Found a shoegaze internet radio station

DKFM from Fresno, CA.  Good stuff from current bands and classics. Only listened to a little while before but it sounds really good.  Will be spending a lot of time with this station from now on...

Away - Maikotobranco

[link] Anthemic.  Bombastic, even, for shoegaze.  Pretty heavy stuff.  But also seems to bounce off the surface.  Doesn't go deep.

A Tralfaz Christmas part I

A Tralfaz Christmas part I

Santa Claus is Coming to Town
Frosty the Snowman
Deck the Halls
Jingle Bells
Silver and Gold
Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer

Flipper - Pasteboard

[link] The laid back side of shoegaze from Japan.  Wistful. Could accompany a romantic montage. Very listenable.

Brownsugar/Love Scene - Sugardrop

[link] Uptempo, hooky shoegaze.  Fuzzy guitar phasing in and out. High narrative content, even without the vocal.  But the vocal is a nice addition. I like this whole thing a lot.

Dracaena Sanderiana - Oell

[link] More Japan Shoegaze.  This one is delicate, sounds a bit like the Pale Saints.  Has some complex interweaving vocals and has some quaint, amateurish production/arrangement, which doesn't detract from the artistry.  The guitar work borders on prog. Interesting.

Rosoku - Civic

[link] A lot of things going on in this one.  Very free, noisy guitar, kind of like windy rain hitting your window.  Both low and high female vocals coming and going in and out of the rain. Emphasizing some of the creative possibilities that exist in the genre.  Nice stuff. And I like a band named after a car ;-)

My Dead Girlfriend - Kinoshita Fuyou

[link] Very My Bloody Valentine intro and break with a breathy high vocal. Two shoegaze staples. For some reason, the SG idiom has taken on really well in Japan.

Silver Screen (Shower Scene) - Felix da Housecat

[link] Another seminal electroclash single.  Pretty cool.  Seems highly influenced by industrial. Video is pretty interesting as well.

Feels Like Summer - Sing Sing

[link] Emma Anderson's band after Lush.  Different and not quite shoegazey, but you can hear some of the retro-ish styling that some of the later Lush material had.

Space Invaders - Are Smoking Grass - I-F

[link] Discovered the genre of electroclash when I was researching Lady Gaga, who Ru-Jun is starting to get into thanks to her dance class. This music came out in the late 1990s and the genre spanned the turn of the millennium. It's really atmospheric and has the abstractness that I really like.  This is the first of the genre I've listened to (and according to the Wikipedia entry was the first electroclash single).

Low Key - Pastel Blue

[link] Continuing with Japanese Shoegaze. Slow and spacey. A fuzzy throb of grayish color.

Sun House - Evil Daddy Dirt

[link] Continuing the Japanese shoegaze thread. More synthy and proggy than straightforward Shoegaze. I haven't ventured into much instrumental Shoegaze before. It's different, since the vocal is often part of the standard shoegaze layering.  But this is interesting; many layers and has narrative content.

Pirate Shows

One of Ru-Jun's favorite shows right now if Jake and the Never Land Pirates on Disney Jr. It's a pretty fun show with really good music, by two members of the band Captain Bogg and Salty (Loren Hoskins and Kevin Hendrickson) who are also depicted as Captain Hook's hapless crew members in the show. Meanwhile I continue to enjoy One Piece.  I am about to finish the Amazon Lily arc (episodes 408-421). Really good stuff.

Black coffee

I didn't really start drinking coffee until college.  At that time I couldn't drink it without cream and sugar.  I gave up sugar as part of a sort of unstated new years resolution about 10 years ago.  In the last year I started drinking it black. Now I prefer it that way (although Dunkin Donuts coffee with cream is still excellent).  Don't have to worry about keeping creamier around (which spoils quickly) or non dairy creamer (which is not food) or leaving space for cream at Starbucks (was always a pain). I always wondered why people liked it black.  This co-occurred with me starting to drink a lot of tea, which is now a daily habit.  I think the thing that did it was that tea has such a weak flavor, anything with strong flavor is a nice contrast to tea.  I like both.

Garden - Mash

[link] This sounds more western (I think it's in English).  Pretty good. Both more poppy and definitely more hard rockish than some of the other stuff I've been posting. Has some non-shoegaze in its bloodline.

