speaker 2Is there a sense. Is there a sense that Nick Hayward, analogy with Mark Hollis, that he's kind of playing a role here in order to get a foothold in the industry? And actually, he blooms much later on as this being much more thoughtful,
Speaker 3great songwriter. Well, within a year he's done Is It Whistle Down the Wind, which is a lovely song.
Speaker 2Yeah, and some more introverted, introspective music on that as well that you wouldn't have heard on Peric and West.
Speaker 3He's a real talent, but what I love about him is they've got that kind of untarnished 60s sense of pop music. Pop fun. It's almost like. Yeah, the Monkees. Yeah, the Monkees, the beginning of the Beatles. There's something quite joyous about them.
Speaker 2Yeah, no, good record. We've got Madness releasing The Rise and Fall this year. Madness commercially on the decline here, but they're becoming a little more dark on this record. So it's an interesting entry in their catalogue. But let's talk about.
Speaker 3I loved Madness at the time. Yeah, me too. And still think great band.
Speaker 2Let's talk about some big hitters. Now, let's talk about the Queen album from this year, Hot Space. Now, I think it's fair to say that Hot Space. Hot Space is an album that your typical Queen fan would probably consider to be the Nadir of their catalogue. Yeah. Right? I really like it. I like it too. I like it. I mean, it's obvious what's happened. They've had this massive hit with Another One Bites the Dust. Massive. I mean, that was the biggest hit they'd ever had in America, wouldn't it? Written by John Deacon. And they've said to themselves, we'd better make a whole album like that, hadn't they? Funky, synth pop. There's lots of drum machine on this record. Even though Roger Taylor's miming to it, it's electronic drums. It's a real anomaly in their catalogue. I'm so glad they made this record. Yeah. I love the fact that it's in their catalogue. I'm not going to say it's a masterpiece. I love the fact it's in their catalogue. And I really enjoy it. Actually, I would argue it's a little bit more consistent as an album experience than some of the records that came after. Or before, you know. Or before. Some of the records that came after and before, they have these incredible. I mean, Queen, I think of as the greatest singles band of all time in the sense that I'm never convinced completely by an album from beginning to end. I think we talked about this before, didn't we? There are albums that come close. Sheer Heart Attack, Night at the Opera. But typically, their albums have four or five just beautifully crafted, realised songs that just sound like they're made to be immortal singles. And of course, R. And then some filler. And Hot Space, less so for me. It feels like.
Speaker 3I don't think. You know what? I think you're right. I think this is more consistently strong, but it doesn't. It doesn't have the dazzling highlights that other albums do. Even Innuendo, you know, the title track. What a brilliant title track. You know, right to the end, they were making masterpieces. Well, they does have Under Pressure on it. Okay, Under Pressure, I do think is astonishing. Yeah, yeah. With The Bowser.
Speaker 2The Bowser! Yeah. But the singles, I mean, the title track, Back Chat, Lost Prolaborals, Day of My. I mean, they were very, very minor. People hardly remember them now. I don't think any of them made it to the greatest hits. It was disliked at the time.
Speaker 3You know, I can tell. You know, Queen fans, I knew, didn't like it. I liked it a lot. I loved Under Pressure. And interesting, it's funny, just mentioning it now, I think, ah, this to an extent might have been what triggered Let's Dance for Bowie. Because that was one of the biggest Bowie hits, Under Pressure. Yes, for sure. He's had that level of success that he never had before. Let's Dance is the year after, is it? It's the year after. Okay, I'm not sure. I'm thinking whether Under Pressure, I think, was Under Pressure released as a single slightly earlier, 81?
Speaker 2I think it was, yeah.
Speaker 3Yeah. And Bowie didn't release an album between 80 and 83. Right. And maybe the success of Under Pressure leads to Let's Dance as much as anything else.
Speaker 2Like I say, I'm so, I mean, I do like Queen very much. I'm so happy this album exists in their catalogue. I can see how at the time it would have been very disappointing to fans expecting more of the same. But it's one of those things, now you look back as part of the continuum of their catalogue. I'm so happy it's there. I believe we have a review from someone who hates the album. Let's hear it.
