Loud Family - Music: What Happened?

1984
by Scott Miller

"Do They Know It's Christmas" - Band Aid
There's that DX7 bell sound—we'll be hearing more of that on our tour. I knew this had to be the opening song for 1984 and I spent some energy finding a copy. Why? Until it gets to the very respectable "Feed the world/Let them know it's Christmas time" part at the end, it's not really even good. The answer is that one can only say God bless them, but, rhetorically, what can one say of such a parade of Boys George and Simons Le Bon singing lines as bad as "the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears"? I believe this is the first of those big mid-eighties charity projects like Live Aid, and probably the best; quality control went down from there. I remember literally thinking: a lot more people's hearts are in the right place these days; I shouldn't worry that much about music becoming horrible.

"Seven Seas" - Echo and the Bunnymen
If it isn't that DX7 bell sound. And more stinging tears! I don't claim to know what's being said here, but there's a satisfying physicality to "my face among them, kissing the tortoise shell," and this is one of the Bunnys' several grand melodies.

"Fell From the Sun" - Clay Allison
The precursor to Opal and Mazzy Star, this is David Roback doing the bold psych guitar with vocals from Kendra Smith, who before a mostly non-singing role in the Dream Syndicate was the lead singer with Steve Wynn in the band Suspects. This was one of those little islands of it seeming like the eighties were still getting going in a good direction. The lyrics have that strange gravity of facing some sort of new morning in a world where lostness is a given, nearly a comfort.

"Seven Chinese Brothers" - R.E.M.
I'm inclined to take this as some sort of impressionistic dialog with traditions of antiquity, with the references to Chinese legend in the title, and "Wrap your heel in bones of steel" (is that like foot binding?). Arguably a slight and irresolute effort from R.E.M. compared with some Murmur material, it nevertheless bespeaks a gateway to considering longings and resolutions on a larger scale than the mind—at least the mind with modern limitations or perhaps with ancient limitations—can naturally fathom (seven thousand years to sleep away the pain).

"99 Luftballons" - Nena
Possessing one of the best hooks of the eighties, it must be admitted that this song suffers from an embarrassingly out-of-place disco funk interlude, and the word "kriegsminister."

"Something Came Over Me" - Chris Stamey
This long, elegantly rendered guitar and vocal piece seems to have been recorded live in a room in a house, at some distance, with understated synth accompaniment. Besides turning in an impassioned and formidably precise guitar performance, Chris positively raises the bar for capturing a rapturous moment outside of time with lines like, "We could see through the air like it was invisibly fine."

"Rain Rain" - X-Teens
"I love you/It's easy 'cause you're here" epitomizes the offhand proficiency of the X-Teens, a group I want to say in an entirely unjustifiable way strike me as an anticipation of My Bloody Valentine. The chord changes stroll confidently around unfamiliar territory in this entry from the golden era of Mitch Easter productions.

"Murder" - David Gilmour
It could have been the track of the decade from the flamboyantly malfunctioning Pink Floyd: sturdy Celtic folk melody (at least, sturdy by the meager standards of anything off The Final Cut), affecting lyrics ("Did you get rid of all the voices in your head/Do you now miss them?"; "The red blood spread wider, like the anger you made.")

"Darby Hall" - The dB's
For the dB's to make their move without the recently departed Chris Stamey seemed unlikely but not impossible; tracks like "Black and White" and "Big Brown Eyes" had proven that Peter Holsapple was really right there at all times. Led by "Love Is For Lovers,"Like This was very good—maybe not the grand slam that needed to happen to ignite some much-deserved commercial success this late in the branding. Yet, tucked away as a B-side was the sublime, reflective "Darby Hall," with PH's best lyrics, such as the near-desperate "We can buy time, buy an hour at a time/We can buy time by the hour."

"The Hero Takes a Fall" - Bangles
All Over the Place was noonday for the Bangles: inspired covers of Kimberley Rew and Emmitt Rhodes, perfect Hoffs/Peterson blending throughout. Had this been the album that sold, what might have been? I remember taking it as fact that these lyrics were about Steve Wynn, but I can't recall any reliable source for that.

"Pride (In the Name of Love)" - U2
By the time of War, my reaction to U2 was stunned disbelief that they had become so overrated. Forget Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, here was some unearned pomposity. But sometimes things get better just by turning the dial up. "Pride (In the Name of Love)" was their first song that wasn't a musical mediocrity dressed up with the same guitar treatment as always, and it was in fact well above average (dressed up in a well above average variation on the same guitar treatment as always). Bono's singing was so overdone at all times it was difficult for me to even hear that he was an extraordinary singer, but throw Martin Luther King in front of his histrionics, and I was able to get it. (King's murder—an outrage: who knew?)