See the Brightest Star - Clams

[link] Continuing to mine the Japanese Shoegaze vein. This is very smooth and sweet. The bubblegum pop aspect is quite a prominent part of the composition and production here.

Kisses Bloomed - Purple Bloom

[link] Another recent Japan shoegaze discovery.  Harder edged and more emphatic of the instrumenal sound than Bertoia.  But I like this song a lot.  The guitar and bass lines work together well.  I think the vocal could be turned up more; it's just an accent in this mix.

Some pics of Bertoia

Bertoia

I have fallen in love with this band.  They've been around for a few years in Japan and they do really sublime shoegaze.  And their videos are really fun and well made.

Here is all of there stuff that is on youtube

AnthRelax
Under Water (live) 2012 Tokyo Japan Shoegazer Festival
Under Water (live)
Snow Slide
Snow Slide (audio without cinematic video)
Monotone
Monotone (live)
Glass Bird
Color of Sound
Monotone ~ Glass Bird (live)
murmur/MONOTONE (Bertoia's cover)(2011/10/09 live)
1974 LAB./Under Water (live)
MODERN SYNTHESIS CM (not sure what this is intended to be; it's a 15 sec clip from Monotone)
MODERN SYNTHESIS Alubum Digest (previews of all the tracks from the Modern Synthesis album)
 
An interview with the band [in Japanese] (maybe not an interview; they are introducing their CD, it appears)

Madame Butterfly - Malcolm McLaren

[link] I don't know anything about the opera but always liked this pop version.  Jeff Gold used to play it quite a bit on Saturday mornings on WXDU.

Grandelinquent / Ritch in a Ditch - Klark Kent

[link] I love Stewart Copeland. Not only the drumming but the whole rhythm section and the way his songs are arranged.

Three alt dancefloor classics

Three alt dancefloor classics from back in the day (ca 1990)

There is No Love Between Us Anymore- Pop Will Eat Itself

Supposed to Have Sex with You - Tonio K.

People are Still Having Sex - LaTour

Def. Con. One - Pop Will Eat Itself

[link] A blast from the late 80s past (1988).  Pretty big alt pop hit. Referenced various pop emblems from the previous two decades. Sampling was pretty big at that time and being integrated into a lot of different genres, mostly of dance music.

Glittering Prize - Simple Minds

[link] One of my favorites from one of my favorite albums of all time (New Gold Dream 81.82.83.84).  Atmospheric and beaty in mid tempo.  The keyboard lines cascade down. The lyrics are abstract.  I never learned what this song was about but it doesn't matter. One of the main tracks on the soundtrack of my intensely self absorbed late teens in the mid 80s.

More on the nostalgia

That particular nostalgia has to do with the perception of being in an ideal situation and wanting time to freeze so that I can stay there.  The beginning of summer.  School year over.  Toward the end of my high school years I was very comfortable with my small circle of friends.  Looking back, it was only an ideal situation in that it was simple.  Nothing was required of me. I didn't have any particular cares, or any wisdom. I thought I did.  But the stuff I cared about was trivial.  The stuff I thought I knew something about I didn't.  I didn't know how to be a good friend or a good person.  I longed for romantic love but I had know idea how to love someone. So really in the end there is nothing to be nostalgic about. These days I cringe more than any other reaction to the way I was in those times.  It's a thought refuge for me, but I am alone there.  I take comfort in the fact that I am probably the only one who remembers anything about me in those days.

The nostalgia I was talking about

Here are two songs that are sort of emblems for me. Both by Seals and Crofts: Summer Breeze and We May Never Pass This Way Again. When I was in high school, on "Moving Up" day toward the end of the school year in June, there would be a slide show by the graduating seniors.  These two songs were frequently used as music.  It was the whole memories thing, summer coming, a great time but a completely ambiguous time in terms of who I thought I was (I was totally off, not even a person at that time; I don't know what or who I was; I wouldn't start to know or start to be a real, loving caring person, for another almost 15 years). Those two songs in particular are the pure essense, which is poison, of this feeling of paralyzing nostalgia. I avoid them.  I didn't listen to them (not for one second) just now when I was looking up the links.