Speaker 4Said the album's absolutely the best. For me, Queen Hot Space typifies everything about Queen. Oh dear, Queen, what have you done? The wheels well and truly came off the bus on this one. The guys from, well, any Queen fan would say it was a major derailment. I recall when I first heard Under Pressure. Wow. Stunning. The addition of Bowie to the line that was, well, breathtaking to be fair. And I thought the album was going to be the best one ever. But oh no. No, no, no, no. The album dispensed with any element of rock. The slotted in, which I believe was down to Freddie's request and more softer, disco-ified, tame shuffle, how annoying it was. You know what? I don't mind it at all now. Certainly not the worst. And it was definitely the start of their decline. What a shame there was never, ever any more tracks with Bowie.
Speaker 2Interesting. I thought he was going to be positive about it for a minute there. But then he, yeah. I mean, I think in a way, he is kind of paraphrasing what we've said here is that in retrospect, well, he used the word it's not a good album. It's not as bad as I remember. In retrospect, I think it occupies a really unique place in the discography and the continuum of Queen. It does dispense with a lot of the rockisms. Yeah. But you know what? What's wrong with bands doing different things and trying different things? Well, I think you and I
Speaker 3possibly, because if I say this, because remember, you know, we had fairly eclectic tastes. So we knew the Donna Summer. We knew the sheet. We knew the disco. So it maybe wasn't as much a shock to the system. And I really quite liked it. I agree with him that Under Pressure is the one masterpiece. And it would have been fantastic for them to do more with Bowie. And I also agree that actually, if you're that Queen fan, because even on the game, the game is almost like a greatest hits collection where you've got, like jazz, it's all over the place. You know, you've got rock and roll. You've got epic pomp rock. You've got brilliant pop balladry. And this dispenses with all of that. So if you're that Queen fan wanting that eclecticism and that scope, you're not going to get it.
Speaker 2But the game does have Another One Bites the Dust on it. Another One Bites the Dust. And you could say that this album is essentially an album full of Another One Bites the Dust. None of them are as good as Another One. And maybe that's the problem. With the exception of Under Pressure, maybe nothing quite lives up to it.
Speaker 3And Another One Bites the Dust has a different context because it's surrounded by the title track, the game, you know, play the game. So maybe in context, you can love it more. If it's an album of that and it's not really your musical taste, it can be a disappointment. But still, certainly at the time, was you know friends of mine who were fans of queen
Speaker 2hated this album let's talk about um another very very big record from this year that i absolutely adore dire straits love over gold this for me is the greatest dire straits record i still we talked about the strangest singles of all time we talked about oh superman getting to number two in the charts oh god yeah private investigation i would put private investigations almost at the same level that also got if i correct me if i'm wrong i think it also got to number two and it remains dire straits highest charting single it's a six minute long piece of musical theater with no singing in it he talks and it ends with a marimba a two minute extended marimba solo yeah
Speaker 3that's the single
Speaker 2that's the single i'd love
Speaker 3that the confidence and i loved it and i think those sort of willful gestures when we were releasing early no man's singles like days in the trees i think we had that in mind it's like why the hell can't you get away with this if we want to make a seven minute single we'll do it you know if we want a texture or a grunt for two minutes afterwards we'll do it what a brave single for one of the biggest bands in the world yeah you
Speaker 2can't do that anymore can't do that anymore so you can't release bold singles anymore i did hear the
Speaker 3other week i think wasn't it that taylor swift had done a 10 minute track or something i don't know this is really i don't know about that i don't know but she can get away with any people on the oh man it's the first ever 10 minute track seriously well whether it's true or not this was you know spreading could be disinformation i'm thinking but
Speaker 2algorithms generally don't allow you to have tracks these days that are confronting your expectations that's the problem a track like private investigations completely confronted your expectations about what dire straits we're going or what pop music could be you know i love private investigations of course the the first side of this record starts with the 15 minute long telegraph even even though taylor swift the first artist to have ever done anything 10 minute long song uh 22 42 years ago dire straits started their album with 14 minute telegraph road and it's wonderful because it's it's what a bold thing to do in 1982 and yes you think doing a 14 minute long track is a very progressive rock thing to do isn't it but it's not progressive rock
