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Speaker 2Metal forged in the 80s. Judas Priest, Screaming for Vengeance. I don't know this record. Tim, do you know this record?
Speaker 3I do not.
Speaker 2Luckily for us, a listener does, and he wants to tell us why it's his favorite album from 1982. Me and Tim, notoriously ignorant when it comes to metal music. Let's hear the listener's review, please, Mr.
Speaker 4Rob. Hi, I'm Mick from Australia. My pick is Judas Priest, Screaming for Vengeance. And at the tender age of 12, it was my first interview. Introduction to heavy metal and on cassette. Probably purchased it for the cover art, not knowing anything about the music itself. The dual guitars on the title track give you a hint of what's to come. Rob Halford's vocal range is insane, especially on the title track, and there's even a couple of ballads thrown in. I set it as a benchmark, along with a number of the beast and mob rules in this genre.
Speaker 2I'd love to agree with you, except neither of us have heard it, so we can't.
Speaker 3I mean, I quite like their first couple of albums that were underrated, Judas Priest. And I think, you know, British Steel, what an amazing album that was. An Unleashed Instinct. In the East. So I did, you know, know and buy some Judas Priest. I do, and actually, I agree with him. Halford has got an amazing voice. You know, he's one of the great metal vocalists, and they've got a really good guitar sound. The earlier albums are more tied in with the kind of classic rock metal. It's slightly more free, and while it doesn't fit in with Zeppelin or Sabbath or Purple, you can see there's a kind of a looseness to the band's sound. Whereas by British Steel, it's honed to perfection. And I knew British Steel, and I knew Unleashed in the East, and I knew the early things like Rock and Roller and so on, but I didn't really follow it through into the 80s.
Speaker 2Okay. But at least you know more about Judas Priest than I do, which is very little, I'm afraid. Yeah, even Nostradamus, their great concert album from later on. The listener there also mentioned Iron Maiden's Number of the Beast, which I think is seen, I think it's still seen, fair to say, still seen as the zenith of Maiden's catalogue, isn't it? The kind of pinnacle of Maiden's catalogue. The pinnacle of Maiden's catalogue. We've talked about it before, how we both love, I think we both love the Paul D'Arnaud era, right? Number of the Beast is the beginning of them going into more, I guess more sort of Judas Priest sort of territory, more operatic vocals, with Bruce Sting's amazing vocalist and the twin guitar sound. There's a lot of that kind of roughness that I associate with the new British heavy metal has begun to sort of disappear from their sound. But a record that did come out this year that is quintessential, that word, sorry, New Wave of British Heavy Metal, one of my favourite metal records, Diamond Head's Borrowed Time. Did we talk about the White Album when we did the independently placed one? I'm pretty sure we did
Speaker 3because I think I said this, that when I was in my mid-teens at one of the local pubs, all of the New Wave British heavy metal bands played and it wasn't really my music, but I went to see them, so I saw Iron Maiden, you know, Paul D'Arnaud line up and they were great. And I saw Diamond Head, Witch Find, White Spirit, all of these bands that were playing week after week. And certainly Diamond Head were one of those bands that cut a dash. They were also really nice because I was very much underage and a couple of the band members were. I think one of the band members was only my age or a year older. He was like 15 or 16. And they let us in backstage and we were in with them in their dressing room. And I remember talking about usually Zeppelin Yes Rush albums with them. They were very nice guys.
Speaker 2They had, they did have that. Maybe that's why I kind of like them of that scene. I particularly like them. They seem to have more of an awareness of classic rock in their sound. You could hear Sabbath in Am I Evil? You could hear Zeppelin in Sucking My Love. You could hear, you know, Deep Purple. You could hear Rush in some of the more complex.
Speaker 3And they were music fans. It's like, you know, if I had come out with who my idol would have probably been then Kate Bush or something, they'd go, oh yeah, great. They were not in any way tainted. And the highlight of the gig was always Am I Evil? And even on the first gig before they were known, before the album was out, you had 350 Warringtonians singing in unison Am I Evil? Yes, I am.
Speaker 2It's an anthem. It's an absolute anthem. I mean, I think.
Speaker 3And as they always say, the punchline is, and they were.
Speaker 2I think Metallica still cover that song occasionally. Also Venom's Black Metal came out this year, notable if nothing else for being an album that gave name to a whole sub-genre of metal. Black Metal, adopted by some of the Scandinavians, people like Euronymous up in Norway, to basically define a whole scene. How many albums can you say that about? So I'm afraid, again, we've been very scanty on metal. OK, Tim, knowing our audience, this is the bit they've all been waiting for. Not all of them. Not all of them. All of them. Some of them have been waiting for us to slag off progressive rock so they can get terribly upset that we don't like their favourite album of all time.
Speaker 3That we've given a nine and a half out of ten review. How dare you? They're frothing. They're like that. How dare you not give a ten?
Speaker 2Yeah. So obviously 1982 is a bit different to 1972 when we were talking about the genre, the very, very peak, very zenith of its art. Yeah. It's not true in 1982, is it? I've divided this into two categories. One, which is the kind of old school approach to progressive rock. And the other side, which is much more prevalent this year, which is kind of embracing pop, trying to adapt to, almost like an analogue to what we just talked about with the older artists adapting to the new time. So there's a bunch of progressive rock artists trying to do that, too. But first of all, let's talk about the more traditional progressive rock. And you alluded to previously, Mike Oldfield's Five Miles Out came out this year, which one side of this record is an old school Mike Oldfield, predominantly instrumental, 25 minute long epic. And it's good. It is good. It's good. And the other side has a selection of shorter, shorter pieces, including some great pop songs. Family Man, the title track. Yeah. So I think this works really well as an album which kind of goes with the times. Yes, still retains. It's still very much got one foot in the past, the previous decade of traditional progressive rock. And I imagine for that reason, this would have been the comfort blanket for a lot of people at the time. They still wanted that kind of music, as well as the emerging neoprogressive bands, which we'll talk about in a minute. But anyway, what's your take?
Speaker 3No, you're right. But what's weird is I'd never seen Oldfield really as a traditional progressive rock artist. I always thought his music, to a certain extent, came from classical, came from folk. It was an accidental progressive artist.