Does Caroline Know - Talk Talk

A classic (starts with a line from Mirror Man, another classic). The dainty little keyboard riff defines the main line of this song. Great to see them doing this live from back in the day.  Wish the bass was turned up - it's a nice bouncy little line. Best atmospheric pop I've ever heard.

Nostalgia

I'm a really nostaligic person and maybe because of this I realize how lethal nostalgia, and nostalgic items, can be, to the psyche.  So in my latter adult life I have avoided engaging in too much specific nostalgia about my life, especially with items. It's weird why I am nostalgic about things from my childhood and young adulthood.  Maybe it's just innate.  But I wasn't the person then I am now.  I wasn't really even a person at all. I certainly wasn't worth remembering, and I am glad that most people don't remember stuff from back then.  It's a world that only really exists in my mind.  It never existed for anyone else.  They have their own version, if they have such a thing at all.

Right Time of the Night - Jennifer Warnes

A blast from the past (1977). I was 10 and this was about the time of my musical awakening.  Always liked this song a lot. The instrumentation and arrangement here are country but it's really a rock song.

Flowers - Galaxie 500

[link] These guys were huge on the 90s college rock scene. Shoegaze aficionados consider them in the genre. The sound has really good atmospherics and some things my own band here has done over the years approaches this texture.  It's good stuff.

Colourless Dream - Sad Lovers and Giants

[link] From 1982.  Which puts them right with the Cure in the sort of quintessential, slightly goth (although not nearly as much as the Cure), post-punk alternative pop. They should have had as much success as the Cure as their sound is just as good. From their Wikipedia entry, it looks like they were only really known in Europe.  They were around (with varying lineups) in the early-mid 80s and then more recently after being mostly inactive in the 90s.  I need to get all of their stuff, I think.

Aquarian Angel - Blue Six

[link] I really like the groove of these guys. Jazz, soul, and house influenced. They took Sade's vibe and carried it forward (although she is still grooving as well; actually Sade is officially a band named after Sade Abu, the lead singer). The vocals here are done by Lysa Aya Trenier (Aya). Upon Googling, I see that a lot of people compare Aya and Sade.

Things We Never Did - Sad Lovers and Giants

[link] I love everything about this song and this band's sound. Atmospheric, moody.  The guitar harmonics are really really cool. Beautiful use of keyboards.

To Live and Die in L.A.

[link] Great song. (Terrible movie).  Wang Chung deserves to be know from more than just their couple of big hits that everybody knows about. Interesting version of this song.  Good to see them still together recently.

Gunning for the Buddha - Shriekback

[link] Exotic, atmospheric, and very nice pop.  I've always liked these guys.

Prove - Ric Ocasek

[link] One of my favorites off his first solo album, Beatitude.  Summer of 85 I listened mainly to this album, Forever Now by the Psychedelic Furs, New Gold Dream 81-82-83-84, and Panorama by the Cars. All on cassette of course.

Crimson/Red - Prefab Sprout

[link] Quite a nice little song.  Hadn't heard it - from the more recent era.  Paddy McAloon has a wonderful, whispery pop voice and a terrific pop instinct.

We Came to Dance - Ultravox

[link] One of my favorites of theirs.  Atmospheric and even a little gothic around the edges.

Rock of Ages - Jobriath

[link] Didn't really know anything about these guys until I read about them on Wikipedia when looking up glam rock.  They were one of the major American glam acts.  There is a dissonance here between the music, which is pretty conventional hard rock that looks somewhat forward to some aspects of punk and metal, and the look, which is conceptual and futuristic. In my mind, they don't go together.

Rain on the Scarecrow - John Mellencamp

[link] Really great song.  Mellencamp is a modern American classic and has a lot of great ones.  This is one of my favorites.

Four Engines Burning Over the USA - Screaming Blue Messiahs

[link] Always had a thing for SBM. America reflected back to us through British, 80s, punk (and who knows what else) addled, male, eyes.

I Still Do - Cranberries

[link] One of my favorite bands of the 90s and one of my favorite songs of theirs.