Speaker 3it's dire straits it's as close as they came i mean the similarity to progressive to me is i always thought this album it has a slight you know i think knopfler's aware of gilmore because for sure i was going to say amazing gilmore is the one yeah and i can hear something of shine on you crazy diamond wish you were here era floyd and also they've got i think a new keyboard player in at the stage and it's much more textual than previous dire straits albums have been so i always kind of thought there was a floydian quality to some of this album but it does different things and you know there's obviously there's also a bob dylan quality to telegraph road
Speaker 2very much yeah and of course a very dire strait and a
Speaker 3very dire straits quality it's
Speaker 2it very much continues the the sound of dire straits as we know it but it's definitely um it's definitely reaching for something more conceptual more ambitious more album oriented shall we say and obviously just around the corner was their big mainstream breakthrough record uh brothers in arms which is a great pop record but this is the one for me this is the dire straits record for me my favorite this seems to me the record where you know i think it's a great record for me i think it's a great record for me i think it's a they're just in love with with making albums making records he's in love with making records making albums making music this is his grand statement yeah he's
Speaker 3taking risks and as you said lyrically one of the things that's nice about this is that not fleur always felt like one of those artists that never really left his roots so there's a real sense of kind of i know he evokes the dust bowl
Speaker 2wild west yeah but he
Speaker 3also evokes you know i think i said this to you before when because I remember this you know where I was based in between Manchester and Liverpool I remember a lot of the cities even in the early 80s late 70s early 80s haven't hadn't recovered from the second world war they were still bombed out territories and where Knopfler was from in the northeast I'm sure it was very similar and I got a book of black and white photographs from I think it's kind of Newcastle 1980s and you would think this could be 1930s Dust Bowl America but it's not it's 1980 Newcastle it's 1980 Manchester you know this is what a lot of these places often look like Paddy
Speaker 2and Sting have both Paddy McAleenan Sting have both got that thing haven't they you can they come from Newcastle they come from Tyneside you know but there's this draw of America and and the great outdoors and the wild west while still being connected to where they're from you know because
Speaker 3obviously Sting one of his later albums is the concept album is it the ship or the shipyard or what have you great record you know what oh he's another you know interesting really interesting artist yeah very much very underrated
Speaker 2so we love Love Over Gold we've got a listener's review of Love Over Gold let's hear what the listener makes of this
Speaker 5album Dire Straits Love Over Gold which released at the beginning of my grade nine year of high school in September of 1982 was a complete revelation to me at the time with the addition of Alan Clark on keyboards Knopfler created some of the most atmospheric dramatic and progressive soundscapes I had ever heard side one with Telegraph Road and Private Investigations is just an absolute writing performance and I think it's a really good piece and production masterpiece in my opinion yeah I'd
Speaker 2agree with that and there is a sense and again the album is very front-loaded um we haven't talked about the second side at all here there are some great tracks on the second side it never raised the title track is great but the album is so front-loaded with side one I mean it is just such a perfectly realized 20 minutes of music the way it flows and his guitar I mean his guitar sound it's instantly recognizable isn't it his sound his tone it's so unique much like Gilmore you can hear him play one note and yeah that's Knopfler and you you start to hear a lot of people trying to imitate that sound as well um during this period but he is himself he is himself he is yeah talking of people that are only themselves Prince 1999 Susudio the man's a bloody genius is all I say yeah well Susudio definitely been listening to 1999 I mean it's a really good album it's a really good album it's a I mean this is a double album this is Prince's first double album of course he would go on to make a more celebrated double album a few years later we signed this time but this is his first double album that in itself is a statement in 1982 to make a double album people remember the big hits on this album 1999 Little Red Corvette most of the rest of the album is this kind of extended electro funk synth electro funk workouts which by all accounts he would sort of record them overnight in his own studio overdubbing everything else I think he just got his first drum machine the drum machine that became very very kind of you know much a hallmark of his of the sound of of Purple Rain ubiquitous by the biggest wasn't it but 1999 is him kind of experimenting with these kind of electro funk tracks and the album I think gets a little bit overlooked because of what came after but it is pure Prince it's precocious I mean he's still very young to make a double album essentially solo record I mean all these records are ultimately are solo records anyway obviously but this is a very precocious thing he's still like 20 might like we're talking about Kate Bush he's still very young here I think he's the same year isn't he 58 I think both of them he's very young he's releasing a double album um familiar with the