"This Could Be the Day" - Robyn Hitchcock
"This could be the day I've waited for all my frumpy little life/This could be the day I cut a malignant growth with a steel knife": that's risky enough that you have to admire Robyn's willingness to up the ante of Robynness throughout the terrific and borderline nuts I Often Dream Of Trains. Those are great lines in my book, and together with some perfectly placed harmonica, conjure some of the most authentic blues spirit in a critically blues-poor decade.

"Plateau" - Meat Puppets
It's one of the unexpectedly quiet, slightly blue-grassy cuts off the already generally unexpected Meat Puppets II. The singer tells all about the plateau where everyone comes to use the bucket and mop that are there to tidy up the modest environs for the unexpected satisfaction of pitching in. The finger picking lingers a bit on a new chord. Then, pow: one of the most devastating sonic sea changes on record. It's pretty understated when you analyze what actually happens—I think just a cymbal hit, and a switch to an electric guitar doing a more exotic arpeggio through an effect like a Leslie speaker or flangey envelope follower, something like that. But the impact is like Dorothy opening the door to the full-color scene.

"Reel Around the Fountain" - The Smiths
It's such a short distance from recognizing the importance of the Smiths to recognizing the potential for parodying Morrissey (I'm recalling some random premise for Gil Ray to imagine Easter With Morrissey: "slap me 'round the bunny cage...") that one has to sit soberly and record a few facts. First, he and Stipe are clearly the best two lyricists of the decade. Second, Johnny Marr is a genius: thankfully, no one has ever needed my help discovering that. "It's time the tale were told/Of how you took a child and you made him old" is wonderful, and one of the more auspicious album openers. And we know, because he said it twice.

"Grey Scale" - Let's Active
As with "Darby Hall," this wasn't even on the big would-be-breakthrough album—which was led by the entirely fulfilling "Waters Part"—yet it shows a stunning facility for defining its own little arena to put over unlikely feelings. Better yet, it defines an arena for putting the familiar typically-misused box of eighties sonic tools to actually tasteful use. There are big drums, synths, gated reverb, even our lucky DX7 bell sound—but then there's that ethereal little high pick-hammered-string hook and enough of an ear to pull it all together into coherence. I hesitate to pretend I can even understand all the words, let alone interpret them, but if indeed the chorus is "Rise of moonstruck eyes and grey scales/Take sides before square light rules and seeing fails," I hear a prophetic call to take precautions against going along with almost irresistable social forces.

"The Beautiful Ones" - Prince
Here is where Prince earns his purple robes. The giant hit album and movie obviously have their moments, and it can't be overstated what a refreshingly bold, weird sound it all had. Some moments sound like it could be the Residents. "When Doves Cry" has no bass. "The Beautiful Ones," besides featuring the album's all-out vocal tour de force at its end, contains Prince's best melody writing, which is saying something. Todd Rundgren took Philadelphia soul a step further, and Prince in turn takes that a step further into the cosmos of languid sevenths and delirious tri-tones hanging in the thrall of a maiden on a bike.

"The Boys of Summer" - Don Henley
Someone told me Pete Buck turned down a chance to work on this, but then was kicking himself after it turned out so well. That may be entirely false in the details, but it contains one truth: Don Henley, despite his talent, has done what it takes to earn himself the reputation of someone top talents could reasonably feel embarrassed to work with; yet, he can apparently reel it in when he feels like it. There's enough bad eighties stuff on this (crummy synth, Knopflerisms, girl-shot video imagery), but Henley somehow evokes a heart true to the woman connected to the first impression when for all around him it's simply the end of the sporting season.

"Answering Machine" - The Replacements
To some extent, I'm ironically rewarding Let It Be (still a hilarious title) for being such a successful ensemble album, but "Answering Machine" is almost entirely Paul Westerberg singing to just an electric guitar track. It's probably their best articulation of the cry from the soul of the awkward that became their theme. The lyric hook is almost trite—almost, yet in fact all the better for being simple and obvious: how do you say I miss you to an answering machine? (Varying to "How do you say it's okay," and so forth.) That guitar is no mindless accompaniment, it's a harmonic-ripping combination of picking and variously muted strumming with a shower of ninths when it feels bored. And the "if you need help" sample at the end simply could not be more perfectly inflected.