Applause Applause - Lady Gaga

[link] Ru-Jun dances to this in her hip hop dance class and she saw it in a Kia Soul commercial.  I haven't followed Lady Gaga closely but she has a couple of good things that I've heard and this is one of them.  She's about more than the music, the whole pop/celebrity package, like Madonna is/was.  And in a pretty sophisticated way. Madonna got a lot of help on the musical side and maybe Lady Gaga does as well, I don't know.  Gaga seems to exploit stock dance/pop chord progressions more than Madonna, but she does a good job with them.  She's interesting, but I'm a bit repulsed by her strictly because of her popularity.  Maybe that's my loss, or maybe there's not much there there.  I probably won't ever study it enough to figure that out.

I Do the Rock - Tim Curry

[link] Fun to see him working live.  Fun guy at a fun time. (on edit: although this is likely to be lip-synched b/c no monitors, and it sounds a lot like the studio track; and the fadeout).

Totally novel ideas

in dreams, that I never would have thought of awake always fascinate me.  Had another one last night; not going to mention what it was.  Why (and how) does the brain do that?

Transponder snails

Just one of the examples why I love One Piece.  Bizarre and wonderful creativity.

Criteria for a good Halloween costume

1. warmth (for trick or treating or outdoor Halloween parades in these parts and where I grew up)
2. no makeup (it's a pain in the ass)
3. no masks (uncomfortable)

A Woman Needs Love - Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio

The pop charts in 1981 were still a miasma of 70s influences; this song is an example.  Very light fare. Bouncy.  Things weren't so severe back then.

Welcome Back Kotter theme/opening

[link] This was a great song (by John Sebastian) and intro.  The show was one of several classic 70s pop cultural attempt's at social progressivism (like Good Times, and All in the Family). The 70s ended with the dawn of the conservative era that we are currently still in, which was a fear- and hatred-based reaction to social progress of the 60s and 70s.

Biology doesn't have this problem

I like reading about quantum physics even though I don't have a feel for the mathematical side of the theory. All of the non-intuitive stuff, like entanglement, is really fascinating. What's also fascinating is that all of it is subject to a bewildering number of (and number of kinds of) interpretations and even though there are now realms of experimental data supporting the predictions of quantum mechanics, there is not yet a consensus on what the theory means in the real world.

Cat People (Putting Out Fire) - David Bowie

[link] Couldn't find the studio version from the Let's Dance album, which is better than this version, IMHO.  I don't remember seeing the movie, but I may have seen it back in the 80s sometime.  This is a great song (from a great album). Extremely atmospheric.  I'm not a huge Bowie fan except for the Let's Dance album, which I think is one of the best 80s albums. Bowie's detached vocal sound works perfectly in this song.

fashion

In terms of what I wear, I have two goals: (1) comfort, and (2) timelessness, which is that it would not look out of place in any of the last few decades.

Every Breath You Take - The Police

This is of course an ironic song.  It is about the creepiness of stalking.  It is not a romantic song.  People who think it's romantic are not intellectually mature enough to autonomously understand irony.
And, as overplayed as the song has always been, it's still a powerful piece of pop on the musical side.

Faded Flowers - Shriekback

[link] A dark and beautiful song.  No one was better than these guys in setting up an organo-SF atmosphere.  The beautiful melodic-romantic edge that makes goth, although Shriekback wasn't primarily known as a goth band (that I know of). Saw them open up for Simple Minds at Buff State College in 1985 (or possibly early 86).  They were great, especially the backing singers.  Good show.

Warcraft

I was really into Blizzard's real-time strategy game Warcraft.  But went to role playing in World of Warcraft, they lost me.  I don't have time for that kind of gaming these days; I really like real time strategy.  Just playing the against-the-computer modules was fun enough; I never played much against other people.  I tried Starcraft but the visuals were too dark; I literally couldn't see anything.  I liked the bright visuals of warcraft.  Warcraft III is available as the continuation of the Warcraft real time strategy game but I don't really have time to check it out.  It probably has a lot of changes.  I wonder if it still plays like Warcraft II.

You Might Recall - Genesis

[link] This is an immaculate song.  Genesis purists tend to like the earlier Peter Gabrial material.  But Phil Collins was supremely good and they cranked out a whole bunch of excellent songs right through the yellow eponymous shapes album in the early 80s. Collin's solo stuff was also pretty good right into the mid 80s.
I love how this song consists of this large cycle.  The driving bass line, the arpeggiating guitar with keyboard backing it.  The whole thing is really driving.  Then there's the key change toward the end.  These guys fused amazing pop out of art rock.