Speaker 3record Tim are you a fan not as familiar no I mean I know the Prince after this really I know Purple Rain I know and love parade I know around the world in a day I know sign of the times and earlier I
Speaker 2saw Dirty Miners and Dirty Mind
Speaker 3yeah strangely enough I know the singles from this yeah but not much else you would love
Speaker 2it lots of seven eight nine minute long electro synth funk workouts lady cab driver check that track out brilliant great record we have a listener review of 1999 hopefully they'll have more insight into it than we have what makes
Speaker 6it so good hello Tim hello Steven this is Clifton Montgomery from the US and my pick for 1982. Clifton Montgomery from the US and my pick for 1982. is 1999 by Prince it is the last album what I call the punk funk trilogy of um Dirty Mind controversy and 1999 I feel like it's the most refined of the three and it was the last album before Prince became the Prince that the world knows I think that's
Speaker 2absolutely right it does feel like the third part of a punk funk what a brilliant way of putting it yeah there's a very brilliant way of putting it yeah there's a very very DIY Prince recording through the night in his bedroom quality to those three albums Dirty Mind controversy and this one this I think with the title track and Little Red Corvette lays the seeds for Prince going mainstream those two songs the kind of big American rock radio R&B radio crossover hits of this record really lay the foundations for when doves cry let's go crazy but the rest of the record does feel like the third part of a of a trilogy with the punk funk brilliant that's exactly
Speaker 3well also as you say though there's a kind of during this period I think with you know Michael Jackson as well which we're going to come on this rock R&B Fusion that's pretty effortless it's appealing as much to rock fans as it is to R&B and pop fans yeah well let's talk
Speaker 2about that thriller the biggest album of all time I believe it still is uh considered to be the best-selling album of all time is it or something overtaken it by now the sound of music maybe maybe something by Dale or Taylor Swift has overtaken I don't know but for a long time I believe Thriller I think it still is the biggest selling record of all time in terms of pure certificated sales I mean it is a stroke of this record isn't it i don't need to ever hear it ever again because the songs are so ubiquitous and lest we forget the title track written by another english northerner rod temperton from heatwave ah so you're gonna say george formby for a minute george formby paddy mccalloon yeah lawrence out felt no um no written by rod temperton from heatwave who i think quincy jones knew and kind of brought him in and on the previous record he'd written um rock with you okay and on this record quincy back went back to him and said we need material for michael's new album what have you got and he came up with thriller and he never had to work another day in his life probably what an iconic track but lest we forget beat it billy jean py t i mean you almost don't need to talk about this record there's nothing more to say about it and if you remember tim on the first episode of we did say we're not we're not going to talk about the canon yeah so maybe we should just
Speaker 3swiftly sometimes i think they do get neglected and i think sometimes as well what is great about a year like 1982 and some of the other years we're dealing with is that as with the beatles the most successful artists of all time they're pretty damn good they are and there's a reason
Speaker 2why i mean it's like with queen you cannot not queen yeah i mean i i do say and i say because i believe it queen were not necessarily the most consistent that album's band but you cannot knock the catalogue well there
Speaker 3was a genius moment after genius last week because you know kids i think queen i think partly because of the film but partly because their songs have constantly reinvented themselves with a young audience yeah so i was in a record shop last week the other record shop in rye is a fantastic little shop and there was a girl there who was 14 or 15 and she was just pouring through the queen things and she got i don't know if she's either a dvd or cd of interviews with roger and brian roger taylor brian may talking about the queen phenomenon and then she was talking to him going oh god i can't go this i'm going to watch bohemian rhapsody again after tonight and she went out and bought this again encouraging physical sales fantastic in this day and age but she was young she was excited and was just pouring her heart about how much queen meant to her in the shop oblivious to anyone around her and she was just pouring her heart about how much queen meant to her in the shop oblivious to anyone around her
Speaker 2i think that's true and i think the only other two artists that spring to mind there may be others the two other artists that spring to mind that have completely been rediscovered generation after generation even to the point where there was a time in history where it almost felt like they were underrated but you cannot keep great music down queen abba elton i mean well beatles i would say less than those three elton john's diamonds has been in the top 10 album chart for the last 10 years five six years oh yeah in terms of sales yeah fleetwood mac if
