1,001 songs to listen to before you die...

[gunnar hendershow]

"Save it for Later" is a fun song. Always gets stuck in my head when I hear it.

New exposures to these other two. Icehouse didn't really jump out as "go listen to this band" on the first pass but it was a good song. I got some Klaus Nomi vibes from The Associates' vocals, and I'd be interesting in hearing more of their work.

 

[Malenko]

There's still 2-tone ska in their last album although less than their previous albums. Both singles in the album are poppy though.

[VerbalPuke]

Zappa can take a minute to appreciate, I'd suggest start with Hot Rats. Just a great album. Mostly instrumental barring some vocals from Captain Beefheart on Willie the Pimp.

[Liam]

592.      

‘Situation’, Yazoo (1982)

Influenced by: The Robots • Kraftwerk (1978)   

Influence on: Theme from S’Express • S’Express (1988)  

Covered by: Tom Jones (1994)   

Other key tracks: Only You (1982) • Don’t Go (1982) • Nobody’s Diary (1983)

I always assumed that Yazoo were more gimmicky than this song suggests. That speaks more to my knowledge of the name as a brand of milkshake more than anything of any substance. This is a lot more Kraftwerk meets Boy George with ex-Depeche Mode Vince Clarke working with Alison Moyet. Moyet in particular has a great voice that works to give everything a more human feel as she sings against a backdrop of electronica. This was the B Side to ‘Only You’ which was a huge hit, but this song earned its place in the book as being a route into areas such as techno and the commercial end of acid house. It is definitely a worthy song, that much is true.

593.      

‘Rock the Casbah’, The Clash (1982)

Influenced by: Shah Shah a Go Go • The Stranglers (1979)   

Influence on: 51st State • The Enemy (2009)   

Covered by: Solar Twins (1999) • Rachid Taha (2004) • Something for Kate (2007)   

Other key track: Should I Stay or Should I Go (1982)

Not that I am the most knowledgeable when it comes to The Clash, but as I’m not always the biggest fan of raw punk bands, this tended to be the era of their music that I preferred. It was – for me – where the mix of tunefulness, politics and noise met and was best realised, making this probably my favourite song by them. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who disliked this song for that matter, though I’m sure the response to this post might just as easily prove me wrong.

594.      

‘Buffalo Gals’, Malcolm McLaren (1982)

Influenced by: Zulu Nation Throw Down • Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force (1980)   

Influence on: Close (To the Edit) • Art of Noise (1984)   

Covered by: Malcolm McLaren & The World’s Famous Supreme Team versus Roger Sanchez & Rakim (2005)   

Other key track: Double Dutch (1983)

I didn’t realise that Malcolm McLaren ever released his own music – I only ever linked him to other musical acts. It is definitely an odd beast, yet with it came influence as it was another song to promote aspects of hip hop into the mainstream. A mix of line dance instructions, samples and record scratches create a song that is very weird, but definitely catchy and hard not to enjoy. The music video with breakdancing youths was also a good touch as music videos became more and more central to musical success.

[METALMAN]

I know two or three Yazoo songs and I like them all. I also can't help but associate them with I'm Alan Partridge, unfortunately for them.

I think your little summary of the Clash is correct. I found their first two albums a little bit dull but loved the next two where they became far more interesting. Unfortunately the album Rock the Casbah is on -Combat Rock - is an album where they continued trying different things but it also managed to be pretty dull. Rock the Casbah is still a top tune though.

I quite like Buffalo Gals. Duck Rock is a pretty good album too. Buffalo Gals is really just a bunch of doodles but they're all fun. Most importantly, it provided the sample for Neneh Cherry's immortal Buffalo Stance later on in the decade, which in turn provided the sample for Cher Lloyd's even more immortal Playa Boi.

[Liam]

595.      

‘A New England’, Billy Bragg (1983)

I’m always a sucker for a good singer/songwriter tune, and that is what I think ‘A New England’ offers. I went and saw Frank Turner at Wembley Stadium and Billy Bragg supported him with a good set. However, it was telling to me that it was this song that was the only one I really took away from it. The main chorus lyric begs to be sung aloud, the song doesn’t overstay its welcome, and the driving guitar throughout helps to add that sense of pace. The only thing I’ve always been a little confused about is the production – it sound like he was recording it in an aircraft carrier or something.

596.      

‘Blister in the Sun’, Violent Femmes (1983)

This is not only a perfect example of a song that I knew but had no idea as to who created it, but it is a band that I remember being mentioned on….Clarissa Explains It All? Maybe Sabrina? I just remember Melissa Joan Hart talking them up in a television show multiple times. Though not a successful song when it was released, the angsty lyrics (covering failed relationships and masturbation) and catchy tune made it popular amongst teens and college students. It speaks to that age more so than some of the rose tinted love songs out there, while there is an alternativeness to the whole proceedings that I believe must have made fans of the band/song feel like they were into something beyond the poppy rubbish that was on the radio.

