1980s
Thomas H. Green
Does the world need to hear more from Red Hot Chili Peppers? Outside the bouncin’ bro’ fanbase, a regular consensus is that, despite being one of the biggest bands in the world, doing their global stadium rock thing – with free added funk! – achieving the highest level of commercial success, they're not of actual interest.Then they release two very long albums within six months of each other, Return of the Dream Canteen being the second. Who the hell needs that? Turns out that anyone with an ear for joyously executed West Coast-flavoured pop-rock just might.The twofold keys to its Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
In summer 2001, The Best of Roxy Music reached number 12 on the album charts. The 18-track compilation tied-in with the band’s reunion tour, which kicked off that June. Original band members Bryan Ferry, Andy MacKay, Phil Manzanera and Paul Thompson came together for the dates. They’d last played live in May 1983, after which they split.The Best of Roxy Music was CD-only and now reappears as a double album to coincide with the band’s 50th-anniversary shows, presently on-going in the US. The UK dates begin in October. Between the 2001 shows and what’s in this year’s diary, there were tours in Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
On the cover of The Hit Parade’s Pick Of The Pops Vol.1 it says “London’s No.1 Pop Group.” Underneath, a strapline states “File under: C86 twee Sarah Sixties pop.” Obviously, irony is at play with some of this – from the band name to the album title and the top pop group boast. The suggested categorisation might be nearer the mark.Pick Of The Pops Vol.1 is a vinylisation of a Hit Parade comp first issued in 2012. Back then, there were 20 tracks. Now, it’s 14. Picking these particular pops must have been tough as The Hit Parade formed in 1984 and since then there’s been seven albums and, Read more ...
Liz Thomson
From Brighton to Berlin with the Brit School alums, who formed 20 years ago – allegedly out shopping in Primark. Virgin signed them three months later. What started as “a joke” has endured through five albums – and here comes their sixth, 10 Tracks to Echo in the Dark.And how appropriate that this slice of Eighties retro should appear right now – just as we’re reprising many of the grimmer aspects of that decade, not least a recession and, possibly soon, a Thatcher 2.0 if Liz Truss cosplay fools the ever-gullible public.It was also the decade of synthpop – electronica, disco, Eurodance – as Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
Period drama from Australia is something of a rarity on our televisions, so The Newsreader scores for novelty alone. It’s not startlingly innovative in form, but it does what it sets out to do in a highly satisfying way. Which is to tell a tale of everyday misogyny, racism, homophobia and backstabbing in the Aussie television industry of the mid-1980s.Running throughout are regular datelines, starting with the weekend of the Challenger disaster in February 1986 and progressing through to Chernobyl the following April. This timeline isn’t just adding handy topical references: these are the Read more ...
Gary Naylor
Music plays a big part in the life of Dwight, an 11-year-old black lad growing up in early 80s Leeds. He doesn't fit in at school, bullied because he is "slow", and he doesn't fit in outside school, would-be friends losing patience with him.But he does fit in at home, loved unequivocally by a protective mother, somewhat enviously by a bickering sister, and rather reluctantly by a preoccupied father. Like the records he plays on the gramophone, his life is about to spin – and he'll have to hold on to the warmth of family love in a cold world.Zodwa Nyoni's new play for the Kiln Theatre packs Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Renowned for an impressive body of work that includes This House, Quiz and Brexit: The Uncivil War, playwright and screenwriter James Graham has looked inwards and backwards for his new six-part series Sherwood.Set in a former mining community in Nottinghamshire, based on the author’s own home town, Sherwood (BBC One) charts a story of increasing violence and bitterness, based on real-life incidents that took place in the miners’ strike back in 1984.The historical background is evoked by newsreel footage from the Eighties of lines of police battling miners, and Prime Minister Margaret Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Initially, the weird thing about this is it’s being released as a Neneh Cherry album rather than a compilation of artists doing Neneh Cherry covers, which is what it is. That said, awareness slowly grows of a kindred sensibility to recent Neneh Cherry output, the esoteric jazzual spirit that’s imbued her last couple of albums. The Versions is a crafted, mellow, late night affair containing material different enough from the originals to be interesting, even if it cannot top their cheeky hip hop-pop potency.Take the version of 1989 cut “Heart” by Los Angeles violinist-singer Sudan Archives, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
One effect of the film I Get Knocked Down, a playfully constructed journey around the life of Chumbawamba vocalist Dunstan Bruce, is to remind that socio-political rage was once woven into the fabric of popular music. Old footage from the band’s Leeds squat, Southview House, in the early Eighties, shows one of them jovially composing a song called “Norman Fowler is a Shit-stain in Margaret Thatcher’s Underpants” on an acoustic guitar (Norman Fowler was Thatcher’s Secretary of State at the time). It’s funny and silly, but also made me long for the era when art-fury was a common cultural Read more ...
Harry Thorfinn-George
Soft Cell, the duo consisting of Marc Almond and Dave Ball, announced they were calling it quits in 2018. The two sold out shows at the 02 in London were supposed to be their swan song, waving goodbye to their Soft Cell days. But as their eponymous Eighties single hinted, waving goodbye is often paired with a hello. In 2020 they embarked on a nationwide tour, playing their classic 1981 album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret in its entirety. This wasn’t just a nostalgia tour though. Brand new songs made it onto the setlist as well, like “Bruises On My Illusions”, “Heart Like Chernobyl “and “Nostalgia Read more ...
Joe Muggs
This album starts with an unfortunate sound. Its title track begins with the kind of drum loop that rock bands from U2 on down adopted in the early 1990s having heard Massive Attack and Happy Mondays and deciding that they were going to get on the groovy train. It’s unfortunate because as with all those Nineties bands, it remains completely beholden to a very Eighties Big Rock production style with over-egged notions of “fidelity”. Every element is neat, tidy, separated, sparkling – completely missing the point of what dance and hip hop producers were doing by hacking the possibilities of Read more ...
Kathryn Reilly
When Soft Cell first caught the imagination of the nation it was a time of hope, opportunity and change. One of the first bands to bring technology to the top of the charts, they seemed to herald a new age after the grey years of the Seventies. They felt it too and they were also wrong. What colossal idiots we were, National Treasure Marc Almond confirms. Right from the start on this lockdown album – the first offering in nearly 20 years – in "Happy Happy" he lambasts how easily we swallowed the lies and followed the money. "Bruises on my Illusions" reiterates the point. Perhaps Read more ...