Category: 1980-1984

“Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken?” (1984) – Lloyd Cole and the Commotions * Written by Lloyd Cole and Neil Clark * Produced by Paul Hardiman * LP: Rattlesnakes * Label: Polydor

“Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken?” was the final track on the debut album by the University of Glasgow’s Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, and it jangled with a rich, resonant sadness. Anne Dudley’s string arrangements swelled up like big tears, offsetting and forgiving Cole’s snooty set of lyrics. There’s no reason not to suspect the song started as a goof on Glaswegian jangle rival Roddy Frame, who wore his adoration for Arthur Lee on his sleeve, whose wordiness might have benefited from some bookish discipline (or a cold, hard peek through Gary Gilmore’s eyes via Norman Mailer), and whose cheerfulness and need for a sartorial re-think all made themselves manifest in his early publicity shots and videos. Whatever the inspiration, and to their credit, the black-turtlenecked Commotions allowed their song to take on an emotionally layered life of its own. A 2006 track by the Scottish group Camera Obscura (“Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken”) vied for the Most Unnecessary Answer Song award.

“Open Your Heart” (1981) – The Human League * Written by Jo Callis and Phillip Oakey * Produced by Martin Rushent and the Human League * 45: “Open Your Heart” / “Non-Stop” * LP: Dare * Label: Virgin * Charts: UK #6

The Human League’s commercial breakthrough in 1981 showcased a simplicity vs. complexity dialectic in new British synth pop. Producer Martin Rushent, having programmed the intricate chain of sequences on “Open Your Heart,” would surely laugh if anyone were to inquire about the track’s scaled down nature. The final product, though — including the white-background cover art, the one-word album title, the button-tapped electronics — argued for minimalism, dehumanization, emotional restraint. “Open Your Heart,” in fact, pushes so far in that direction that it breaks down one of those white studio walls to reveal a pastoral conception of minimalism. A Casio VL-Tone, that most portable of early synthesizers, plays the melodic hook on the “flute” setting, as though emanating from under a shepherd’s shade tree. For three 1981 singles, the band experimented with a Red and Blue labeling system, which they described self-effacingly in the New Musical Express as a way of differentiating between their “Spandy” [Spandau Ballet] or “Abba” offerings (i.e., dance or pop). “Open Your Heart” clearly qualified as Blue/Abba, whose 1980 song “The Piper”—the B-side for their UK #1 “Super Trouper” — also used a synth flute and evoked pre-industrial age airs.

“New York, New York” (1981) – The Dictators * Written by Adny Shernoff * Cassette: Fuck ‘Em If They Can’t Take a Joke * Label: ROIR

The Dictators, above every other categorization (proto-punks, hard rockers), were New Yorkers. Part of the fun of their debut album Go Girl Crazy (1975) was hearing vocalist Handsome Dick Manitoba, who wore the same kind of afro as the MC5’s Rob Tyner, doing renditions of California-centric material (“California Sun,” “I Got You Babe,” “Cars and Girls”) in his unmistakably Bronx manner. (Manitoba joined the reformed MC5 as the obvious frontman to replace the deceased Tyner when they reformed in 2005.) But those tracks had the whiff of escape fantasies. Their next two albums, Manifest Destiny (1977) and Bloodbrothers (1978) betrayed a few too many commercial intentions that made them seem vulnerable in a way that betrayed their band name. The chosen title of their 1981 live cassette on the NYC-based ROIR label, Fuck ’em If They Can’t Take a Joke, may as well be understood as their explanation for any previously perceived weaknesses, because it’s their best album. It’s got most of the best tunes from the other releases and includes their crucial “New York, New York,” which is, unlike the Sinatra signature tune, a dispatch from Fear City (a term used in a 1975 union pamphlet to scare off tourists). The song tells of garbage in the streets, dirty air, and fellow citizens worthy of only derogatory names, with an insistent and staccato melody that could, in some other guise, do intro duty for a news hour or movie-of-the-week on WNEW (channel 5). The Fleshtones, also intrinsically New York, do a cover of it as the sole keeper track on the 1996 Dictators Forever Forever Dictators tribute album. On the 1981 source version, though, you get to hear Manitoba close the track by yelling, “you talkin’ to me?!”

 

“Run Runaway” – Slade (1983) * Written by Noddy Holder and Jim Lea * Produced by John Punter * B-side: “Two Track Stereo One Track Mind” (UK); “Don’t Tame a Hurricane” (US) * LP: The Amazing Kamikaze Syndrome (UK); Keep Your Hands Off My Power Supply (US) * Label: RCA (UK); Epic/CBS (US) * Charts: Billboard Hot 100 (#20); UK #7.