Speaker 3you're talking about that as
Speaker 2well but young kids they know young kids will know five six elton songs five six abba songs five six queen songs almost without fail i'm not sure they would think name you five or six beatles songs maybe maybe i'm wrong about that fleetwood mac i
Speaker 3think they might because rumors still hovers around the charts that's true yeah
Speaker 2but anyway thriller you know it's an untouchable mask it is a masterpiece it's still sounds as good as it ever did
Speaker 3and i love the fact that quincy jones of course started you know doing jazz arrangements started doing easy listening all sorts of things you know his background is so different yeah well he worked with people like ray charles arranging sonata early 60s
Speaker 2yeah amazing the arrangements for that yeah he's been around even by this time he'd been around for
Speaker 3a long time exactly and he'd been around in such a different industry yeah and with different styles and i love you know we always talk about people like gabriel and bush reinventing themselves with era but quincy jones forgot to say you know 62 he's working with ray charles as you say he's working with people like frank sinatra 82 he's the producer of the best-selling album of the year and now of all time he's a great talent ridiculously
Speaker 2talented guy yeah yeah fleetwood mac you mentioned fleetwood mac mirage came out this year it feels like a sort of i mean tusk we love yeah we talked about us this feels like a bit of a retreat doesn't it back to oh that didn't do as well as our rumors and we better try and make a bit more rumors it seems like a for me it seems like it's good but it feels like a band trying to make rumors part two presumably a very dysfunctional band by this time in terms of the interpersonal relationships anyway
Speaker 3it's okay it's almost like a forgotten album isn't it because it's massive rumors yeah is massive and brilliant yeah tusk less massive but utterly eccentric and brilliant it's something you can talk about
Speaker 2and add in endlessly i
Speaker 3adore that album yeah mirage as you say i like it it's a fleetwood mac album it was still massive good yeah still massive yeah but the problem is it comes in between the two colossi doesn't it yeah because four years later is it five 98 1987 tango night isn't it yeah yeah and that is almost as big as rumors and it's full of great anthems well that's
Speaker 2interesting because tango in the night i think has got a lot more of the dna from from tusk than mirage almost seems like we're going to completely forget we made tusk and then you hear an out you hear a track like big love the first track on tango the night it's like ah that's the logical step on from from totally agree i mean i
Speaker 3think you know tango in the night is one of those albums that it's a massive commercial hit but it's really interesting as well yeah we won't talk about
Speaker 2that because we'll save it for whenever we do talk about it maca maca tug of war now i wasn't so familiar with this record i listened to it it was produced by george martin another record produced by george martin this year after we talked about the ultravox uh quartet album from a lot more successful as a george martin production um it sounds lovely this record you know i think people have this idea that i'm always down on maca because i didn't really like maca uh paul mccartney's second solo he didn't give the first three 10 out of 10 the first the first episode we talked about paul mccartney too and i to be fair to play devil's advocate and to make it entertaining i i took the contrary stance on that mccartney three
Speaker 3where he invents electronica he invents drum and bass and he produces some of the most beautiful ballads of all time mccartney three that one mccartney two mccartney two of course talking about i don't mccartney three is great i love
Speaker 2mccartney one i love mccartney
Speaker 3one i love mccartney two and mccartney three what a great album and i
Speaker 2i haven't heard it and i actually quite like mccartney too even though i think there's a couple of dodgy tracks on it but anyway bass electronica waterfalls tug of war let's talk about you know on a couple of tracks let's talk about tug of war it's a lovely record isn't it presumably you know it very well because you're the world's biggest paul mccartney
Speaker 3this is the thing i am aren't i but this is one it's an absence in my collection i think it's sort of because i love you know mccartney was one of the first people i adored and i came to him because of course as you know one of my first loves it's john barry it's bond themes it's jeff love playing the bond themes but also one of the first things i ever got live and let die it's maca doing the bond what a track and what an amazing track yeah and then i realized that my family had the blue and the red beatles albums so i got into the beatles backward through wings which is what the beatles always wish they'd been well
Speaker 2as alan partridge said the wings the wings the band the beatles could have been come on like wildlife is brilliant i don't think that's a particular red rose speedway red rose speedway now you're on