Speaker 2But that's true of all of them, isn't it? We talked about this. All of those bands arrived at a similar point.
Speaker 3Yeah, this is almost like a well-produced progressive rock epic. And it's really good. So, yeah, the first side, 25 minute piece. And it's a decent one in 1982. Second side, as you say, the short pop songs. Didn't Hall & Oates have a hit with Family Man? They did, yeah. And it's a great song. And I really like the title track, which Oldfield sings himself. One of the rare Oldfield vocal outings. I mean, Guilty he does, which I love Guilty, as well. And I love his strangulated voice. And I always like Five Miles Out. Because that was, I think, the first single from it. And I remember seeing it on Saturday morning. It's a duet.
Speaker 2It's a duet with Maggie Riley. But yeah, he sang certain parts of it. Yeah. No, it's a very quiet-- very inventive. Very creative. Yeah. Really quirky little single. Very involved song. Family Man, more a direct song. This is-- I mean, he's working with Maggie Riley. I think, you know, famously, she sang Moonlight Shadow from the next album, which was a massive international hit. They were a great combination, weren't they? Maggie Riley's voice and Mike Oldfield's trying to write these-- trying to write-- succeeding in writing some very, very-- Yeah, I mean, what's great is it
Speaker 3sounds very '80s. And yet, it sounds very faithful to traditional progressive rock. And also, on the second side-- there's some instrumental pieces, as well. It's not just the pop songs. Tangerine Dream's White Eagle.
Speaker 2Tangerine Dream continue their descent or move into kind of soundtrack-y electronic pop, but very progressive, as well. The structures of the pieces. The title track of this album is absolutely sublime. Beautiful track. Just minimalist sequences, interlocking sequences, some gorgeous harmonic changes, but the first side of this, much like Five Miles Out, is a long and, I find, rather
Speaker 3forgettable 20-minute piece. I like it. I like this album. And you're right. I think it kind of comes to a head and a peak on the second side. But what I like about this is that Tangerine Dream-- they're 100% faithful to the band that made Phaedra. Yes. But it sounds like a natural early '80s album. You know, this isn't a struggle for them. They're moving with the times without blinking.
Speaker 2Yeah. You know, like I said, I really like the second side. There's another track on the second side, as well. I forget the name of it, too, which is wonderful. The first side is a little bit more forgettable for me. But they're doing what they do. They're keeping faith with their fan base. And this is why I put it in this category. There is the emerging neo-progressive rock scene. Merillion released their first EP this year, which boldly features a 17-minute long pastime. prestige of Genesis. on the B side. I mean, all credit to them. They knew it wasn't the most substantial piece of music they had, but they knew it would please the prog rock audience. They put it on the B side. They kind of got it out of the way. Here's this kind of thing that we wrote at the beginning of our career when we were copying Genesis. Let's just put it out. Some of you will like it. Now let's move on and we'll move into the future. And I think that was absolutely the right decision to make because it was something which also cemented their position as being the young pretenders to the traditional progressive rock throne. And also put a 17-minute long epic on the B side of their single.
Speaker 3And it became a cult favourite, the whole EP. And for me, I think as we've said before, one of the things that's quite interesting about the Neo-Proggers is that there was, like the new wave of British heavy metal, a sort of punk-edginess. In this case, it's the raw performance and Fish's voice. That's what differentiates it from Supper's Radio.
Speaker 2Yes, it has a bit of a DIY thing to it. Grendel, the track that sets up all the sub, not great, but has an amazing Steve Rollery guitar solo right at the end.
Speaker 3But Market Square Heroes, great pop single.
Speaker 2Market Square Heroes is a great pop single. And Three Bucks Down from
Speaker 3the Candies was secretly one of my little favourites of theirs.
Speaker 2Now you mentioned the punk thing going on in the Neo-Prog scene. The album that actually came out this year, rather than an EP, was the Twelfth Night's Fact and Fiction. Now, interesting that I think I may be getting this a bit wrong, but I'm going to tell you what I think I know about this. Twelfth Night actually, had been around for a couple of years, started out more as a traditional sort of instrumental, influenced by people like Gong, had started to move in more of a new wave direction. In fact, their previous album, which only came out with a cassette, Smiling at Grief, has got much more in common with stuff like Ultravox. And what happened in the interim is they saw Marillion get signed and Marillion Breakthrough. And while they were in the middle of making their record, Fact and Fiction, they kind of did a little bit of a backpedal. They said, OK, we were going in this direction, but you know what? People are liking this stuff that we were doing a couple of years ago. Let's go back and do a bit of that. And it really works because it captures them at the exact point between these two points. And obviously they had a very, very strong and very convincing front man at the time as well, Jeff Mann, who could go head to head with Phish, I think. And Fact and Fiction, I think, stands as one of the few albums that actually came out during the era because very few of these bands could actually get record deals and therefore get records. They could get albums actually out on the market. It stands as one of the most significant albums of the whole neo-progressive early 80s scene, along with, say, the first IQ album and Script for Justice here. But it's the one that has a little bit more of that kind of post-punk edge to it. Would you agree with that, Tim?
Speaker 3I would, yeah. I mean, I think we've discussed this with Twas and I before. I mean, Jeff, did we? Man, yeah. Partly when we were discussing IQ and then differences and the post-punk quality. Many of these bands seem to possess. It was odd, wasn't it? As you say, Smiling at Grief has got even more of that kind of intense ultravox quality, the John Fox ultravox. Well, also the Medjua, yeah. But they did the live at the Target, which was the instrumental Echoplex guitar album. Very gongy and genesis. Yes, yeah. Which is good. And I, yeah, I quite like them. Because as you say, they're this weird but wholly successful hybrid of very intense post-punk, emerging electro-pop, but with an edge. Yes. And a total acknowledgement of progressive ambition. The genesis, the Van de Graaff, the Pink Floyd. And conceptual rock, yeah.
Speaker 2And it's all in there. Creepshow, We Are Sane, two 10-minute epics. But then, like you say, the title track is a piece of electro-pop. All sense. Facts and fiction. So, yeah, very, very interesting band. It's a shame in a way that they weren't able to continue with Jeff Mann, who left shortly after this. Mm-hmm. Because I think they were. They were really poised to do something incredible. I mean, the album is good, but I think they could have done something really incredible after this. Yeah.
