'Material Girl' - Madonna (1985)

"Boys may come and boys may go,

And that’s all right you see.

Experience has made me rich,

And now they’re after me."

They were hearing only bad news from Radio Africa. While the pop masses could only tune in to Radio Ga Ga, Radio Goo Goo and Radio Blah Blah. But on Frimley Park Hospital Radio in the mid-Eighties, they were listening to my homemade 17-minute Madonna megamix.

Disc Jockey was one of my dream jobs growing up. (The others included designing T-shirts with giant slogans on and filming the further adventures of Princess Leia.) My school friend Mike beat me to it on the DJ front, landing a  job on local hospital radio. Mike was one of those guys that looked five years older than anyone else in our year. And he was obssessed with Fern Britton (who presented the regional news at the time).

Mike invited me down to the hospital one Sunday afternoon to watch him at work. Which I translated as ‘co-present’. So I came loaded with TDK C90 tapes full of endless remixes that I’d made. Blame Jive Bunny. Throw a few songs together and get to number one. You just needed a good memory for drum breaks and a fast finger on the pause button. Yep, Jive Bunny and I were leading today’s mash-up generation.   

Somehow I convinced Mike to play my Madonna megamix towards the end of the show. Kinda forgetting to mention that all my mixes were ridiculously long. If you liked Madonna, that was a great afternoon to be in hospital. It got cut off about two thirds of the way through though, as we risked crashing in to the next show. And on future visits, it was thought best that I leave the remixes at home.

Mike went on to his dream job the next year: providing Tannoy announcements at the local football club. And I’m still working on that Princess Leia screenplay.

 

Spotify linky:

Madonna – Material Girl - Extended Dance Remix

Call this a remix 'Jellybean'? Only 6 minutes long! 

'Unknown Pleasures' - Joy Division (1979)

"I’ve walked on water,

Run through fire.

Can’t seem to feel it anymore."

You’re Factory Records. Design maestro Peter Saville is creating the most wonderfully enigmatic record sleeves for you. May as well have a go at redesigning the traditional cassette case. By basically super-sizing it. And making it much more purple-y.

The vinyl junkies all bemoaned the loss of great sleeve art with the advent of CDs, and now again with downloads, but it was always cassette artwork that niggled me. The completely different dimensions always meant the sleeves were simply shrunk or poorly cropped. Few labels went to the trouble of producing specially designed cassette sleeves that truly celebrated the songs within.  

When Factory came to reissue the Joy Division and New Order albums in 1985, they addressed this issue. Entirely for my sake, I’m sure. The results were, as befits Factory, completely unworkable. A case too large and fragile for the cassette sections of most stores – they were always wedged in to the shelves of Our Price and took a mighty battering from folk yanking them in and out. The three I have all sit awkwardly in my collection to this day – waiting for colleagues that will never join them. But ‘Unknown Pleasures’ does come with two lovely textured postcards – with the classic cover image now replicated as silver on white. So every cloud has a … "No, no Michael – let’s leave it there, before you embarrass yourself."      

Spotify linky:

Joy Division – New Dawn Fades

'Some Kind Of Stranger' - The Sisters Of Mercy (1985)

 "I could wait a long, long time,

Before I hear another love song."

Slap bang at the mid-point of the Great Goth Wars (1985-1989), I found myself in the cold, dank trenches. Well, in a cold, dank hole. In some forgotten valley in Devon. Way behind enemy lines, on a school geography trip (yep, the same trip where I’d been made to sleep on a fire escape for three days).

This had been my friend Scott’s idea. Not the trip. He didn’t have that kind of influence over the educational board. No, the whole sleeping-in-a-hole thing. Our teachers were taking us camping on the wild and windy moors for the night. So we could sleep under a tree by a stream. Still not sure to this day why that was so essential to passing my geography O-Level. But, as was quickly becoming the theme of the week, the school hadn’t brought enough tents. So two people would have to make their own shelters. You can see where this is going.

The upside was that Scott and I didn’t have to lug a rucksack of poles, tarpaulin and other gubbins over hills and across dales. The rather major downside was that we spent an April night shivering in an insect-infested hole, covered by a plastic sheet weighed down with bricks, as condensation slowly dripped on to our faces. So it kind of was a learning experience I suppose, in that I’d never do it again.   

Inner sleeve gothic brooding.

Spotify linky:

Sisters Of Mercy – Some Kind Of Stranger

'Paintwork' - The Fall (1985)

"And sometimes they say,

"Hey, Mark. You’re spoiling all the paintwork.""