597.      

‘Let’s Dance’, David Bowie (1983)

Influenced by: Good Times • Chic (1979)   

Influence on: Last Dance • George Clinton (1983)

Covered by: Falco (1984) • Atrocity (1997) • Second Skin (2000) • M. Ward (2003) • The Futureheads (2006) • Nona Reeves (2007) • Sophie Ellis-Bextor (2007)

I always tend to love weird takes on popular music – things that aim for the mainstream but are just a little rougher around the edges in some way. Bowie was never going to create a song that was pure pop, but this was a fair step away from the oddness of some of his earlier work. Yet, this is aiming for pop stardom as done by Bowie, so there is character abounding throughout it. One of the biggest eye openers of this whole project is just how much stuff Nile Rodgers has found himself involved in as he added his considerable talents to the song as well as Stevie Ray Vaughan. Not my favourite Bowie song, but I can understand the allure for those who place it highly.

598.      

‘This Charming Man’, The Smiths (1983)

Influenced by: Walk Out to Winter • Aztec Camera (1983)   

Influence on: Animal Nitrate • Suede (1993)   

Covered by: Death Cab for Cutie (1996) • Braid (2000) • Darling (2000) Stars (2001)   

Other key track: How Soon Is Now? (1984)

I hate Morrissey, yet I really like a lot of his music. The eternal conundrum of the wanker who is talented. I hadn’t really listened to the Smiths until I was at university and it caught me at that sweet spot where I still wanted lyrics to be all meaningful and shit, and when I started to look back into the 80s in general for my musical inspiration. Though Morrissey’s lazy croon and the lyrics for the song are naturally important, the jangly guitars make this song and really showcase Johnny Marr’s talents. At least he isn’t a wanker.

599.      

‘Relax’, Frankie Goes To Hollywood (1983)

Influenced by: Don’t Make Me Wait • Peech Boys (1982)   

Influence on: Animal • Def Leppard (1987)

Covered by: Brooklyn Bounce (1997) • Powerman 5000 & Danny Boy (2001) • The Dandy Warhols (2004)   

Other key track: Rage Hard (1986)

From distance, it is sometimes hard to tell why Frankie Goes To Hollywood were as huge as they were. That isn’t to knock their music per se, but I think you had to be living in that moment to really ‘get it’. That, and people don’t like being told what they could and couldn’t do so when the BBC banned it, things completely took off for the song. To give it its due, it is dance floor banger that takes the techno and electro elements that have become popular and show what they can be utilised for when it came to pop music. The music video is….yeah. Be warned.

[Bobfoc]

I always thought that Blister in the Sun was a nineties song. I had no idea it actually came out in the first half of the eighties.

[gunnar hendershow]

Wow a ton of really great songs. I love "Let's Dance" less as a pop song, even less as a Bowie song, but as a song where there's so much fun stuff going on behind the kinda cheesy pop chorus. Great bass, great guitar work.

"This Charming Man" was the first Smiths song I fell in love with and I can still recite every word of the song. Good thing that band was Johnny Marr playing guitar and doing vocals and there's nobody questionable who was their actual vocalist that would make me have to reconsider listening to them in the future.

Yaz are pretty cheesy but I enjoy the few songs I've heard from them.

I've heard "Blister in the Sun" a million times and the clapping bit of the song has found its way into the "We Will Rock You" echelon of songs you just heard all the time at baseball games.

"Rock the Casbah" is a really fine song by The Clash that sadly seeped way too much into dull pop culture and is a bit annoying to me now.

"Relax" is one of the classic examples of a good song helped immensely by controversy. It set the tone in a lot of ways for the wave of songs and music videos designed to shock people and make them even more popular as a result. The Madonna strategy.

I guess the importance of a solo Malcolm MacLaren song is that he did it. By 1982 hip-hop had really come into its own and like a lot of other attempts by non hip-hop people to make it the song just never really hits. It's a nice nod to something that is emerging as the next major musical style and a few decades later would be everywhere. A lot of these people likely had that feeling back in the early 80s that there was just something incredibly special about hip-hop.

I should listen to more Billy Bragg.

[VerbalPuke]

I love Billy Bragg, good choice for him, whole album is quite good. 

Good list in general, but i don't know a ton of Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

Let's Dance is good fun, catchy as hell. 

[Malenko]

Violent Femmes and Billy Bragg's songs are my picks on this set. I like both, a lot. Not everything they did and I feel Billy Bragg's later work lacks some punch but these are great.