Speaker 3I mean, I really like Jeff Mann's solo stuff around this period as well, where he used a lot of what he called wobbly guitar. It was this sort of John Martin echo guitar and his very strident voice. And it's a really original combination. It's not progressive. It's not standard singer-songwriter. You know, he was quite a unique talent, actually. So, yeah, like you, I've got a real soft spot for facts and fiction. And why it works is because it's all those things at once. It's new wave, post-punk, electro-pop, prog. And I think it's because they liked all of those things.
Speaker 2I think so. I think it's a very natural. It doesn't seem like a self-conscious thing. I think, if anything, the self-conscious aspect would have been to try and move themselves away from progressive rock, as they were with Smiley and Grief. And as Marillion were emerging, they were kind of feeling a bit more emboldened to reclaim that part of. of their personality and say, well, you know what? We can have this on the record, too. And I think that's what makes it so successful.
Speaker 3Well, I remember them being on. They got on TV a couple of times. They did. They did the David Essex. The David Essex, yeah. And I'm not sure whether they did East of Eden or Eleanor Rigby. It was one of the two.
Speaker 2I can't remember.
Speaker 3But, yeah, again, a very strident, punchy performance.
Speaker 2Yeah. Let's move on to the, by far, the bigger aspect of progressive rock this year, which is the progressive rock bands that are. embracing pop to greater or lesser degree. And let's see if we agree on this. Let's start with Rush, Signals. I love this album. Now, apparently, you were saying we had quite a lot of negativity because we dared to question whether. Was it Power Windows we were talking about? It was Power Windows. It was entirely successful. I still don't think it is entirely successful. I think it's a good record, but I think the band get lost under layers of production on Signals. It's just right. It's just right. This is the band that have made Moving Pictures. This is the band that have made Permanent Waves, embracing synthesizers, bringing it into the equation and completely pulling it off. And I think those are the three best Rush records. This run, Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures, and Signals. That run of three records, all very different, but all increasingly embracing technology. Moving Pictures, you would say, is probably the classic. Signals is right up there, isn't it? I think this is a fantastic record.
Speaker 3It's great. I'd also put Grace Under Pressure in with that run. I don't know that one. I really like that one. She's got more of a police, U2, guitar-heavy sound. Yes, Signals is great. I mean, Signals is a really powerful, original album in which they have reinvented their sound while remaining Rush. It's like we've just said about the Twelfth Night album. It is both a great synth-pop, synth-rock album and a great progressive, Rush album. They're not in any way running down their musicality. There's still some great time signatures in this, some great key changes, some amazing solos. This is as musical and progressive as anything they've done while totally embracing the zeitgeist.
Speaker 2Yeah. I love this record. I think also what makes this era of Rush so special is the lyrics, Neil's lyrics. The early lyrics, for me, a little bit gauche, the sword and sorcery stuff, the Tolkien stuff, the sci-fi stuff. I can do without. But he hits from permanent waves onwards. The lyrics become more earthbound. They become more socially aware. That sounds very dry and dull, but I don't mean it to. And you have songs on this record like Subdivisions, The Analog Kid, just lyrically, and then something very simple, Losing It. Beautiful, beautiful ballad.
Speaker 3I mean, Subdivisions and Losing It are two of my favourite all-time Rush pieces. I think his reading had changed at that point. I mean, he was reading people like John Das Passos, who he references, I think, on moving pictures. I think the camera eye is a John Das Passos idea. And strangely, John Das Passos is the inspiration for United States by Laurie Anderson as well. Okay. And he wrote the book, I believe,
Speaker 2Manhattan Transfer. Love this album. So there you go. Cult of Rush members. 10 out of 10 for that album, okay? Great album. Slag me off, okay. Jethro tells broadsword and the beast. There's a degree of them pulling off the same trick with this album, isn't it? It sounds very much like Jethro Tull, but it's a Jethro Tull, a little bit more of a pop sheen. Yeah. Embracing synthesizers, but making it work. Making it work in a way that doesn't feel like a sellout. We'll come on to some other artists that maybe it does later.
Speaker 3Well, I mean, I like broadsword and I think I like A.
Speaker 2Some of Ian's best songs as well.
Speaker 3I like A. Me too. I really like Under Wraps, as is known. People hate that album. I love Under Wraps. But broadsword pulls off being 100% Jethro Tull. It's a complex prog rock album in some ways. In some ways, yeah. But it's got an 80s sound. It's also got more so than most Tull albums, in my view. Martin Barr is most metal. There's some real chugging riffs on this. So it's a great rock record, a great conceptual progressive record. And actually, it sits with lots of electro rock 1980s albums of a kind.
Speaker 2But the songwriting is also a little bit leaner. Songwriting's good, yeah. More leaner, more to the point. Great hooks. Great hooks.
Speaker 3Good guitar hooks as well. It's not just Ian Anderson. Slow marching band.
Speaker 2What a beautiful, beautiful ballad.
Speaker 3It's a really good album. I mean, the only thing I'm not a fan of is the cover, which I think plays to that slightly fantasy progressive imagery that people rather like. It's a bit Hobbit-y, isn't it, with the cover? Yeah. But the album, really good.
Speaker 2Yeah, great record. We have to get the elephant out of the room here, Tim.
Speaker 3Asia. It was the heat of the moment. What can you say about Asia? I can say that I was really anticipating this. Because obviously I loved Yes, really liked TLP, really liked The Buggles. King Crimson. And I think The Buggles were getting great. King Crimson. I adored King Crimson. We love Jeff.
Speaker 2UK. We love Jeff. Jeff's been on some of our favourite albums. He's been on The Dreaming. Yep. He's been on The Buggles. He's been on Yes's Drama, one of my favourite Yes albums.
Speaker 3I've sung backing vocals on one of his pieces.
Speaker 2Jeff's on a roll here.