Has anyone ever actually been stranded on a desert island with just a few records for company? I’ve never seen that on the news. An air rescue team spot a lone shipwrecked survivor stumbling out of the jungle clutching a half-eaten coconut and a copy of Beethoven’s’Ode To Joy’ (apparently the most requested song, fact fans).

It’s a wonderful quandary though. Which songs would you pick ? The mistake most people seem to make is they choose their all-time favourites. There seems little point in this. All my favourite songs I can remember note for note in my head - I won't need them with me. I’d suggest picking something completely new from your favourite artist – with the risk that you may hate it. Or something completely perplexing. Which is why I’d choose 'Paintwork’ by The Fall.

I’ve listened to this song for over 25 years now and it continues to puzzle and bemuse me. From the ramshackle opening, where it appears we’ve turned up early and everyone’s still chatting in the studio (or impersonating a pantomime horse in to the mic). Through to the moments where it sounds like two other songs are battling to intrude in to this ballad of the absurd – cue the flute!? Notoriously, just as the song gets going, we cut briefly to a TV documentary about stars. Legend has it that Mark E. Smith was listening to a tape of the song in his hotel room and hit ‘record’ instead of ‘stop’ – he quickly realised his mistake, but liked the result so much that it stayed on. Genius.

The song clocks in at just over six and a half minutes, but is endlessly fascinating – I’ve yet to find a site that can even fully interpret the lyrics. It would keep me perfectly entertained on that desert island – in between dodging smoke monsters and pressing that button down the hatch.

Don't we all miss inner sleeves like this?

'Welcome To The Pleasuredome'* - Frankie Goes To Hollywood (1985)

"I have it,

So I market it.

You really can’t afford it,

Yeah."

How’d you like them apples? Or apple? Or apple-shaped, seven-inch vinyl, photo disc? Oh, this really isn‘t working.

You’ve got to love Frankie for their glorious extravagance. Surely not economical to press. Completely impractical to ship, sell and store. And most likely to sound awful (though who’s really ever going to play it?). But then, forget all that, as it’s absolutely lovely to behold.  

More folk should do this kind of thing. I’d buy that Celine Dion record if it was shaped as the Titanic.("That’s just a bare-faced lie for comic effect, Michael." Rumbled!) 

Spotify linky:

Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Welcome To The Pleasuredome - Escape Act Video Mix

Not to be confused with this post on the album ‘Welcome To The Pleasuredome’.

‘19’ – Paul Hardcastle (1985)

“Im Zweiten Weltkrieg war

das Durchschnittsalter der Frontsoldaten 26.

In Vietnam war es 19”

Yep, that’s right : the German Version. I came a tad obsessed with this song. At a time when every song was released on multiple formats, it quickly became an expensive obsession for a teenage school boy (especially as I was only getting about a pound a week pocket money) I was used to going to ridiculous lengths to complete my collection: buying the 7-inch, the 7-inch gatefold double disc, the 7-inch fold-out poster version, the 12-inch, the limited edition 12-inch remix, the 10-inch, the cassingle (always disliked that name), the picture disc, and the collectors’ box (basically an empty thin cardboard box that you’d get sent through the post). But this was something new. Now I had to collect the foreign language versions too.

But this was still not actually enough to satiate my appetite for this song. So I began making my own remixes. I’d seek out the rather rare 120-minute-length blank TDK cassettes so I could create versions of ‘19’ that would run uninterrupted for the maximum length of time. And then I’d make my own cassette covers. All for my own amusement. I don’t think I ever shared any of these epic hour-long versions of the song with anyone. I mean, who would really want to listen to them ? But it got me into mixing and that would lead to further adventures – to be continued.

Last year saw another two dozen versions of ‘19’ released by Mr Hardcastle to mark its 25th anniversary. I managed to resist temptation this time, but still very much adore these original versions.

Spotify linky to the 1985 ‘Destruction’ version (my fave):

Paul Hardcastle – 19 (Destruction Mix)

‘The Whole Of The Moon’ – The Waterboys (1985)

“I wondered, I guessed and I tried;
You just knew.”

Best sound effect in a song ever. Fact. “You came like a comet …” Pause and cue comet shooting across the sky. “Blazing your trail.” Do comets actually make a sound? Who cares. They do here and it’s quite perfect.

If you ever want to tempt me along to karaoke, this is the song that will get me there. A real belter of a vocal that’s simply a world of fun to perform. And the lyrics remind me of a girl from school. You’d speak about wings, while she just flew.

Spotify linky:

The Waterboys – The Whole Of The Moon

‘Cruiser’s Creek’– The Fall (1985)

“See the street-litter twisting in the wind,
Crisp bags turning.”