England’s Slade, the early ’70s glam-stomp hitmakers with merely a cult following in the US, found renewed momentum as elder statesmen thanks to festival gigs in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal early ’80s. They were thus all warmed up to capitalize when the American metal band Quiet Riot turned their “Cum On Feel the Noize” into a top 5 US hit in August 1983. Smartly, Slade got some new material ready, and by April 1984, a track called “Run Runaway” became their biggest stateside hit, peaking at number 20. In context, the key line “see chameleon lying there in the sun / all things to everyone” points to the track’s crossover appeal in a cliquish market—American Top 40, AOR, and alternative rock stations all embraced the tune (whose guitar lines nodded to the bagpipe rock sound of Big Country). “Run Runaway” also tapped into cozy subconscious memories of a protestant hymn called “There Is a Happy Land” (its opening words: “There is a happy land far, far away”), whose third line melody parallels the third line of Slade’s hit. The track appeared on a late 1983 British release called The Amazing Kamikaze Syndrome, shaken free of cultural stereotypes in 1984 with a new cover and title for American release (Keep Your Hands Off My Power Supply).

“Don’t Talk to Me About Love” (1983) – Altered Images * Written by Altered Images * Produced by Mike Chapman * LP: Bite * 45: “Don’t Talk to Me About Love” / “Last Goodbye” * Label: Epic (UK); Portrait (US) * Charts: UK #7

Altered Images’ development paralleled their target audience, starting with adolescent attitude (“Dead Pop Stars”), moving along to carefree teenage courtship (“See Those Eyes”), then winding up at the adult singles club (“Don’t Talk to Me About Love”). It’s clear that Mike Chapman, who produced half of their final album Bite, had a clearer conception of what to do with his Scottish pop ingredients—especially Claire Grogan’s novelty vocals and their anti-rockist guitars—than did Tony Visconti, who mishandled the rest. Few producers could work with disco as a utility like Chapman, as his output with Blondie confirms. Three songs from Bite, all Chapman’s, endure as charming mementoes. “Change of Heart” and “Another Lost Look” are two of them (listen to “Another Lost Look” on vinyl, not the CD, which uses a live version). The third is “Don’t Talk to Me About Love,” one of the era’s more sparkling demonstrations of disco’s ongoing hold on British new pop, taking all the non-rap virtues of “Rapture” and reshaping them into something both melancholy and lovely. The song’s disco elements, actually, signify fresh nostalgia, which tends to have an especially acute effect on the young adult.

Sometime in the mid-seventies, Burkina Faso vocalist Amadou Traore adopted the name of a popular Mande folk song and became known forever more as Amadou Balake (“balake” means “porcupine”). Conversant in numerous genres, Balake recorded warba and Mandé dance music, but also excelled in the sounds of Cuba, as you can hear on his 1981 Afro-Charanga album. This eight-minute track tastes as much like sazon completa as it does whiskey or coke.

“Ballade sur la lagune” (1983) – African Virtuoses * LP: Nanibali/Ballade sur la lagune * Label: Jaz

Although the Guinea-based African Virtuoses included four Diabate brothers—Abdoulaye, Sire, Sekou, and Papa—only the first three appear on this cool breeze of an album (Nanibali/Ballade sur la lagune). The term “virtuoso” usually suggests an athletic approach to music that ends up taxing the ear, but it applies here in terms of sheer artistry. The final song is “Ballade sur la lagune,” and it’s the one you imagine them playing while getting their picture taken for the cover, their melodies trailing off over the water. A 2007 CD called The Classic Guinean Group includes this entire album plus two extra tracks: one from 1970 (featuring Papa) and another from 1975.

“Opera Star” (1981) – Neil Young and Crazy Horse * Written by Neil Young * LP: Reactor * Produced by David Briggs, Tim Mulligan, and Neil Young with Jerry Napier * Label: Reprise

If you’ve listened to Neil Young’s 1981 “Opera Star” more than once, the odds are that the phrase “some things never change, they stay the way they are” plays through your brain at appropriate moments. Also ready for recall, in all likelihood, is this one: “you were born to rock, you’ll never be an opera star.” The song presents itself almost like a knucklehead rocker’s manifesto, but Young’s ’80s output, with its drastic stylistic changes, indicates that “Opera Star,” and possibly the entire Reactor album—which Rolling Stone had classified as “bozo rock”—was a razz on a certain type of audience, the type who would hear opera music and imitate it just like the guys in Crazy Horse: “oh-oh-oh-ohhh-oh-OHHH!”