Speaker 3What do we think about Asia? I think it's very good for what it is. You know, it was not what was expected given their pedigree. I think they work, is it with Mike Stone, the Journey producer on this? I don't know. So they've got a sort of, you know, top notch FM rock producer. And to be fair, they pull it off. You know, Wet'n's voice is great and strong. Heat of the Moment, some of the other pieces, they're amazing pop singles for the time. It's just not on my music, really. So I actually think they did what they did very well. Whereas you're right, you know, I really liked. And Buggles, I really like. Yes, I really like all of them individually. How is one of the most individual, wonderful guitarists that rock's ever had? Wet'n, what a bass player, what a voice. But this is a strong FM rock album that pulls off that trick. But it was massive. It was sold by
Speaker 2the bucket load.
Speaker 3Not only in Britain, but in America, Japan. Well, particularly in America. Yeah, and Japan. Japan, yeah. You know, this was huge. It was one of. It was one of the albums of the year in terms of sales.
Speaker 2OK, I'm just going to put this out there, guys. I don't like it at all. OK, let's move on. Any more thoughts on that or not? Love Jeff. Love Steve. Love the band. All the band individually. Don't like it. OK, what were Genesis doing this year? Well, Genesis released. Three Sides Live. Three Sides Live. Now, which is, I think in America, if I'm right in thinking, was just a live album. But in the UK, it lived up to its title. The fourth side was some tracks that had been released as B-sides before.
Speaker 3Yeah, one country had three Sides Live that were new. And then a Side Live that was older material from late 70s recordings. I think Bruford might even be on one. I might be wrong there. But I think there are older recordings on one side. And then the other three, it's from the 81, 82.
Speaker 2So the version I listened to had a studio side. And there was some lovely Evidence of Autumn.
Speaker 3Oh, amazing. They're B-sides from the Duke album. Oh, that's probably what I like. And they're amongst the best pieces. Evidence of Autumn. What a gorgeous piece of music. Amazing melody. Lovely chord sequences. I mean, the thing is with Genesis, I still like them. I still like the We Can't Dance Here even. And what is interesting, when we were talking about Gabriel IV, of course, Gabriel IV is an innovative masterpiece. Abba Cab isn't. Duke isn't. But they're really good. I like them. Great pop albums. Great progressive albums. And what I think they managed to do, as I've always said, even on Invisible Touch, which I think is a really good album, they knock off a few great pop songs, a few great pop ballads. But they're still doing Domino. They're still doing the Brazilian. They're still the same band that made Foxtrot. It's still in that DNA, the chord sequences, the rhythm shifts. I never bought into this idea that they were this big sellout. I think they love pop music and they made great pop songs. But I don't think they ever abandoned that quite complex instrumental aspect to their music in a way that Gabriel did. A couple of other entries were just briefly mentioned. Supertramp, Famous Last Words. I like that one. It's good. It's Raining Again. I mean, it was always seen. It's a bit more of the same. Yeah, and it was the album that kind of broke them because it didn't sell as well. I mean, it had the huge hit of It's Raining Again. Because Breakfast in America, as we said, that's not only one of the biggest albums of the year. It's one of the biggest albums of all time.
Speaker 2Yeah, how do you follow that?
Speaker 3It remains, I think, in places like France. In the top three or four bestsellers of all time. It's brilliant. And It's Raining Again, really good single. It's got more of a kind of introspective, melancholy feel, this album. As if they kind of know they're coming to an end. Okay. But I like it. But as we said, we like the 1985 album. I do. Brother, where you bound? I like that.
Speaker 2I like this album. I don't listen to it very often, but it's certainly. It's the tramp, man. It doesn't let the side down. It does not let the side down. It's quality. Quality. How do you follow Breakfast in America? I mean, that, you know, that is. You want to hide into nothing, aren't you? You follow it with Tusk, too. Well, that's it. Either you do something completely different, as Fleetwood Mac did with Rumours to Tusk, or you do what Supertramp did, which is basically just make some Supertramp music.
Speaker 3Well, like Pink Floyd were going to do with Dark Side of the Moon at one point, when the. Was it the found sound or found object? Household object. Where they were making music with wine glasses, which eventually wound its way on to Shine On Your Crazy Diamond. But I love the idea that they were just going to do this album with household objects. With household objects.
Speaker 2Yeah, like completely, you know, just go off a complete tangent.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's what they should have done, maybe.
Speaker 2Alan Parsons' project, Eye in the Sky. This was like the commercial high-water mark for Alan and Eric. It's good, isn't it? I mean, it's, you know, Alan Parsons, I think, had been developing for some time, you know, this kind of idea that you take the template of a Dark Side of the Moon and you make it a little bit more accessible, a little bit more radio-friendly. And that's kind of what he's always done, isn't it, through records? But there's something about this record that maybe just a little bit cut above or a couple of songs that just broke through to radio. I think there's a couple of songs.
Speaker 3There's the instrumental that, you know, is used in. Yeah, that is used in sports games and sports commentary to this day. Yeah, title track as well. I think you're right. Yeah, I mean, I think they were really pretty consistent around this time. Maybe Eve is the one album that is perhaps not quite as strong as what surrounds it.
Speaker 2Agreed, yeah. But they're just making these great kind of pop-prog crossover records. They have been pretty much from iRobot onwards. Yeah. And this is just the one that, for whatever reason, caught the zeitgeist, had the radio support, really broke through into the mainstream.
Speaker 3I mean, isn't it weird, though, that that's, you know, you've just, in effect. Because it isn't a great deviation from the model, but it hits, and it hits in a big way.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. Massive, massive record, yeah. Let's move on to singer-songwriters. Obviously not an era you necessarily think of as being a heyday for singer-songwriters in 1982. But we've got Tracy Thorne, her first album, A Distant Short. Lovely record. Yeah.
Speaker 3I agree. I mean, you know, out of those early albums, I always liked North Marine Drive, Ben Watt.
Speaker 2Ben's album is the one for me, yeah.
Speaker 3But it's a really charming album.
Speaker 2Joni Mitchell's Wild Things Run Fast. OK. Her first album of the 80s. Yeah. Her first album of original material since Don Juan. Now, I love Don Juan.
Speaker 3Mm. And I see
Speaker 2so many people.
Speaker 3Mingus has got original material. It's got original.
Speaker 2It's mostly good. Lyrics and. OK, it's got some. Yeah, OK, you're right, but it's mostly Mingus melodies, isn't it?