Watching mid-80s US Brat Pack movies warned me off house parties. You know the ones … you invite a few friends over when your parents are away, they tell everyone at school, a rabble of older kids gatecrash and wreck your house while listening to Tears For Fears, and the kid who’s good at science drives your dad’s car into next door’s pool.

My parents couldn’t leave their house in safer hands when they went away. I hated parties. I rarely enjoyed being around more than one person at a time. And my tinnitus stopped me playing music too loudly. Yep, I sound like a real fun teenager, don’t I? Thing is, I’m exactly that way now too.

Only once did our neighbour come round to complain about the noise and he was quite surprised to find me in on my own. It was the summer of 1989 and John Peel had decided to play every session by The Fall over three nights. So I was listening to the latest show with all the windows wide open while doing some dusting. Yes, dusting. This is how I chose to spend my nights home alone as a teenager. I think my neighbour had rather hoped I was having a party so that he could report back to my parents that I was perfectly normal. Instead, he had to tell them he found me singing along to ‘Cruiser’s Creek’ with a feather duster in my hand. Very little changes in my life.

Spotify linky:

The Fall – Cruiser's Creek - Peel Session 3/6/85

'Godstar' - Psychic TV (1985)

“I wish I was with you now;
I wish I could save you somehow.”

What’s the latest big musical movement? Is there one? The last one I remember is emo from a few years back. It seems to me there’s about two generations coming up behind me who have no shared musical experiences beyond ‘X Factor’. I blame the Internet. This often unifying force has fractured musical tastes by giving everything and focusing on nothing.

In just the decade between 1985 and 1995 (when I was 14 to 24 years old), I got to pick ‘n’ mix from indie, new wave, goth, grebo, blonde, baggy, drone rock, art rock, shoe-gazing, slow-core, ambient, grunge, slacker, the new wave of new wave, Britpop, trip-hop and alt-country. And then there’s all the other flavours that weren’t to my taste (yes, “aciiieeeed” kids, I’m looking at you).

‘Godstar’ was the very first indie single I bought (back when ‘indie’ was an ideal, not just a label). I loved it immediately and love it still. Just listen to that chorus. You’ll immediately put it back on again. I clearly remember standing in a car park in Camberley on a cold February afternoon and carefully extracting everything I could from the gatefold (it was a double single!) sleeve while my mum went to the Pay and Display machine (or ‘Cash and Flash’ as my cousins used to call it). I knew nowt about the band. I didn’t know that they had a singer called Genesis P-Orridge or that they had emerged from Throbbing Gristle. The sleeve told me this was the theme song to a film about the ‘Life and Times of Brian Jones’. But the film was never made (I looked out for it for years after). This somehow makes it even more perfect.

Psychic TV was my first connection with a musical movement that to this day inspires new ideas and founds new friendships. I hope the generations to come have their own ‘Godstar’.

Spotify linky:

Psychic TV – Godstar

'Psychocandy' - The Jesus & Mary Chain (1985)

“Walking back to you
Is the hardest thing that
I can do”

My mum once asked me for the defining moment in my life. My reply was ‘Psychocandy’.

The day it came out I was 14 and couldn’t afford it. So I convinced my friend Christopher to buy it down Our Price that weekend, claiming that it was the greatest thing he was ever going to hear. This was a lie as he was very much the school’s King of Funkadelica. But he went with my recommendation. And hated it. And sold it to me a day later for 50 pence.

I’ve since bought it again many times over in every format, but that very first vinyl copy remains a treasure to me. How many teenage hours were spent looking at that sleeve while the songs rattled and screeched through my tinny, tiny speakers? You weren’t there, so can’t possibly answer that, but you get the idea. It was lots.

Here were four scraggly men. In black. With the most wonderful fringes. Look! That’s me. In my New Town home. Thinking I’m not alone. And the songs all burst into life on a squeal of feedback, spat out only half-intelligible thoughts about tripping people up, and then crashed to an end. All in two minutes. Why wasn’t Nik Kershaw doing stuff like this?

I’m quite sure ‘Taste of Cindy’ was the first song I heard from the album – on a free Record Mirror (or somesuch) flexi-disc that my older cousin Grant played me – so I have a huge soft spot for it. But my favourite remains ‘Just Like Honey’. I always imagined using it in the climax of a film. What? Oh.

I’m feeling bad about Christopher now. Don’t worry, I’ll pay him back properly next time I see him.

Spotify linky:

The Jesus And Mary Chain – Just Like Honey