Speaker 3the run love it back to the egg london town what a run yeah so i'm not
Speaker 2i can't go with you on some of those i love red rose speedway i love band on the run i love wings at the speed of sound yeah um back to the egg london
Speaker 3town but i don't know what this was maybe because wildlife i i bought you know because we're looking at the albums here and i bought possibly a hundred albums or more this year you know it's been out there constantly buying because you couldn't listen to them through streaming you could listen to them at friends houses and so on and i don't know why because i loved mccartney too as is well known tug of war was just kind of outside that's odd because from my listening it's been a long time
Speaker 2it's a bet it's a bet it's a much better record than mccartney too yeah i know you find that almost inconceivable to him because you think mccartney too is the greatest album ever made but yeah just on a very cursory listen listen what i love one thing i love about mccartney is his career is fascinating we were talking about queen we love the fact that hot space exists in their catalogue i love the fact that mccartney in his catalogue has these albums that very often people will dismiss wings wildlife i mean i've listened to it it's not very good but i can understand why you like it and why why some friend and why some mccartney fans are apologists for it because it's fascinating it's a fascinating thing in his career um it sounds like they knocked it off overnight it's not very good there's no some
Speaker 3amazing melody there's no title track and dear friend i think are two of the best things and
Speaker 2i would concede that probably there's a couple of tracks on there that are diamonds in what is essentially not a particularly good record diamonds in the rough and that's probably true of london town too in fact i know it's true of london town because with a little luck is a great track and i love that track but i've listened to the record it's not very good but i love that about his career that there is a sense of him just shitting out these records that that one didn't work that one didn't work this is a masterpiece the next one's a bit yeah try something else going to work with someone and that we've talked about that before with 72 but we said
Speaker 3this was 72 that almost every band it was like oh you don't know that how about this yeah almost every band was knocking out two albums a year in the early 70s yeah and really this is kind of a blind spot or a blank spot in my mccartney knowledge because again i got give my regards to broad street which people don't like particularly he's got some great stuff pressed to play so i was still buying mccartney albums in the 80s and you know i do remember having wings posters still on my wall alongside the joy division posters i wasn't ashamed of london town i mean mccartney closer whatever whatever he was doing
Speaker 2he never lost the ability to come up with an absolutely brilliant single i mean just throughout this period i mean you mentioned you know live and let die if that had been on rose red speedway i think there's a double album configuration where it is on the record or something anyway um because that album was supposed to be a double album apparently brilliant my love maybe i'm amazed the tracks the waterfalls you mentioned with a lot with a little luck i've even got a soft spot for mull of kintyre sorry yeah love london
Speaker 3town the title track
Speaker 2don't know that one off the top of my head um psychedelic mccartney but just the ability to just still knock out these amazing amazing songs and you're like yeah that this guy just if he wants
Speaker 3to he can just be everyone into the dust well live and let die i think is astonishing partly because i don't think ai could come up with live and let die because it is such a bizarre arrangement yeah and then i love the fact that the lyric has nothing to do with the book or the film he's taking the title he's going i can work with that title yeah but it's bizarre isn't it you said the structure of it and it's all in about three minutes as well and then also the genre yeah you know symphonic orchestral rock with a bit of reggae a bit of reggae throwing yeah
Speaker 2yeah amazing amazing he invents ub40 in that
Speaker 3yeah well it's interesting
Speaker 2i talk about a little bit of this in my book mccartney invents reggae doesn't he a bit of a plug there for my book i talk a little bit about this in my book these songs where they are almost like these mini symphonies in this in in a pop song i talk about i'm mandy fly me by 10 ccs being one of those all these little scenes really being the granddaddy music by john miles music by john miles a day in the life by the beatles but i think good vibrations is the granddaddy park okay maybe so maybe so too when would that have been that was early 60 that was 67 okay so well good vibrations still predates you then i think it's 66 yeah so those little mini and live and let die is one of those isn't it all these little scenes crammed into three minutes a short film yeah um love that love that again you don't hear those kind of songs anymore a couple of other last outliers for the mainstream section dexys midnight runners very strange band in the history of pop music we're going to talk about a couple of