Speaker 3I love Mingus. I do, too. Yeah, isn't Mingus. It's Mingus melodies. It's her singing Mingus melodies.
Speaker 2Wild Things Run Fast. The first album of completely original material since Don Juan. I love Don Juan. I don't understand why it's so despised, it seems to me. Wild Things Run Fast, on the other hand, seems to be quite lauded. And I'm not quite sure why this would be lauded in Don Juan's Reckless Daughter Damned, except to say that Wild Things Run Fast seems like a less. Less complex, lyrically less complex, musically less complex, more approachable, more slick. What's your take on it? I'm not saying it's bad at all. It's just I'm constantly. I'm constantly reminded there is this divide, 70s, 80s divide. The albums that were made just before the 80s kicked in and the albums that were made just after the 80s kicked in. Neil Young would be another great example. His last album of the 70s, Russ Never Sleeps, is considered one of the greatest of his career. The first albums he made in the early 80s, Reactor, Hawks and Doves, are often dismissed as garbage. And yet there isn't, to my ears, there isn't that much difference between them. And I think there's a similar thing going on here. It was in the opposite direction. Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, I think, is amazing. Wild Things Run Fast, I think, is quite good. But Don Juan's Reckless Daughter always seems to get completely trashed and this record seems to have a fairly good reputation. You're a big Joni fan, Tim. What's your take on this?
Speaker 3Well, Don Juan is one of my favourites. You know, it's that run, my two favourites. As I always say, when I'm sort of asked for my favourite album of all time, you go famously with Zeit. I always go between Hijera and Hissing in Summer Lawns and I can never quite work out which. Hissing in Summer Lawns has got the diversity, Hijera has got the overall arc and a more samey sounding palette throughout it. I love Don Juan, I love Mingus and I was disappointed with this at the time and it's still me. It's still my least favourite Joni Mitchell album of all time. I think it's one of the most produced, the most FM.
Speaker 2It sounds like Joni being overshadowed by session musicians to me. By A&R people, session people. And yet if you look, and I did do my research on this, if you look historically, this album got great reviews, is still considered very highly, whereas Don Juan is a two out of five, you know, even to this day, dismissed as a two out of five. Overarching, overreachable. Overreaching misstep.
Speaker 3I prefer Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm, Dog Eat Dog. You know, this is my least favourite Joni album. It's got a couple of wondrous pieces. Chinese Cafe is one of my favourite Joni Mitchell pieces and how it goes into Unchained Melody as well, which is a great tune. Joni would never produce Junk, you know, don't get me wrong. No, it's a good album. It's just my, it's the one that I was disappointed by at the time and when I come back, I just don't like it that much, to be quite honest. And is this the one that's got Baby, You also square the Elvis Presley cover on it as well. - Could be, yeah. It does that Steely Dan thing that I know that Joni Mitchell comes from, you know, she regards Chuck Berry and Elvis as amongst the greatest. And I can see this because their records are amazing. Their 50s records, 60s records are stunning. And I'd argue that Elvis still made some great albums in the 70s. But the thing is that Steely Dan always talked to beat poetry and bebop musicians while making this really smooth music. Yeah, we talked about that before. And Joni does this rock and roll. You're so square. And of course, the originals, the Elvis, it's raw, it's sexual, it's amazing. This is like, you know, Weather Report fusion smoothness with trickiness.
Speaker 2So you're so square. Well, yes, actually, you are. It's the antithesis of what it's loving.
Speaker 3And I'm not saying it's bad, you know, because of course it's not bad. It's Joni Mitchell, one of the greatest vocalists and lyricists of all time and an amazing band of session musicians on it.
Speaker 2Right. Just not to my taste. I'm not. I'm not a fan of this record. Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska. Now, we've talked about Bruce on the show before. I don't think either of us, you know, ever really been able to buy into Bruce. Again, he's one of those artists I know he's amazing. Yeah. I know he's amazing. I like his lyrics. I like his whole thing, his whole shtick. But he's not the boss of you, is he? I've never really warmed to his music. But if I had to pick one album to take to a desert island by Bruce, Nebraska would be the one. Now, famously, this is the album that he recorded on his home, on his home porter studio. And then the engineer, I think he handed the cassettes to his engineer and said, clean that up. We're going to release this. And the engineer worked very hard to clean it up and make it sound good enough for release. What a bold thing to do. Yeah. What a bold thing to do for an artist. I mean, his previous records were, you know, massive, weren't they? Born to Run. And then what the record immediately was it Darkness on the Edge of Time. Yeah. Before this, The River. Massive, you know, globally, multi-platinum selling albums. You deliver your next album. Your next album. It's an album of just you and an acoustic guitar you record on a porter studio at home. What a bold thing to do, particularly in 1982.
Speaker 3Yeah. No, it's a brave album that goes against the trends of the day, the sounds of the day. And, of course, it's the prelude to the Born in the USA to Come, which is his high watermark commercially. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. It's one of my favourite boss albums. I mean, I've got some time for Born to Run. I actually rather like Born to Run. Me too. Me too. I do, yes. You know, Jungle Land. Jungle Land. It's fantastic. Meeting across the river. And the title track is amazing. Yeah. You know, so I really like that. Great artwork as well. That's why there's a bit like Fleetwood Mac rumours, the artwork, the music. It just collides into something quite special. Let's talk about Yandek or Jandek. I know nothing of him, so this is you. Have you never heard him?
