As you probably know by now, The Analog Kid lives for b-sides and non-album cuts. In this continuing series, I will share some of my favorite EPs and 12″ singles from over the years in their entirety. And since it’s digital, you don’t have to worry about correctly setting the turntable speed to or 33⅓ or 45!
Lifes Rich Pageant was my first R.E.M. CD– my way-too-hip mom gave it to me as a Christmas present in 1986. I spent the rest of my Christmas vacation blasting “These Days” and “Begin The Begin” from my brother’s killer stereo system, and I was a certified R.E.M. fanatic by the time I returned to Austin for the spring semester.
“Fall On Me” was the first single from Lifes Rich Pageant, and it was also the first R.E.M. video that I remember seeing on MTV. The U.K. 12″ came with two unreleased b-sides: a rather silly instrumental entitled “Rotary Ten,” and a shockingly faithful cover of the Aerosmith classic “Toys In The Attic.” In his liner notes to the 1987 b-sides compilation Dead Letter Office, Peter Buck had this to say about their cover of “Toys”:
If you grew up in the seventies, you liked Aerosmith.
If you grew up in the eighties, you liked R.E.M. Some of us went beyond like and more towards worship, and LifesRich Pageant sent me straight down the path of devotion.
The 2014 World Cup starts today. Please forgive me if my writing seems slightly disjointed over the next month or so, as I am going to be heavily distracted by the happenings down in Brazil. Also, I am going to be drunk.
XTC: “Senses Working Overtime [Single Version]” (Andy Partridge)
Original version from the album English Settlement
As you probably know by now, The Analog Kid lives for b-sides and non-album cuts. In this continuing series, I will share some of my favorite EPs and 12″ singles from over the years in their entirety. And since it’s digital, you don’t have to worry about correctly setting the turntable speed to or 33⅓ or 45!
Earlier this week, I mentioned my eccentric friend Wade in a blog post about new wave songs from 1986. Here’s what I had to say about my lovable-but-loopy pal:
My friend Wade is an unusual man. He is insanely intelligent, but won’t even go on Facebook because he is convinced the government is watching his every move. He can describe (in great detail) every goal scored by the U.S. national soccer team in the last twenty years. When I recently traveled to Kansas to attend a Longhorn football game, he spent a week trying to convince me that I absolutely HAD to visit the Mennonite Heritage Museum in Goessel, Kansas. After all, who in their right mind could visit Kansas without stopping in Goessel to see The Wheat Bell, a full-scale replica of the Liberty Bell made from turkey red wheat?
I love to kid Wade, but he’s always been one of my best friends. Back in my college days at UT, we spent countless hours hanging out in his palatial apartment. He gave us beer, he gave us food, and he gave some of us drugs (but not me, as I was a squeaky-clean Analog Kid!–mostly). His place provided us with a great environment for watching Moonlighting, L.A.Law, Max Headroom, and all of the other classic late-’80s shows. Wade’s apartment was a true oasis for this dirt-poor college student, and it was made even cooler by a certain framed print placed quite prominently on his living-room wall:
You can ignore Steve Carell, because he only came over once or twice (and the asshole always stole our HEB-brand lemon cookies). But the framed Asia poster? Oh yes, it was there. It was always there. And in my mind, it is still there.
Of course, that poster is the cover of Asia’s debut 1982 album. Roger Dean also provided the cover for the 1983 follow-up Alpha, and that cover art was also adapted into the artwork for the U.K. Don’t Cry 12″ single. “Don’t Cry” reached #10 on the Billboard Hot 100, and gave Asia its second U.S. Top 10 hit (“Heat Of The Moment” had peaked at #4 a year earlier).
When the original Asia reunited a few years ago, I had the pleasure of seeing them at the Dallas House Of Blues location. Of course, it wouldn’t have been right to see them without Wade. He even managed to behave himself at the pre-show meet-and-greet– I had fully expected him to tackle Steve Howe and pepper him with obscure questions about TalesFrom Topographic Oceans, but thankfully he was too awestruck to speak coherently. The band played an acoustic version of “Don’t Cry” that night, and its famous video was projected on a giant screen behind the original foursome. I think Wade got a little misty.
“You know how I know Wade is awesome? Because he likes Asia!”
Every Tuesday, the Analog Kid blog goes back in time and features some of the best groovy R&B/soul songs from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. Sometimes you’ll hear songs from individual artists or from a specific year, and other times you’ll get an entire full-length classic LP ripped directly from the Analog Kid’s vast vinyl vault. Warning: by R&B/soul, I also mean disco. I could go all Village People on your ass at any given moment, so just be ready!
Captain Von Trapp was seriously pissed off when he came home to find his children playing and singing with their new nanny, Fräulein Maria. Can you imagine if he had come home to THIS?
Show-Stoppers ’81: The (Disco) Sound Of Music [U.K. 12″]
The Captain might have joined up with Rolfe and the Nazis just to get the heck out of Austria. I suppose he could have just run away with Baroness Schrader instead, but she was kind of a bitch so I’m thinking the Nazis might have been his first choice…
Sheer joy is a rare thing indeed. It is often reserved for children opening presents on Christmas morning, and perhaps for me on the day that Texas beat USC in the Rose Bowl. The last time I saw sheer joy? It was the day I played this 12″ for my wife for the first time. She danced like a schoolgirl for the entire eight minutes, and had a smile so big that it made Julia Roberts’ grin look downright meek.