Come to My Aid - Simply Red

[link] Wasn't much better soul-pop than Simply Red in the mid 80s. The UK and Europe kept the 70s alive so that the US could rediscover everything about them in the 90s and after.

All For Leyna - Billy Joel

[link] I really liked this 1980 song. Piano driven like most of his stuff. It's in tune with the new wavey inflences that were trickling through rock at the time.  Still sounds pretty good.  Lots of interesting chords and changes.

Stumblin' In - Chris Norman and Suzi Quatro

[link] I had a thing for this 1979 song, which was played incessantly on the radio. It was kind of one of those annoying songs that grew on you. It holds up now only has a historical piece, really. Music was different then.

Imagination Movers - Magic

This is a really great song from Imagination Movers, which we watch in the morning while Ru-Jun wakes up.  Really good show with lots of good songs.  These guys are good.

Doc McStuffins - Halloween song

This is a really great song. Doc Mcstuffins is one of Ru-Jun's favorite shows.

Deeper and Deepr - The Fixx

[link] The Fixx in their highest period of popularity and guitar synthy wonderfulness. The 80s equivalent of art pop. Really liked this then and still pretty good now.

Organimodality II

Daily life is like moving through a two dimensional space filled with force vectors, like wind gusts, of various directions. Some days it may seem that all of the vectors oppose you. But really they are all in different directions and cancel out, providing no net opposition or assistance to your journey through them.

Standing in the Doorway - A Flock of Seagulls

[link] One of their more obscure tunes.  But I really like it.  It has an edge that their better known songs don't.  The instrumental part at the beginning is a really nice contrast. This band is more complex than the pop cliche that they became lets on.

Into the Fire - Sarah McLachlan

[link] I still remember exactly where I was when I heard this amazing song for the first time. I was at an impressionable age, in an impressionable time, and this song melted all over and through me.

Mirror Man - Talk Talk

[link] One of their very early songs and one of my favorites.  These guys are pop geniuses and I am one of the army of musicians who counts them as major influences. There are a lot of elements, the melody line and Mark Hollis's delivery, the hooks in both verse and chorus, the keyboard figures driving the whole thing, the entire atmosphere (really effective live), the building of the song.  All really singularly great here.

Tony Adams - Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros

Link below. Really nice song named after a soccer player. Heard it on WFUV the other day, which is a bit like WXYC was back in the day, very eclectic. 

http://youtu.be/EEEWarLHymI

The Magnificent Seven - The Clash

[link] I've always loved this classic of theirs. It's done with a nonchalance that's infectious. Not sure what the heck the song is about, but it's nevertheless attractive and rewards lots of listens.

organimodality

This is a term I thought of today (it only has 1 google hit) to describe a way of living I've been considering (and perhaps following, at least somewhat) in the past few years, ever since my life changed in 2010.  It involves letting the random, instantaneous variation of the world partially steer one through one's day, taking care of many decisions (e.g. where to park or which way to go home) that don't really matter to one's larger goals.  If I have time and articulateness going forward, I'll try to detail my thoughts on this.

The Living Daylights - A-ha

[link] I think this is my favorite Bond theme.  And the movie is in my top 5 favorites in the Bond series.  Helps when the lead singer has a lot of narrative quality just in the tone of voice, which Morten Harket has in spaces.  The chord progression and changes are really nice here, even within the constraint of the spyish motifs needed for Bond themedom.

Head of the Class

Liked this show ca. 1988.  Had a think for Sarah, played by Kimberly Russell, who strikingly is 3 years older than me (I didn't know at the time; I was in college and she was playing a high school girl).

Wide World of Sports intro

Also loved this intro music. I researched this and the In Search Of theme a few years back.  Both were written for the respective TV shows by obscure TV music composers. Just goes to show that really good music can come from anywhere and often is not appreciated by the musical world proper.

In Search Of

Watched this a lot in the 70s.  The Bigfoot episode scared the crap out of me. Loved the intro/outro music.  I think this show is the reason why I have a continuing fascination with the phenomology of people's sightings of the paranormal, even though I have no belief in paranormal/supernatural phenomena.