Speaker 2Heard of him? Jandek is the original outsider. This is an artist that Kurt Cobain said, he's not pretentious, but only pretentious people say that. They say they like him, which I love. I love that idea. He's made 120 albums since 1978. He's very mysterious. For years, he wasn't interviewed. No one knew who he was. In fact, somebody conducted an interview in 1999, and by the end of the interview, they weren't sure they'd interviewed Yandek at all. They thought maybe they'd interviewed someone pretending to be Yandek. He made three albums this year. He's incredibly prolific. Chair Beside a Window, Living in a Moon So Blue, Staring at the Cellophane. I think you'd love it. Incredibly haunted. And basically, at this point in his career, he can't play the guitar. He doesn't even know how to tune it. So what he'll do is he'll just pick up the guitar, and every song on every album has the same open, completely out of tune, open chord strumming, over which he sings in this haunted voice, this kind of mutant folk blues. I don't know how else to describe it. I want to read you the lyrics to a track. On the album, the first album that he came out with this year, Chair Beside a Window. And we won't get into copyright problems. This is a Yandex song called Down in the Mirror. You have to imagine this song in the most haunted, moan way, over this discordant strumming. We can't deny there are spirits in this house. You shut the door, the wind closes two more. I laugh a dark laugh, you smile and think about it. You'll come again, I'm sure you'll come again. You'll come again, I'm sure you can't refuse. Your spirit is here lying on a white table. I can see its gleam, it's sparkling in the sun. I wish I could leave the room and I lock the key. We'll let him get the poetic license, we'll let him off with that one. Someday I would take hold of your hand and let it be. In the skyway, a shining path for you and me. Come back, oh please come back. I don't know what to do. And he'll string those lyrics. He'll string those lyrics out for about, over a port of about 10 minutes. Okay. I think you would love it, Tim. But it's not an auspice of sybarity there in the desolation. There is that. There is that song like Opal maybe. There is that sense of desolation and mental illness. And when did he start? 78, 79. And he's still going? He's still going. Just publishing albums on his own. Yeah, I was about to say, who released it? Corwood Industries. Who distributes it? I don't know, but he's a bit of a cult hero. Okay. He's a bit of a cult hero. He's done albums of like six LP box sets of him playing piano. Just tinkling around on a piano. It's the ultimate outsider thing. Can he play piano?
Speaker 3No. Okay. No. So you're saying that I'm like John McLaughlin to him when it comes to guitar.
Speaker 2That's what I mean. It's the outsider thing. Yeah. It's the, I don't care that I can't play this instrument. I can't even tune this instrument. I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with this guitar.
Speaker 3What's his voice like? Can you imitate it?
Speaker 2I'll say oh, oh, oh. We can't deny. And I'm going to like this. There are spirits in this house. I don't know what come back to me, please.
Speaker 3And it's not a figment of your imagination. You must have. You've heard of Yandex. I've heard the name Yandex. I've never bought one of his 3,000 albums.
Speaker 2I'm going to send you, I'm going to send you, you just go on YouTube and listen to any song. Yandex. Every song. It's like one song ends and you think, okay, what's the next? Next song going to be like exactly the same. He's made exactly the same record since 1978. No, every song he's got a different, the guitars out of tune in a different way. But then, then later on, he started, he started collaborate. Other musicians became fans of this, started collaborating with him. But the first 10 years, he's making about five albums a year, which is picking up his guitar. What does he look like? No one knows. No, they do now actually. No, but always the pictures would always be these grainy black and white pictures of him as a school kid. Or like a family photo from when he was four and the title, Rob, have you got some, you got some albums up there, right? Show him that picture, Rob, there. Just show Tim that picture of Yandex there. There he is. Look. I like him. Oh, come back to me. But there's some, do you know this? You know, like the Lewis thing? Yes. It's got that intensity. It's like once you get over the fact that it's, that it's shit. It's, it's brilliant. Do you know what I mean by that? I do. Yeah. Lewis, obviously another sort of classic outsider art, you know. Yeah, yeah. You can't, you can't sing. You can't hear a word he's singing. But it's, there's something about it that just gets under your skin and it's haunting. Okay. And the Yandex lyrics are, they're dark.
Speaker 3Can you get it from our Amazon affiliate link?
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm sure you can. You can certainly buy his records on eBay. I'm going to send you a bunch of records later. Um, I really like it. I really like it. It's not an artist I feel I need to own all 120 albums. Yeah. But I have about four or five albums
Speaker 3and I feel that's enough. Do you know what I mean? Well, there are some artists like that, aren't there? I mean, you know, even bands that I love, you know, I love Jurity Column, but I don't feel a need to have every Jurity Column.
Speaker 2You see, I've got about, probably about 20 Jurity Column albums. I have, yeah.
Speaker 3I mean, I say that and certainly on my hard drive, I've got about 60 Jurity Column albums, even though they only made about 20.
Speaker 2But if you had to hone it down to your Desert Isle of Dis, you'd be like, oh, I've got You'd be quite happy with just the. You'd be quite happy. I know what you mean, but can't you say that about any artist? No. You're right. Okay. A lot of artists you can say that about. Possibly. Let's be fair, yeah.
Speaker 3I'll tell you, actually, can I just tell you one thing? I was doing an interview. It was an Italian magazine recently for my new album, Power of Drive. It's Showbiz Anecdote. Which is coming out. Showbiz Anecdote. Not Showbiz Anecdote, but they said something which.
Speaker 2Showbiz Anecdote coming up.
Speaker 3Which I thought was really quite interesting. Go on. And I misheard the question, partly. And what I misheard the question as was this. How would you feel if in 20 years' time there were two people like you and Stephen assessing your own work? And I thought, actually, I'd love it. Because I think 20 years' time, the two younger versions of us, they'd love the fact that we'd done an album with two tracks. Then an album with 16. Then did a disco symphony. Then decided to do an ambient or singer-songwriter. Actually, I think we'd quite like ourselves. We might not like the music, but we'd love the trajectory. The trajectory of the career.
Speaker 2Well, and I wonder how many people out there listening to this podcast now hate our music, have no interest in it, never heard it, can't be bothered to listen to it. Well, here is another answer. But just like the show.
Speaker 3I'm sure there's. Bradford and Avon. Okay. Where I am. Small town. Yeah. One person came up to me in the street going, you're Tim from the podcast, aren't you? I love it. So it's, you know, coming up from the podcast. Not from no man. Yeah. Not from solo work. Yeah. And then the next. day and it was a different person. My partner and my son, there's a man walking with an Albemere's T-shirt. Wow. Talking about music is the new music.
Speaker 2Well, you know, I'm sure there's lots of people that just tune in to hear our reviews of Yandex. Come back to me. Let's move on, Tim. Let's talk about minimal jazz records. Always the last thing we cover, jazz, bless it. We've got a listener's review of Philip Glass' Glassworks. Let's hear the listener's review of Glassworks, please, Rob.