So, who were Show-Stoppers ’81? And more importantly, who did the singing? Time has revealed that Sarah Brightman was the likely vocalist, as her hit single “(I Lost My Heart To A) Starship Trooper” was written by Jeff Calvert– the producer behind “The (Disco) Sound Of Music.”
’80s new wave music is my true love. This is the music of MTV. KROQ. ValleyGirl. Martha Quinn. The Atari 2600. Members Only. Friday Night Videos. Nina Blackwood. Ms. Pac-Man. Night Flight. Richard Blade. Sixteen Candles. Alan Hunter. Jam boxes. Revenge Of The Nerds. Cabbage Patch Dolls. Parachute pants. J.J. Jackson. Live Aid. Mark Goodman. Rubik’s Cube. Donkey Kong.
This is the music that still makes me feel like a perpetual teenager.
Ecstatic ’80s New Wave: 1986
Device: “Hanging On A Heart Attack [Single Version] (Knight/Chapman)
Songwriter Holly Knight was responsible for some of the most memorable songs of the ’80s (“Love Is A Battlefield” and “Never” among them), but “Hanging On A Heart Attack” was the only song she took into the Top 40 as a performer. Device disbanded after only one album, and Knight returned to writing countless hits for other artists.
Talk Talk: “Life’s What You Make It” (Hollis/Friese-Greene)
Talk Talk had a string of memorable hit singles in the early-to-mid ’80s, but “Life’s What You Make It” is their masterpiece. The song barely broke the Top 100 in the United States, but thankfully MTV had the good taste to put it in heavy rotation. Simply put, this is one of my all-time favorite songs.
“Like Flames” was obviously not the biggest hit Berlin had in 1986, but the Analog Kid blog is the type of blog that likes to live on the edge. People don’t like me because I’m dangerous. I know, I know…my ego is writing checks my body can’t cash.
Boys Don’t Cry: “I Wanna Be A Cowboy” (Chatton/Seopardi/Richards/Ramsden)
My friend Wade is an unusual man. He is insanely intelligent, but won’t even go on Facebook because he is convinced the government is watching his every move. He can describe (in great detail) every goal scored by the U.S. national soccer team in the last twenty years. When I recently traveled to Kansas to attend a Longhorn football game, he spent a week trying to convince me that I absolutely HAD to visit the Mennonite Heritage Museum in Goessel, Kansas. After all, who in their right mind could visit Kansas without stopping in Goessel to see The Wheat Bell, a full-scale replica of the Liberty Bell made from turkey red wheat?
Wade loves to come over to my house and play tunes from my 93,000 song library. What song does he always choose first? “I Wanna Be A Cowboy.”
The Edge & Sinéad O’Connor: “Captive” (The Edge/O’Connor)
I didn’t actually discover this album until the summer of 1987. I found it as an import at a little CD store on Harbor Blvd. in Costa Mesa, and of course my u2 fanaticism required me to shell out the $21.99 import price. Captive turned out to be well worth the cost– it has some fantastic instrumental pieces from The Edge, and also features the recording debut of an unknown 19-year-old Irish singer named Sinéad on a song called “Heroine.”
I didn’t actually purchase any Big Country music until the early ’90s. but of course I was familiar with their MTV hits in the ’80s. I bought a used vinyl copy of The Seer in the mid-’90s, and I heard “Look Away” for the first time in about ten years. It absolutely floored me– what a chorus! I immediately acquired the rest of the Big Country catalog, and have been a huge fan ever since. Rest in peace, Stuart.
The Bangles: “If She Knew What She Wants [Extended Remix]” (Shear)
A few critics chastised The Bangles for not writing a lot of the songs on Different Light themselves, but that’s crazy talk when the covers are as good as “If She Knew What She Wants.” I have included the rare 12″ extended remix from the U.K. 12″ single, which nicely extends the song without resorting to bad percussion fills and hand claps– a true rarity in the remix-happy mid-’80s world.
Tears For Fears: “Everybody Wants To Run The World” (Orzabal/Stanley/Hughes)
From the U.K. 12″ Everybody Wants To Run The World
Bob Geldof apparently was not very happy with Tears For Fears for skipping Live Aid, so Roland and Curt made it up to him by re-recording “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” in 1986. The newly-christened “Everybody Wants To Run The World” helped promote the Sport Aid campaign for African famine relief, and earned Tears For Fears another Top 5 U.K. hit in the process.
Speaking of Sir Bob, “This Is The World Calling” was one of my favorite songs of 1986. It was produced by Geldof and Eurythmic David A. Stewart, and features wonderful backing vocals from Annie Lennox, Alison Moyet, and Maria McKee. Maria herself posted this pic from the recording session on Facebook last year:
That’s some big-time vocal power right there, my friends.
Wang Chung: “Everybody Have Fun Tonight [12 Inches Of Fun]” (Feldman/Hughes/Wolf)
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The Analog Kid 