Project UFO TV series

[link to intro] This is a later series that I also did not watch, but I remember friends talking about it.  Sort of the first X-files. Very late 70s.

1970 UFO TV series

[link to intro] I was too young for this and never saw it.  But it looks both corny and (for TV) slick for its time. OK, well maybe if it were 1950 it would be slick.  The episodes appear to be on youtube, so maybe I'll check it out.

Emotion in Motion - Naked Eyes

[link] I love the high sweeping verse of this song.  Naked eyes could do synth pop with the best of them.

William It Was Really Nothing - the Smiths

[link] Great jangly moving song. The chorus is really sweeping. I really like the way the Smiths have rallies in their song, like the chorus into the 2nd (last) verse. 

O My God - the Police

[link] Another great life statement by the Police. And another great groove.  These songs are immortal...

When the World is Running Down... - the Police

[link] Really amazing groove. Prescient in its time, how much truth in it.

Wishing Well - Bob Mould

[link] Mould was huge on college radio in the late 80s and early 90s. This is great pop.  And I really think his voice was a prototype for the likes of Eddie Vetter and scores of other calculated low-gravelish (hard to describe), overproduced male vocal sounds that came after.

Dress You Up - Madonna

[link]  From 1985.  I've always liked Madonna. You can't understand 80s pop  culture in America without understanding the Madonna phenomenon.  But underneath the image was smart music-making.  Not that she herself was/is a musical genius, just someone with a good instinct.  The musical people she surrounded herself with, like Nile Rodgers, knew what they were doing and helped her put out consistently catchy pop that was usually pretty interesting.

Hippychick - Soho

[link] I remember dancing to this in 1991ish.  The "How Soon is Now" sample used as the rhythm feature is interesting and a reference to the 80s club scene.  It's a nice, mid-tempo groove and still largely works over 20 years later.

Actually got some time

to play around on the uke this evening.  I still remember Lola (but not the lyrics) and New Years Day (with the lyrics).  Department picnic coming up.  Hopefully I can play a few songs there.

Not sure if I can do this

But it would be cool to write a song about Tardigrades based on the pop song Dynamite by Taio Cruz.  Here are the lyrics.  This might take some time...


"Dynamite"

[Music video introduction:]
I throw my hands up in the air sometimes,
Saying AYO! Gotta let go!
I wanna celebrate and live my life,
Saying AYO! Baby, let’s go!

I came to dance, dance, dance, dance
I hit the floor 'cause that's my plans, plans, plans, plans
I’m wearing all my favorite brands, brands, brands, brands
Give me some space for both my hands, hands, hands, hands

Yeah, yeah

'Cause it goes on and on and on...
And it goes on and on and on...

Yeah!

I throw my hands up in the air sometimes,
Saying AYO! Gotta let go!
I wanna celebrate and live my life,
Saying AYO! Baby, let’s go!

'Cause we gon’ rock this club,
We gon’ go all night,
We gon’ light it up,
Like it’s dynamite!
'Cause I told you once,
Now I told you twice,
We gon’ light it up,
Like it’s dynamite!

I came to move, move, move, move
Get out the way of me and my crew, crew, crew, crew
I’m in the club so I’m gonna do, do, do, do
Just what the fuck, came here to do, do, do, do

Yeah, yeah

'Cause it goes on and on and on...
And it goes on and on and on...

Yeah!

I throw my hands up in the air sometimes,
Saying AYO! Gotta let go!
I wanna celebrate and live my life,
Saying AYO! Baby, let’s go!

'Cause we gon’ rock this club,
We gon’ go all night,
We gon’ light it up,
Like it’s dynamite!
'Cause I told you once,
Now I told you twice,
We gon’ light it up,
Like it’s dynamite!

I’m gonna take it all,
I, I’m gonna be the last one standing.
Higher over all,
I, I’m gonna be the last one landing.
Cause I, I, I believe it,
And I, I, I I just want it all...
I just want it all...
I’m gonna put my hands in the air!
Hands, hands in the air!
Put your hands in the air!

I throw my hands up in the air sometimes,
Saying AYO! Gotta let go!
I wanna celebrate and live my life,
Saying AYO! Baby, let’s go!