Speaker 5Hi, Steve, and hi, Tim. My pick for 1982 is Glassworks by Philip Glass. This album was notable for introducing Philip Glass' style of minimalism in classical music to a wider audience of people, and I feel like it significantly influenced modern classical music and film scores, so I think it's worth a mention for this year. I like this album a lot. I'd love to hear what you guys think about it as well.
Speaker 2Thank you. I love it. I mean, I think you've hit the nail on the head, really. This seemed to be a deliberate attempt to make Philip Glass' approach and sound, package it in a slightly more accessible way. I think he'd done it once before with North Star on Virgin, but this is a second attempt to do that. I love it. The themes are beautiful. Yeah. They're quite succinct by his standards. And it hangs together as an album. It hangs together beautifully. Absolutely. It's a nice shape. I really like North Star.
Speaker 3I mean, North Star has got, you know, North Star is them trying to, in a sense, bring him in almost with that kind of New York, no wave, that scene in some ways. And it works. North Star is a really strong album on Virgin. This is arguably even more successful because it comes across as a beautifully crafted album. It might be, in some ways, you know, what it is, a beginner's guide to Philip Glass, but it really pulls it off because it's beautifully structured. Lovely, haunting melodies.
Speaker 2Yeah. I mean, that would be to damn it with faint praise, wouldn't it? To say it's like a packet accessible. But actually, it's just as good as anything he did. It is. And as you say, it has a beautiful shape to it as an album. And of course, being a classical composer, a lot of the pieces he wrote were not intended for vinyl release. And here's something where he's obviously sat down and conceived it as a vinyl release. Yes. In a rock sense. And it has a lovely architecture.
Speaker 3And it came out round. Didn't kind of scarcely come out. It came out around this sort of time as well, maybe slightly later. Maybe so. And it cemented him in the public mind, I think. You know, this was. He's an artist I've seen live. And he's very engaging, quite funny, quite charming. You know, he is, in some ways, as funny and down to earth as the music is ethereal.
Speaker 2And I think that the listener was also right when they say that this album kind of casts a shadow over a lot of modern neoclassical music, doesn't it? Someone like Max Richter. Or Nils Fromm. Johan Johansson. You can hear Peter Broderick. You can hear the influence of something like Glassworks. Simplicity, haunting quality. Something that I think very much lends itself to use with imagery. You talked about Koenigsegg being around at the same time. Philip Glass's music was just made, wasn't it, for image and to be used in soundtracks?
Speaker 3Well, it was a bit like music for films or film music, as you like to call it, by Brian Eno. I know that it was almost like a calling card to direct. I think, don't you?
Speaker 2Yes, although probably in this case, probably unwittingly. But obviously his music's been picked up time and time again for.
Speaker 3And it works. I mean, the thing is, it does lend that aura of class almost to anything. I mean, I would love to hear some Philip Glass music on old Benny Hill footage. I think it would elevate it.
Speaker 2I think it would. Philip Glass, it's incredibly repetitive and it should be irritating. And maybe. Maybe it is to some people, but it isn't. It's incredibly lyrical and beautiful at the same time. Some of his early works, perhaps slightly more austere, more academic. But in an album like Glassworks, there's that perfect balance between the beauty and the accessibility and what Philip Glass does, which is these repeating ostinato figures, you know. What a trick to pull off. And as you say, massively influential. Not only on. You know, modern neoclassical music. Just influential period, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. And as is this next artist we're going to talk about. We never really figured out if it's Steve Reich or Steve Reich. But whatever it is, we hear his influence everywhere, don't we, these days? And his record, I know this is one of your favourites, Tim, To Heal Him. Yeah. From this year. Which I think is a setting of an old Hebrew text.
Speaker 3It is. It is. It was the first piece I ever heard and ever bought. And I heard it probably about a year after it was released. And it was our old no-man guitarist, The Still Owl, who introduced it to me. Right. And, yeah, it was unlike anything I'd heard at that point. Oh, I could recognise I'd heard bits in, say, Peter Gabriel, you know, No Self Control. So there were elements. And I think Mike Oldfield's incantations, you could hear he had elements of Steve Reich, Philip Glass. So there were certain elements of things that I'd liked previously. I thought, ah, that's where they're getting it from. Hypnotic, moving. It does what. What he does, which is spellbinding. Because on one level you have this frantic music which is in constant motion. Yet equally it seems motionless. Wonderful trick to pull off. And he always shifts gear just at the point you think you might get bored. Because it is constantly shifting. It's cogs, wheels within wheels.
Speaker 2I think the difference between Philip Glass and Steve Reich, obviously, is that Philip Glass has the whole band play the same notes. It's through the ostinato, where Steve Reich or Reich is more interested in the polyphony that occurs when you allow things to cross and to phase in and out. And of course, his very early pieces were much more academic in the sense they were pure pieces experimenting, like with tape loops going in and out of phase. But you hear that also in his later works, this fascination with different rhythmic figures being allowed to cross and to cycle back on themselves.
Speaker 3In a sense, he's always stayed true to his early methodology, but he'll have a few albums almost kind of toe the line, tread the line, and then there'll be a breakthrough. Well, I don't know whether Tehillim's a breakthrough, but I love it.
Speaker 2I think it's fair to say Tehillim would have been one of the albums that would have made his name because it's the sort of album that would have been picked up. It came out on ECM, still known then primarily as a jazz label. It would have been picked up. It would have been probably much better distributed than anything he'd done before. This and Music for 18 Musicians, I suspect. A lot of people just picked up out of curiosity. I know, for example, there's a story about Mike Scott from Waterboys being in New York around the time he was making This Is The Sea and just picking up Tehillim and taking it home and having his mind blown. Again, not a musician you necessarily think of as someone that would have been influenced by Reich, but there you go. There's another example.
Speaker 3Well, it has, I think, the similarity. We both love This Is The Sea by the Waterboys. That euphoric, relentless, euphoric quality and the fact that it's repetition, but actually no one bar is the same. The way in which he phrases the vocals, the rhythm of the guitar. There's something always slightly shifting, even though essentially it's the same chord sequence, the same pulse and rhythm.