these bands i want to talk about joe jackson later as well there's this sub artist which in the venn diagram of pop just don't seem to fit in any of the do you know what i mean yeah yeah dexys midnight runners who are they what are they we talked about their you know they're critically lord which both of us agree we couldn't really figure out why it was the don't stand me down yeah follow but this is a band that's been around for a long time and it's been around for a long time and it's been around for a long time and it's been around for a long time and it's been around for a long time and it's been around for a long time and it's been around for a long time their their big commercial success record this year to ray where they adopted at least the fourth image in the same amount of years that they'd had here they went for a kind of gypsy celtic soul look and were incorporating irish folk music with sort of northern soul and had this massive massive hit with come on eileen which depending on your point of view it's a classic 80s pop single or one of the most irritating singles ever made i'm somewhere between the two yeah um very odd aren't they are a i don't know if they were big else outside of the uk but in the uk they were ubiquitous this year mainly because of that still is
Speaker 3i mean you know come on eileen will still be at weddings you go to and yeah it's a great joyous piece of music and he's got a fantastically eccentric voice he's got
Speaker 2a bit of billy mckenzie isn't it a bit mad yeah self-destructive you know shoot himself in the foot with his the worst possible career move and a voice which is in its own way as odd yeah that's billy mckenzie's voice
Speaker 3it is i mean it's funny i really respect him and them but they've never been personal favorites no me neither
Speaker 2i've never i've never been able to fall in love with them some classic singles they've made certainly over the years their cover of jackie wilson said the van morrison sorry i think it's a great version yeah yeah and then the last entry in this the jam the gift who you you might have put in the post-punk category but the jam by this time they're they're more almost more of a soul a motown influence group almost prefiguring what paul is going to do with the style council down the road some great singles from from this era but the jam they're kind of they're they're pretty much at the end of their lifespan i mean he's
Speaker 3yeah i think weller is another interesting artist and i love the fact that we were talking earlier about i'm glad that exists in the catholic yes that exists yeah he's one of those and he's one of those artists that will he'll do his singer songwriter album he'll do his psychedelic soul album he'll do his prog rock traffic influenced album and then he'll do a kraut rock album and then he'll go right back to rousing brit pop answers well that's interesting because he's one
Speaker 2of those anomalies that we talk about you know scott walker obviously being the the poster child for this in a way of someone that has achieved their most experimental phase in the continuum of their work in in his later years because he's just been making these really interesting experimental records for almost under the radar but they all go to number one you know the fan base is huge fan base is huge but then he's almost like moved on to the next you know within 12 months he's moved on to another and he's been creating this extraordinary continuum of quite ambitious which as you say can reference everybody from alice coltrane to he's a real music fan but even
Speaker 3in the 80s he's on peter gabriel 3 isn't he yes he is he works with robert wire you know he's got his ears open i mean i was once in a curry house in hanover and him and his band showbiz anecdote coming up showbiz anecdote that was it oh that's it so i was there with marcus reuter who you know as well and bernhardt wirst heinrich and we're on one table weller and the band were on another it's the only curry house open in hanover that's your showbiz
Speaker 2and that was it the two
Speaker 3of us you didn't you didn't try and communicate we were looking going you didn't have a fistfire for weller should have a chat and we couldn't very we could not bring ourselves to go over and talk to showbiz it's a terrible anecdote if you want to know
Speaker 2what a terrible situation you want to know why we've never been successful tim in the scheme of things that's i think a lot of the answers i should have gone over there thrust very poor showbiz no he's a very interesting guy together with stranger he's one of the main talking heads in the nick drake documentary and he's a massive nick drake fan as well so you know as you say he's got this and he's really gifted he's really you know wildwood what a great you know and again you think back to those early jam singles so he was like 18 19 years old he's knocking out things like dan and the tube station are going to go in underground that's entertainment one of the one of the greatest english rose one of the greatest well that's entertainment for me one of the greatest songs of the of the whole era he wrote it when he was like 20 20 amazing but what's good
Speaker 3about him as you say he's still going he's still there he's still interesting and he's still
Speaker 2interested yeah absolutely yeah
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