'Cause we gon’ rock this club,
We gon’ go all night,
We gon’ light it up,
Like it’s dynamite!
'Cause I told you once,
Now I told you twice,
We gon’ light it up,
Like it’s dynamite!

Don't You Want Me - Jody Watley

[link] Since I was going back to 1988 the other night with Scritti Politti, here's another pop song from that time that I've always liked.  Nice hooks and classic synth songs.

When It's Over - Loverboy

[link] People like to hate on early 80s power rock, but from a composition standpoint, lyrics and shrill male vocals aside, there is a lot of basic territory being covered here.  The instrumentation is also relatively new for the mainstream.  Hard guitars and hard synth sounds, put together.

Sugar and Spice - Scritti Politti

[link] Really liked these guys in the mid/late 80s and these songs still sound great.  Really smart dance pop.  Everything is so tight in the production. Listened to them incessantly between '85 and '88.

Hit - The Sugarcubes

[link] The Sugarcubes were really one of the best bands of the ca. 1990 era. I love this bouncy little song.  Rich pop.

Not much time

to do much with any of the ukes recently.  Real life schedule too hectic.  Hopefully things will settle down soon.

When You're Gone - Benjamin Orr

[link] I really like this ballad off Orr's 1987 solo album.  It's a beautiful piece of pop.

Midnight to Midnight - Psychedelic Furs

[link] The title track of their 1987 album.  This is my favorite track on the album. This is arguable the last album of their mature pop sound.  They stripped things down after this and sounded quite a bit different. It took me a while to grow into this album (or it to grow on me).  They were going for high imagery, which seemed a bit pretentious (and still does).  But the songs eventually get some depth after repeated listenings.  Or most of them anyway.  This one has nice dynamics and intensity.  The churning vocal line against the rising and falling of the rhythm guitar in the chorus is my favorite part.

Limbo - Bryan Ferry

[link] Another classic from that album. The cold, sort of aloofness I get out of this is really strong. A very measured but still very rhythmic song.

The Right Stuff - Bryan Ferry

[link] With Roxy Music, Ferry got through the 70s sort of in parallel with punk and disco and emerged in the late 80s with this incredible album Bete Noire, which spanned the pop and alternative genres.  These songs really hold up. He inspired a lot of post punk, but going forward, I think his later stuff has the potential to be revisited.  It's influenced by funk and soul but really has a lot of originality, resulting in a sound that no one that I've heard has replicated.

Stay the Night - Benjamin Orr

[link] Bassist and half the vocals of the Cars, the late Ben Orr knew how to make a pop sound and how to put a pop hit together.  This 1986 song still sounds amazing.

Prove - Ric Ocasek

[link] Off his first solo album, Beatitude, from 1982.  Great rhythm track and the composition and keyboard tracks are as innovative as the most new wavey Cars stuff (e.g. on Panorama). Really great song. This album is now out of print and the CDs that are available are selling for about $25 on Amazon and ebay.  I'm thinking about dropping the coin on one even at that price.

Since You're Gone - The Cars

[link] The Cars were a huge influence on me and this is one of my favorites (I pretty much like every one of their songs, which I can't say about too many bands). These guys were successful on pure rock radio, even though they were innovating in New Wave most of the time and in their Heartbeat City with huge Top 40 pop success. Ocasek seems pretty strongly in the Lou Reed lineage and with the instrumentalists, who are all supreme talents, synthesizes a novel, edgy, American sound.

Ric Ocasek

From the early 80s on, Ric Ocasek was a bit of an image icon for me.  Others I have picked up over the years include William Gibson and Anthony Bourdain.  He's still rocking.  This seems not very long ago; never heard the song before, probably from one of his later solo efforts, which I need to listen to and get.

Tattoos

Not a music or science topic but an aesthetic one.  I hate them.  I think almost all of them are ugly, except maybe for really small ones in unobtrusive places. It's really sad to me that people are covering their otherwise beautiful skin in a lot of cases, with these things.  But that's their choice and their right.  Not my idea of beauty.

The Waiting - Top Petty and the Heartbreakers

[link] Another early fave of mine. The Early Petty breaking into the pop and rock charts was trying for a different image than he eventually evolved into.  It's cool to go back and look at these videos.  The songs have lost nothing and overplay hasn't tarnished them at all.