I like the Smiths in general but I'm not a big fan of this particular song.

I'm not a big fan of David Bowie's music - unpopular opinion, I know - and let's dance just annoys me, probably because I've heard it so many times but there are other songs I've heard even more and I don't mind so this doesn't even work as an excuse.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood is as 80s as it gets. I don't know too much about them other than their singles who got a pretty decent amount of radio play. I don't even dislike it. There are even other songs more on the New Wave side of things that I could say I enjoy. I just never bothered looking into their albums to find out what else they did. Probably still won't. There's so much music out there. But I'm ok listening to them whenever they're played on the radio - not as often these days, obviously.

[GoGo Yubari]

1 hour ago, Bobfoc said:

I always thought that Blister in the Sun was a nineties song. I had no idea it actually came out in the first half of the eighties.

Yeah, I'm the same way. My local alternative station played it and a couple other songs from the same album ("Add It Up," "Kiss Off," "Gone Daddy Gone") fairly regularly and most stuff from before the late '80s tended to get sent to their specialty shows for older music, so I always assumed these songs came at least five years later than they actually did. They basically sound like a band that could have come out at any point between '83 and '93.

Other songs:

- "Let's Dance" is the first Bowie song I really found my way into loving. I don't know if it'd make my top ten Bowie songs now (but it probably would) but it's

- Like damshow, I can do "This Charming Man" word for word. Phenomenal song, Morrissey can go fuck himself but he's great in this, though the vocals play second-fiddle to the instruments for me.

- I like "A New England," though I think the Kirsty MacColl cover is a little better.

- "Relax" is good but I think there's a relationship that Gen X folks have with it that I never will. That whole controversy and whatnot. Great energy, great tension to it, but in a Twitter poll/tournament of the best debut singles of all time it came in second and I was pretty bewildered by that until I remembered that the bulk of the voters are like ten years older than me and from the UK.

[METALMAN]

Billy Bragg was quite good before he became an annoying man with a Twitter account. A New England is probs his best song. I like the Kirsty MacColl cover too.

I knew Blister in the Sun was from the early 80s, so get it up you. It is okay but nothing more than that.

Let's Dance is a stonker of a choon.

Find it odd how these days references to Morrissey or the Smiths have to be prefaced with a reference to Morrissey's dickheadedness, while other musicians to have done far worse, not least the man performing the song immediately preceding this one, tend to get by unremarked. In any case This Charming Man is an exceptional song. Part of that is down to Morrissey, whether you like it or not, but the rest of the band, especially J'en ai marre, do a great job in making the song bounce. Incidentally, this is likely to be the only song on this list that I've played to the one of the original artists, so there you go. I like this little bit too:

I don't think it is difficult at all to tell why Frankie Goes to Hollywood were so big. Relax is massive. Two Tribes is massive. There's still nothing that sounds quite like those two. They are just colossal. Music never really sounded so BIG before, and that is largely down to Trevor Horn's remarkable production. Power of Love is shit though.

Edited September 1, 2020 by metalman

[VerbalPuke]

I should have mentioned The Smiths. They've been a blind spot for awhile, and the last year or so I've become a big fan. 

Can't speak to Morrisey, I know he's a sorta an aloof asshole, and is possibly a racist? Either way, I love Johnny Marr's guitar work, beautiful.

[gunnar hendershow]

13 hours ago, metalman said:

Find it odd how these days references to Morrissey or the Smiths have to be prefaced with a reference to Morrissey's dickheadedness, while other musicians to have done far worse, not least the man performing the song immediately preceding this one, tend to get by unremarked. In any case This Charming Man is an exceptional song. Part of that is down to Morrissey, whether you like it or not, but the rest of the band, especially J'en ai marre, do a great job in making the song bounce. Incidentally, this is likely to be the only song on this list that I've played to the one of the original artists, so there you go. I like this little bit too:

 

I think with Morrissey it's mostly the disappointment of him having some very regressive opinions. A ton of people who didn't quite fit in to the popular music stylings of the day all fell in around The Smiths and then Morrissey's solo work. And most of those misfits tend to have relatively progressive ideals and repeatedly Morrissey has said something eyebrow-raising and rather racist. It's like constantly being disappointed by a guy you used to really admire.

I agree in the scheme of things him having bad opinions is far from the worst thing an individual on this list has ever done.

[METALMAN]

Yeah you’re right, and I was aiming that just as much as myself as anyone else. Morrissey was the first ever concert I went to, when I was 15 or so (saying that always makes me cringe :/) Yet I never really admired him that much (my friend who dragged me along to it did, however). I just liked the tunes.