Speaker 2Yeah. A couple of records that were jazz records on ECM this year, Pat Metheny Group's Off Ramp. Good one. And Eberhard Weber's Later That Evening. Both? Yeah. Really lovely, yeah. Two of my favourites by both of us. I mean, we've kind of got to this point before on the episodes where, what do you say about ECM jazz records? They're instrumental. They're lovely records. These are two of the best records by these two particular artists. If you're a fan of Pat Metheny's guitars, he's using a lot of the Roland synth guitar on this album. Are You Going With Me is the classic, in some ways the archetypal Pat Metheny track, isn't it, on this record. Eberhard Weber, if you like his bass sound, you'll have heard it also. Is he on The Dreaming, Eberhard Weber? Or is he not on a Kate record? I think he might be.
Speaker 3He's definitely on Hands of Love. Yeah. And I think he is on The Dreaming. And he's all over Sensual World. Anyway, you'll know, if you're a Kate Bush fan, you'll know the sound of Pat Metheny. I might not. Yeah, I mean, the interesting thing with that is, and they're both equally great ECM albums. Probably the last time I kind of loved the label and loved the releases on it. But what is interesting is Pat Metheny is about to go stellar, you know, obviously collaborating with Bowie. Doing film soundtracks and becoming this spokesperson for ever evolving contemporary jazz. Whereas Weber remains in the shadows really until his stroke. And again, one of the best live bass players I've ever seen. And once more, like Philip Glass, surprisingly funny and humble when he played live.
Speaker 2And it's amazing how many records he's on when you go back. And a lot of records in the early 70s, Scandinavian jazz records. He just pops up. Played with George Russell as well.
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely. Might be one of my. Favourite, if not my favourite bass player, actually.
Speaker 2I love him. Yeah, me too. Amazing. Yeah. Weather Report made an eponymous record this year. Yeah. I thought Weather Report made an eponymous record in 1971 as well.
Speaker 3They did. They made two eponymous records.
Speaker 2So this is a second eponymous record. Yeah. I don't know it. I do know it. Okay. Is it what I think it is? Yeah. 80s jazz fusion with terrible keyboard sounds?
Speaker 3I don't mind it as much as you. Okay. I know this is. I haven't heard it, so I can't say I don't mind it. Yeah. I think they're sort of spindly early 80s albums. domino theory being another one um so i quite like it okay we'll leave
Speaker 2it at that and that's it tim 1982 in a nutshell well in a in a nutshell that we've been talking about for a five hour long nutshell okay so fascinating year i know we say that every time but it really is true it is a fascinating year some amazing records how are you going to pick one to take to your desert island no we're not becoming we're not becoming desert island disc let's forget the desert island thing you have to pick one album no you're allowed to pick more than one album obviously but maybe you want to first pick the album you feel has been the most influential in the long term well
Speaker 3funnily enough i'm going to go with glassworks actually because you still hear its influence on film music to this day yes i'm
Speaker 2going to go with the same i'm going to be lazy i'm going to go with the same record as the record of my year record of the year and i think the record's been the most influential record of my year and i think the record's been the most influential record of my year and i think the record's been the most influential record of my year long term i'm going to go with the dreaming i think it is my favorite record of the year it's the one that i'm still in awe of i may not enjoy it every time i listen to it as much as every other time if you know what i mean by that have to be in the right mood for it but i just think it's on another planet i'm in awe of it but i think it's not influential in in a musical sense but it's influential in the sense you have to remember this time in history women artists were not in a to make records like this and she was the anomaly at the time someone who apparently was in complete creative control of what they were doing and we now live in a world where women dominate the modern pop landscape completely dominated almost at the complete exclusion of male artists and i think in that sense kate being one of the only ones at the time one of the only female artists at the time that had that degree of control over her music and to create something so experimental and so monumental kate takes it to a whole other level um and for me that's why this is such an influential record people still talk about kate bush even after all these years people still talk about kate bush as being this incredible icon for particularly for female artists i mean when do you not read a review of a quirky female song singer songwriter that doesn't name check kate at the tradition that she started and you'd have other artists that came along like Bjork for example very much in that tradition but now we have a lot of empowered female artists that some of which are dominating the pop landscape and I think she to some extent begins that in a modern certainly in a modern context.
Speaker 3I think I'd go for five albums for this the Dreaming has got to be there it's a favourite to say it's not a favourite will be entirely wrong Associate Sulk I think both of those have got an otherworldly demented quality and I can see that Bjork's listened to both of those albums I then think Gabriel Four and then for me All The Best Cowboys and The Golden Age of Wireless actually were just albums that meant a lot to me. Okay well if you've you just had about eight there. Five. Okay what were they again? The Dreaming. Agreed. Sulk. Four. Love Sulk.
Speaker 2Agreed. Four. All The Best Cowboys.
Speaker 3Agreed. Golden Age of Wireless.
Speaker 2Okay I'm gonna allow myself one more then. Go on. I'm not gonna I love Sulk but I'm not gonna put it in my top five just give me a moment to look through this another one I'm gonna have my fifth one because you've had five so there. Yandik. I love Love Over Gold. Probably Pornography. Okay. I think I'm gonna go with Pornography as my I Love Sex Tech by ACR. I think I'm gonna go with Pornography as my as my fifth album. But otherwise well four out of five we agree on Tim. There you go. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Speaker 3And actually Glassworks now we're talking about it. Philip Glass Glassworks. An album I've played an awful lot and love.
Speaker 2I like Signals as well. Great album. Signals what a great album. Yeah. Okay 1982 folks there it is in a nutshell. We're gonna call it a day there. Thank you very much for listening for watching. What do we have to say Tim? If you like the podcast. Oh yeah press like and I think
Speaker 3Stephen's developed a
Speaker 2tip jar haven't you? We're not doing the tip jar thing that is so naff. Sorry it's so naff. We're not doing the tip jar but yeah give us a good review.
Speaker 3But we do have we do have a book coming out on our theory of music.
Speaker 2Do we? No.
Speaker 3That's the first I've heard of it.
Speaker 2We should do one. We should. We should do we should do a book of the classic. We could do a chapter on Queen's Hot Space. Yeah. A chapter on Sunset Wading. A chapter on Virginia Astley. Okay thank you very much folks for listening. And we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye bye.
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