I still felt a bit queasy when I listened to Morrissey’s new album this year in a way that I never have when listening to music by people who have done far worse than saying some dumb stuff. I’d also be inclined to suggest that it is a pretty decent album, his best in years. But I have no interest in listening to it.

I’ve never had any problem listening to John Martyn, David Bowie, Phil Spector, Richard Wagner, but I guess the fact they were dickheads was well established before I found out about them, whereas Morrissey emerged in real time. Pretty sure I still thought he was a dickhead back in 2006 though. 

Edited September 2, 2020 by metalman

[Colly]

It's much harder to separate Morrissey the person from Morrissey the singer given how many Smiths songs are if not overtly political usually sung from the perspective of the misfit, the loner, the forgotten. For him to then be an out and out cunt to vulnerable people makes him pretty unlistenable for me. The songs are wonderful, but this Morrissey has no business singing them. I've seen the Cribs do Panic with Johnny Marr and now that's the only version I recognise.

[METALMAN]

I think I’d be listening to the Smiths less even if it weren’t for Morrissey’s behaviour. That all worked for me as a teenager but now I listen to the lyrics and I just think “bloody hell man, enough self-pity - toughen up”.

Basically I’m becoming a 1950s dad.

Edited September 2, 2020 by metalman

[gunnar hendershow]

When I first got exposed to Morrissey it was sandwiched between his first wave of being a weird guy who said weird things and the second wave of weird guy who, wait he's a bit of a racist dick now? So I was able to pick up a ton of admiration for him during my peak self-loathing years.

It's a bit of a shame the guy clearly still hates himself and others because his music has probably helped a ton of people get over that hump in their lives.

[Liam]

600.      

‘Song to the Siren’, This Mortal Coil (1983)

Influenced by: 1/1 • Brian Eno (1978)   

Influence on: If I Had Glass Hands and Glass Feet • School of Seven Bells (2008)

Covered by: Sally Oldfield (1996) • The Czars (2000) • Susheela Raman (2001) • Robert Plant (2002) • David Gray (2007) • John Frusciante (2009)

This was actually a cover of a Tim Buckley song, though the book claims that this was arguably a better rendition. Whether that is true or not, the melancholy oozes out of this throughout. The spare instrumentation allows Liz Fraser’s vocals to do the majority of the work and there is an otherworldliness about the production at points that makes this all work. My one complaint is that it builds, but never really goes anywhere – I wanted a crescendo or something, but I got none.

601.      

‘Everything Counts’, Depeche Mode (1983)

Influenced by: Metall Auf Metall • Kraftwerk (1977)   

Influence on: Pug • The Smashing Pumpkins (1998)   

Covered by: In Flames (1997) • Meat Beat Manifesto (1998) • Yendri (2000)   

Other key tracks: Love in Itself (1983) • Told You So (1983)

I feel like I step into a lot of these songs by saying that I like the band, but this isn’t my favourite song by said act. That is very much the case with Depeche Mode: this is a perfectly good song, but wouldn’t be one I place in my top five if I arbitrarily did a top five of their work. What does make this song more applicable to a list like this was how it started a transition away from the more twee pop tunes into the slightly edgier and darker techno/industrial-esque pathway. As I’m someone who much prefers later 80s Depeche Mode to what they offered before, I for one am happy that this song came along when it did, creating a bridge to a better version of the band.

602.      

‘Dear Prudence’, Siouxsie and the Banshees (1983)

This is an interesting choice for a number of reasons. A cover of a Beatles songs written primarily by John Lennon (though credited to McCartney as well), this also included Robert Smith from the Cure on guitar. There was some spark of awareness of this song laying in the cobwebbed far reaches of my memory, yet I could never quite get to grips with when I may have heard this before. Siouxsie’s fairly upbeat delivery coupled with the echo-y production created a cover that gave the song a new and largely successful coat of paint. It perhaps lacks a bit of punch, but it isn’t really what they were looking to provide. Spectral and spangly is the order of the day.

[METALMAN]

Anything with Elizabeth Fraser is good. USUALLY. But Song to the Siren is a bit boring.

I really like that Depeche Mode song, but that’s more for its guaranteed appearance on any 80s documentary (alongside Pet Shop Boys’ far superior Opportunities) rather than because it’s a particularly good song. It’s just fitting. The marimba riff is brilliant though and that really lame shoulder dance they do in the video during the chorus is hilarious.

Dear Prudence by S&theBs is good, sure. But what the hell is it doing here? I like this but I definitely don’t need to listen to it before I die. The Beatles version is better but it’s only like the 67th best Beatles song. Crazy. And it’s not even the best song with a Venetian music video of the 80s.

Edited September 2, 2020 by metalman